You know, I don't think I ever said these would be in chronological order, and if I did? I LIED. MUAHAHAHA!
Chapter Summary: A quick peek at the perspectives of Bumblebee and the crew of Teletraan-1.
- CHAPTER ONE -
"Ugh... You alright, Bulkead?" Bumblebee asked dazedly, shaking his head to rid himself of his dizziness.
Bulkhead groaned.
"U-uhh... Yeah, I think so... Wh-what was with all that glowy stuff with the Allspark?"
"Dunno," Bumblebee replied uncertainly, glancing back at the container which held the most powerful energy source in the known universe.. Which was then that he found himself lifting off his pedes, and Bumblebee latched onto Bulkhead automatically when he realized his friend was also rising above the floor. A stray box or two levitated, and Bumblebee frowned.
"Is something damaged in the ship's systems or did someone turn off the gravity?" He asked. Bulkhead frowned.
"I thought the gravity functions could only be offlined manually though?" He questioned. Bumblebee pushed himself, using Bulkhead's body as a propeller through the empty space.
"I'll go check it out really quick."
"Wh-what? But Optimus said to guard the Allspark!" Bulkhead protested. Bumblebee called back over his shoulder,
"Yeah, but they might need help!"
"You... Ohh, alright! Just give me a nanoklik here, Bumblebee!" Bumblebee snickered at the sounds of Bulkhead bumping into things for a couple of kliks before continuing forward down the hallway, ducking underthings likethe stray wrench or whatnot taking flight without gravity holding them down.
"Hey, who turned off the-?!" Bumblebee started, floating into the command room unsteadily, when Bulkhead bumped right into him.
"Sorry, my bad!" Bulkhead called. The motion propelled him forward with no gravity to slow him down, because what's in motion stays in motion, blah blah, inertia was basic science and Holy Primus this was Megatron.
"Know what? You're even uglier from this angle!" Bumblebee taunted, because self-preservation was a myth, and Megatron's faceplate shifted murderously.
"Scarier too," Bumblebee added as the mech tried to slice or stab him with his rather terrifying blade, and then he was rather distracted by trying to survive and not die, which was helped thanks to Prowl using Megatron's moment of distraction to get a pretty decent hit in.
"-kill you 'bots to say heads up or, I don't know-" Bumblebee heard Optimus complaining loudly, just as Ratchet called out,
"Incoming!"
The piece of scrap Ratchet hit Megatron with sent him flying back, right into the ship's flight console.
The gravity was restored by the hit, but Bumblebee found himself thrown back. He had enough presence of mind to notice Bulkhead and Optimus land on either side of the corridor that Bumblebee himself was thrown down. He landed with a crash against the hard metal containers stacked in a pile in the loading bay. A heavy weight dropped on his chasis, and Bumblebee onlined an optic to see Megatron's huge - as in enormously huge, the kind of huge that made him look like a sparkling when standing next to Bulkhead kind of huge - figure standing right over him.
Literally, Bumblebee thought with a hysterical hitch in his ventilation as Megatron's pede - larger than Bumblebee's entire torso - pressed down on him.
"Now bring me the Allspark, and I may spare your miserable, Autobot lives."
Bumblebee flinched as Megatron raised his sword, stingers sparking with agitation, butthen the Decepticon warlord's attention was drawn by the glowing blue energy that was the Allspark. The much older mech was distracted, and that moment was all Bumblebee needed to see the
"Warning: Docking tile deployed."
Bumblebee had a moment of victory at Megatron's expression before they were both sucked right out of the ship
Onlining his optics with a start, Bumblebee gave a pitiful groan as his sensors indicated several wounded areas in his systems, not to mention that his paint was scratched from his fall. The quick flash of orange that was already distantly fading showed just how far away his team on Teletraan-1 was, and how much further they were quickly becoming by the nanoklik.
"Aw, frag."
