Chapter 17 – Forest of Horror's
Eli casually munching on a granola bar while she walked along side Jack while Arcee was in front of them walking through the woods. Originally it was only going to be Jack and Arcee going on this trip, one of the few trips that the teens were allowed to go on. But Jack has insisted Eli tag along with them. Who was she to complain about going on a hiking trip through a familiar scenery.
Once they were ground breached to the location Jack was immediately swarmed by Mosquitoes. Eli couldn't help but chuckle silently to herself as she and Arcee weren't even bother by them.
"Ah, really wish I'd packed some insect repellent." Jack said mid swing as yet another one tried to land on him. Eli had brought a small pack with them for instances like this. She pulled out a bottle of bug spray and handed it to him.
"You had this the entire time? The mosquitoes out here on this routine recon are the size of vampire bats and you had this the entire time?!" Jack said only making the sheepish smile on Eli's face grow wider.
"You never asked." She shrugged. Arcee had a small smile of amusement on her face watching to two bicker. "Quite the outdoorsmen, aren't you two?" Arcee added.
"You wouldn't be making fun of my survival kit." Jack said making Eli chuckle as she looked down to his waist at his little satchel.
"Maybe." Arcee said. "I know I am." Eli quipped earning a teasingly glare from Jack.
"I may not have stinger-proof metal skin, or knowledge of the great outdoors," he said turning to Eli. "But in a pinch, I can use my multi-function pocketknife and magnesium fire starter to cook up some freeze-dried mac and cheese." Eli scrunched her nose at the thought of freeze-dried mac and cheese, it sounded horrifying.
"You have your tools. I have mine." Arcee said gently waving the handheld device in her hand. Then the device started to go off indicating that it picked up on something nearby. "That's odd. Ratchet's satellite scans were accurate. But subterranean energon deposits don't cause this kind of surge." Jack and Eli gave each other a quick glance and quickly followed after Arcee as she was following the locator on her device. They followed Arcee closely until they arrived at a crash site. The ground was torn up along with trees thrown about the area.
"That's not good." Eli murmured to herself as she and Jack stood next to Arcee looking down at the crash site.
"What happened here?" Jack asked.
"Crash landing." Arcee said then looked to the two teens. "Stay behind me, low and close." She said it so seriously that Eli started to get very nervous. She didn't like the look of the crash site, and nor did she like the sound of how serious and stone cold Arcee became in an instant. Arcee then began to carefully approach the crashed vessel with Jack and Eli barely trying to keep up with her.
"Autobot or Decepticon?" Jack asked as the three of them were behind a fallen down tree staring ahead at the ship before them.
"Can't tell." Arcee said.
"W-Wouldn't we have known by now if they were Autobots?" Eli offered up. She didn't get an answer. Only for Arcee to equip her blasters and tell them to wait behind the fallen tree. The two of them waited as they were told watching Arcee get closer to the crashed ship being ever so cautious.
"J-Jack my gut is telling me that that's no Autobot ship." Eli said with a slight tremble. Jack took instant notice of this, he knew that she still struggled with the fact that a Decepticon had gotten into base and had also held her hostage. And then the time she told him that Breakdown tried to chuck a Greek pillar at her and Miko on their trip to Greece.
"Hey, it'll be alright, Arcee we'll look out for us." Jack said trying to cheer her up. "She won't let anything happen to you or me." He gently patted her on the shoulder. Eli gave a small nod in appreciation of him trying to make her feel better. Then the two teens saw Arcee stumbling out alongside the crashed shipped.
"Arcee?" the two called out and moved out from their hiding spot and ran up to Autobot. "Arcee? What's wrong?" Jack asked, "Are you alright?" Eli added.
"I know who this ship belongs to," She said with closed eyes. "Arcee to base. I need a ground bridge ASAP." She quickly tried to contact Ratchet or the others to get us a ground bridge.
"W-wait. Why? Whose ship is this?" Jack asked.
"Because it isn't an Autobot ship. I told you my gut was right." Eli exclaimed. Arcee looked down at them but quickly tried to contact base again. "Base, do you read?" It was only answered with static. "Scrap. Com link's dead. The ship's got to transmitting a high-frequency scrambler pulse." Arcee continued on with her-self rant.
"A-Arcee? You're kind of freaking us out here." Jack said trying to follow Arcee.
"Wait here." Arcee said lowly as she found a trail of tracks leading away from the crashed ship going into the wooded area. Jack and Eli obliged and waited for Arcee to come back. Eli couldn't help but start to pace in their spot. Jack couldn't take it any longer and went after Arcee but not before taking Eli by her hand and leading her towards where Arcee had walked off to. They found Arcee standing in front of the trail, she looked like she was spacing out but her face looked scared.
