Chapter 9: The Earthquake
Many hours had past, but finally Ratchet and Doc Hudson had finished repairing Mirage, Brawn, Prowl & Ironhide.
"What happened, I feel like I punched myself." Said Brawn, obviously bragging about his strength again.
"I know what you mean Brawn, what the heck happened to us, last thing I remember was looking up to Menasor then everything in my body shut down." Mirage, had no recollection of things whatsoever.
"I will tell you both what happened later, but right now there is no need to dwell on the past" said Prowl, while his and Ironhide's injuries were minor compared to Brawn's and Mirage' he could still feel the grip of Menasor through his circuitry.
"It's good to see that all the Autoboys are all in one functioning piece again" said Jazz.
"Yeah thanks Jazz, trust me next time the Stunticons try to jump me I'll give 'em one of my hydraulic powered knuckle sandwiches!" Brawn was dying for revenge; he was one of the Autobots who despised the Decepticons most, almost to a merciless level where he thought 'the only good Decepticon is a dead one.'
Doc Hudson came out of the hospital to greet the group.
"Well gentlecars I'm glad to say that you're all in one piece again. It wasn't easy, you all had a lot of internal construction I've never even seen before, but I guess it keeps you Police cars technologically advanced enough to keep one gear ahead of the criminals." He said.
"Police cars what's he talking about Prowl?" asked Ironhide.
"Just go with it Ironhide, it's a cover story I made up to hide our Cybertronian technology" replied Prowl, Doc continued.
"I would like at this moment, to thank you all for what you did on the highway. You stood up to those monstrous, senseless, killer robots and I'm not sure how you did it but seeming as you all survived I presume you gave them a whipping they'll never forget and I would also like to thank Ratchet for his services today in helping me bringing his teammates back to full recovery and for helping the civilians on the highway."
"It's not a problem at all sir, just doing our jobs and thank you for your gratitude." Replied Prowl, however Brawn gave a dark look at Doc Hudson, he obviously didn't take Doc's comments about robots too kindly.
"Why I ought to…who does he think he is? What's wrong with robots anyway?"
"Calm down kiddo, we're in stealth mode at the minute, keep your cool" said Ironhide, trying to calm Brawn down before he blurted out anything that would jeopardize their identities.
"Is there something wrong back there?" asked Hudson.
"No chief, it's just my friend here, he's a little nervous around strangers." Replied Ironhide.
"What?" said Brawn but got an "Sssshhhh" from Ironhide, Doc just let it slide and continued.
"Now if you please gentlecars, would you follow me? I would like to show you all something."
The Autobots followed Doc around the corner to Flo's café, they were surprised to see that the whole town's residents had came out to greet them. There were signs saying 'Thank you' all over the café.
"What in tarnation?" said Ironhide.
"I told the whole town of what you did on the highway and they all would like to thank you for what you did, you stopped those evil robots from getting too close to our small community and wrecking it. They all think you're heroes." Said Doc.
"Wait a minute, you think we're heroes? We're flattered really Doctor Hudson but please we really didn't do that much…." Said Prowl, he was sensing that getting into a huge social gathering like this would threaten their secrets.
"Aw come on Prowl, even miserable 'bo…er I mean Cars like you and Ironhide could do with a little time off now and again, as for me I'm always in the mood for a monster party and when Jazz is in the fray, hold your audio…I mean ears, cuz once I come into the house, you can guarantee it won't be left standing with my wild tunes!" said Jazz, he jumped at the chance to party with the locals and learn more about their customs.
Jazz drove into the crowd:
"Alright folks stand back the driving music station is here and he's gonna be here all night, can I take any requests?"
"Oh, oh I gots one, I gots a ree-kwest." Shouted Mater, bouncing up and down frantically.
"Certainly my rusty friend, gimme a radio station and I'll crank up the volume for ya" said Jazz, as he revealed his huge stereo system again to the whole crowd, who replied with lots of 'ooh's and 'ahh's.
"Gimme 123.45 the country channel." Said Mater, Jazz replied by turning his radio to the radio frequency, but was rather displeased with the western/country music he got with a lot of racket coming from violins and cars that seemed to keep shouting, Jazz then Muted the noise.
"How about we listen to something else that everyone can like?" and Jazz switched to his favorite rock channel playing Voodoo child by Hendrix.
"Werks fur' me!" said Mater as he danced to the tune with Jazz.
"Will you turn that disrespectful junk off!?" shouted Sarge.
"Respect the classics man, it's Hendrix!" replied Fillmore.
"Hmph"
"Something wrong Stickers?" asked Sally.
"That Jazz fellow, he makes my oil boil. What a complete show off!" Lightning was now more upset at Jazz for being the center of attention.
"Oh for goodness sake McQueen grow up, I'm going to go request a song" and Sally drove towards Jazz with McQueen shouting her name:
"Hey Sally wait! Come back!"
"Hey DJ can I get a song?" she (Sally) asked Jazz.
"Why certainly my little lady car." He winked, Sally requested Real Gone by Sheryl Crow and Jazz seemed to love it.
"Can I ask for this dance?" Jazz asked Sally.
"Why certainly my good man car" and Sally and Jazz linked radio antennas and drove around in a small tight circle with the other cars joining in the music, Lightning however seethed with anger.
Prowl felt like banging his bonnet off a wall, this was going completely against Optimus Prime's orders. Doc Hudson could sense the despair in Prowls face.
"Is there something wrong officer?" he asked.
