Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers Prime. I only own the OC George Edwards/Bladewolf.
Three jours and a mega-cycle - that was how long it had been since I came to be in this reality, but it felt much longer. The Decepticons have been completely inactive since Optimus and Bumblebee offlined Skyquake.
My training was finally completed a few solar-cycles ago. I was now a full-fledged member of the Autobots. The last stage of training was simply learning how to drive and fly in my alt modes. I found driving my ground mode easier than flying in jet form, but the flying was getting easier.
Right now, I was in my room in human form, checking out my powers that came with being Techno-Organic. ratchet had advised me to be careful when doing so in human form, but what he doesn't know won't hurt him or anybody else, right? I then brought out the EDK Techvolt and then thought of a Photon Burst Rifle. When I imagined it took the Techvolt's place. To be honest I was expecting it to be heavy and weigh a tonne, but it was surprisingly light. It wasn't heavy or weightless it was like it as built for me.
"Hmm..." I hummed to myself before I then made a Path Blaster appear switching out from the Photon Burst Rifle. "I should really test these abilities out more than just doing so in Cybertronian form."
"Enjoying yourself?" A familiar voice asked behind me.
"Gah!" I jumped and whirled around only to see Arcee standing in the open doorway with her hands on her hips, an optic ridge raised."Arcee! Uh... this... looks exactly like what you think."
"Didn't Ratchet tell you to be careful when using your abilities in human form?" Arcee reminded me.
"Yeah, but what he doesn't know won't hurt him... you won't tell, right?" I asked worriedly.
Arcee chuckled as she entered the room and sat on the berth, crossing a leg over the other. "Don't worry, you're not in trouble. Just came to tell you that Optimus wants to see you."
"What for?" I asked curiously.
"Not sure." She said with a shrug. "But we'll find out if we go see him."
"True." I said and put away my weapons and my arms went back to normal as I followed Arcee out my room, shutting the door afterwards. We strolled down to the main ops center where we saw Optimus and Ratchet at the monitors. "Optimus."
The Prime turned to me upon me calling his name. "George, Ratchet has detected an anomaly on the continent of the Arctic. Seeing as Cliffjumper is still out on Energon patrol, I want you, Bulkhead and Bumblebee to investigate this. Bulkhead will lead the mission." He said.
"The Arctic huh? That should be interesting, it's freezing cold there." I said with crossed servos, dreading that my first official mission was going to be on the freezing continent. Wait the Arctic? That means... oh scrap.
"Can we get this over with?" Bumblebee asked, sounding as if he was also dreading this mission.
Bulkhead sighed, "Yeah, let's get going." He grabbed a scanner from Ratchet's workstation and turned toward the now activated Groundbridge as I changed into Cybertronian form.
"Good luck." Arcee told me.
"I'll need it in that weather." I said with a sigh.
The three of us were stopped by Ratchet before we could take three steps.
"Remember, no going into vehicle form while in the Antarctic. Transforming would drop your energy levels at much higher rates." He said gruffly, as if he was annoyed that he had to say this. I learned when Ratchet was actually mad and when he was concerned. Right now he was making sure we didn't become icicles. We acknowledged Ratchet's words and stepped through the ground bridge.
I. Hate. The. Cold.
But I knew what I was walking into when knowing it was the Arctic I was going to. My optics adjusted for the low amount of light, and the Arctic went from night to day. Snow was blowing at a good rate but thankfully it wasn't a whiteout. We had good visibility for about a half-kilometer.
"Now which way do we go?" I heard Bulkhead say to himself.
"You're the one with the scanner Bulkhead, you tell us." I said, not turning to look at the Wrecker.
Bulkhead held the scanner in front of his optics. "The scanner's reading says the anomaly is that way, south." He said, pointing a digit to his right. We started in the direction Bulkhead pointed.
Ten klicks past before one of us spoke. "Am I the only one that's freezing his aft off?" Bumblebee asked, shivering slightly.
"You're not alone in that Bee. This place sucks the life out of you." Bulkhead said.
"Think it's cold here? You should go to Antarctica at the bottom of the world. It's very. very cold there that a human would freeze in die in minutes without the proper clothing to keep themselves warm." I said.
