Chapter One Hundred and Thirteen

Equations

About an hour later, Tyroth decided to take the Geckolings into the sleeping quarters to have a private talk about what had happened in the field.

The twins were nervous, as they knew when they were in trouble, the talk was always the worst part, but they agreed all the same.

Before they left, Pandora and Kemeko wished them luck as well as assured them that they would let them know how Bulkhead was.

Culpepper was also worried for the twins as he watched them along with Tyroth and Sephie leave the raised platform to go to to the living quarters.

He looked over at the Hamato Clan and sighed.

"Guys." he said "I'm sorry this happened, my intentions were to let your daughters, nephew and niece have a good time."

"I getcha dude." Michelangelo said "And the kids were having a blast! Until the Decepticons got our attention!" he said to the other turtles, Splinter and Monalisa.

"I'm pleased to hear that." Splinter said "And I am especially pleased and relieved that you Pandora, did not try and join Freya and Loki in attempting to retrieve that cylinder."

Pandora rolled her eyes.

"I have learned from my experiences Granddad Splinter." she said "And I got my reasons to not go in there against giant robots! Uncle T, Freya and Loki can fly and have their fire power and magic, I got no chance!"

Kemeko crossed her arms and looked up at Pandora.

"That's a huge relief," she said "That you've learned a lot from your previous escapades."

Raphael nodded.

"Needless to say I'm glad too." he said giving Pandora a sideways look to which the hybrid looked slightly appalled.

"I helped loose that thing, I want to help find it! I need to get back in the field with Optimus!"

Everyone looked to Ratchet;s Medical Bay to see Bulkhead fidgeting on the medical berth.

Optimus and the other Autobots decided to head back out into the field to find the cylinder and Bulkhead wasn't too happy about being left behind and was starting to get restless.

"Ep ep ep!" Ratchet tutted stopping the wrecker from getting up from the medical berth he sat on.

"You're under my watch now! Optimus's orders! And running a full scan of your neural net would be a wiser use of your time!"

But Bulkhead just pulled the plug out of his head and stood up.

"Come on Doc!" he said "There's nothing up there to scan."

"He seems fine to me!" Pandora piped up as she looked at the Wrecker.

"Yeah!" Kemeko agreed "Same Bulkhead!"

"I think so too!" Michelangelo said.

"Just because he looks fine on the outside doesn't mean there's something going on within." Donatello reminded his brother and nieces.

"A fine observation Donatello." Ratchet said looking at the purple masked turtle.

"What what am I supposed to do now?" Bulkhead asked "If I'm under your watch?"

Ratchet shrugged.

"If you want to make yourself useful." he said reaching to the side and handing him a mop "You can help the girls tidy up."

"What?" Pandora exclaimed.

"The bot's mad with power!" Michelangelo chimed in.

Bulkhead laughed.

"That's Ratchet!" he said "No Vector squared alright!"

As the wrecker said that, Pandora and Kemeko looked at him with surprise.

"What?" the hybrid questioned.

"What did he say?" Culpepper questioned.

Donatello cocked his head as he looked at Bulkhead who twirled the mop in his fingers.

"Hey!" the wrecker said suddenly "We got any paint around here?"

"Paint?" Kemeko asked "LIke an Art project?"

Donatello narrowed his eyes more as he studied the wrecker.

"Whatever got beamed into your head," he muttered "It's what made you say that, and it's not like you."

Meanwhile up on the Nemesis, Knock Out and Breakdown had returned to Megatron with the cylinder yet they were dismayed to find out that there was nothing inside it.

The Warlord stood before the two male Decepticons and glared at them.

"What do you mean it's empty?" he demanded.

"Lord Megatron." Knock Out explained "These cylinders are not unlike batteries, the date is storied within them as a form of energy, it's scanned fully charged, thats how we located it to begin with, but now..."

He pressed a button and the cylinder opened and sparked.

"Dead battery." Breakdown said.

Megatron looked over at him.

"Did you drop it, you one-eyed oaf!" he snapped.

"No Master!" Breakdown replied quickly "I wasn't gonna touch the thing after it put the zap on Bulkhead!"

As Breakdown said that, Knock Out suddenly remembered and realized after the cylinder had beamed it's energy into Bulkhead.

