Author's Notes: Here's that Christmas chapter I promised. Up before January's even over, yay! Hope you enjoy.
After Halloween, the excitement slowed down a bit around the Ark. All the spooky decorations were taken down, and their attentions were diverted towards other activities. For Optimus felt that this year, to better their relations with the humans, they would contribute more towards the holiday season. And so over the next month, the Autobots found themselves participating in many charity events. With Thanksgiving approaching, they amped up their contribution to food drives and homeless shelters, and over the next few weeks everything seemed to be going smoothly. That is, until some humans decided to return the favor.
A few days before Thanksgiving, Prowl, Jazz, Ironhide, and Red Alert stood in the cargo bay, and in front of them sat dozens of human sized crates whose tops had been pried open. Each one of these crates was stuffed full with human food, specifically food usually associated with Thanksgiving. Turkeys, cranberries, stuffing, corn, sweet potatoes... everything that can be imagined was contained within those boxes. The Autobots contemplated the crates of food in front of them.
"Ah cahn't figure if this is some kahnd o' joke or not," Ironhide grumbled.
"Yeah," Jazz agreed. "D' th' humans realize tha' we can't eat this stuff?"
"This is clearly a security threat!" Red Alert spazzed. "Who allowed this stuff to enter the Ark? There might be a bomb in each of those crates, or worse! I need to scan these things before they enter our base!"
"Can it Red, et's just a bunch o' human food," Ironhide interrupted.
Red Alert fumed for another minute before pulling out a scanner device and preoccupied himself with grumbling and inspecting the instrument.
"So what're we gonna do with this stuff?" Jazz asked.
"We will donate it," Prowl responded immediately. "We cannot use it, so we will give it to the humans who can."
"Wait, but Prowl," Jazz suddenly said. "I can think of some use for it!" he said with a cheeky grin, and just barely noticed the mistrustful glare Red Alert shot his way.
Prowl shook his head resolutely. "Jazz," he reprimanded. "There are humans who can use this food. We will not waste it on a game."
Jazz's grin faded as he was reminded of that fact. Ironhide grumbled and walked towards the crates of food. "All rahght, let's get these closed back up."
They did just that, and immediately donated as much of the food that they could to the local food bank. Much to Jazz's delight, though, some of the food couldn't be donated because it had either gone bad or was past its expiration date, and the saboteur knew just what to do with it.
On Thanksgiving Day, anyone who was brave or forgetful enough to go through the Pieway, found themselves assaulted not by pies, but by leftover Thanksgiving food. Mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, all kinds of vegetables, and even whole turkeys were flung at the unfortunate mechs. As a result, the cleanup job afterwards was a bit more complicated and messy than the original whipped cream. And since Prowl had not approved of the Thanksgiving food being wasted so recklessly, Jazz had been the unfortunate mech assigned to clean it up.
After Thanksgiving, the holiday season really kicked off, and the Autobots didn't lose any of their holiday spirit. In addition to increased participation in charities on their part, the Autobots also increased their activity around the Ark, and once again the theme of their pranking was influenced by the upcoming holiday. But with Prowl and the officers busy with events and other affairs, Sideswipe and Sunstreaker had no real motivation to pull off any big pranks. And so the majority of the pranking consisted of small time antics performed by the less big-time prankers among the crew.
Unfortunately, their fun and festive activities were interrupted when the Decepticons decided to reveal themselves once again. They attacked New York City about a week into December, and the Autobots were forced to fly out there immediately and counter their attack. Once again, Megatron wouldn't stop spouting off about the Autobot army falling into disorder and that his army was the stronger and more superior, but that didn't prevent the Autobots from besting them in battle.
Unfortunately, their fight did damage a few buildings, and almost took out the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, but thanks to Bumblebee's quick reflexes, only a quarter of the tree lost its lights. After about an hour of battle, the 'Cons had been forced to retreat. For their part, the Autobots spent the rest of the day helping with repairs around the city. And once they had met with the mayor of New York and apologized for the damage, the Autobots too returned to their base.
When they arrived back the 'Bots were met by quite a surprise: a rare snowstorm had blown through the Portland area. The skies were clear now, but the land that surrounded the Ark was blanketed with the fluffy white stuff.
"Hey, check this out!" Groove said as he transformed into root mode, his feet crunching in the snow.
