Chapter 9

I was silent as I stared at the small innocent looking grey robot. Its large purple eyes briefly opened, curious of the new organic, before snuggling deeper into Raf's arms to return to sleep. It's eyes seemed to take up most of its small body, and it had multiple thin pincer like appendages that were tucked underneath itself and around Rafs arm. The only signs it was alive was the occasional twitch of its legs.

A deep expanding fear engrossed me as my eyes stayed transfixed on the small form. Said fear quickly mixed with anxiety and panic as I realized that: One, Raf was carrying the dangerous Scraplet and, two, that the Autobots were in extreme danger due to these things eating everything metal in sight, especially living metal. The Scraplets would be all over the base by now, and an image of their whirling mouths of razor sharp teeth caused me to tense. These things would eat everything in the base unless we could manage to contain them. They had to of come from the pod and got out as it defrosted. I mentally cursed myself for not figuring out what was happening sooner, the whole situation seemed so familiar to me. I should have caught this.

"Rachel?" Raf asked hesitantly. His voice pulled me out of my swirling emotions as I blinked and looked at him. He had an uncertain and apprehensive expression, and I realized that I was scaring him. I pushed my emotions down.

"Raf, put it down," I demanded as coolly as I could manage.

"What? Why?" He asked confused. I stared down at him and frowned.

"It's dangerous, we need to inform the Bots of the infestation." Raf pulled the Scraplet closer to him and seemed to curl into himself to protect the small robot.

"What are you talking about?! It's harmless! It hasn't hurt me at all, and it's really friendly!" Raf insisted. He seemed resolute not to leave the Scraplet behind, and my frown deepened. We didn't have time for this. The longer the Autobots were unaware of the infestation, the more the Scraplets would eat at important controls and eventually find and try to eat the Cybertronians. Not to mention that with Optimus and Arcee out in the Arctic, they were at serious risk of death. The Groundbridge problem won't be solved until the Scraplet one is. In the show, if I wasn't mistaken, Arcee and Optimus had almost completely offlined due to the long extent of time they were stuck in the subzero temperatures.

Raf's expression seemed so sad…

Well...we needed proof anyway, and Raf was meant to carry the thing, when he gets a stern talk-to he'll understand that the thing's dangerous.

I shouldn't interfere with the events that are supposed to happen, right? Raf was supposed to show the Bot's the Scraplet.

It still didn't sit right with me, I mean, did I have to put Raf in danger just to fulfill some self-appointed no-interference rule of mine?

"Fine. Which way is back? We should show the Bots." I massaged my nose as I conceded, and Raf's expression lifted up a tad.

"This way," Raf took front, and I followed behind him, trying my best to not make too much noise with my crutches, least the Scraplet wake-up and attack my only source of getting around at the moment. My thoughts went into myself as I tried to recall what happened with the little termites in the show.

Optimus and Arcee almost freeze, that I know, but as far as how we contain the robots…

The cold. We had to gather them all and freeze them into stasis. Of course! That's how we found them, so it made sense that's how we get rid of them too.

The lights in the hall flickered, and I heard a chittering of noises above me in the darkness. The lights then flickered back on, and I realized that I'd slowed down as I was thinking, falling behind Raf.

I quickly hurried to catch up to him.

5

Apparently I get lost easily, as we weren't actually that far from the hangar, just two lefts and a right away. As we got closer to the end of the hallway, Raf hurried his steps forward, determined to prove me wrong about the danger, I guess.

"Hey guys! Look what I found," he shouted out as we came past the threshold into the room. It took me a moment to locate the Bots, who were still servos deep in the Groundbridge. Rachet was holding onto a control board with two singed bite-sized holes in it. At the sudden loud human distraction he looked down to Raf.

"We're busy!" He scolded Raf, shaking his head to turn back to his work.

He did a double take, and his optics locked onto what Raf was holding and went wide in horror.

"AHH!" He screamed, optics filled with fear as he quickly stubled away, dropping the board in his hand. Bulkhead and Bee desperately backed away as fast as they could along with Rachet, their guns out and pointed towards Raf and I.