"Hey." he said "You think...?" he looked at Breakdown and Megatron "No way!" he exclaimed.

"What?" Breakdown demanded looking at the medic yet Megatron spoke up.

"I know." he growled "And I must find out what that vessel contained, when it comes to the secrets of the Ancients." he smirked "Knowledge can be power!"

Back in the silo, Ratchet and Donatello were at the screens scanning for any relics or Decepticon Activity.

Tyroth and Sephie were still in the sleeping quarters with the geckolings and everyone had wondered when they were going to emerge.

"Man, sometimes I wonder if Tyroth is worse than Splinter when it comes to lectures." Michelangelo whispered to Raphael who shrugged as they sat watching the TV with Monalisa and Leonardo.

Splinter meanwhile was sitting on the armchair meditating and the youngest turtle was glad he hadn't heard him.

Yet another voice was about to get their attention.

"Ratchet! Ratchet!"

The medic looked over to see Kemeko running up to him and Donatello almost fell off his shoulder.

"What is it Lotus?" the turtle asked before Ratchet could say anything.

"You need to see what Bulk's painting in here!" Kemeko replied.

"Painting?" Michelangelo called over from the raised platform.

"I didn't know the big guy could paint." Raphael chimed in.

Ratchet scoffed as he turned away from the screens and followed Kemeko whilst the other adults followed.

"Yes, I'm sure one hasn't truly lived until one has beheld Bulkhead's take on Still life with lug nuts!"

Kemeko lead everyone to the other part of the silo where Pandora and Culpepper were watching Bulkhead painting the wall with the mop which was covered in white paint and he was painting what looked like symbols and dots.

"The differential of one third R cubed is RDRR" the wrecker muttered as he painted.

"What the Shell is this?" Pandora asked.

"Doesn't look like any math I've studied!" Culpepper added.

"Likewise!" Donatello agreed.

"That is not art!" Ratchet exclaimed as he looked at the symbols painted on the wall "It's science!"

"Science?" Everyone exclaimed and Ratchet looked down to see the other turtles, Monalisa and Splinter were looking at the painted symbols too.

"Hey!" Donatello said looking at Ratchet "You don't suppose?"

"That beam!" Leonardo said "From the cylinder!"

"It's in Bulkhead's brain!" Pandora exclaimed.

Meanwhile in the sleeping quarters, Tyroth stood above his twins looking down at them.

After he had told them off again about their actions, he asked them again why they had done what they did which they again repeated and spoke their defence.

"Dad!" Freya said "This was what we've been trained for! We're Dragons! Well half dragons technically, but as the guardians of Earth, we were just doing what we've been made to do!"

"Yeah dad!" Loki said "We both knew what we were doing! Well I lead the way! I had the idea to try and grab it!"

"Yet we didn't expect it to be beamed in Bulkhead!" Freya commented.

Tyroth sighed.

"Freya, Loki." he said "I understand what you did, just like you did the same with the relic you stole from Breakdown and Airachnid, but it was dangerous! ou could have been killed!"

"Like the other incidents we've had to deal with?" Loki asked "The trouble we've faced in Chicago or New York, whether it be the Foot, The Purple Dragons, the Mafia, or even Diablo?"

Tyroth glowered at his son.

"These enemies are different." he said "They are ones even our friends who don't have our powers and abilities can take on."

Sephie walked over and placed a hand on her husbands shoulder.

"The kids do have a point love." she said "And they are at that age where their powers are a lot stronger than they were before, and after what you did to retrieve the immobilizer, they were doing the same when they snatched the polarity gauntlet and the cylinder."

Tyroth opened his mouth as he took a breath but he paused and thought about what his wife said along with what his kids had stated about them being guardians just like him, even though they weren't full dragons.

It was true as well that their actions had helped the autobots, and because of them as well as him, three relics, or rather two relics, and one in Bulkhead's head were out of their hands, and he couldn't fault them for that.

Sighing, Tyroth looked at his kids.

"Your mother does have a point." he said "And you two are coming of age."

"We're gonna be sixteen soon!" Freya said.

"Quite." Tyroth said "And you along with Pandora and Sonia are in the field dealing with more dangerous enemies than just mediocre criminals, and your fire powers and magic have gotten stronger."