Beachcomber, who was nearby and enjoying the wintery scene, caught sight of his buddy and waved him over. "Pretty groovy, huh?" he said.
Groove grinned and made his way over to the other mech. "Yeah, sweet man!"
As the Protectobot wandered away, the other 'Bots returning from New York emerged from Skyfire and took in the scene around them. Among them were Optimus Prime, Prowl, Jazz, Sideswipe, Bumblebee, and Smokescreen.
"I'd better call Spike!" Bumblebee immediately exclaimed. "Maybe he couldn't get to work today!" And he too hurried off.
"Cool," said Jazz as he picked some snow up from the ground.
"Hm," was all Prowl said as he hardly glanced around. "Don't forget you have a report to write," he commented as he headed for the Ark. Jazz pouted slightly as he threw the snow away absentmindedly.
Pretty soon, all who were left outside were Groove, Beachcomber, Smokescreen, Skyfire, and Sideswipe. Smokescreen and Skyfire were exchanging a few words, and since Groove and Beachcomber were wandering away together, Sideswipe was left to his own muses. He kicked some of the snow around on the ground, feeling the cold touch on his feet.
"Hm," he said. This being their second year on Earth, they haven't seen much of snow, and he felt compelled to spend more time in it. He started to meander away from the Ark. As he did so, he walked by some trees and absently knocked some snow off its branches. As he watched the frozen, powdery substance cascade onto the ground, a sudden idea popped into his head. It was an inkling, but the thought of it made him grin and turn on his heel. He had an engineer to talk to.
o~o~o
Over at the Nemesis, the Decepticons were still licking their wounds from New York. The Constructicons had their hands full fixing their faction-mates' injuries, quite an unpleasant task when it came to the Decepticons. And while insults were thrown and just as many injuries were created as were fixed in their medbay, Megatron sulked in his chair in the main command room. Starscream was lurking in the background while Soundwave dutifully worked away at a monitor screen nearby.
"Those Autobots sure are crumbling from mutiny," Starscream grumbled from the back of the room. "So far, your mighty plan has gotten us two defeats, and no victories!"
"Silence!" Megatron snarled dangerously. "Those Autobots have their breaking point, and they will break under my hand!"
"And how many battles must we lose to reach that point?" Starscream questioned sneeringly. "To achieve a win we must strike them when they are not expecting it!"
Megatron growled as he stood up forcefully, making Starscream instinctively flinch back. "Do not question my tactics! Clearly there is more going on among their ranks than we are aware of, we must find out what that is. That is our next move! Soundwave!" he suddenly called and the communications officer turned from his station.
"Ravage, eject," Soundwave monotoned. With a flurry, the cassettacon emerged from his master's chest compartment and transformed.
"Ravage," Megatron commanded. "Go to the Autobot's base, and return when you have some valuable information for me!"
The cybercat growled in response and turned and ran out of the room, eager to do as he had been bid.
o~o~o
It was the day after the next, and Wheeljack was happily at work down in his lab. After Sideswipe had commissioned him with this project the day before yesterday, he had done nothing but work on it since. It was the only major project he had going at the time, and it really intrigued him. Particularly the coding, it had him dabbling in a little artificial intelligence and he just couldn't turn away until he had all the issues hammered out. Actually, Sideswipe was on his way down here right now, and he was only doing a little testing and debugging at the moment. He had been so into the project that he had worked at it all the way through the first night, next day, and second night, and he was fairly confident that it was ready to unveil.
Wheeljack had his optics glued to his computer screen when Sideswipe finally arrived. "Hey 'Jack!" the red frontliner greeted. "Is my brain child ready for me?"
"Ya! Come on over here!" Wheeljack said without turning his optics away.
Sideswipe had to carefully pick his way through the debris and around tables and piles of scrap metal that littered the room to get to the engineer, but he was in a hurry, and so in no time he had reached his destination. "Whadya have for me?" he asked as he leaned down and tried to look at the computer screen. The monitor was filled with lines of coding, which the frontliner could make no sense of, so he turned his attention to the table that was in front of them, where a sheet was covering some sort of large and oddly shaped object.
"This!" Wheeljack said and moved away from the computer and towards the table. He pulled the sheet away, and what lay before them was a curious looking contraption. It had a main, squarish body, three insect-like legs on each side, and what appeared to be some kind of speaker and a nozzle on the front end.