"Well, that's-" Bulkhead was cut off by a blaster shot hit the ground next to Bumblebee.
"Sniper! Get down!" Bumblebee yelled, as he took cover behind an icy boulder. Bulkhead and I found cover next to a large snow bank about twenty meters from Bumblebee.
"Hey! You alright?" I called over to Bee.
"Yeah I'm good, you see where that came from?" Bumblebee answered my question, and asked Bulkhead one his of own.
"I didn't see the shot but I saw a ridge not far from here. My guess is that's where he is." Was Bulkhead's reply.
Looking to my right I saw that the snow bank we were hiding behind was the beginning of a small canyon that continued in the direction of the sniper.
"Hey Bulkhead, you think we could use this to flank him?" I asked, moving so he could see what I did.
He nodded his helm, "This could work, Bee! Keep his attention on you." He said toward the scout.
"Got it, and good hunting." Bumblebee ran out from the cover of the boulder, and dodged another shot from the sniper.
"Let's move." Bulkhead stayed close to the snow bank as we started running toward the sniper.
Three more shots sounded in a row and Bumblebee comm-linked us. "There are at least two snipers, one with a semi-automatic and the other with a single shot rifle." He closed the link before we responded.
Bulkhead and I slowed as one of the snipers fired again, this time they sounded as if they were right above us. Bulkhead put a digit to his lips and pointed up, his meaning was clear - 'Climb.' I started climbing as quietly as I could, with Bulkhead to the left and below me. I reached the top of the canyon and cautiously looked over the ledge.
Four Decepticon drones were on the top of the ridge Bulkhead talked about. Two of them seemed to be the spotters and the other two held large scoped rifles. that was weird. In the episode, Bulkhead and Bumblebee didn't encounter any Decepticons in the Arctic. Bulkhead stopped next to me, and he too looked over the ledge.
After a micro-klick he looked at me and pointed two digits toward me, then at himself, 'Two for you, and two for me.' I gave a slight nod and crept over the ledge. I saw Bulkhead doing the same out of the corner of my optic.
We deployed our weapons at the same time. Bulkhead went with his clubs, and I used my katanas. The cons turned their helms at the sound of our deployed weapons.
I threw one of my katanas like a javelin and it pierced right through the faceplate of one of the 'Cons, then I deployed a Path Blaster with my free arm and shot down the other sniper. Bulkhead took care of the other two quickly.
It was over in less than three micro-klicks, but I found myself looking at the sniper's offlined chassis far longer. Did he volunteer to become a Decepticon? Or was he forced to become one? Did he wish the war on Cybertron never happened? Or did he wish that it never ended? I asked myself these questions until Bulkhead brought me out of my thoughts.
"He would have done the same to you, kid." I glanced at Bulkhead. He was standing to my left and giving me a knowing look.
"I know... but it doesn't make it any easier" I said in a quiet voice. Bulkhead nodded
"I know it may sound cold, but you get used to it. Tell Bee we dealt with the snipers." He walked back to the ledge after that.
I opened a comm-link to Bumblebee, "The snipers are offline Bee." I closed the link, and with a last look at the sniper's chassis, followed Bulkhead down the ledge.
We didn't encounter any more Decepticons after that. Those four were probably here looking for Energon and we intercepted them as we searched for the anomaly. It had been forty klicks since we left base, and we had spent the last ten walking in a circle.
"Come on Bulkhead, there's nothing here. Let's call for a bridge and get back to base." Bumblebee obviously was fed up with the Antarctic.
"I know it's here somewhere, the scanner's reading is off the meter" Bulkhead said, tapping the scanner like that was the problem.
I noticed that we were standing on the top of a steep hill the whole time. I looked around with narrowed optics before spotting a frozen lake... and what appeared to be some kind of dark object underneath it. Unsheathing one of my katanas, I slid down the hill and dug the blade into the snow for a better descent.
"Come on, back me up on this Blade... Bladewolf?" I heard Bee ask from the top of the hill.
