Disclaimer:Transformers belongs to Hasbro, Takara, etc . The only thing in this that belongs to me is Arcee's sister.
When Wheeljack got the call from Optimus for help, he was sort of surprised. Considering what had happened the last time they met during their first encounter with Dreadwing, he honestly thought he'd just keep roaming the Earth until he faded to gunmetal grey even though he was scouting Energon mines for Team Prime and he understood why he was called up. They had to beat the Decepticon to the four decoded coordinates and obtain the Iacon relics. And as Optimus said before, Ratchet's expertise was scientific. He is barely able to hold up a fight.
So that was how Wheeljack found himself in the forest leaning against the Jackhammer with his signature grenade in his hand waiting for Ratchet to arrive. Eventually, he heard the familiar sound of a Ground Bridge portal opening. Turning around, he saw Ratchet was finally arriving. While he was still his usual relaxed self, he was still ready to rumble.
"The boss thought you needed backup, huh?" Wheeljack smirked.
"If you must know, Optimus feels strongly that you require supervision," Ratchet corrected with a grumble as he approached the Wrecker and the Jackhammer.
"I'll be on my best behavior, Doc," Wheeljack promised cheekily.
"Please don't call me Doc," Ratchet requested as he approached the Jackhammer's ramp.
"Whatever you say, Sunshine," Wheeljack drawled, causing Ratchet to freeze and groan.
Despite the hiccups caused by Ratchet's grouchiness and Wheeljack's cheekiness, they were soon on their way to the coordinates of the next Iacon relic. Needless to say, the tension was still there.
"So, all of team Prime's busy chasing down these four Iacon relics?" Wheeljack Surmised of what he's been told.
"The four which are currently in play," Ratchet nodded.
"There's more?!" Wheeljack said in surprise.
"Megatron maintains possession of the entire Iacon database. We have yet to learn how many more relics or Decepticon weapons of mass destruction it contains," Ratchet clarified.
"No worries, Doc. I got your back," Wheeljack promised.
"My name is not Doc, and I do not require anyone watching my back. I proved my mettle during the War for Cybertron," Ratchet said after scowling at him.
"Then, I'm lucky your along for the ride, Champ," Wheeljack drawled before his computers bleeped to indicate trouble coming in, "'Cause we got a bogey on our tail."
Soundwave had managed to find them and begin pursuit.
"Soundwave!" Ratchet identified as he saw the familiar UAV jet on the small screen.
"Megatron's communications chief?" Wheeljack said in surprise and disbelief.
"He must be tracking the same coordinates," Ratchet shrugged casually.
He felt the ship shake around him as Soundwave began opening fire on them. Quickly, Wheeljack performed midair maneuvers to avoid the shots and in the hope that he would successfully shake the silent Decepticon spy off their tail.
"You might wanna grab onto something," Wheeljack warned.
Unfortunately for Ratchet, Wheeljack's word of advice wasn't enough of a warning. Before he had the chance to grab onto something, Wheeljack made the ship go faster and head higher into the skies. Inside his Energon tanks, he felt the similar burning, bubbly sensation Cybertronians did whenever they wanted to purge. Since he spent more time in a lab then in a ship, he wasn't used to the violent maneuvers Wheeljack was performing.
"Are you trying to send us to the scrapyard?!" Ratchet snapped.
Wheeljack managed to fly behind Soundwave and begin opening fire on him. The Decepticon spy, however, wasn't someone who would easily be outwitted. Easily, he deployed Laserbeak and allowed him to deal with his Autobot enemies.
"What's that?!" Wheeljack demanded, gesturing to the Mini-con following them.
"Soundwave's surveillance Minicon: Laserbeak," Ratchet answered before grunting at the more violent maneuvers Wheeljack performed to avoid Laserbeak's firepower, "Wheeljack, maintain pursuit! Soundwave is merely using the minicon to distract us!"
"I welcome a good distraction," Wheeljack smirked as an idea formed in his head.
