Chapter Text
Twenty days. I have been out here in the dark of this cave, for twenty days. I lost track of how many times I tried to use my comm link, scouring the wall for any openings that I could pry at. Nothing. You would think that by now the others would have noticed. Magnus was told that the scouting trip would take at the most two weeks and it’s been well over that now. Unless he’s gone back to using Cybertron’s timing, which means he wouldn’t be expecting me for, a long time to say the least.
I, Bumblebee, have started scouting out the local areas around the last landing site of the Nemesis, name pending change here soon if we ever get it back off the ground. After fighting Unicron yet again, loosing both Starscream and Shockwave, Megatron’s reawakening, and Prime’s… We’ve all been scrambling to find a sense of control to help our crumbling sanity.
Ratchet went back to Earth, Bulkhead started crafting little nick-nacks, Smokescreen started disappearing for hours at a time and coming back covered in dirt, Wheeljack blew himself up more than once in a week, and Magnus somehow managed to drag Arcee into cleaning out Soundwave’s old room. I couldn’t stand being on that ship when it was flying, but now with it resembling the same cold, and dark surroundings of Cybertron, my only solution was to revert to what I did during the war.
Scouting for me comes as easy as breathing for humans. I’ve done it ever since I joined the Autobots at the beginning of the war. You would think that would make it easy, all that experience and all that time spent scouting out a destroyed Cybertron, but it doesn’t. In fact, it is so much harder now. With the revival of the planet came the shifting of the land. Cities split and slid different directions, whole burial grounds dug up after generations of time rusted away its original form leaving almost nothing in the end. Old caves and mines shoved to the side making way for new ones, the few that remained so unstable most bots would have just finished what the planet started.
I slid down the wall and brought my knees up to my chest with a sigh. I had two more energon rations and about three more stories Raf had sent to me before I left for this expedition. No matter how interesting the stories might be, I wasn’t really in the mood for reading anything. All I wanted was to get out of here and get back to the team. Maybe even get some sleep when I get back.
“Who am I kidding. Magnus probably thinks I was referring Cybertron’s ‘days’ and not Earths. No one’s worried or anything, they probably think its going great!”
I flopped onto my back. “I’d even take a nagging from Ratchet or endure Knockout’s talk about his own finish and how bad it was getting then be stuck in this little cave!”
Some of the rock tumbled from the wall next to my foot and for a moment, I thought an opening was going to form. There still was nothing. I went back to laying and decided to just, nap. I was tired from all the scrambling after the cave in that has left me stranded. Maybe by the time I wake up the others will have some idea that things have gone wrong.
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Day twenty-three, still no signs of anyone finding me. I’ve got one more ration to go and there’s only one option left. For about a day now I’ve been able to remove a good portion of the rubble, and on the bright side, there’s now light. The bad news is I crumpled my leg while doing so and managed to hurt my arm getting it off. I was to far along to stop now, especially since I know no one’s coming for a long time.
One after another I pulled more rubble away, making the opening wider. About another hour later and the hole was just big enough for my head to stick through. The light outside was starting to dim and nightfall inched closer. Either I could rest again and work when the light came back out or keep going, to which the latter was much more appealing.
“Better to keep chugging along and rest when I get back. I’m already to low on energon to chance bleeding out from the injuries I have now.” Looking down at my partially crippled right leg, I just sighed and kept going. My beacon was emitting a signal still, but I had no idea if anyone was receiving it.
It was all one after another, getting stuck in here and hurting my leg. There goes a piece crumbling out.
“When I get back, I’m gonna wring Magnus for not keeping up with the comm checks.” And another piece goes, I could probably fit my head and my shoulders.
“Right after I take a nice, Long, BREAK!” More tumbles down revealing a hole just big enough to slip through.
Starting to claw my way through the hole, my comm link crackled to life and an incredibly happy Smokescreen spoke. “Arcee I- *static* Again- *static* maybe?”
“Smokescreen! Finally, can you hear me.” I paused while halfway through the hole and was greeted with nothing. “Smokey? Frag!”
Another few frustrated yell and I slipped onto the other side followed by more rubble. Spires of hot pain shot up my hurt leg and bloomed across my back, causing me to shriek. That killed my leg there, though I could care less.
“Smokescreen, tell me you can hear me?”
Static blipped in for a moment, then my comm fell silent again. Maybe they were having issues with the comm system again. I could hear for a moment, and I know that I’m in range of the system.
“Smokey, I’m hurt. Just outside the city.”