No, not us, but towards the Scraplet.

"WHOA! WHOA, WHOA!" Bulkhead screamed out, Bee chittered nervously. Panic and fear dosed any sense of reason with them, and I half expected one of them to actually try to fire. Miko and Jack must have had the same thought, as they quickly appeared next to Raf and I, trying to calm down the Bots.

"Hey, hey! What's with you guys?" Miko asked, both her and Jacks hands raised in a placating gesture towards the Bots.

Bulkhead shook his head and jostled his gun, "Scraplet! Scraplet!" He screamed out in horror.

Raf was confused and worried now.

"What's a Scraplet?" he asked.

"Shhh, it's dangerous and we're making too much noise, it'll wake up," I warned, turning my gaze to the Bots and back warily towards the sleeping menace.

"Dangerous? This thing?" Jack scoffed in disbelief, gesturing at the small sleeping bot. "Are you kidding me?"

"You're giant robots!" Miko reminded them a bit too loudly for comfort. "Scrappy here is...teeny." Miko pinched her fingers to demonstrate the scale difference.

"You have no idea of the damage that teeny thing can do!" Bulkhead again shook his head in dismay and backed further away. Wait, was he… shaking?

"He wouldn't hurt anything! We even played a little." Raf insisted again, petting the Scraplets head. It purred.

Well, it was… cute. Aww and it's little eyes are opening from slumber. I can't… I don't think I could sentence this thing to death…

It's head split open to reveal a whirring chain of incisors into an endless mawing death pit and it jumped from Raf's arms darting on it's pincer like legs towards the Autobots.

HOLY SHIT! WHAT THE FUCK! KILL IT! KILL IT WITH FIRE!

Bee and Bulk desperately fired at the small demon bot, but it was too fast. It jumped onto Bees legs, quickly gnawing on his plating leaving gnashing marks as the creature tried to devour the Scout. Bee fell backwards and tried to stop the beast, but it wouldn't stop as it tried to eat through Bees hands when he went to grasp it, moving up his arm. Bee managed to swipe the devouring bot off of him, but it quickly got back up and ran towards Bee, hungry for more. I stood there in shock.

Raf ran up to the bot and began smashing into it's head with a crowbar again and again and again, until sparks we're flying from its dented head, and still Raf did not relent in his attack on the Scraplet. After a few moments, Jack finally managed to stop Raf when he had his hands raised for another attack.

The small bot was reduced to nothing but a tin can.

"Whoa, easy there, killer," Jack joked with a concerned tone, trying to calm Raf down from his rapid breathing and desperate actions. Miko put her hands on Raf's shoulders to console him as he took in deep panting breaths to calm himself down, before he gasped and made his way quickly towards Bee.

I blinked. Did Raf just...? Wow. And I just stood here doing nothing? Damn it, I knew this was going to happen, so why did I put Raf through this?

"Whoa, I did not see that coming," Miko commented and all three of us stared at the beaten remains of the Scraplet.

"I'm sorry Bumblebee!" Raf quickly apologized, and Bee buzzed consolingly to Raf, "Is he going to be okay?" Raf asked the Doc. He was probably examining the damage on Bee's leg.

"Only a mesh wound. He'll live." Rachet said to Raf, still shocked and processing what had just happened. Bulk seemed a upset.

"Now do you believe me?" He admonished Raf. "All Scraplets do is dismantle machinery and eat anything metal - especially living metal." I flinched at Bulks words, and turned my eyes finally turned away from the Scraplet remains to stare at the Bots. My eyes shifted to the "mesh wound" on Bee and I felt a guilt build up in me.

I could have prevented that.

"Well, bugs squashed, game over, right?" Jack assured, though hesitantly.

"No." Rachet frowned. "When it comes to Scraplets, there's never just one… and I fear I know how they got in here." Ratchet got up from where he was kneeling and went over to a monitor, servos quickly typing something in. Whatever it was he was trying to do, Ratchet was getting agitated, grumbling curses under his breath.