"I'm down here! And I think I found it!" I yelled, crouching next the dark object in the lake. Soon, I heard both of them sliding down the hill. "Watch out for that last part it's..." *CRASH* "...Tricky" I finished saying with a wince and turned around.
The sight that greeted my vision had me struggling not to laugh, which was more than I could say about Bumblebee. The scout was rolling on the ground laughing so hard that he couldn't even speak. Bulkhead was the reason for Bee's laughter. The Wrecker had tripped on the last part of the hill, and now was laying faceplate down on the ice. A spider web of cracks was visible in the ice around his chassis.
"Uhhh... just help me up." Bulkhead said weakly. I grabbed his shoulder-joints and pulled him up off the ice. "Don't tell Miko about that."
"We won't." I said and shared a look with Bumblebee, both of us very much intending to tell Miko about this.
"Now, where is it?" the Wrecker asked me, giving the still-laughing Bumblebee a sour look as he got to his pedes.
"It's over here, in the frozen lake." I pointed at the object under the ice. Bulkhead looked back to the top of the hill.
"How the pit did you see that?" He asked me with raised optic ridges.
"Wasn't easy, all I saw was a faint dark thing and knew it was out of place here." I said, looking down at the dark object. "If I remember correctly from the show, we really shouldn't bring this back with us... but if we can keep it frozen then we can figure out what to do with it."
"Why? What's in it?" Bulkhead asked.
"If I told you, you'd want to leave it here... but we can't do that in the off chance the Decepticons come back and find it." I said, trying to think logically about this. "And this is something I'd rather not see the Decepticons gain a hold of."
Then again, they'd probably want it destroyed as soon as they find out what's inside.
"Um... how are we going to get this back to base?" Bumblebee said, looking down at the dark object. He raised a good point, how were we going to this to base?
We had spent another ten klicks figuring that out. In the end, Bulkhead just had me shoot the middle of the frozen lake with a Heavy Weapon to crack the ice. We called for a Groundbridge immediately after we got the pod-like object out of the lake.
The moment Bulkhead, Bumblebee and I rolled the pod into a storage hanger so we can discuss what to do with it after I advised Optimus to leave it frozen, Ratchet pulled us to his med-bay for what he called 'Standard Defrosting Procedure.' Bulkhead was fed up after five klicks.
"I told you, doc, we're fine." The Wrecker pulled out a medical cable Ratchet hooked up to his chestplates as he tried to stand. The medic made him sit back down before he could fully stand.
"The way to be certain you're fine, Bulkhead, is to endure standard defrosting procedure. You know prolonged exposure to sub-zero conditions can cause permanent system damage." Ratchet said, reattaching the cable.
I rolled my optics at Ratchet's words but didn't say anything. Optimus and Arcee entered the med bay and walked toward us. "Ratchet, have you learned anything more about our Arctic find?" Optimus asked.
The medic shook his helm. "No, and we won't know anything more unless Bladewolf here tells us why we should leave it frozen."
"Can't tell you everything, remember." I said with another roll of my optics. "I hate having foreknowledge. All you need to know is it should be kept frozen until we can find a place to dump it and leave it or even destroy it before it's thawed."
Optimus looked at the image of the pod on the main screen for a moment. "Bulkhead, Bumblebee, bring our human charges to base." He said, much to the relief of Bulkhead and Bee. He then turned to me. "Bladewolf, you will accompany Arcee and I in the Arctic for clues about our find."
I nodded and started getting up, but Ratchet grabbed my shoulder-joint. "Ohhh no you don't, Optimus, as your chief medical officer I can't allow him to go back to out there until he finishes the defrosting procedure." Ratchet said to Optimus in a 'Don't make me pull medical rank on you' voice. Optimus nodded in understanding and I gave a slight sigh.
It was another twenty klicks before the defrosting procedure was complete, and Ratchet activated the ground bridge. The medic turned from his workstation "Only search until your sensors sound, remember..." Ratchet held a data pad toward us "...Once your core temperature drops into the blue zone..." He pressed a button on the data pad and a beeping sound came from our Autobot insignia's. "...System failures aren't likely, they're imminent." Ratchet concluded, and put the data pad back on his workstation. I heard the sound of Bulkhead and Bumblebee's engines from the entrance tunnel. They both stopped next to Ratchet and Miko, Jack and Raf climbed out.