"I call it... the Insta-Blizzard!" Wheeljack announced excitedly.
Sideswipe grinned and ran up to the device, inspecting every part of it. "And does it do everything I asked?" he questioned.
"And more!" the engineer said. From subspace he pulled out a small remote with several buttons and switches on it, and a display screen. He pressed a button, and the Insta-Blizzard suddenly came to life, standing up on its legs and beginning to buzz and whir from the inside. "It's self-automated, so when you flip this switch-" and he did so on the remote. "-it immediately starts looking for a room ta target, using the ventilation system as a highway!" And as he said that, the machine started to crawl around the table, going from edge to edge as if in search of somewhere to go.
"Cool!" Sideswipe said as he watched the machine crawl around. He reached out to poke it, "Let's roll it out right now!"
"Oh, well, you see there's still... uh.."
"Still what?" Sideswipe asked as he turned towards the stuttering engineer. Wheeljack was about to answer, when an out-of-place noise drew their attention back to the table. The Insta-Blizzard had stopped wandering around and was now facing Sideswipe. Just as he was about to ask what was going on, it suddenly blared music from its speaker:
Just hear those sleigh bells jingling,
Ring-ting-tingling too!
And then a cloud of white, snow-like substance burst from the nozzle on the machine, and flew right into Sideswipe's face. "Whoa, plegh, Wheeljack!" Sideswipe sputtered as he was assaulted by the flurry.
"Oh, uh, hang on!" Wheeljack said and fumbled with his remote. After a few flicks of some switches, the machine finally shut down, sinking back to the table. What was left was a good sized snow drift in Wheeljack's lab, with Sideswipe right in the middle of it. The mech sputtered and brushed the snow off of his frame.
"There's still some bugs," Wheeljack said, a little bashfully.
"Bugs?" Sideswipe exclaimed. "Are you joking? This is great! Come on, let's get this set up right away!" Sideswipe then grabbed the Insta-Blizzard and ran out of the lab with it.
"Oh, uh okay," Wheeljack said to the frontliner's retreating back. And then to himself: "It works just fine, only a few bugs. No problem!"
Outside the Ark, the skies were clear blue and patches of white snow still littered the ground in places where shadows stayed permanently. It was still cold around the Portland area, but sunny, and so the snow was very slowly melting away. It was also December 10, and with Christmas approaching both the humans and Autobots were getting more into the festive spirit. Currently, Hound and Trailbreaker were attempting to drag a tree into the Ark that they had cut down nearby. But Red Alert was having none of it.
"Come on, Red, it's just a tree!" Hound pleaded. "What damage could it possibly do?"
"What damage?" Red Alert countered. "Anything that enters this ship must go past my surveillance, and this, this could be anything!"
"It's a tree," Trailbreaker said frankly.
"Sure," Red Alert continued. "But I haven't had the chance to scan it, and who knows what kind of trick or trap is hidden in that! Letting it into the Ark could spell our doom!"
Hound and Trailbreaker rolled their optics at the officer's eccentrics. "Then scan it already," Hound said.
"I can't just scan it, there's a process, a procedure, a..." *ping*. Red Alert's rant was cut short when he suddenly received a hail through his commlink. "... hang on," he said before turning slightly away and activating the link. "What?!" he asked in annoyance.
"Hey Red, can we use your surveillance room?" came Sideswipe's voice through the system.
"What, why?"
"Why? Come on, I don't have to explain myself! Hey, you might wanna come down and check it out for yourself! I think you'd get a kick out of it!"
Red Alert sighed in frustration. "I'll be there in a minute," he said before cutting the connection. He then turned to the two scouts in front of him. "I have to go. That..." and he pointed towards the tree between the two. "Does not enter the Ark." And with that he turned and disappeared into the ship.
Hound and Trailbreaker gave each other exasperated looks. But then Hound perked up. "Let's ask Optimus!" he suggested.
o~o~o
Red Alert stomped through the Ark towards his surveillance room. Although he was a little interested in what Sideswipe was up to, he was more agitated that the mech was in his surveillance hub unattended. So it was with partial intrigue and mostly irritation that he barged into the room a minute later. When he entered the room, Sideswipe, Sunstreaker, and Wheeljack were already there waiting for him.