"A-Arcee." Jack said trying to snap her out of her trance. She snapped to him with a look of fear and concern written on her face, then she transformed to her vehicle mode. "Climb on." She ordered, Jack and Eli quickly climbed on, Eli had a vice grip around Jack's waist before Arcee took off.
"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" Jack exclaimed as he wasn't prepared for her to speed off like that further into the woods. Eli still had her vice grip around her waist and pressed her head to his back to keep herself on and from not falling off. Jack tried to get her to slow down but a chasm below was coming up and Arcee made the jump the two teens screamed out in fear. Once on the other side of the chasm Arcee screeched to a halt.
Eli was too afraid to move, Jack quickly removed his helmet and began to lecture Arcee. "Okay, was that really necessary?" Jack asked. Eli quickly got off the bike and put her head between her knees trying to calm herself down. "Arcee to base. Scrap." Arcee said angrily.
"Look, I've seen danger before. Eli's seen it." He said indicating to her. "What's the-." Jack said but was cut off.
"Wait here. I mean it this time." Arcee said.
Jack scoffed. This was getting too ridiculous. "Okay, first you shut me out. And now you're ditching us? I thought I was your partner." Arcee had transformed back and was towering over Jack.
"No, Jack, you're a kid. Both of you are kids. Both of you are only here because this was supposed to be no-risk. Got it?" Arcee said and getting into his face. Eli watched from the side, she had no issue listening to them, but for some reason Jack and Miko had a different idea of where they stood in this madness. Arcee then transformed and drove off leaving Jack and Eli alone. Jack watched with a hard glare as she drove off into the distance back over the chasm, he began to follow.
"Where do you think you're going?" Eli said standing in front of him, blocking him."
"I'm going after her." Jack said sternly.
"Oh yea, and what are you going to do when you catch up to her? Huh, what are you gonna do?" Eli said getting closer into his space.
"Get out of my way Eliana." Jack said angrily. Him using her full name startled her. No one rarely used her full name. It was always Eli; she was only ever called her full name if she was in trouble of some kind. But for Jack to say her name like that hurt her. She stepped aside with a nasty look plastered over her face. "Be my guest." She said and let him start to climb down the chasm.
Eli had sat herself down on the ground for what felt like hours, the sun had begun to set and there was still no sign of Jack or Arcee. As it became darker, she noticed Jack running towards her in the distance, she got back up to her feet and crossed her arms in annoyance. But as he got closer; she spotted the spider looking Decepticon behind him. She watched in horror as she come closer upon them. Once Jack climbed up onto her side and grabbed her hand and they started to sprint. "Ah there are two of you. I suppose I can add both of you to my collection." Airachnid said.
Once the two teens thought they were at a good distance they stopped to catch their breath. "Where is Arcee?" Eli said trembling.
"S-She's stuck." Jack huffed trying to catch his breath leaning against a tree.
"W-what are we gonna do? Without Arcee we are done for." Eli exclaimed in defeat. Jack grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a quick shake. She looked him in the eye; eyes wide in fear of the unknown danger they faced as their predator was on their heels.
"We wait for Arcee, but we give her time." Jack said as he gripped Eli's hand in a vice grip, and they ran out from behind their tree and headed back towards the crash site. Jack pulled Eli towards the mouth of the ship. What they saw inside the ship was a ship of nightmares. Eli nearly froze in place at the heads on display throughout the ship. Jack had to quickly nudge her to get her to move.
"Come on." He whispered to her. "Focus on the ground." Eli then looked down at the ground trying not to see the display cases out of her peripheral. It was making her nauseous. And Jack was trying to keep both of them alive. Eli suppressed the urge to vomit all over the ground and quicken her pace as Jack led them out the side of the ship was the damaged and ripped to shreds.
The two of them were stumbling up the rough patches of the earth that was torn of up from the crash landing towards the back end of the ship where they saw energon leaking into puddles. They looked up at the thrusters that also had energon leaking out of, then they looked at each other and nodded. They were gonna set the ship a blaze.
Jack pulled out his swift army blade and grabbed a broken stick from one of the fallen trees and started to try and create a flame, anything that he could throw into one of the puddles of energon. Eli then faintly heard the tiny dings of metal of Airachnid approaching.
"Hurry." Eli said getting nervous as the footsteps approaching were louder. Jack finally got a flame and tossed it. That was all Eli needed to see as she sprinted with Jack following behind her to the tree line. But the fire immediately ignited the energon aboard the ship causing a big explosion sending Jack and Eli off their feet.
