Earth One

Juxtaposition - Chapter Eight

Hook opened the door, and as soon as he looked around, he was filled with an immense relief. He saw that that Bombshell and Vortex had just walked into the same room but from a different door. They must have had a journey of their own, too. Hook tried to find the antidote that would heal them of this drug by simply looking around the room when he was suddenly caught off guard by the gruesome scene in front of him.

Long Haul was on the floor, sediments and bricks sprawled all around him. He had placed down Crankcase before he took the tumble from ramming into the wall, but that seemed to be to no avail due to Crankcase's already horrible state.

Crankcase was sitting up on the floor, gagging energon from his mouth. He was holding his arm tightly in an attempt to stop the gushing of hot energon leaking from the large shoulder gash. His venting was shaky, and he never even tried to get up from his position, and lay limply slouching on the floor, as if he had already given up.

"Long Haul? Crankcase?" Bombshell said as he entered with Vortex, the both of them taking in the scene slowly.

"Crankcase!" Bombshell exclaimed suddenly as he realized that Crankcase could be in great danger. He ran to his side and removed his servo from his shoulder to see the true extent of the injury.

His entire shoulder cap was blown off, and still hot, barely holding the rest of his arm in place. Bombshell seated himself next to Crankcase and began going through compartments to try to find some gadget that would at least help him the best he could at the moment.

Long Haul slowly stood from the pile of brick and looked around, spotting Crankcase immediately. He looked back to see if the helicopter from before had followed them, but it seemed to have disappeared completely. In fact, the environment seemed to have changed for Long Haul and Crankcase entirely.

Long Haul looked around in confusion, and he noticed they were no longer on Earth. He tried to spot some buildings, and even lifeforms, but there were no where in sight. He looked out into the hole he made in the wall and saw that they were on a red planet, once thought to be covered in grass. But all the vegetation from before was gone. What he thought was there, wasn't even close to the reality that he sees now.

Geysers spewed out a gaseous acid into the air and he thought that they seemed familiar. Maybe they were there all along? They seem like the one's Bombshell was talking about when they first arrived to this planet, right? That would be the only logical explanation.

He shrugged of the change to be thought about a different time and ran over to Crankcase's side, his harsh venting loudly pulling back to the situation at hand. He faltered as he tried to figure out what to do about the whole ordeal, and never even noticed Bombshell and Vortex being right beside him.

Hook figured that Crankcase was getting enough attention and looked around the building they were in to find a possible solution to the acid they were intaking. Anymore of it and they could drop dead for all he knew.

A familiar blue hue caught his optic as he looked and he turned in that direction. He walked over to what appeared to be a blue, glowing switch with some symbols over it. It was the shape of a water droplet with a drawing of a shine engraved into the stone.

He placed a servo on the button and pressed it with enough force to make the old statue budge. The ceiling was shaking, and debris was falling onto the ground. Hook was beginning to have the impression that it was an earthquake until it finally stopped, and a multitude of small pipes had erupted from the ceiling. They began spewing a yellow, misty liquid that fell over each of them.

Most of the crew hadn't even noticed that they were being encased by the strange yellow substance. That was, except for Crankcase. His optics widened in surprise as the pain that was surging through his body had began to simmer down quickly. His surprised expression seemed to have caused Long Haul to worry even more, as he began to hold his servo in desperation.