"Miss us doc bot!" Miko asked jokingly.
Ratchet sighed, "Can't they just go to school?" He looked at Optimus with a tinge of hope.
Miko gave him an annoyed look, "It's Saturday. Duh, we have the whole weekend off to spend with you."
This was basically what would happen every Saturday. Ratchet would ask why they couldn't be in school, and then Miko would tease Ratchet. He would then grumble and stand at his workstation. This would repeat the following weekend.
Jack walked by Ratchet and gave the medic a slight wave. "I wasn't expecting a car-pool, what gives Arcee?" he asked his guardian.
"Tag team Jack. My turn for exploration duty." She replied, putting her servos on her curvy hips.
"Well too bad, it's a beautiful day for a ride, I'd hate to make you feel guilty for leaving me inside." Jack said teasingly, trying to go with us. When he said that I felt something stir up inside me. I don't what it was but it came in a brief second or two. It might be nothing, probably because of the cold I was in.
"Arctic exploration duty." Arcee rephrased amusingly.
"Inside where it's warm." Jack quickly said, pointing to the human area and walking towards it.
Raf, having heard what Arcee said, walked over. "You're going to the Arctic? I've always wanted to see snow!" In the time I knew Raf I had rarely seen him so excited about something.
Optimus sighed lightly, "I would invite you to join Rafael, but the conditions are much too extreme even for Autobots." He said, gently putting down Raf's hopes.
Raf looked saddened by this, but nodded none-the-less. "I... understand." He forced a smile. Optimus, Arcee and I turned to walk into the Groundbridge, but the Prime looked back at Raf, stopping us.
"But, I will bring you back a snow ball." He said, smiling slightly at Raf. Arcee and I shared amused smiles.
Raf seemed overjoyed by this "That would be awesome." His smile was genuine now. Optimus led Arcee and I through the Groundbridge after that. As we left I really hoped the pod would remain frozen and it's contents would not escape.
But when do things ever go the way people want them to?
When we past through the Groundbridge, I immediately noticed the wind had picked up since I was here with Bulkhead and Bumblebee. My optics adjusted to the darkness and I saw that visibility was down to about fifty meters.
"How are we going to find anything in this?" Arcee asked, looking at the rather bleak conditions.
"Luck?" I answered, giving her a small shrug.
"Autobots, split up, we will cover more ground." Optimus said to Arcee and I. We all picked different directions and walked. This was the Arctic after all, it was the closest thing to a wasteland I had seen. I found nothing but snow and rocks in the direction I picked.
It was over a breem before Optimus opened a comm-link to Arcee and I. "Arcee, Bladewolf, status updates."
Arcee responded first, "Nothing unusual on my end, and my sensor just went off. Guess we should call for a pick-up before things get chilly." She reported evenly.
"I didn't find anything either, my sensor still hasn't gone off, but if Arcee's sensor went off then it's only a matter of time." I looked up at the sky nervously. It was starting to snow, a rarity in Arctic, and my visibility was down to twenty meters. The already bad weather was about to become a blizzard.
"Understood." Was all Optimus said about our updates, and then he opened our comm-link to base. "Optimus to base. The core temperature readings on Arcee and I have reached the blue zone. We are requesting a Groundbridge." Static was the only response from base.
Oh no...
"Well, that's not good." Arcee commented. She didn't seem nervous about our lack of a response.
"Autobots, regroup at my position." Optimus sent his coordinates through the comm-link. He was only about three kilometers from my own position. I closed my end of the comm-link and walked in his direction.
Arcee and Optimus were standing next to each other by the time I arrived. "We need to seek shelter, the longer we stay out in the open, the lower our core temperatures fall." Optimus said, the moment I joined him and Arcee.
"I saw a snow bank large enough for all of us to fit inside if we tunneled into it." I said, pointing in the direction I just walked from.
Optimus nodded "Then lead the way, Bladewolf."
The weather became even worse as we started toward the snow bank, visibility was no more than five meters with all the falling snow and wind. It was a true blizzard now. Our progress had slowed to a crawl as Arcee said jokingly, "Are we sure a nice long drive wouldn't help? I hear Miami's beautiful this time of year!"
