Hey friends! Back with another chapter! This ones un-edited, this was everyone's Christmas? Anyway, hope you enjoy this Chapter!
Chapter Five: It Runs In The Genes.
Blood may be thicker than water, but it's certainly not as thick as ketchup. Nor does it go as well with French fries.
-Jarod Kintz
A few hours later Bumblebee was up, they were docking at Diego Garcia soon, but he wasn't staring over the edge of the ship anymore, he was sitting in the middle of it, he sat cross-legged, staring at his servos.
His hands were big, why were they so big? They were like... Massive, huge metal sheets on his arms, twenty times bigger then his body!
Bumblebee held his servo up to his face, then pulled it away, an odd mechanical giggle escaped him as the hand only grew bigger when he moved it around.
"Big hands... I have big hands, Sam! Look at my hands... Their huge..." Sam, who had been watching Bumblebee with a worried expression, looked over to his guardians servos, they didn't look any bigger.
"Bee... Their the same size as they always were." Bumblebee laughed loudly at this, as if it were the funniest thing he had ever heard in his life, he then turned around to face his charge, he leaned foreword, still siting down.
"How has the ship not sunken yet? These things are bigger then anything-" Sam resisted the urge to video tape Bumblebee when the mech lifted his hand into the air, then proceeded in making a cartoonish sounding bomb drop as he lowered his hand.
The hand landed on his face with a quiet clang. "Bwoosh" Bumblebee mimicked a small explosion as the servo touched his faceplate, he then repeated this with his other servo, however, the mech said. "Nooo! The plane its falling, falling. Aaaaaahhhhh- bwoosh." The explosion sound was so weak that it sounded completely ridiculous.
"Are you okay Bee?" Sam asked, only to have his jaw hit the ground at the mechs reply.
"Who's Bee?"
The silence that threaded through the air was thick enough that Sam couldn't see through it, he blinked a few times, before smiling.
"Stop messing with me Bee."
Bumblebee- who had been playing plane with his servos again, slowly looked over to his charge with a weird expression.
"Why do you keep calling me 'Bee'?" His tone was so curious, it showed the teen that, no, Bumblebee didn't know his name was Bumblebee, and that... He didn't know who he was at the same time.
"I don't feel good..." Bumblebee suddenly announced sickly, standing up on wobbly pedes as he rushed to the side of the carrier ship, purging his tanks of... What the? Why was that energon... Black?
"Bee?" The mech didn't turn around, only stared down at the water where his fluids had polluted it.
"Bee... Something's wrong..." Sam stated, moving closer to the mech, who, twitched in response, leaning over the edge so far Sam was afraid the mech would fall over. He purged his tanks again.
And again.
And again.
The same black liquid spewed out, black liquid mixed with the purple of his energon. Now completely terrified for his friends well being, Sam backed away, running as fast as he could to the ships control room, shoving random solders out of his way.
"How long until we dock?" He shouted as he pummeled through the door, any other time the silence in the room would have been awkward, but now, now that he knew something was wrong with the mech, he found it irritating.
"Islands comin' up now. Only a few minuets, whass' wrong?" The captain asked, obviously noting the sweat and afraid look on the teens face.
"Something's wrong with Bumblebee-"
No sooner did the words leave his mouth then said alien could be seen on the deck, swaying on his feet as he clutched his tanks.
"God... Bee!" Sam found himself running back out of the ships steering room, back through the halls and when he emerged on the outer deck, Bumblebee was swaying worse, a few solders yelled and hollered at him, waving their guns around- oblivious to the transformers state.
"Bee! Bee! You have to sit down!" Sam screamed up at the mech, men around him began to panic, he felt the ships speed increase slowly.
Bumblebee spun around, only to fall down on his aft, causing the ship to sway and hollers from men and women around him for the mech to be careful.
"Who's 'Bee'!" The mech yelled angrily, tossing his hands up in the air.
"Who are you! Wha-" and he purged again processor sparking as he leaned over, emptying what little he had left In his... Infected tanks.
For a second, only a second, the real Bumblebee shown through the unstable mech that was before Sam.
"What's going on?" He asked, Sam didn't need to ask to see that the mechs helm was spinning, it was sparking for christsake!
"What- what-"
"We're docking! Get Ratchet out here now!" Someone yelled, Sam lifted his hands up to the mech, attempting to get closer to him.
"It's okay 'Bee, were going to get Ratchet, he's going to find out what's wrong." Bumblebee growled, using his servo to hit his helm a few times.
"Who's Ratchet!" He was irritated: anyone could see it, Bumblebees servos clutched into fists, then, his entire frame relaxed, and he started giggling.
It was quiet at first, dull, but it morphed into a loud, crazy noise that didn't let up, he continued to giggle his voice trimmed with static, then, he abruptly stopped.
Sam, who had raised an eyebrow, just noticed a rescue hummers headlights approaching, the lights splitting through the semi darkness, the hummer was speeding, a solstice, topick and a semi-truck follow close behind.
"Get him off the ship before he sinks it!" The captain yelled, fully aware of the situation now. Bumblebee seemed to snap out of his trance yet again, and turned to the captain. Optics frizzing.
"Are my hands too big?" A giggle. "Soooo big!"
Sam facepalmed, wondering if this was how Transformers acted when their high.
Before he knew it Ratchet was transformed, and with the help of Optimus prime and Ironhide, managed to get the squealing Bumblebee off the ship, hesitantly, Sam followed suit.
