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“It won’t come loose!”
That was the last thing heard over the comms before the robotic shark carried over to the ocean exploded, Blades dropping to the sea along with it.
“Blades!” Everyone shouted after the smoke cleared, then Heatwave dove into the ocean.
“Heatwave!—” Chief Burns called out before his phone rang. He picked it up. “Griffin Rock Emergency.”
On the sea floor, Heatwave drove through the water, headlights on as he searched for his sunken team member. It was going to take awhile before he would get to the spot where Blades fell, hence why he drove as fast as he could in the water. He wasn’t going to lose another team member again.
“Heatwave,” Kade said through the comms, “come back up here! There’s a fire we need to handle down at the bakery.”
Heatwave huffed, “But Blades—”
“We’ll look for him, Heatwave.” Boulder hopped on the comms, “I’m sure he’s fine. It takes a lot more than an explosion from a robot shark to destroy a Cybertronian.” He reassured him.
Heatwave grumbled before he turned around and headed back up to land.
——
Under a pile of scrap, something rumbled underneath.
Blades popped his helm out of the pile, optics flickering before he rebooted back to normal.
He groaned, “I need to get a hoist that detaches.” He shook his helm and looked around before he felt a sharp pain in his rotors.
“Ow-!” Blades whimpered as he looked behind to check his rotors, which didn’t even look like rotors anymore, they looked more like zig zags. Great, he thought as he tried to stand up.
After he emerged from the scrap, and managed to stand up, he called on the comms.
“Hello, guys? I’m alive.” Blades said but all he got back in response was static. That was when he realized that one of his antennas was bent, meaning he couldn’t get a single through. Blades sighed, more out of despair than hopeless. Because he was stuck under the ocean, unable to transform, unable to call for help, and worst of all, stuck down here where sea monsters would be.
——
Boulder —with Graham, Dani, and Cody in his cab— drove through the water in search of Blades. Chase and Heatwave, along with Chief and Kade, went off to deal with the fire.
Dani tried to get a commlink to Blades on her comm while Cody looked through the window, eyes searching the sea floor like never before. Or in this case like “first before” since he’s never been on the sea floor till now.
Dani sighed, “Nothing, he hasn’t responded.”
Cody looked at his sister and placed his hand on hers, “We’ll find him, Dani. Besides, like Boulder said, it takes more than an explosion from a robot shark to offline a Cybertronian.”
Dani smiled, reassured.
Cody continued, “And besides, Blades is the bravest bot ever. I’m sure he’s fine.” He smiled, then looked aside to the window, “I hope.”
——
Blades walked with fear in his steps and optics wide, “Next time, I’m letting Heatwave handle robot sharks.”
He continued walking on the ocean floor, even though his comm was broken at least he still had his navigation maps. And he knew the exact coordinates back to land, but even then, he wished the team would find him sooner or later.
——
Boulder drove into the firehouse, letting Dani, Graham, and Cody out before he transformed into bot-mode.
Chief Burns walked towards them, “No luck?” He asked.
Dani shook her head, “We went to the spot but there was nothing there.”
“We probably went to the wrong spot but we had to stop,” Graham said, “it’s pretty late.”
Kade joined them and the family talked for a bit, all except Cody, who walked towards the bots with slightly sluggish steps. It was a bit past his bed time after all. Heatwave looked down at the kid, his optics softening just slightly —just a bit though, not like he cares or anything.
“Tired?” Heatwave asked Cody.
Cody nodded, then yawned, “I didn’t know searching could be so tiring.”
“Then perhaps it is time for you to recharge, after all, human children work best when refreshed.” Chase spoke.
Cody was about to shake his head to protest before Boulder spoke and smiled at him, “We’ll keep looking for Blades, you just—”
“Hi, guys.”
Blades said, tiringly, as he walked into the garage, water dripping off him, seaweed on his helm and caught in his ziz-zags for rotors, one antenna bent to the side like a very thick bendy straw. He looked like a wet cat.
“Blades!” Cody and Dani exclaimed as they ran to him, the tiredness seeming to leave Cody.
“You’re ok!” Boulder sighed as he walked towards Blades to stand beside him.
Chief gave a sigh of relief, Kade gave a sarcastic but not mean remark “Where’ve you’ve been?”, and Graham smiled.
“Ooh, you’re poor rotors.” Boulder mumbled as he looked at Blades’ rotors.
“I know,” Blades muttered, with a bit of a pout, “I gotta a lot of work to do to get them fixed.”