'Now why does that make me nervous?' Ratchet thought to himself dryly.
Eventually, Wheeljack managed to flip the ship over Laserbeak so he was now flying behind him. He then began to open fire on the minicon. After all, as the saying goes…
What goes around comes around.
"The hunter becomes the hunted," Wheeljack mused.
"This is no time for hot dogging!" Ratchet snapped.
The raining hail of bullets continued to descend upon Laserbeak in periodic spurts. On. Off. On. Off. As though someone was turning a spigot on and off on a rainy day. That is…until Laserbeak disappeared inside the white clouds around them.
"He's gone," Ratchet said, "Now we can find Sound-WHOA!"
The ship rocked as Laserbeak appeared from nowhere and began attacking them. Wheeljack flew the Jackhammer behind him again and began chasing him in a nosedive. When the clouds clear, they saw they were flying into a cliff face. Ratchet let out a long, drawn-out, horror-filed scream. Wheeljack barely managed to pull up in time. The only damage they had was when they scraped the edge of the cliff.
"What are you doing?!" Ratchet asked nervously as Wheeljack flew towards the shooting Laserbeak returning fire as well…and showing no signs of pulling up, "Wheeljack… WHEELJACK!"
Laserbeak flew over the Jackhammer, barely scraping the roof. Ratchet, however, has having a hard time getting over the spark attack he had just endured. Wheeljack, unfazed by it, continued pursuit by activating his targeting system. With Laserbeak in his sights, he opened fire again. This time was more successful. One of the shots successfully hit Laserbeak and sent him hurtling to the ground.
"Took down that 'Con!" Wheeljack cheered.
"You did it!" Ratchet cheered in surprise.
However, both Autobots found themselves speaking too soon. While Laserbeak was smoking and hurtling in a nosedive for the ground, he was still able to shoot. And one of those shots hit the Jackhammer.
Moments later, Wheeljack and Ratchet were limping out of the Jackhammer. Laserbeak's shot damaged some of the Jackhammer and it sent them in a crash dive for the ground. They saw there were in a forest clearing near a series of cliffs. Mostly, the two were OK. However, the same couldn't be said for the Jackhammer.
"Argh! Right thruster's fried," Wheeljack grumbled as he surveyed the damage.
"If you pursued Soundwave as I instructed," Ratchet began with a growl.
"His little birdy would still be pecking at our tailpipes," Wheeljack retorted.
Ratchet immediately had to change his sentence, realizing that Wheeljack was right, "Well, we need to resume our search for the relic immediately. Soundwave may already have reached it."
"The Jackhammer's not going anywhere. If you want to catch that 'Con, we need to roll," Wheeljack proclaimed.
"Make up your mind. Are we walking, or are we driving?" Ratchet snapped impatiently.
Then he saw what Wheeljack was slowly and cautiously approaching. Laserbeak. The Minicon was damaged by the shot Wheeljack had fired at him during pursuit. Reaching behind him, Wheeljack pulled out his katanas.
"Wheeljack, keep your distance. Laserbeak is the eyes and ears of Soundwave," Ratchet warned as Wheeljack touched the injured Minicon with one of his katanas and flipped it over.
"Not anymore he isn't," Wheeljack corrected with a smirk.
Ratchet was right about two things. Regardless of the fact that Laserbeak was virtually fried in the long pursuit, Soundwave continued his search for the relic. The second thing Ratchet was right about was the fact that he was already there.
Using his highly advanced CPU, he managed to pinpoint where the relic was buried.
"Operating system appears functional, but offline," Ratchet observed after running a scan on the defenseless Laserbeak, "However, the crash clearly damaged his optic and audio receptors."
"Guess someone needs a new snitch," Wheeljack joked with a smirk.
"Minor victory and not the one we're here to achieve," Ratchet retorted as he went to walk away.
"Hang on there, Doc," Wheeljack called to the retreating medic, earning a scowl in return as he twirled his grenade in his hand, "Situations ripe for an old Wrecker trick."