"Hey, Red!" Sideswipe greeted as he turned around in his chair. "Come in, take a load off!" and he roughly pulled out a chair for the director of security to sit in.
Red Alert walked in suspiciously. Sunstreaker was sitting and staring at the monitor screens apparently uncaring towards the situation, while Wheeljack stood behind the twins and gave the officer a friendly look.
"What exactly is going on here?" Red Alert asked as he carefully took the offered seat.
"How about you watch and find out?" Sideswipe grinned cheekily. He then turned to Wheeljack. "Is it ready, 'Jack?"
The engineer nodded.
"Alright then, fire her up! Sunstreaker," Sideswipe said, and upon the prompt, Sunstreaker typed into the computer console and pulled up security feed from as many rooms as was possible on the monitor screens. Wheeljack then flipped a switch on his remote control, and they all leaned in to watch eagerly.
Down in in the communications room with Teletraan 1, Ironhide and Perceptor were busy with monitor duty. Of course, busy was a relative term. Perceptor kept a watchful optic on his screens while he diverted most of his attention to a private data pad of his. Ironhide on the other hand, simply stared at his own screens, motionless, but was undoubtedly lost in his own thoughts. They didn't converse, merely shared a word or two when necessary, so it had been pretty silent in the room for the last hour or so. Therefore, neither of them suspected it when Christmas music suddenly blared into the room:
Dashing through the snow, in a one-horse open sleigh
Over the fields we go, laughing all the way!
The two mechs looked at each other questioningly. "Where's tha' infernal noise comin' from?" Ironhide asked. But Perceptor barely had time to shrug his shoulders when a sudden onslaught of snow from the ceiling caught them both off guard. It was like a blizzard had suddenly been unleashed inside the Ark, with whiteout conditions. Ironhide and Perceptor could only shout in surprise and shield their optics from the flurries of cold stuff while Jingle Bells continued to play in the background.
It seemed to have lasted forever, but in only about a minute, the blizzard subsided and the music stopped. Still in slight shock, the two 'Bots found themselves almost waist deep in drifts of snow that now covered the floor of the room. They looked at each other again in confusion.
"Most unusual," Perceptor mused.
In Red Alert's surveillance room, Sideswipe and Sunstreaker were cracking up over what they had just witnessed. Wheeljack was just happy that his machine had worked the way it was supposed to. But Red Alert, although also slightly amused over the prank, glanced at the engineer and his remote suspiciously. "Wheeljack, what exactly is controlling this?"
Wheeljack eagerly explained his invention.
"And are you sure it is under control?" Red Alert asked.
"Oh yeah!" Wheeljack responded confidently. "Right now, the Insta-Blizzard is seeking out another room ta target, but I can call it back whenever I need ta."
Red Alert's suspicions only grew. "I want you to call it back now, Wheeljack."
"What? Ah, come on man, it's just getting started!" Sideswipe begged.
The officer shook his head resolutely. "I don't want something crawling through the ventilation system that hasn't been safety tested and approved."
Seeing the pleading look from Sideswipe and the glare from Sunstreaker, Red Alert sighed. "Once I've approved of it, you can have it back."
"And how long will that take," Sunstreaker asked doubtfully.
"Hey," Red Alert said, his forgiving mood disappearing as soon as it had come about. "You're lucky I don't confiscate it! Wheeljack, call it back."
"Alright," Wheeljack complied and pressed a few buttons on his remote. He watched the display screen on the device for a moment. "Hm," he said.
"Hm, what?" Red Alert asked. "It's coming back, right?"
"Oh, well it appears that the command isn't working," Wheeljack explained.
"What?!" the officer spazzed.
"Don't worry!" Wheeljack hastily said. "We can see where it is at all times on this display screen, see?" he then showed Red Alert the screen on the remote and pointed towards the blinking dot that indicated the location of the Insta-Blizzard. However, soon after he did so, the dot suddenly disappeared from view.
Red Alert looked up at Wheeljack. "What does that mean?"
"Uh," intoned the engineer as he brought the remote back into his view. "I'm not sure. Could just be a malfunction with the remote."
"Isn't there an off switch on that?" Red Alert asked anxiously.
"Oh, yeah, here let me do that," Wheeljack said. He flipped the switch, and the four mechs sat in silence for a moment.
"Did it work?" Red Alert eventually asked.
