Under the Ice – CavernPerceptor wrote:“Excellent! I am on my way! Fantastic… Almost leaves one speechless, doesn't it?"
“Yeah,
Perceptor, almost,” Wheeljack replied, keeping his optics focused on all of the crystalized raw energon. It was a beautiful site to behold and it held untold potential when it came to finally refining it and utilizing it to power the Autobots and their war machine. Naturally, that’s what Prowl would want it for primarily and the inventor fully understood that. Of course, there were many other potential uses for the ore if they were able to stabilize it and there were no side effects in the short or long term. It wouldn’t do them any good if the ore helped them now but ended up hurting them in the long run.
“We still need to be careful with it,” Wheeljack added, patting
Perceptor on the shoulder plate. “The ore is in a very raw and unstable form. One false move and…” Suddenly, Cliffjumper leapt into the cavern, sliding down the icy embankment to the bottom, yelling as he went. “…boom.”
Sigh.
Hot Rod then came up behind Wheeljack and stood beside him and Perceptor, looking out at all of the energon crystals. “Well, frag, jackpot is right! We should probably get started, don’t you think, Jackie?” Before the scientist could respond, the cavalier leapt down into the cavern, as well, sliding down the embankment in a similar fashion to Cliffjumper. Once at the bottom, Roddy pushed away from the ice and approached the others.
Cliffjumper wrote:"You know, this reminds me of some of those eh.. What are they called.. Move.. Movies? Those things that the humans watch? You know like there's the human and he goes into some place to find some ancient, valuable treasure, and then he always exits with the place collapsing or trying to kill him? Wouldn't that be just amazing? Haha!"
“No, I don’t think they would like that,
Cliff,” Twin Twist said with a snicker. “The bore bots up there already told me I couldn’t blow anything up, so the place collapsing or attempting to kill us wouldn’t go over well with them, either. Exciting, yes, but not favorable to those less inclined to have some fun. Heh.”
“Well, I’m all for a little fun, but I have to agree with the ‘bore bots’ on this one,” Hot Rod started to say as he leaned an elbow on Twin Twist’s shoulder. “I’d rather not get blown up or trapped under the ice. Can’t fight the ‘Cons again if that happens.”
“Hmmm, true,” Twin Twist replied as he removed the cavalier’s elbow from his shoulder. “Use someone else as a leaning post.”
“Ok, ok,” Hot Rod said, putting both hands into the air before walking away from the group to investigate the rest of the cavern.
Up above at the threshold of the cavern, Wheeljack looked down on all of them and watched the interactions. He then glanced over at
Perceptor with a worried expression on his faceplate. “I think we should get down there before they get us all killed.” Wheeljack then winked at the scientist/sniper before carefully climbing down into the cavern. Once at the bottom, he moved over to the rest of the team.
Blurr wrote:"SowhatcanI dotohelp, huhhuh huh?”
“I was just getting to that,
Blurr. Okay,
everyone, let’s start extracting the ore…
carefully! I’ve already contacted the
Ark-22 and requested some additional Autotrooper help. The faster we can get all this mined the faster we can get out of this frozen wasteland,” Wheeljack said before turning and looking back up at Perceptor. “Hey,
Percy, do me a favor and bring a couple of hover carts down with you. We’ll need them to transport the ore back to the shuttle. Once the Autotroopers get here they can bring down the rest of the carts. Thanks!”
Twin Twist scoffed at Wheeljack’s words. “Now the boring part begins. Come on,
Cliffjumper, I guess we should get started.” The former Wrecker walked over to one of the larger batches of crystal ore and picked up a bunch in his arms before heading back towards the bottom of the icy embankment that lead back up to the cavern’s entrance. “Fun fun fun! Yippeee!” Twin Twist said sarcastically as he pushed by Wheeljack.
_______________
Meanwhile, Hot Rod was exploring the far side of the cavern. This place reminded him of his visions of ice and snow. The only things different were the presence of the Ore-13 and the lack of a ship of any kind. Still, this seemed like too much of a coincidence that the cavalier would have visions of an icy environment and now here he was in a very similar ice cave.
Rodimus...Hot Rod stopped dead in his tracks and turned away from all of the ore. “What was that?”
“You okay over there, Roddy?” Wheeljack called out from the other side of the cavern.
“I think so!” Hot Rod called back as he moved away from the ore and over to where he thought he had just heard a voice. His scanners weren’t picking up anything unusual, but…
Rodimus. We’re here.“What the….?!” Hot Rod said aloud, his voice echoing off the ice-covered walls. “Who are you? Where are you? What do you want from me?! Am I dreaming again?”
The confused cavalier took another step before he heard a loud cracking sound. He slowly glanced down around his feet and noticed that the ice beneath him was starting to break apart. “Oh, frag…” Hot Rod muttered just as the ice gave way under him. He had no time to react as he plummeted down a deep, dark hole.
“Fraaaaaaaaaagggggggg!!!!!!!” “Hot Rod!” Wheeljack shouted as he sprinted over to where the cavalier had just been standing. When he arrived at the far side of the cavern, Wheeljack was careful as he approached the hole just in case the ice around it continued to crack. Thankfully, that did not happen, and it seemed to be stable enough for the inventor to walk on. The mad scientist knelt down at the edge of the hole and stared down into the dark, endless abyss. “Hot Rod! Can you hear me?! Are you okay!? HOT ROD!!!!!”