TFA: Together We Stand (Season 1)

Chapter 30: Fateful Autumn

Mantis's optics slowly flickered online behind her lenses and she stretched her servos over her helm, her joints popping and cracking at the relieved stiffness. She blinked and realized that she must've fallen asleep midway through her anime marathon.

Oh well, she can always rewatch it tonight.

Popping the last rust stick that was conveniently nearby into her mouth, she stood up and dusted herself off. Just as she was about to start her morning routine, her optics fell on the ivy growing prosperously in her room.

A sound of shock choked out of her voicebox when she realized something was very wrong.

Hurriedly, she checked her collection of succulents but they were fine. Heck, one of them even had a small little flower blooming on it.

She instantly deduced that something must be wrong with the ivy. But what? She waters it diligently and makes sure it receives plenty of sunlight. What could've possibly caused this?

Since she couldn't answer her own questions, she left the room and purposefully walked towards Prowl's. He would know what to do. He's been on Earth longer than her, right? If so then he'd probably know more about plants than her too.

So he'd probably be able to solve this too.....right?

^^*************^^

"Prowl, Prowl, Prowl, Prowl, Prowl, Prowl." Mantis chanted over and over again as she poked him, trying to get him to wake up.

He groaned in annoyance. Yes, Prowl was awake but he had no intentions of turning his optics online now.

"Brother, brother, brother, brother, brother. I need to talk. It's an emergency and I don't know what to do." Mantis said.

Now that got his attention. Swatting away the annoying digit that was prodding him, he pushed himself up. "Wha-"

He didn't have to ask as Mantis wordlessly pointed towards his tree- a gesture that was also pointless since his optics already told him everything.

His tree was dying.

The once vibrant healthy green leaves were now in varying shades of brown, red, orange, yellow and even a bit of purple, all of them dropping from the branches like dead flies and laying there on the floor, scattered.

"What did you do?!" he gasped.

"I didn't do anything!" Mantis said. "The same thing's happening to the ivy in my room. I swear to Primus I water it every day."

And Prowl tends to his tree every day too like clockwork. It had plenty of sunlight almost 24/7 and water so why did it seem to be withering away now?

"I mean.....is this natural?" Mantis asked, looking at him imploringly.

Prowl opened his mouth......then closed it.

"..........you...do know, right?" she prodded.

"......I'm not sure." He said eventually.

"That basically means you don't know." She deadpanned.

Prowl just made an annoyed gesture. "Why don't you ask that Google app you always trust so much?"

She perked up at that and wondered why she didn't do it before. "Good idea." She said as she took her datapad out and accessed the useful Earth app she downloaded.