Wheeljack was about to respond, when suddenly Sideswipe exclaimed: "Look!" and he pointed to the monitors. "It's got Mirage and Blaster!"
Indeed, it appeared that the Insta-Blizzard had just targeted the hallway that the two mechs had been occupying.
Sideswipe laughed while Sunstreaker grinned smugly, and Red Alert gave Wheeljack a dangerous glare. "Uh oh," the engineer said.
A minute later, Wheeljack found himself making his way to Prowl's office alone. Red Alert had sent him and the twins to confront the second in command, but of course the two frontliners had bailed on Wheeljack the moment they got the chance. Now Wheeljack was hurriedly trying to fix his remote, while at the same time coming up with a good explanation to give to Prowl about the situation. But by the time he reached Prowl's office door, he had succeeded in neither task. So it was with a resigned sigh that he reached up to activate the door chime.
However, before he got the chance to do so, the door opened on its own and Wheeljack was confronted with an irritated and snow-covered Prowl. A quick glance into the equally snow-filled room behind the officer told Wheeljack all he needed to know.
"Ah," Prowl said upon seeing the engineer. "Just the mech I was going to see."
Prowl took Wheeljack to a nearby conference room, since his own office was unusable at the moment, and the engineer did his best to explain the situation to him. Although the tactician was irritated over the fact that Wheeljack had set loose an untested machine upon the Ark's ventilation system, he couldn't bring himself to accuse the mech of anything. After all, nothing he did was in violation of the battle simulation rules. And besides, if Wheeljack was punished for every one of his inventions that malfunctioned and gave them trouble, he would spend his entire life on the Ark making up for it.
Prowl sighed. "Alright, how do you propose we find it?"
o~o~o
After a long trek across the bottom of the ocean, and a quarter of the way across Oregon State, Ravage finally made it to the Autobot's base. It had been a miserable journey, more so than usual since there was all this nasty, cold, white, wet stuff all over the ground that he had to get his paws into. It was bad enough traversing the ocean, the ultimate wet thing, now he had to get his paws cold and wet too. It made him hate this planet, and hate the Autobots even more for making him travel across this wretched land to get to them. But he had an order to carry out, and now that he was here he was quite eager to get on with the task. He loved stealth and reconnaissance as much as he hated traveling by foot.
He approached the Ark from the side, staying in the shadows along the face of the mountain that enveloped the ship. Once he reached the hull of the ship, it was easy to use that and the rocks of the mountain to climb to the top of the base. Once there, he padded around on silent paws, searching for a good entry point. He could never reuse the same entry point as the last time, that Autobot director of security was obsessive over placing cameras at every spot that was used by Soundwave's cassettes. But the way Ravage saw it, no matter how many cameras there were, there would always be a way to get around them undetected. And sure enough, after a few minutes of careful searching, the cat found an entrance into the ventilation system that wasn't being watched so carefully. Perhaps the Autobots thought this entrance wasn't so important because it was slightly hidden underneath a rock overhang, and a bit crumpled, Ravage presumed from when the ship had crashed into the Earth. But the crafty cat was able to squeeze his way in, and soon enough he was inside the Ark.
He silently crawled through the vents, keeping his ears pricked and optics sharp for any sign of Autobot activity. Having entered from the very top, he was a bit away from the more populated areas of the base. But you never know when or where you might pick up some important information, and when it came to reconnaissance, the remote places were usually where you had the best chance of finding some.
o~o~o
"Alright 'Jaw, you know what to do?" Blaster said as he held up Steeljaw in tape form. The cybercat could only respond by sending a wordless confirmation message back to his master. Blaster reached up and placed the cassette inside the ventilation shaft in the ceiling, and the cat immediately transformed and padded away.
In the hallway, Blaster watched his cassette go. Next to him stood Prowl and Wheeljack, who was still tinkering with his Insta-Blizzard remote.
"How quickly do you think Steeljaw can locate this machine?" Prowl asked Blaster.
"My man Steeljaw can sniff out anything!" Blaster reassured. "Don' worry, he's gonna find that thingamabob in no time!"
"Good," Prowl said. The sooner the better, he thought. The situation wasn't improving; another room had been snowed just during the last half-hour since his office was targeted. And he had better things to do than track down one of Wheeljack's malfunctioning inventions.