"I'm...not sure I follow," Ratchet confessed, confused on what the Wrecker was saying.
"Sooner or later, Soundwave's gonna come looking for his pet. We let him reunite and return to base packing a live grenade. The first time wave reaches inside, he trips the pin, and kaboom," Wheeljack clarified his intended trick.
That caused Ratchet to get an idea in his processor. It was similar to Wheeljack's idea. But there was one massive difference in what Wheeljack intended and what Ratchet wanted to do.
"Why plant a mere incendiary device when we could plant a more devastating bomb?" Ratchet asked with a smirk as he approached Laserbeak and transformed his servo into a scalpel and opened Laserbeak to reveal his systems, "A virus engineered to pass from Laserbeak to Soundwave. Then, directly into the Decepticon warship's mainframe, where it will transmit the contents of the entire Iacon database to us."
"Sounds complicated. Thought we were in a hurry," Wheeljack reminded him.
"Optimus would agree. Risking the loss of one relic to gain the rest is a worthwhile gamble," Ratchet retorted.
"You really have the chops to pull off that kind of programming?" Wheeljack asked him.
"Not alone. I will require backup," Ratchet smirked.
Back at the base, Fowler was fully recovered and was working to help Raf monitor communications. Fowler was working at the main computers. Raf was sitting near the lounge area working on his laptop.
"Rafael, we have a situation," Ratchet said as he contacted the preteen.
The situation Ratchet was talking about was different from the one that was about to go down. Soundwave deployed his extendable cables and used them to unveil the relic.
"If you could write a source code for the virus, my scanner will translate it to Cybertronian script as it uploads," Ratchet said as he was explaining to Raf on his laptop of creating a virus in order to download the Iacon database from the Nemesis and transmit it to the Autobot base.
"I can do it, but if we want to keep the virus hidden from the 'Cons, we'll need a decoy. You know like a second virus," Raf warned.
"Or something less complicated," Ratchet said as he turned to face Wheeljack. More specifically, the grenade attached to his hip.
"A decoy, as in we want them to find it, but it doesn't blow?" Wheeljack surmised.
"Correct," Ratchet nodded.
"Seems like a waste of a perfectly good grenade," Wheeljack grumbled.
However, he tossed it to Ratchet nevertheless. Once he had it, Ratchet removed the explosive inside and placed it among Laserbeak's circuitry systems.
"Wait a minute, a grenade inside of Laserbeak, inside of Soundwave?" Raf repeated in surprise, "Like a turducken."
"I'm sorry?" Ratchet said with confusion.
"It's a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a...never mind," Raf sighed, knowing that no matter how he explained it. Ratchet would never understand it.
"And where are you off to?" Ratchet asked as Wheeljack walked away.
"To buy you some time, and who knows? Maybe to pick up a relic," Wheeljack shrugged as he transformed into his alternate mode and drove away.
Using his cables that was burrowed in the ground, Soundwave pulled out the relic. It was a Resonance Blaster. A dangerous weapon invented by Decepticon scientists that would deploy sonic waves that hold deadly consequences for those at the receiving end.
Looking up, Soundwave saw a perfect victim of the Resonance Blaster coming his way. This perfect victim drove over the edge of the cliff and transformed mid-air. Wheeljack let out a warrior's yell as he unsheathed his katanas and went to attack. Soundwave backed away at the last moment, causing Wheeljack to strike the cliff instead.
"You dropped something," Wheeljack.
Confused, Soundwave glanced at his cable and saw that he was empty handed. Looking down, they saw the Resonance Blaster on the ground underneath them. From that moment on, it was anybody's game. Pretty much like the rest of the war.
And like the rest of the war, the Autobots and Decepticons would have to fight for it. So Soundwave retracted his cables back into his torso and deployed a blaster from his left arm.
"This should be fun," Wheeljack smirked as his battle mask covered his face plate, around his mouth.
With a warrior's yell, Wheeljack charged to make the first attack on Soundwave. The Decepticon communications chief managed to dodge each one by either leaning to the left or right. As he lent back, one of Wheeljack's swords scraped his visor.