"Why am I being mech handled! Who are you! Primus your paint job is ugly, who wears puke green these days? Why am I so big? WHO THE FRAG AM I IM NOT CRAZY! Stop calling me crazy, it runs in the genes IT RUNS IN THE GENES." Bumblebee keeled over, purging yet again then began dry heaving, Ratchet, who looked horrified, patted the mechs back with an uncertain servo.
And as if the curse was lifted, Bumblebee stood strait up, his optics returned to their normal color.
"Ratchet? Why are you looking at me like that?" The medic shook his helm, as if clearing his thoughts, he grabbed the Camaros arm and tugged on it, attempting to pull him along. "Your coming to the Medbay."
Bumblebee stood still, unmoving as he dug his pedes into the dirt.
"Why is someone hurt? Where's Sam! Sam?"
"I'm right here 'Bee, go with Ratchet."
Upon seeing his charge was safe, Bumblebees shoulders deflated, he slowly nodded allowing Ratchet and Optimus to walk him off.
"Ah'll give ya a ride back." The newly revived Jazz said, an ever present smile on his face as he transformed down.
"Thanks." Sam flopped himself down on the mechs seat, watching Ratchet usher Bumblebee into the awaiting building.
He watched Ironhide transform down and speed after the trio, Jazz didn't move though. He waited for the others to enter the building.
"'Bees going to be alright, right?" Sam asked, sinking down in the seat, finally, Jazz's engine puttered to life as the normal speedy vehicle began slowly crawling towards the building.
"Yeah, he'll be fine, Ratch'll fix'em up."
"Do you think he's... Infected?" Sam asked tersely, his hands finding Jazz's wheel on instinct, he held on tighter then he should. Jazz barked out a laugh, the building slowly approaching.
"Ah doubt he's infected, pro'lly jus' feelin' sick, tell meh, what happened?"
Taking a breath, Sam spilled out the whole story, starting from when he woke up, to the present time, all he could think about was Bumblebee, though.
Was it possible? For a Transformer to be infected just like the humans? He doubted it, but he couldn't rule out the possibility, Bumblebee was scratched by Mikaela, now he was acting dare he say it- crazy.
The others would have to watch out then, knowing that the Cybertronians weren't invincible, but for now, with Jazz driving into the building, already heading for the humans bunkers. Sam just wanted to sleep, he wanted to close his eyes, and pray to god- Primus. Whoever was out there, that this was all just a dream.
"Have you found anything Preceptor?" Ratchet asked, slinking himself into the dimly lit room, a servo to the bridge of his nose. He had just come back from sedating Bumblebee, who had been frequently going in and out of a craze like state.
"I think so, take a look." The scientist said in his normal High-Class English accent, transforming into his rather large microscope alt mode, Ratchet slumped over, taking a peak in.
"Bugs?" He asked, the first thing coming to his mind upon the zoomed in look at the clumped black blood found In Bumblebees system, the blood was moving around inside the petri dish, zoomed in further, you could see the outline of what looked like millions of little purple/black-
"Fleas, is what I believe the humans call them." Preceptor supplied, continuing to zoom the lens In more at a particular small clump of the blood, the now dubbed 'fleas' moved around each other in swarms, it actually looked like they were crawling in and out of each other.
Ratchet shivered they're were so many of them, and they were so small, they moved together in a fluid like motion that water would be jealous of, but unlike water: that spread itself out as far as it could go, the fleas stayed put in little clumps that roe half an inch from the ground.
"That's... Unusual..." Ratchet said, disgust clear in his voice as he watched the fleas move.
"They seem to feed off life-blood, you see how the purple is slowly fading from their bodies? Their consuming it."
Right on cue, the scientist zoomed in at a different more colored group of fleas, upon closer inspection, slowly the fleas purple tint began fading, the midnight black color coming back, and then, their exoskeleton began to gray.
The frames continued to grey until they became a bright white, then, all movement stopped.
"Did it just?"
"Die? Yes it did. I've watched it happen, watch closely, see the other clump over there? Watch."
Ratchet did so, his tanks turning, so many little crawling bugs made him uneasy, in the blink of an eye another splotch of black fleas came to the whiting clumps rescue, quickly forming itself around the white group, the color slowly drained from the rescuers group as the whited out group began gaining its color back.
Having seen enough, Ratchet pulled away, this time unable to suppress the shiver that crawled up his frame.
"So their bugs or... Fleas, and they work together? I though humans portrayed bugs to be... Mindless?"
Once Ratchet backed away, Preceptor transformed into his bipedal form, stretching himself out, he pushed the dish further onto the table, making sure it wouldn't fall and expose the fleas to everything in the room.
"We'll humans thought wrong: apparently, these fleas have a mind frame of a common human, I believe, and they seam to feed off of blood, energon, or humans."
Ratchet grumbled to himself scrubbing his face with a servo.
"So Bumblebees infected with... Fleas?" The idea seamed rediclous. A mech being infected with millions of small organic bugs, but yet, here it was.
"I believe so." Preceptor said with a nod, locking optics with the medic.
"Have you found a cure?" Ratchet asked hopefully.
"With what I showed you, The fleas will die out if their not subjected to energon or blood, for Bumblebee to be cured, We would have to drain him of his energon."
"In other words their Is no cure..."
"Don't give up hope yet, I may find something." Perceptor said with a smile, slinging his arm over Ratchets shoulder, attempting to bring up the mechs mood. However, It worked little Ratchet shrugged off the scientist arm and turned for the door.
"We'll have to wait and see what happens, in the mean time, I'll tell Optimus and the others that the blood currently infecting the humans are actually microscopic sized fleas... Oh, I'll sound perfectly sane, I can already see their faces."
R&R