Up in the vents, Steeljaw was on the trail of his quarry. It was a little difficult for him to move through the ducts, he was almost too big, but he was stealthy and eager for the hunt. And besides, this little jaunt totally made up for his missed training session two months ago, which Blaster had forgotten about and never rescheduled.
As he crawled on, his ears swiveled at any sound nearby and he sniffed for the scent of the machine, which would undoubtedly smell like Wheeljack. There were many sounds and smells around him, coming from the air that circulated around the entire Ark through these vents, but he expertly filtered through them all, searching for those that might point towards his prey.
The minutes wore on, and he slowly traveled around the base. It was fairly dark with the only source of light coming from the openings into the Ark's rooms and hallways, and it was cramped. But that didn't bother Steeljaw, he wasn't claustrophobic, and all he needed were his nose and ears. And sure enough, eventually he began to hear slight scuffling and scratching noises through the system up ahead. Unfortunately, the air current flowing through the vents was at his back at the moment and so he couldn't catch a scent of what was up ahead, but what else could possibly be in the air vents with him other than Wheeljack's machine? And so he crawled forward a little faster, ready to catch his prey. He rounded a corner, and what met his optics was the last thing he had been expecting.
He spied the lithe, black form of Ravage in the vents up ahead. Ravage was facing Steeljaw's way, and looked back at him with glittering red optics. Upon seeing each other, the two cats immediately bared their fangs and snarled. The air ducts were too cramped for Ravage to activate his cannons, so he pulled out his claws and rushed towards Steeljaw, ready to fight even in these tight conditions. Steeljaw could only back up slightly, but was just as ready to attack his long-time enemy.
The two were so caught up in their confrontation that they didn't notice the other sounds coming from behind Ravage. They were about to clash, when a sudden and much louder sound reached their audios:
On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me,
A partridge in a pair tree!
The lyrics to the song echoed against the close metal walls around them and amplified the sound. It was enough to stop them in their tracks for a moment, which was long enough for the flurry to reach them. The blast of snow hit Ravage first from behind, and upon feeling the cold cloud bite his haunches, the cat yowled and rushed forward, suddenly blind to Steeljaw's presence. Unfortunately, the lion couldn't turn around in the tight space and he couldn't back up fast enough to escape the oncoming panther and snow. In the split of a second, the two cats had collided and stumbled backward in a jumble of metal and claws. They regained just enough sense to swipe at each other again, but the snow was now around them and completely obscured their vision.
For a moment, the two cassettes could comprehend nothing but confusion. Luckily for them though, they backed up onto nearby grate in the air duct, which gave way under their weight. The two cats fell through the air, hissing and yowling, and landed on the floor in a drift of snow.
Prowl, Blaster, and Wheeljack, who had been tracking Steeljaw's progress through the vent system the entire time, were shocked to see not one, but two cybercats fall from the ceiling.
"It's Ravage!" Blaster shouted and immediately pulled out a gun. Prowl and Wheeljack followed suit, but none of them had time to shoot at the Decepticon. Ravage was so unsettled over being covered in so much wet, cold stuff that the first chance he got he scrabbled away from Steeljaw and bolted off down the hallway. He ran so fast that any other 'Bot who encountered him only saw a black blur go by. In no time, the cassettacon had run out the front entrance of the Autobot base and was gone.
Prowl hurried off to ensure the Decepticon had left their base. In the meanwhile, Steeljaw quickly extracted himself from the snow bank and approached Blaster, vigorously shaking the snow off his back.
"You alright, 'Jaw?" Blaster asked in concern.
The cat growled in response, clearly not happy with the whole situation. Once he was satisfied that his cassette was unharmed, Blaster turned to Wheeljack. "Well, you can tell Red that that machine's good for one thing at least; flushing out Soundwave's cassettes!"
o~o~o
Further attempts to retrieve the Insta-Blizzard were unsuccessful. It traveled silently and struck fast, escaping before any attempt to catch it could be made. Its targets weren't necessarily random – clearly it was programmed to leave alone those who were on Sideswipe's pranking team – but the areas of the Ark that it targeted seemed to be unpredictable. Thus, it was hard to warn anybody of the approaching blizzard. And although news traveled fast, it was still early on enough that there were some mechs who hadn't caught word of it. Such was the case in one small room near the back of the Ark.