It continued like that. Wheeljack offending. Soundwave defending. That is…until Soundwave had enough and used his cable to attack Wheeljack, knocking him back hard enough to cause him to nearly topple over the edge of the cliff. In Soundwave's servo, he held one of Wheeljack's swords.
With another yell, Wheeljack charged. Soundwave threw his katana at the former Wrecker, only for Wheeljack to knock it away with his remaining katana. Using his tentacle, Soundwave grabbed Wheeljack in mid-air and knocked him to the ground. Beneath them, the cliff began to crumble, not used to the treatment it was receiving.
As Wheeljack struggled to get up, Soundwave turned him over onto his back. He then pressed one of his tentacles to Wheeljack's chassis, pinning the Wrecker down and earning a cry of pain in response. Using his free cable, he went to drill at Wheeljack's helm. Instantly, Wheeljack grasped the cable with his servos to try and push it away. He pushed it down towards the other cable and used it to shove it off his chassis.
Now on his pedes, Wheeljack was more then able to put up a pretty good fight. Even going as far as using his helm to fracture Soundwave's visor.
"Here I go again, shattering expectations," Wheeljack joked.
"Rafael, I've jacked into Laserbeak's uplink transmitter. When you're ready, I will bring his operating system online. In order to receive transfer," Ratchet told Raf as he gets ready to start transmitting the virus into the Minicon.
With a roar, Wheeljack transformed one of his servos into his blaster and began shooting at Soundwave. There would be times where Soundwave was able to reflect the incoming shots. But there were also times where some of the shots would hit parts of his frame. Each hit forced him to stumble backwards until he was standing at the edge of the cliff like Wheeljack was moments before.
The difference is that Wheeljack didn't stop his advances because of this fact. Instead, he raced forward and kicked Soundwave in the chassis to force him over the edge. The only downside of this fact is that Wheeljack went down with him. Soundwave was momentarily stunned, giving Wheeljack the advantage over him. Standing over him, Wheeljack held his blaster to his helm.
"Any last words?" Wheeljack asked the silent Decepticon, only to only get silence from Soundwave, "Right, silent type."
As Wheeljack charged his blaster, he saw one of Soundwave's cablesin the reflection in his visor holding the Resonance Blaster.
Wheeljack screamed in pain as Soundwave fired the Resonance Blaster at him. The sonic waves were painful to his audio receptors and to him, it felt as though his processor was being scrambled.
In the end, the pain was intense enough to send Wheeljack hurtling to the ground. He managed to let out one final groan of pain before slipping into the abyss of unconsciousness.
"Ratchet, the virus is coded. Commencing upload," Raf announced before commencing the upload of the virus to Ratchet.
The only downside for them is that it was going to take a while.
And if that wasn't bad enough, Laserbeak began coming back online. Ratchet barely managed to pin him down in time.
Wheeljack groaned as he kept on slipping in and out of consciousness. Fortunately, he was still conscious enough to know what was happening. Looking up, he saw Soundwave attach the Resonance Blaster to his servo through his blurred vision before the Resonance Blaster was pointed at him once again. Having no strength to fight back, Wheeljack braced himself for the processor-numbing pain.
Then…something popped up on Soundwave's visor. It was an alert about Laserbeak.
"Rafael, what's our progress?" Ratchet inquired as he struggled to keep Laserbeak pinned down.
"50%," Raf said as the transfer of the virus reached it's halfway point.
"Doc…" Wheeljack said weakly on Ratchet's comlink
Ratchet froze at the sound of the second voice coming through the commlink. His blue optics widened to the size of dinner plates from their squinted size before. But it wasn't because of worry.
"Wheeljack! I told you not to call me that!" Ratchet snapped.
"I'm sorry…" Wheeljack apologized on the comlink
"What's wrong? Where are you?" Ratchet immediately asked.
"I…figure that you got…maybe…2 minutes…" Wheeljack groaned weakly. c on his comlink.