I didn't miss a beat, "I've been to Miami, I didn't like it that much. I recommend Hawaii." I said over my shoulder-joint. Optimus being the ever serious one, didn't pay attention to our conversation, he seemed to be trying to contact base again.
The snow bank I saw had only been about a half-kilometer away, but it took us a breem to finally get to it in the blizzard, and another half-breem before our shelter was large enough for the three of us.
My sensor finally went off after I sat down next to the entrance of our shelter. "It's about time that thing went off, I was beginning to think you were made out of ice." Arcee said, as she sat in the back of the shelter, which was only about ten meters from where I sat.
"Well, now that it has, let's hope Ratchet sends us a Groundbridge soon." I said. Our shelter became quiet as I watched the snow go by. Fifteen klicks later I turned away from looking at the blizzard. "I hate the cold."
"Same here." Arcee said in agreement before she let out a grim laugh. "You know, I always thought I'd offline fighting on Cybertron not slowly freezing on a world in a completely different galaxy." She was struggling to keep her optics open.
Over the wind I heard the sound of a Groundbridge activating. I climbed outside. The blizzard had died down enough that I could see a Groundbridge about a hundred meters away. That made me hope my CPU wasn't tricking me.
"Optimus." I said tiredly, starting to feel the weather's affects. The Prime slowly got up from his sitting position and looked at the Groundbridge. He widened his optics and shook Arcee's shoulder-joint.
"Arcee, Ratchet has sent us a Groundbridge. We need to move." He said, and climbed out of the shelter. Arcee didn't say anything, but took my offered servo to help her out of the shelter.
The Groundbridge was only about a hundred meters away, but in our condition that might as well have been the other side of the world. We moved painfully slow and I knew it, but there was nothing we could do except walk.
When we were about a quarter of way to the Groundbridge, I saw Bulkhead pass through it. He seemed to be limping, and the three of us stopped and looked at him curiously. Bulkhead raised a servo to his mouth and yelled. "Down! Get down!" He then fell on to his chestplates and a horde of... Scraplets flew over him.
None of us were in any condition to fight, all I could do was narrow my optics and stand straighter as the horde approached. My feeling of dread left me as the horde reached us and countless little frozen metal spheres bounced off our armor. Arcee, Optimus and I looked at each other confused, then at Bulkhead.
"I'd invite you in... but the place is a mess." Bulkhead said, as he picked himself up off the ground.
"It's got to be better than this place." Arcee said, as I helped her walk toward the Groundbridge. Bulkhead put one of Optimus' servos over his shoulder-joints to support the Prime and followed us.
"Wait." Optimus said, making Arcee and I share a curious look and turn toward Bulkhead and Optimus. While still being supported by Bulkhead, Optimus reached down and picked up a servo full of snow.
"Keeping his promise to Raf." I said quietly, Arcee nodded and we past through the ground bridge.
Thousands more of those metal spheres littered the floor back at base. I looked up and saw Ratchet and Bumblebee slowly getting up from the floor. They had wounds scattered across their frames that looked like bite marks.
"You know... I said keep the pod frozen." I said upon seeing their state.
"Apparently we didn't know the heating in this place was on." Ratchet countered in his usual manner before narrowing his optics. "But we'd know what to have done if we knew what was inside."
"Can't tell you everything. Abusing foreknowledge is dangerous." I said as we all got set up in the med-bay for repairs or defrosting in mine, Arcee and Optimus' case. I set Arcee down on the one right next to the door. I couldn't walk anymore, and I sat on the floor next to the medical berth Arcee was occupying. "I officially hate the Arctic."
I heard rather than saw Arcee raise a servo. "I second that." She said, and then let her servo drop back to the berth.
Since the med-bay only had two berths Optimus sat down against the wall next to Ratchet. Before resting against the wall, Optimus set the massive ball of snow he picked up next to Raf. The look of pure joy that Raf still has on his face made me smile. Jack left the med-bay for a klick, then he returned carrying two laptops. Ratchet linked the computers into the medical equipment, and since he was injured, Raf, Miko and Jack would have to treat our wounds. After Ratchet instructed the three on how to hook up the defrosting cables to Optimus, Arcee and me, they started work on Bulkhead, Bumblebee and Ratchet himself.