"Optimus!" Ratchet called when he saw the young Prime run back into the command room, "What happened to-?!"
"Everyone to the stasis pods!" Optimus demanded.
Ratchet's jaw tightened. Bumblebee was a good if usually obnoxious younging and didn't deserve whatever Megatron had no doubt done to him, which was the only explanation for why the young 'bot wasn't among them.
"But what about you?" Bulkhead protested, head swiveling as though he half-expected Bumblebee to pop out of the ventilation shafts smugly.
"Not until I steer us clear of this populated sector!"
"What woke us up?" Optimus asked, and Prowl crouched,
"I would assume this-gah!"
Ratchet used his magnets to pick up the thing that had latched onto Prowl's servo when he tried picking it up.
"H-how long have we been in stasis?" Bulkhead immediately asked, blue optics worried, and Optimus frowned.
"I'm not sure. Ratchet?"
The medic, having already wandered over to the console, answered distractedly.
"A bit less than fifty megacycles at a rough estimate, so definitely less than a vorn." Was the incredibly unhelpful answer.
Bulkhead wheezed.
"But-but Bumblebee!" The large mech gestured helplessly, and Optimus internally winced. He couldn't say he had actually known the 'bot all that well, but Bumblebee had without a doubt been incredibly brave by opening the cargo bay and sacrificing himself like that.
"I'm going t have to analyze this," Ratchet interrupted his train of thought, and Optimus looked over at him still holding what had attacked Prowl. "It's nanotechnology and... Something else."
Optimus nodded, and spoke then to the ship's computer.
"Teletraan-1, send a drone out so we can get a good look."
Optimus hoped there weren't very many things like what Ratchet was holding, however. Bumblebee wouldn't have lasted an orn if there were.
"Crap! You know, Isaac, it would be pretty freaking cool if you would warn me whenever you're screwing around with nanotech!"
Bumblebee dodged another swing of the technologized-beetle's fleshy tentacles as his old friend's voice came over his comm.
"Sorry, Bumblebee, you know how I-Sari!" Isaac suddenly cut himself off in a horrified gasp, and Bumblebee immediately swiveled to see Isaac's daughter out in the open, staring fearfully up at the beetle just as a tentacle was grabbing her.
Bumblebee saw red.
He leapt forward without thinking, stingers activated and electricity bouncing off dangerously. Quick as possible, Bumblebee shot a bolt strong enough to slice through the nano-flesh. Sari screamed, and Bumblebee would have winced at the high pitch at any other time. As it was, however, he simply caught her and began sprinting towards Isaac was standing near Officer Fanzone.
"Thanks, Uncle Bee," Said Sari, relief evident in her voice, and Bumblebee smiled at her winningly.
"No prob, Sari! Though, uh, let's not follow Sparkplug into dangerous places anymore, okay?"
Sari grinned sheepishly but was saved from responding by a loud crash behind them. Bumblebee skidded to a halt to look back, and his optics widened.
"What the-?!" Fanzone squawked in his audio receptor, and Bumblebee definitely understood where he was coming from in this case.
"WHO THE FREAKING PIT DISOBEYED DIRECT ORDERS AND GOT NEAR THE FLESHY PILE OF NANO-TECH?" Bumblebee roared furiously. Sari winced at the expression on his face, so Bumblebee was sure he looked as infuriated as he felt.
When he got his servos on whatever fucking idiots (because cybertronian swearing just didn't get the message across) did so, they were so. Freaking. Fired. This was why Bumblebee hadn't wanted Harry to go to England for the month; Harry could actually get Isaac to use his Primus-given brain more carefully so that they avoided messes like these!
And then the group of cars in front of the beetle transformed, and Bumblebee's processor stalled.
What.
What?
What?!
Optimus took in the... the whatever it was with wide optics before they narrowed dangerously. He drew his axe, but Prowl chose just then to leap forward without any warning.
"Prowl!" Optimus called, "Don't just jump in!"