All was quiet in the minibots' room. Currently, the preferred hangout space of the minibots was occupied by Bumblebee, Brawn, Cliffjumper, Windcharger, and Powerglide. Besides Bumblebee and Windcharger idly chatting, the 'Bots were minding their own business and enjoying their relaxation time in peace and quiet. What happened next, however, was so sudden and unexpected that it seemed to happen in slow-motion.
Silent night, holy night
The 'Bots looked around in confusion, searching for the source of the music that had suddenly drifted into their room.
All is calm, all is bright
A ventilation grate in the ceiling burst open and a blast of snow came out. The 'Bots shouted in surprise, some leaping from their chairs.
Round yon virgin, mother and child
In a matter of seconds, the snow was piling up in the room. For the short-statured minibots, the situation became alarming fast when they discovered they were already half-buried in snow, and they started to run for the door.
Holy infant, tender and mild
Brawn was the first to go down, the snow too deep and the blizzard too blinding for him to keep running. Powerglide fell next, and then Windcharger. When Bumblebee saw his friend fall, he turned around and dashed back to help. But Windcharger waved him off. "Save yourself!" the minibot cried. Bumblebee could see that the other minibot was already almost buried, and realized that he would be to if he tried to run back. And so Bumblebee reluctantly turned away from his comrade and continued towards the door.
Sleep in heavenly peace,
With a final dive, Bumblebee made it out the door and to safety. The only other minibot with him was Cliffjumper, all the others had fallen victim to the blizzard.
Sleep in heavenly peace.
Bumblebee and Cliffjumper were both lying on the floor, stunned. "What the frak was that?" Cliffjumper asked.
Before the yellow mech could respond, shuffling sounds could be heard behind them, coming from the room now filled in snow. Slowly, the other 'Bots unburied themselves and tramped into the hallway. First was Windcharger, looking confused and slightly traumatized, then came Brawn, grumbling about infernal prankers, and then finally Powerglide, stumbling and disoriented.
Bumblebee watched the three walk away, trailing snow behind them, and then turned to Cliffjumper. "I don't know," he said. "But that was fun!"
o~o~o
With the Insta-Blizzard at large, it was clear that no room in the Ark was safe. But that didn't stop some festive activities from going down in the rec room later that day. Hound and Trailbreaker had received permission from Optimus to bring in the tree they had cut down, and after setting it up in the center of the room, they were now busy decorating it. They were joined by other 'Bots who had some time off and were looking to do something relaxing. Swoop and Bluestreak helped with the tree, while Skyfire was hanging some lights around the room, First Aid was setting up some wreaths, and Hoist and Grapple were consulting each other over the construction of a mini Christmas village. Although not helping with the decorations, Sideswipe had cheekily hung mistletoe over the energon dispenser station and he and his brother were entertaining themselves by heckling any two unfortunate 'Bots who happened to be at the dispenser at the same time. Other mechs hung out around the room, relaxing and watching the activities around them.
After some time, Jazz sauntered into the room. He glanced around at all the decorations with a grin, and then approached Hound and Trailbreaker. "Lookin' good in here guys!" he said.
"Thanks Jazz!" Hound returned. "Hey, Hoist and Grapple need some special supplies for their project. If I give you a list, can you see about tracking down some of the stuff?"
"Sure thing," Jazz said. "Jus' send tha' list my way, an' I'll see what I can do."
Hound thanked the officer again and turned back to the tree. Jazz glanced around again, spotted the twins nearby, and headed their way. "Hey Sides, Sunny!" he called when he was close enough.
The two turned towards the officer. "'Sup, Jazz?" Sideswipe greeted.
"Ya know Prowl's lookin' for you two?" the saboteur asked.
"Tell us something new," said Sunstreaker, who having already lost interest in the conversation was looking back towards the energon dispensers.
"He ain't too happy 'bout that snow machine," Jazz continued.
Sideswipe looked away casually. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said.
Jazz shrugged. "I'm jus' givin' ya a fair warnin'." He then looked around the room again, enjoying the festivities around him. Then he snapped his fingers. "Oh, I know what we need, music!"
"That's what you always say," Sideswipe said.
"Nah man, Christmas music! It'll really give some life to this party!" and with that he turned around and headed towards the door to go and find something suitable to play his music on.
Sideswipe turned to his brother. "Who said this was a party?" Sunstreaker merely shrugged.