"Report on bio-circuitry status." Ratchet said, after Raf hooked him up to the Cybertronian equivalent of an IV.
"All levels are rising" Jack said to the medic over his shoulder.
Ratchet nodded "Excellent, now Rafael, keep a close watch on Bumblebee's electro-pulse monitor. Miko, make sure Bulkhead's energon line doesn't reopen." Raf and Miko didn't say anything and went to follow Ratchet's instructions. Optimus and Ratchet started a conversation I couldn't hear.
"Cliffjumper will never let us hear the end of this." I remarked to Arcee as I leaned back against her berth.
"No, he won't." She said with a sigh. "Almost offlined by freezing temperatures he'll never let us forget it. But he's lucky he wasn't here or he'd have been Scraplet food."
"True." I said with a nod. "Least we're still here to fight another day."
"True." She chuckled weakly. Unbeknownst to us, at some point, we had grabbed each other's servos and he'd servos tightly.
"AHHHHHHHH!" Miko screamed in a loud enough voice that I covered my audio-receptor.
"What is it? Is it a scraplet?" Jack asked, looking around urgently and holding a small fire extinguisher in his left hand and a crowbar in his left. Raf also was looking around the med-bay as he held a piece of pipe.
"SPIDER! Is it on me!" Miko started running around the med-bay, jumping in the air and randomly grabbing parts of her back like there were things crawling all over her.
Jack dropped both his fire extinguisher and crowbar. He then preceeded to face palm. "Did she just scream like a little girl?" Bulkhead asked, watching as Miko started a very impressive string of curses in both Japanese and English.
I looked down at the floor and saw a spider no more than an inch long crawling on the floor.
"Oh for crying out loud..." I said, with a shake of my helm. I deployed Scatter-Blaster and cocked it for no other reason that it sounded cool, and brought the barrel to within a foot of the spider. The Scatter-Blaster was much louder in the confined space of the med-bay than anywhere else I had shot it, and I basically vaporized part of the floor.
"It's dead Miko." I said dryly, returning my servo to normal. It was then that I noticed everyone save Miko, since she still hadn't acknowledged my words, was looking at me in shock. "What?" I asked casually, giving them all a shrug.
Miko peaked around from her hiding spot next to Bumblebee's medical berth. "Are you sure it's dead?" She asked, sounding truly terrified of the spider.
I gave her a disbelieving look and said sarcastically. "No, I only winged him, it's trying to crawl out of the small crater my Scatter-Blaster just made in the floor."
"I have arachnophobia, okay?" Miko was obviously annoyed as I had just made fun of her. She was also slightly embarrassed at how she handled the situation judging by the faint shade of pink in her cheeks.
"And I have getting-shot-at-itis." A wrench hit me in the side of the helm as I said my smart remark.
"AND I HAVE A HOLE IN MY FLOOR!"
Need I reveal who said that?
And that's it or this chapter. Yeah, George wasn't at base to deal with Scraplets... but he and Arcee are getting closer with each other, they're already holding servos without knowing it.
Mech=Man.
Femme=Woman.
Carrier=Mother.
Sire=Father.
Helm=head.
Optics=eyes.
Audio Receptors=ears.
Shoulder-Joints=self-explanatory.
Backplates=again self-explanatory.
Chestplates=don't make me say self-explanatory again... Wait.
Servos=hands/arms.
Digit=finger.
Pedes=legs.
Spark=basically a Cybertronian's soul.
Chassis=body.
Frame=also a term for body, but used differently.
CPU=brain.
Processor=can also be a term for brain.
Astro-Klick=one millisecond.
Nano-Klick=one-tenth of a second.
Micro-Klick=one second.
Klick=one minute.
Breem=one hour.
Solar-Cycle=one day.
Mega-Cycle=one week.
Jour=one month.
Orbital-Cycle=one year.
Vorn=eighty three years.
Centi-Vorn=eight thousand three hundred years.