Note/disclaimer: These characters are not mine and the story is not either. I have just filled in some gaps as I really enjoyed the story and want to get back into writing. I may come back with my own stories later on. Sorry if I get a bit carried away in places or miss a spelling/grammar mistake.

Fire in the Sky

Early one morning inside an extinct volcano was the Autobot base, the Ark. Jazz, the second in command of the Autobots, a mostly white bot, was listening to some music. Earth music, he was about to go on duty at their main computer, Teletraan-1 which wouldn't give him that much time for music, but at the same time it gave him loads of time to watch their new home, Earth. Jazz was a student of Earth culture, he loved to learn and as such was often sent out to communicate with humans when necessary when their human friends weren't around. Such missions were of great excitement for him. The song ended and so did his downtime as the change of shift was a mere five minutes from now. He transformed from his white Porsche form into his robot form to walk to the main computer room which had once been the bridge of their ship, the Ark, but was of little use now stuck halfway inside a volcano that had been extinct for almost as long as they had been there. He was just entering a corridor that led past an exit when he heard a voice shout his name from behind, he turned to see Bluestreak (a mostly silver and red bot) and Sideswipe (a bright red bot with some black on him) running in towards him.

'Jazz,' shouted Bluestreak again as he came up towards him in the corridor.

'What is it? Decepticons?' Asked Jazz more urgently then he'd intended.

'No… well maybe,' Sideswipe blurted out, exchanging an awkward confused glance with Bluestreak. They had both been out on patrol.

Jazz tried again, 'it must be something.'

'Well,... it's cold,' said Bluestreak.

'You'd better come and see,' said Sideswipe.

They led Jazz to the nearest exit as he wondered quite what they were so excited about. When he stepped outside though he saw nothing dangerous, the air however was freezing. That was definitely not right. He turned to the other two for a moment 'is there any danger?' He asked curiously, but guessing the answer.

'Well,' began Bluestreak, 'I'm not sure it's dangerous, but it's definitely weird.'

'Yeah, look at those little ice crystals coming from the sky!' Said Sideswipe.

Jazz hadn't noticed them before because they were so tiny but now that they'd been pointed out he saw them, floating slowly down to the ground. There was no wind to blow them. Jazz smiled and chuckled, as unusual as it was where they were, it was still snow. He'd read about it and seen pictures but like the other two he'd never seen snow before.

Sideswipe and Bluestreak looked at him with confusion written all over their expressions, he'd forgotten that they weren't the biggest readers in their group.

'Haha its snow, a common occurrence on Earth.' He explained.

'What's its function?' Asked Bluestreak.

'It doesn't have one as far as I know, it's a natural phenomenon in winter, like storms…. But…' he thought for a moment 'But not here in the desert in July! I'd better go and inform Prime.' At that he left for the recharge chambers deep within the Ark.

After waking their leader he had explained about the unusual nature of the snow in the desert and the rapid temperature drop, Prime had then told him to go and monitor it while Optimus Prime went to consult Teletraan-1 with Gears, the short and somewhat grumpy little red bot who was supposed to be on watch with Jazz and who was now complaining about how going out in the cold could damage his systems.

As Jazz stood outside in the snow he was captivated by it, there was of course ice on their homeworld and they had seen ice in space but nothing like this, little individual crystals falling from the sky. Wheeljack of course could tell him why it occurred but he wasn't in the mood for the scientific explanation at the moment, perhaps later. He was watching as the snow covered the ground and his feet and began to cover his shoulders. Apart from the black on his body he blended in quite well with the colour that their environment was turning. He had allowed his core temperature to cool so that the snow wouldn't melt so fast and although it made him a little stiff and would later make Ratchet, their Doctor, give him an earful, at this moment he didn't care as the snow got heavier and bigger.

Two hours later…

Spike Witwicky, the Autobots young human friend, had awoken early in the morning to an unexpected snow day and a bunch of excited chattering from the Autobots. He and his dad, Sparkplug, had taken some time off work to stay with the Autobots and help them settle in; he had not had much to do since the oil rig they worked on had been destroyed by the Decepticons. But being a mechanic, Sparkplug had found a new temporary job at a car repair shop while the company they worked for sorted out their losses and new assignment. Spike and Sparkplug had run to the nearest town to pick up warm clothes. Hound, a green Autobot whose alternate mode was a Jeep, had offered to give them a lift which they had accepted. Unfortunately his Jeep mode came without a roof. Their trip to the town was quite a cold one and had influenced their choices of clothes quite substantially. Warm clothes were being sold out quite rapidly due to the unexpected icy weather.

Back at the Ark now Spike stood and smiled as the Autobots asked Sparkplug question after question about snow and winter. They had woken up "been reactivated" as they said only a few months ago and were living in a part of the world where ice just wasn't common. In fact the weather had been just the opposite only a few days ago, ninety degrees or so, approaching a hundred.

'Why doesn't Spike take you outside to have a look,' came Sparkplug's voice, snapping Spike out of his thoughts.

'Yeah dad and we can observe some human traditions,' said Spike, a gleam appearing in his eye.

'Haha okay son, have fun.'

'Alright, so who's coming?'

'I'm staying here!' Said Gears, 'I don't want to get rust spots, and I'm sure the cold won't do my transmission any good either.'

In the end it was Hound, Cliffjumper, another short red Autobot with what looked like little horns on his head but were actually antenna, Ratchet a tall white Autobot with a red cross on each shoulder and Bumblebee a similar size and appearance to Cliffjumper but yellow, who decided to go out while everyone else went about their normal duties. These were the autobots on standby for emergencies with Ironhide who was currently helping Wheeljack move some of his equipment and Gears who was now helping Optimus Prime.