Jazz had almost made it to the door, when the inevitable happened.
You better watch out, you better not cry!
You better not pout, I'm telling you why,
Santa Claus is comin' to town!
The music blared into the room, making the hum of chatter die down. At this point in time, most mechs knew what unexpected Christmas music coming from the ceiling meant.
"Look what you did, Jazz!" Sideswipe's voice rang out, just before the blizzard hit. Once the flurries and music were gone a minute later, the rec room had been transformed into a wintery scene, with the 'Bots blinking under new coats of snow.
There was a brief moment of silence before Jazz's barks of laughter rang out. "I think it looks better this way!" he said.
That broke the ice. The 'Bots grinned and brushed the snow off of themselves. Things were beginning to settle down, when suddenly with a whiz! a chunk of snow flew through the air and smacked Sideswipe right in the shoulder.
All optics turned to the stunned Sideswipe, and then to the mech who had thrown the snowball. Swoop.
"Me Swoop hear about snowball fight," the gangly Dinobot said. "It supposed to be what you do with snow?"
A grin broke out across Sideswipe's face. "Yeah you're right," he said. "But you hit the wrong guy!" And then he grabbed some of his own snow and flung it in Sunstreaker's face.
While the golden Lamborghini glared at his brother, another snowball flew through the air, and then another. Pretty soon, a full on battle had broken out in the rec room, with snowballs flying from one end to the other.
It was all good and fun until a distinct clearing of the vocalizer could be heard by the entrance to the room. When the 'Bots saw who was standing in the doorway, all activities ceased.
"Hey O.P!" Jazz said cheerily from behind an upturned table he had been using as cover. "Check out what the guy's've done with th' place! Pretty cool, huh?"
Optimus Prime couldn't keep the smile from his optics. He reached down and picked up a handful of snow. "It appears that I have stumbled upon an unscheduled battle simulation," he said. And then to everyone's astonishment, the Prime threw his snowball at Jazz.
The saboteur managed to duck out of the way in time, but a moment later he came back with a grin and his own snowball with Prime's name on it. Optimus dodged, and then the fight was back on.
For another couple of minutes, the snowball fight raged on. But then another figure appeared in the doorway, but only Jazz noticed this time. After a few skillful maneuvers, he managed to make it to the doorway with only a few snowballs stuck to his armor.
Prowl stared into the rec room, rendered speechless by the chaos that met his optics and looking about ready to crash.
"Hey Prowl, check it out! Turns out tha' machine o' Wheeljack's came to some use, huh?" Jazz said.
"This..." Prowl started, but was cut off by a thundering sound approaching their position. Prowl and Jazz had to move out of the way quickly when they turned and saw the entire gang of Dinobots, minus Swoop, charging towards them in dino modes.
"Swoop tell me Grimlock there is battle in rec room!" Grimlock announced when they arrived.
Once again, the fight halted when the battlers noticed the presence of the newcomers. But once the Dinobots were inside the room, they halted their charge and looked around in bewilderment.
"What this white stuff?" Sludge asked as he crunched his massive feet in the snow.
"Decepticons no be here!" Snarl spat. "Me Snarl no want to be here either!" and he turned tail and promptly left.
Swoop walked towards his comrades. "It is called snow!" he explained eagerly. "Us fight with snow!"
Grimlock growled. "Me Grimlock defeat snow!" he proclaimed and then bent down and tried to bite at the fluffy white stuff. When all he got was a mouthful of the cold powder, he snorted and shook his head vigorously.
"Me Slag melt snow into slag!" Slag said and then began to flame as much of the snow around him as he could reach. Next to him, Sludge apparently missed the memo that the snow was the enemy, and instead decided he felt like rolling around in it instead. He flopped his huge body onto the floor, crushing a few tables and forcing some nearby Autobots to scatter, and then delighted himself in wriggling all around in the cold stuff. Meanwhile, Grimlock was now trying to eat as much of it as possible.
The Autobots were stunned, and couldn't decide what to do as they watched the Dinobots both frolic in and attack the snow. "This is insane," Prowl finally said.
Jazz could only chuckle at the sight. "I don't know, but they look pretty happy! I say: let it snow, man!"
Author's Notes: And then there's that. Well, who knows when my next update will be, I'm back in class and I have another story I want to work on. So until we meet again, happy New Year, and drive safely!