"We need to check the pod in hangar seven. For now, it might be best to stick together," Ratchet relented after trying with other green monitors with no such luck.

Bulkhead hit the rock wall behind him in anger, making me jump in surprise.

"Scrap. And we let them in?" He shook his head and he had a guilty weight in his optics.

I shook my own head, trying to clear it. Focus. Priorities. Hints don't harm, they help.

"Optimus and Arcee need to be contacted, who knows how long we'll still be able to keep in touch, they need to be warned of the situation a.s.a.p." I looked at Rachet as I reminded him. He quickly went to another, larger screen and began typing, Arcee and Optimus' signal popping up like it had earlier in the day, but unlike earlier, the whole screen was flickering into static.

"Rachet to Optimus, do you read me? We have a situation," Rachet attempted to put in more commands, but nothing but static continued to come out.

"Maybe we can boost the signal?" Raf offered.

"No no no. This is-" The screens started glitching, and Ratchet quickly tried to save the connection before the screens blanked, but to no avail. They went blank. Ratchet slammed a fist into the keys.

"The Scraplets must have gotten into the com-link system!"

A heavy silence fell over the room.

"How many we dealing with here?" I asked. If we could figure that out, we could determine a course of action. Behind me Miko picked up a crowbar much like the one Raf held, and began swinging it around.

Ratchet shook his head.

"We'll need to go to hangar seven, where the pod is located. We can better determine what we are up against with more information."

"Uh, yeah we'll all go. For...uh… safety," Bulkhead said, clearly not wanting to split up, Bee quickly buzzed in agreement.

"Don't worry Bulk! I'll beat those little things to a pulp!" Miko assured as she swung the crow-bar like it was a bat. I shook my head.

We all began walking towards the hallways, Ratchet in front with a scanner on him, sweeping the area in front of us, Bee was behind him guns out, us humans, and finally Bulk in the back, who was looking around nervously, ready to both simultaneously scream and shoot anything that moved too much. We were all fairly quiet for awhile, trying to stay vigilant in case any Scraplet's were approaching or near-by.

Miko nudged my arm and I looked over at her. She had a mischievous smile on her face.

"This is your first adventure, huh?" She whispered. I frowned.

"This isn't a game Miko," I admonished. She seemed to deflate a little and rolled her eyes, leaning a bit away from me.

"So you're one of those." I looked at her confused. One of those what?

"Like… Jack!" She explained unhelpfully. Still had no idea where she was going with this.

"I'm not like Jack. I assure you." I responded.

"Hey! What's so wrong about being like me?" He asked offended.

"Nothing's wrong I'm just saying-"

"Hush!" Ratchet shut us up. We continued in silence until we reached a large hallway (though really everything was all large) with silver garage doors. Fluorescent bulbs lit the area in between the doors, and as we began going past the garage doors, I noticed many of them were locked down with (probably) Cybertronian technology. Bold black letters were painted above each hangar, and we walked until we reached the one with a seven above it. Rachet walked up to it and began waving his scanner around the door, I guess to ensure it was safe? Or maybe that's just how he opens doors, as the lock came of with ease in Ratchet's hands.

We entered the large hangar (though it was significantly smaller than the main hangar), and it was surprisingly sparse. The large room was framed and supported by the common yellow metal found elsewhere in the base, but placed in multiple places within the room was red heat lamps. A large barely-frozen pod of metal stood in the center of the room, and disturbingly a large hole resided on it's side. Ratchet was maybe ¾ it's size, and the Doc bot was waving his scanner all over the place. I caught Jack's eyes and he shrugged. Guess he had no idea what we were supposed to be looking for either. After a moment Rachet changed his hand tools into a light and flashed the inside. Bulkhead and Bee cowered, while I tensed for a moment expecting a Scraplet to jump out from the pod.

But the light revealed nothing. The pod was completely empty inside.

One thing for sure though, was that whatever was inside busted out already.

"It's a trap - a Scraplet trap."

"Uh, an empty Scraplet trap," Bulkhead noted. I swear, if Cybertronians could gulp, that's what Bulkhead would be doing.