Once they reached the main entrance to the Ark they saw that the snow had gotten heavier, the landscape had been transformed. The sand and red desert dust had been turned to white snow. All traces of any of the Autobots on patrol had vanished, there were drifts forming near rocky outcrops and any hills that were around. The mountain that had been in was now almost white except for the part protected by the part of the Ark that was protruding from the mountain side where they were all standing.

'Wow!' Said Ratchet quietly, almost to himself.

Spike stepped out into the snow first and wandered about. He slipped knee deep in the snow and laughed. 'Let's go and find somewhere to make snowmen!' Said Spike.

' "Snowmen?" ' Cliffjumper asked.

Spike looked at them for a moment, 'I'll show you, I'll make the first one here,' he said as he began to roll the snow around to make an ever larger ball. Once it was at an appropriately large size (for a human) he rolled another smaller one which he lifted and placed on the top of the first one. 'See,' he said, 'now it just needs some stones for eyes and a mouth.' He looked around before making his way back to the Autobots to pick some red stones from the floor for his snowman. The Autobots watched this all carefully as if this was important. 'Well, what do you think?' Asked Spike, putting his hat on the snowman.

'Looks just like you son,' chuckled Sparkplug over the ship's comm system. They all laughed.

The Autobots all made their snowmen and then they all went for a wander around the white landscape.

'So another tradition is the Snowball fight,' said Spike, 'it's where you roll a ball of snow like this and then throw it at someone and they have to avoid getting hit, haha, it's even more fun when they don't see it coming.'

'Well Jazz should be around here somewhere,' said Hound. The Autobot second in command was the type to enjoy a good surprise. They all had a look around but all they could see was snow and snow covered rocks and the occasional tree.

'Maybe he went back to the base,' suggested Cliffjumper.

'No, I detected him out here somewhere,' said Hound, scanning the area.

'Well let's head back to base and have the Snowball fight there,' said Spike, a glint of mischievousness in his eye.

As they were making their way back they had to go over a hill. Spike glanced to the right at a rocky outcrop for a moment and saw a snowman.

'Wow,' he exclaimed as he ran right up to it, or in this case down. 'That's the biggest snowman I ever saw!' The snowman moved a bit and then laughed, Spike took a small step back and his jaw dropped as it began to speak.

'Hahaha, not "snowman" Spike,' it said in Jazz's voice, 'Snowbot!' and before Spike could reply it moved again and all the snow fell right on top of Spike, knocking him to the ground. He looked up to see Jazz bending over to look at him, smiling.

'There's a flurry in a hurry,' he said.

'Awe I get the drift, Jazz,' Spike found himself saying and they both burst out laughing.

Jazz must have been out here for hours in the snow and they had all walked right past him.

Spike pulled himself out of the pile of snow at Jazz's feet and turned to the others with what his dad termed "the evil grin" raising his arm, causing Jazz to look at him curiously, he shouted, 'okay, spheroid projectiles ready?'

The others each had a snowball in hand, Jazz saw what was coming and dived for the rocky outcrop just as Spike shouted 'fire!'. They all threw their snowballs at Jazz, none of them hit, instead hitting the snow-covered outcrop. Jazz took a step back just as the snow dislodged and fell on him. It was enough to knock him down while the others laughed.

'Hey guys,' he said wiping snow off his visor, 'that's snow-fair,' he said.

Spike got the feeling he had been waiting to use his snow puns and jokes.

On the other side of the outcrop he saw Bumblebee rolling a snowball and looking towards Ratchet who was still laughing.

'Ratchet watch out for Bumblebee,' shouted Spike, causing Bumblebee to narrow his optics in Spike's direction and Ratchet to look at Bumblebee.

"Okay Spike,' said Bumblebee, standing up straight with the snowball the size of a human head, 'you rat on me, I'll splat on you!' He said as he threw his snowball at Spike. Spike only had time to open his mouth before it hit him in the face. He fell backwards down the hill and into a snowman that was just above Cliffjumper and Hound. The snowman had been built by an autobot and so was large enough on the hillside to fall onto them and in tern knock them down the hill. Hound was stopped by a tree but Cliffjumper skidded on a little until he hit a cactus.

Good job he isn't human or that would have really hurt, thought Spike as he rubbed his face.

'Oops' said Bumblebee.

Spike laughed. A sudden thought came to mind, 'haha I can't believe I'm in a Snowball fight in July in the middle of the desert!' He said, 'it's amazing.'

Elsewhere

Optimus Prime was watching and listening to the Snowball fight on the monitor of Teletraan-1 which had picked them all up with its motion sensors.

Almost in reply to Spike's words he said 'and perhaps dangerous!'

He bent over the controls of the computer and pressed a button changing the monitor. 'Teletraan-1 activate all atmospheric sensors,' he commanded.

In response Teletraan-1 replied with 'TEMPERATURES NOW FORTY DEGREES BELOW NORMAL AND FALLING RAPIDLY… ENTIRE PLANET FREEZING…'

'The heat energy is somehow being drained away…' He said to himself.

Behind him on what was once the ship's main bridge in Jazz's pilot's seat sat Gears who turned from his monitors in reply to the statement and pointing at one of the bigger screens which showed snow covered palm trees and huts, he said 'Megatron and the Decepticons! I bet they're behind this.'