I tried calling everyone for the next few minutes and confirmed that, yes, the comm system was indeed screwed. No one was gonna be able to hear me. Another spire of pain shot up while I struggled to get back into a sitting position. Walking was going to be hard to manage, but there wasn’t really any other option now.
Not to mention that the light was still fading out there. I’d be stumbling around in the dark with a hurt leg. If I was found by an unfriendly party, I was screwed. Cybertron’s night cycle was longer than Earth’s by about 5 hours in total. Meaning it was gonna be about 17 hours of dark followed by the first rays of light.
I wasn’t tired, I wouldn’t be able to sleep if I tried anyways, and I sure as hell wasn’t gonna sit around with my thoughts any longer. Don’t get me wrong, I like having some time for me and my thoughts, but not this much. Especially since I’ve been alone out here for so long already.
Talking myself through every motion, I finally got myself standing, with the help of the wall. There was still a lot of ground to cover, but now the timer has started. I was on my move back to base.
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Seven hours of stumbling through the empty ruins of the city and I finally found one of the scout Vehicon’s that was surveying the outer ring of our area. His initial reaction was terror, since he didn’t expect me, but after the shock of everything passed, he rushed to help me stand. While we worked together to get back, he informed me that the comms system did in fact go down and Magnus was running on the idea that I was following Cybertron’s day cycle and not Earth’s.
How did they know this little nugget of information, apparently some of the other members of Team Prime reached out to the Vehicons and Magnus to check when I was going to be around again since it had been so long since they last saw me?
“Arcee actually got worried about a cycle ago and went out looking for you with Wheeljack.”
“Are either of them back yet?”
“Yes, they’re back at the ship. I guess something else happened out there and they had to get back to report it? Don’t know what though…” The Vehicon paused for a moment. “We need to hurry if we wanna get back in time before Knockout leaves for the cycle. From what I heard; Jackie tired to strangle the Doctor for some comment he made.”
I snorted. “Wheeljack has been itching to fight Knockout since he ‘joined’ the Autobots. I’m surprised they’ve made it this far without something happening.”
The mech looked over at me the best he could before we rounded another street’s ally way. “I hope you don’t mind me asking, but what happened out there that left you in this shape? Was it the Hive?”
“I went to check out an old mine just outside city limits to see if there were any good supplies left over. The entrance caved in, and I got trapped between two piles of rubble. Some of it landed on my leg while I tried to clear it all out.”
I could feel him stiffen the more I explained. “How are you walking if it crumpled your leg?!”
“I had no other option, though I doubt me crawling for the majority of that could be considered walking really. Comms are down, no one besides me has been out that far, and I couldn’t sleep anymore than I already had.”
“You really are something. Don’t tell him I said anything, but you remember…” he looked around for a moment. “Soundwave’s little bird got hurt. It was barely a scratch from the looks of it, but he refused to do any work till it was fixed!”
“Really? A scratch on his little pet and he threw a tantrum?”
The Vehicon adamantly nodded, “It was right after Makeshift tried to… ya know… and we had all those injured in the Medbay.”
Soundwave. Third in command of the Decepticons, information central for everything everywhere regarding the Cons. The mech had eyes and ears everywhere from cameras to his little goons. It’s no surprise, even when he’s stuck in the Shadow zone with no way out, that he’s still got that fear factor over everyone’s head.
“How am I not surprised by that. I tried to pull that once when I worked under Prowl. Never again.” We both paused to laugh. “What is your name anyways. You obviously know mine, but I don’t know yours.”
“We uhh, we have numbers not names…”
I stopped to look at him. There were stories of the cons doing that to their troops, but I completely forgot it.
“What name would you like to have then?”
The mech seemed flustered for a moment as he stuttered. “Oh, I- uhm… M-maybe Steve’s Auto shop! I saw it on a board back on earth.”
“Why don’t we go with Steve.”
“Steeeeeeve. I like it!”
As we continued our little chat, ducking between ally ways and crumbled buildings, the closer we got to base. The odd part of it all was this entire time I have only seen Steve. No other Autobots or Vehicons. We were in the inner ring of our base, not by construction or anything but close enough to see activity.
“You said something about how Arcee and Wheeljack went out looking for me, then came back not to long after right?”
“Yeah, why?” Giving me his best attempt at a puzzled look, I continued.
“I’m just hoping that the reason everyone isn’t out doing their rounds is because Magnus decided it was time for spring cleaning on the Nemesis and not because the local Hive picked them off.”