The twins nodded, some hope rising within them as they listened to their father.

"I'm going to have a little think about it, but I think you might just be ready for more dangerous enemies that I've had to deal with."

"Sweet!" Loki and Freya said looking at each other.

Tyroth raised a clawed finger to them.

"Again, I'm gonna think long and hard." he said "But for now, lets return to the main silo." he held out his arms to Sephie and the gecko followed him to scoop her up and they left the sleeping quarters to fly back to the main silo.

As the Dragon and his family flew back to the main silo, they saw everyone, including the Autobots as they had returned from patrol was gathered around Ratchet's screens and Bulkhead was lying on a medical berth with a tube attached to his head.

"Hello?" Tyroth mused "What's going on here?"

He held Sephie close and flew up to investigate with the twins behind him.

As he arrived, the dragon saw what looked like Bulkhead's brain and some parts were coloured in teal, yet what caught everyone's eye was a big red spot in the middle of it.

"This hot spot you see here." Ratchet explained "It's information, data! Living energy."

"Wait! Hold up!" Pandora said "It's alive, it's on fire."

"And it's in Bulkhead's brain!" Kemeko demanded.

"Wait! What did we miss?" Loki asked flying over and hovering above Bulkhead, Freya not far behind.

"Hey chill girls!" Bulkhead said pointing to his head "The data us only inhabiting a fraction of my brain! Infinitesimal by standard neural net densities!"

He closed his eyes then opened them as he realized what he said.

"Wait! How do I know all that?!"

"Based on what we witnessed during our skirmish." Optimus spoke up looking at the wrecker "The living data must have been programmed to eject when it sensed unauthorized access."

"A security measure." Ratchet mused.

"It would have jettisoned heavenward." Optimus continued "Lost to the Stars."

"Except my fat engine block got in the way!" Bulkhead laughed.

"Wait what?" Michelangelo asked "In English please!"

"Optimus means that the data would have been beamed upwards to the sky Shell for Brains!" Donatello said to his younger brother.

"Oh right." Michelangelo said sheepishly.

"Every con made a grab for that cylinder!" Arcee spoke up "But the cylinder doesn't go off until the geckolings touched it?" she looked at the geckolings who were still hovering in the air.

"The cylinders orginated from Cybertron's Golden Age." Ratchet spoke up pointing at the screen which still had Bulkhead's brain on it.

"Pre-dating the Autobot/Decepticon division."

"So it wouldn't consider any native of Cybertron to be a threat.' Optimus said thoughtfully.

"Only Alien Life forms, such as humans, or mutants in the geckolings case." Ratchet said looking at the Geckolings who looked at each other wondering whether to feel guilty or worried.

"So?" Arcee asked "Are we starting at genius or gibberish?" she gestured to the paintings on the walls.

Bumblebee bleeped the same question and Michelangelo nodded.

"Yeah, what gives?" he asked.

"I do not wish to falsely rally anyone's hopes." Ratchet said "But these equations appear to be the formula for a synthetic energon."

"Synthetic energon?" Ironhide gasped.

"We hit the motherload?" Arcee asked and Bumblebee bleeped in excitement.

"Girls!" Bulkhead said "Do you understand what this means?"

The girls looked confused then Bulkhead spoke again.

"Energon provides out fuel, our ammo, our life force!" the wrecker explained "And with the natural stuff in such short supply here on Earth, this could solve a whole lot of problems!"

"Such as providing us with the edge we need to turn the tide of this war." Optimus said.

"Or handing us the key to revitalizing Cybertron!" Ratchet said with a smile graceing his face.

"Wow!" Loki said "I can see why you guys are excited!"

"We got the goods and all Megatron got was an empty bucket!" Arcee smirked looking at Bulkhead pleased.

"How often do I get to use my noggin to save the day?" Bulkhead asked, equally proud of himself.

"Hey!" Loki said looking at Freya "We were the ones who released the data into the big guys brain, where's our credit eh?"

Freya frowned.

"Something tells me we shouldn't be feeling pleased for long." she said narrowing her eyes at Bulkhead who reached for the paint covered mop again...

So it's been revealed what that beam was and it's in Bulkhead's brain, and Megatron knows what happened too!

Freya does have a point, she and Loki shouldn't be cheering yet.