"Oh there's nothing wrong with the party Mr Hudson, its just HQ tells us not to interact with civilians while on duty." Replied Prowl.
"I understand, Prowl but these are nice people, they just wanted to say thank you for what you did, if they knew who you really were, undercover police cars, they wouldn't tell anyone else, they would know that you need your secret identities to help enforce the law."
"That may be Mr. Hudson, but our true identities are something you couldn't understand" said Prowl, he said the last part of his sentence more quiet than the first half, hoping Doc didn't hear it.
"Well if it'll make you feel better, how about a drink?" and Flo came over with a tray of four oil cans of Dinoco with straws in them.
"What is this stuff?" asked Ironhide.
"Don't you know what Dinoco is hun?" asked Flo; "It's only the most popular drink on the whole….planet!" she shouted, Brawn took a sip from the straw and as the smooth, clean taste of Dinoco oil tickled his tongue senses he let off a big smile.
"Wow, this is the stuff." He said to himself; "Tastes just like the oil back at Maccadams old oil house back on Cybertron, only more exotic"
"What's a Cybetron?" asked Flo, Prowl butted in nervously:
"Oh it's what we call our Police base of operations, but Brawn here shouldn't be revealing secrets out loud like that!" he said with an aggressive wink at Brawn and the Autobot Land Rover smiled nervously.
"But Prowl you gotta try this stuff" Brawn leaned closer to Prowl to whisper; "This stuff is oil! Real Oil!"
"Your point?" asked Prowl.
"My point is that this planet practically brews its own energy. What is like gold to us is like stones to them, this planet basically has an unlimited supply of it, no wonder the Decepticons stayed on this planet for so long." Replied Brawn.
While Brawn's explanation was simple, his point ran home to Prowl. No wonder the Decepticons were able to live on this planet for millennia while the Autobots lay in Stasis Lock.
Suddenly there was a rumble, then it grew stronger and kept going stronger.
"Earthquake!" shouted Sally.
The Earthquake was powerful enough to topple several buildings, first Ramone's house of body art, then a section of the old town hall and finally a few of the old abandoned shops toppled over completely into rubble, as soon as it had come the mysterious Earthquake stopped. There were dust clouds and smoke everywhere, the Cars and Autobots lay still, an eerie silence had gripped the town apart from the odd noise of stones falling.
The smoke cleared away to reveal two buildings completely destroyed, the town hall damaged badly and several other buildings full of cracks and broken windows.
"NOOOO, MY ART SHOP!" cried Ramone, his parlor was his life for the whole time he lived here, Doc Hudson also stared in disbelief at the town hall, it had stood there for well over a hundred years and it had only just survived the Earthquake. The main road too which lead through Radiator Springs was cracked and destroyed, the same Road McQueen worked so hard to repair when he first came here now looked like the same cracked and ugly road before he arrived at RS.
"Aw man look at the road, all that hard work, gone down the drain!" said McQueen as he sighed heavily.
"What in the Universe was that?" asked Brawn.
"A planet quake" replied Ratchet; "A phenomenon that results from and is powered by the sudden release of stored energy in the crust that propagates seismic waves."
"Yes, a shame really, the last time this place had a recorded Earthquake was seventy years ago, we weren't around then but Lizzie and her husband was. Unfortunately that quake claimed the life of our town's founder and poor Lizzie was never the same since." Replied Doc; "It's probably just as well she's senile now, otherwise she would've spent everyday of her life crying her life away."
"I'm…sorry to hear that Mr Hudson, is there anyone else hurt….I mean is anyone hurt in this recent Earthquake?" asked Prowl.
"Thankfully no, looks like everyone is accounted for, but something is very strange here."
"What's that?" asked Prowl.
"There is a seismic research station at the top of Tailfin Pass, if there was an Earthquake, the station should've recorded it down before the Earthquake struck and they would've sounded the siren." Said Doc.
"But there was no siren" said Prowl.
"Precisely, unless they were all taking a coffee break, that Earthquake should've been detected, but it wasn't."
The Earthquake mystery was still being discussed when amongst the rubble of Ramone's art shop used to be, two small metallic figures emerged from the ruins, one Red and Black, the other a Blueish purple, they were the Decepticons Rumble and Frenzy.
"That shook them up, but they've got an even bigger surprise coming to them when the rest of the gang gets here" said Rumble.
"Yeah, now that we've given out the signal our special 'Construction' team should be arriving any moment." Replied Frenzy and the two stealthily crept away from the scene under the cover of dust and rubble.
Meanwhile Ramone was in tears with Flo trying to comfort him.
"My shop man, my beautiful shop! Forty years of history gone just like that!"
"Now now relax honey, it's not the end of the world." Said Flo sympathetically.
"Yes it is! My entire business that was, I'm ruined!" cried Ramone.
But as Ramone wept Ironhide and Doc Hudson stared on.
"Aw shucks chief I'm really sorry at what happened, maybe if you weren't trying to make a party for us then you might've been better prepared." Doc Hudson smiled at Ironhide.
"Now, now old Friend, don't blame yourselves it wasn't you who caused this Earthquake."
Then Doc Hudson got a shock when somebody tapped his rear bumper, trying to get his attention. As Doc turned around he was greeted by six construction vehicles with a weird color scheme of Green and Purple.
"Who are you?" asked Doc.
"We're construction experts" said a Bulldozer; "We saw what happened to your poor little town and we thought we'd come help." Then a wheeled front load shovel vehicle continued, his voice sounded dreadfully creepy:
"Yes we'll help rebuild your town, and once we finish, it will never be the same again!"