At first, Ratchet was confused. 2 minutes till what?! Then he looked to the skies. He heard the familiar sounds of an approaching jet engine. Soundwave was coming back for Laserbeak at rapid speeds.
"Or less," Ratchet muttered to himself, "Wheeljack, what's your condition?"
He earned no response to that.
"Wheeljack?" Ratchet asked again, but once again, he earned no response, "Rafael?"
"We're almost there," Raf responded.
Continuing his struggle against the hiding Laserbeak, Ratchet hid behind a rock. All he was hoping for was that Soundwave wouldn't catch them in this situation. If Soundwave found him fighting against Laserbeak planting a virus and a bomb, the consequences would be severe. Worse than what Wheeljack went through.
Ratchet checked his scanners for the progress of the virus upload. Almost there… It was so close to 100%, he could almost taste it.
"Done," Raf said as the transfer of the virus finished.
At that word, Ratchet shut down his scanners and allowed Laserbeak to fly away. Still injured from the crash landing, Laserbeak wasn't able to fly very far or fast. In fact, after a body part fell off, he landed on the ground again and struggled to get back up.
Fortunately for him, Soundwave transformed into his robot mode and landed. Ratchet watched from his hiding place as Soundwave thoroughly searched the area. Well…he couldn't find it a thorough search if Soundwave couldn't find him. He watched as Soundwave approached the Jackhammer and surveyed the damage…only to hear the sound of a bang come from Ratchet's hiding place.
"Scrap!" Ratchet hissed as he crouched even lower.
Soundwave was able to find Laserbeak on the ground unable to fly. Quickly and efficiently, he attached the injured Minicon back to his chassis before walking away.
That is…until he heard Ratchet groan.
Soundwave froze at the sound of that groan. There was someone else here?! Who could it be? His search of the area found nothing. So he used his cables to double check. His first check was at Ratchet's hiding place behind the rock. Ratchet barely managed to curl up in a ball to avoid being touched by the cables. Fortunately for him, Soundwave didn't manage to touch any part of Ratchet. Instead, he grabbed the body part – a section of his tail – that fell off Laserbeak.
Now his mission was complete. He had successfully obtained the Resonance Blaster. And he managed to retrieve Laserbeak – harmed, but safe. Now, all he had to do was return to Megatron.
And that was precisely what he did.
"Soundwave has taken the bait. Wheeljack…," Ratchet tried again, only to earn the same silence from before, "Scrap!"
Without thinking twice, Ratchet transformed into his alternate form and raced to where he knew Wheeljack would be at high speeds.
As Soundwave returned to the Nemesis, he showed Megatron the relic he found at the set of coordinates that he was dispatched to.
"Ah! The resonance blaster, crafted by Decepticon scientists for maximum devastation," Megatron said as he examined the relic that his eyes and ears brought him, "Soundwave, you have performed admirably, unlike Dreadwing here, who somehow managed to lose the Apex Armor to Starscream. However, two more decrypted coordinates remain in play, and I have every confidence that Knockout and I…"
"Can you believe what the Autobots did to me?!" Knockout screech as he stormed the bridge, scratched up from the New York subway incident, while he was retrieving the Phase Shifter before losing it to Bumblebee and the Autobots.
"Did you retrieve the relic?!" Megatron demanded as he approached his medic.
"No, Master," Knockout answered hesitantly.
"Then I suggest you convince me of your continued usefulness by examining Laserbeak, Doctor," Megatron suggested.
"Wheeljack!"
For Ratchet, he couldn't transform and race to Wheeljack's side fast enough. The former Wrecker had fallen into unconsciousness. Slowly, Ratchet pulled Wheeljack into a seated position, an action that caused him to come to.
"Just resting my optics," Wheeljack groaned, "And my audio receptors."
Ratchet relaxed slightly in relief at the words that came past Wheeljack's mouth. Wheeljack was his usual cheeky, defiant self.