"Most likely ejected into space eons ago, only to wind up in the Arctic, where the temperature kept them in stasis."

"Until we brought the thaw," Jack finished the trail of though the Bots had gone down.

"Now they're wide awake and ready to brunch," Miko said, was that seriously? Did she understand that this was dangerous now?

"So… how many are we talking about?" Raf asked the question on my mind.

"Thousands," Rachet answered, turning off his light and transforming his hands back into… well, hands. "And the power malfunctions and ground bridge damage is sure sign that their infestation is well underway."

"So what's the plan?" I asked. I was ready to rumble and tumble with these nightmare termites.

"If we don't eradicate these creatures immediately, they will reduce the entire base to a scrap heap," Ratchet grumbled, clearly not liking the idea even as it left his mouth.

"I say we bug out of here and let them keep it!" Bulkhead said, clearly frightened of even being in the same building as one of the Scraplets. Bee buzzed and enthusiastically nodded, a fan of Bulk's plan.

"Evacuation is not an option," the Doc looked into Bulk's optics, clearly not backing down. "If we don't get the groundbridge back online stat, Optimus and Arcee will perish."

"They...will?" Jack asked surprised and disturbed that his, wheels? Friend? Guardian? Partner? Was at current risk of death. Miko, for her part, seemed very upset and stormed in front of Bulky.

"Bulkhead you never run!" She was mad at his cowardice? Yes, that was probably what she'd come to the conclusion of. That Bulky was being a coward.

But I knew better.

"Miko. You haven't seen a swarm of these things devore a Bot." His expression was back to that heavy guilt. "I have."

"They pick you apart from the inside out, going for the small juicy bit's first. Fuse by fuse. Circuit by circuit, until there's nothing left… and I mean nothing!" He was imploring Miko to understand, it was like he was seeing the scene in front of him, he was so passionate. "Not even your optics," He ended with a shutter.

I could barely begin to imagine something like that for humans, to be torn apart like that, it gave me shivers. Miko, for her part, turned to Jack for help in frustration. I guess they were a friendly duo when push came to shove, and had each others backs.

Made me a bit envious.

"You have to let us help," Jack insisted.

"We're not made of metal!" Raf followed up, as he opened his arms wide to showcase his nonmetal body.

"Yeah, the Scraplet's can't hurt us!" Miko joined in. The doc was rubbing his chin in thought again. He hummed.

"Typically, I find your fleshiness to be your least engaging quality...but it would appear to provide an advantage. Under these extremes." Jack sighed and mumbled an "okay good" under his breath.

"So we pair off, one Bot one human. I'll watch your back while you repair the groundbridge."

"Make that two watching your back Ratchet," I quickly added in. Wasn't going to roam the hallways when I had no idea where's what. Not to mention I'd need help with the freezing, as Jack and Ratchet would have a better idea on how to actually make it happen.

"And we go on a bug hunt," Miko smirked and indicated to the two shivering Bots, who clearly were not looking forward to this adventure.


Author's Notes: I know!

I'm very late with this chapter and it's not long. I was originally going to try to get the whole episode into one chapter, but with school and a writers-block, I just couldn't finish it yet.

In other news I'm working on an Undertale one-shot that I'll be posting soon. Kinda like this fic, but much more different in tone and story, so if you like that kind of stuff, keep track of my postings, it shouldn't be long until I post it. If I feel like it's an idea people might like, I might make it into an actual story. (It will contain spoilers)

Comment's responses:

Onyx: Indeed! Running may or may not be involved for Rachel ;)

Haruka Akatsuki: Thank you for commenting! I do love feedback. Rachel is currently playing it safe with her foreknowledge, as she doesn't yet know how much of it is reliable and what sort of effects it will have to change events. Caution is wise, or at least so she thinks.

Comment's are appreciated!

Again sorry for the really late release.

Also Note: I don't own Transformers. Nor Prime. Just Rachel, who's slowly already changing things.

Can you spot the differences from the episode so far?

Announcements are on my profile. I'm going to be busy for a lot of this month, so count on the chapter releases to be choppy and few in number.