The ninja ignored his warning, throwing an explosive shuriken. The beast seemed to almost absorb the impact into its squishy surface area before roaring angrily. It's tentacles lashed out wildly, hitting both Prowl and Bulkhead. Optimus dodged, slicing into the tentacle with his axe as he did.
Just then, an intense bolt of electricity shot into the beast, startling the three Autobots. Optimus turned around, and he didn't know what he expected to see, but it certainly wasn't a Bumblebee with stingers activated, one optic online and staring in bewilderment at them while the other was gray, cracked and offline. His yellow paint was shinier than when Optimus had seen him get thrown out of Teletraan-1.
"Guys?" Bumblebee said, and there was a staticky dissonance to his voice as if he'd been damaged and repaired wrong.
"Bumblebee!" Cried Bulkhead, relief obvious in his voice, and the minibot suddenly smirked.
"Well isn't this a way to start a party!" He said in his too-odd voice, a wide grin on his faceplate, but then his features hardened as he looked at the beast.
"Well, almost," Bumblebee then amended as his facemask activated. His stingers sparked with more energy than Optimus had ever seen from the mech, and Optimus realized with a start that the safety features had somehow been deactivated.
"Let's get this over with," the yellow Autobot said, something smug about the way he spoke.
Ratchet just's voice came on the comm. just then.
"Prime! Is that Bumblebee?! No, nevermind; I've figured out how to stop this thing, but the tech is primitive enough that you'll have to manually offline it!"
"And how do we do that?" Optimus asked, distracted by Bumblebee's sudden appearance until a tentacle nearly knocked him clean off his pedes.
Ratchet's response was immediate.
"I'm sending you an override, but you'll have to get inside of there to activate it!"
Prowl slid under a tentacle, slicing the one that had gotten ahold of Bulkhead as he did so.
The drone from Teletraan-1 offered the key, and Optimus took it quickly.
"Bumblebee!" He called out, optics darting as he tried to catch sight of the bright yellow mech until his voice came from his side,
"Yeah, Prime?"
Optimus didn't jump only because he was so tense, and quickly turned to the smaller 'bot.
"We need someone fast and small to get in there and use this, can you do that?"
Bumblebee smirked, which made for an odd expression with one of his optics so damaged.
"Please, who d'you think you're talking to?"
"Gah!"
Optimus turned to see a tentacle had grabbed ahold of Prowl, who struggled as he was slowly absorbed into the beast.
"Prowl! Hurry, Bumblebee!"
There was a surprised noise from the 'bot, as if he hadn't anticipated being contacted on his commlink.
(Which, Optimus reflected with a surge of guilt, if he was the only online cybertronian on this planet this whole time, is probably true enough.)
"Uh, right! On it, Bossbot!" Bumblebee acknowledged, and shot off the top of the building. The beast turned towards Bumblebee only for it to swallow the mech whole. A beat passed, and Optimus' spark went cold as he suspected Ratchet's key had failed, only for the beast to turn to ashes before his very optics.
Bumblebee climbed out of the ash easily, brushing himself off.
"Ha!" He crowed, kicking the pasty powder. Optimus approached him, but as he reached the youngling he realized he had no idea what to say. Sorry for not challenging Megatron himself? What did one even say in this kind of circumstance?
Bumblebee looked up as Optimus approached, and his expression closed off even as his protective mask opened.
"... Hey, Bossbot. Long time no see?"
Optimus would have responded had Bulkhead not chosen that moment to approach, wrapping Bumblebee in a strut-crushing embrace.
"Bumblebee! I'm so glad to see you're okay! You are okay, right?" He then said, eying Bumblebee's offline optic, and the younger mech wheezed. Bulkhead still hadn't let him down to answer.
"Hrk-Bulkheeeaaad!" The mech whined, and Optimus had a sudden flash of insight. Things would be okay, he was sure. maybe not right away, or anytime soon, but... Someday.
They would be okay.