If that wasn't an indication that the former Wrecker was going to be alright, Ratchet didn't know what else would be.
"What is it?" Megatron demanded as Knockout stopped scanning Laserbeak in confusion with a scanner.
"An obstruction of some sort," Knockout answered as Soundwave hopped off the medical berth and deployed Laserbeak from his chassis and opened Laserbeak up and they saw the core of Wheeljack's grenade planted within the Minicon's systems.
"Grenade!" Knockout cried in horror before running away and ducked for cover.
"Ah, that is clever. Knockout, prepare to properly dispose of the obstruction," Megatron instructed.
This led to Knockout racing through the corridors of the Nemesis with the grenade core screaming.
"Soundwave, if we are to maintain any advantage over the Autobots," Megatron began before they heard an explosion coming from the corridors as the Grenade blew up and Megatron just knew that Knockout was still holding it, "Decoding the remainder of the Iacon database must remain your top priority."
Soundwave nodded with confirmation of knowing that he must finish decoding the Iacon database.
Ratchet and Wheeljack raced back to the downed Jackhammer, eager to go home.
"Rafael, send the Ground Bridge," Ratchet requested as he and Wheeljack transformed into their robot forms, "I still advise that you return to base. You require a thorough examination."
"The only thing I require right now is some hull sealant," Wheeljack corrected as he gives the Jackhammer another examination, "Trust me, the Jackhammer here is in more need of repair than me."
"Listen, Wheeljack, I want to thank you for your backup," Ratchet said sincerely.
"Yep," Wheeljack nodded as he ripped off a part of the panel as a Ground Bridge portal opened up behind them, "See you around...Ratchet."
Ratchet was unable to contain his smile as he walked through the Ground Bridge. One thing he was glad about was that Wheeljack said his name before he left. Because the fact that he kept on being called 'Doc' was starting to get on his nerves.
Aboard the Nemesis, Soundwave resumed his work on the Iacon database. He started by using his cables to wirelessly connect himself and Laserbeak to the computer. What Soundwave didn't realize is that he was uploading a virus into the Decepticon mainframe that was Downloading the contents of the Iacon database to the Cybertronian Computer System at the Autobot base.
Raf was typing on his laptop when he noticed that the virus was working as he looked at the Cybertronian Computer System monitors, this was just as Ratchet was walking back to the base through the Ground Bridge portal.
"Ratchet! Come here!" Raf called to the returning Ratchet as he pointed to the screens.
"The Iacon database?!" Ratchet gasped as he noticed the Cybertronian encryption filling the screens of the Cybertronian Computer system.
"It's downloading to our mainframe!" Raf cried out in joy.
"Rafael, you are a genius," Ratchet said after laughing with joy.
"Oh, believe me. Soundwave will provide the coordinates to the remaining relics," Megatron promised Knockout.
"Yes, we are fortunate to have him on our side, Lord Megatron," Knockout muttered tiredly.
"And see about repairing his cracked visor, will you?" Megatron requested before walking away.
Standing in the doorway still, Knockout let out a scrawl in frustration. Megatron never truly appreciated everything he had done for the Decepticon cause. Heck. No one did. No one except for his assistant Breakdown, he wasn't there anymore as Airachnid killed him months ago. One thing that he hated was being underappreciated.
"Bulkhead's coming through, Agent Fowler," Raf announced as he activated the Ground Bridge with his laptop.
"I can't wait to share the news!" Ratchet said with excitement.
However, Ratchet was soon forced to forget about the joy filled occasion. Another pressing matter was brought to his attention.
And that pressing matter was Bulkhead.
His unconscious form flew through the Ground Bridge and landed before him. From his back, he saw a pillar of thick black smoke and bright orange flames. Ratchet watched in horror at the frame of his close friend on the floor before him.
"No…" Ratchet gasped in horror.
Slowly and tentatively, Ratchet walked towards him. There were so many questions circling in his processor. But only two were important.
How did this happen?
Who did this to him?
To be Continued as next is toxicity and please favorite, follow and review.