Eli covered her face as the debris was blowing every direction. She quickly got up and offered a hand to Jack. He took her hand and rose to his feet; he saw she had a few minor scrapes across her cheeks. They gave a quick look at the firey mess that was the crashed ship, and turned to walk into the woods to find Arcee. But Jack had a spider web shot at his leg stopping him. Up in the trees was a very much alive Airachnid covered in flames and soot marks. She was beyond angry.
"Run Eli!" Jack yelled as another web was shot at him sticking him to a tree. Now with Jack stuck to a tree Airachnid adavanced on Eli. Airachnid was very much angry; she didn't even bother playing she jumped on Eli knocking her to the ground with a scream. Now on top of Eli pinning her to the ground she dragged a sharp finger across her already scraped cheeks. She screamed out in fear and pain and then they heard the sound of Arcee's vehicle mode racing in.
Airachnid didn't even have time to register that Arcee was right in front of her throwing a punch knocking her off of Eli. Eli quickly scrambled away breathing heavily. She wipped her cheek with the back of her hand and looked down to see a decent amount of blood. She could feel more blood running down her face, but that didn't matter right now. She quickly got up to her feet while Arcee was handling Airachnid, so she took the time to try and pry Jack out of his spider trap.
"Are you alright?!" Jack asked worriedly as he took in Eli's face as she was struggling to remove the webbing off of him.
"I-I'll have nightmares, but I-I'll live." Eli said shakily. Then they saw Arcee quickly approaching them. She easily tore off the webs incasing Jack.
"You, okay?" Arcee asked worriedly.
"Yeah, of course, survival kit." Jack chuckled nervously. "Eli's not so much." Arcee turned to her and took in the scrapes and the cut that Airachnid drew across her face. But then they heard the sound of machinery whirring. Arcee quickly turned where Airachnid was who now had escaped. The three of them ran over to where a huge hole now was where the spider had escaped.
Arcee sighed in some defeat, "So much for closure."
"Now Airachnid's stuck here on earth," Jack said. Eli nodded as she folded her arms around herself trying to calm her nervous down. "I'm not sure that's such a good thing." Jack added.
"No one is safe with her on the loose." Eli said bitterly.
"I'm sorry you two had to face my demons today. You both were pretty fearless there." Arcee admitted.
"Actually, I was terrified. Mostly for you and Eli." Jack also admitted.
"I'm gonna have nightmares." Eli said shakily.
Arcee gave a small smile before radioing Ratchet for a ground bridge. "Ratchet, requestiong ground bridge. Need to get my partner far away from any oversized insects," And then she turned to Eli. "And need you to get patched up."
"Partner, huh?" Jack teased.
"Junior, partner. I can still pull rank." Arcee said with the imphasize on junior.
The moment they walked through the ground bridge back into base the only one there was Ratchet. Everyone else had gone home for the evening, luckily Leonie was out of town again so there was no need to worry about being home late. Jack grabbed Eli by the hand and led her up the stairs to the mezzamine and sat her down on the couch.
Beside the couch Jack pulled out a medical kit. She and Jack had thought of the idea of creating a medical kit for them in case a crazy adventure happened that required medical attention. Eli looked exhausted; Jack gently dabbed her scrapes with a cotton ball that had a wound cleaning solution on it. He was a little worried at the little reaction she was giving when the cotton ball got close to the cut. Ratchet at that moment had walked over and peered over and took in her injuries.
"What happened?" Ratchet asked with a little hint of concern lacing his voice.
"Airachnid is what happened," Arcee said coming up along side Ratchet. "Eli got a little close and personal with her." Jack had finished up cleaning the wound when he found a bandage appropriate for the cut, the scrapes would be fine healing without bandages.
"All good now. But Eli you look exhausted. You should lie down until Opitmus can drive you home." Jack said, Eli didn't bother saying anything from pure exhausiton and fear, so she just nodded along with what he said.
"No," Ratchet said gaining everyone's attention. "Optimus is out on a mission at the moment. Assuming that your sister isn't home you may stay here the night. A-And I'll w-watch over." He stammered at the end trying to keep up his tough guy routine. He didn't want anyone else to really know he had a soft spot for Eli, mainly only for the fact that she wasn't annoying like Miko.
Arcee and Jack shrugged their shoulders and left the mezzamine. Before Jack had left and followed Arcee to be brought home he patted Eli on the shoulder with an added tender squeeze letting her know that everything was going to be alright. Ratchet stared at Eli as she got herself comfortable and instantly fell asleep as soon as her eyes closed. Only for her dreams to be filled with nightmares of Airachnid.
A/N: First off, I know I haven't written in awhile. Long story short I have a very demanding job so at this time I'm trying to write the best I can but no, this story is not going to stop in the middle, I very much intend on finishing it til the very end. Thank you all who sticked with me from the beginning and the new people who have just followed/favorited this story.