*No ones POV, in the Autobot base*
"Ah, come on. Come on. You want some?" Jack said as his red car bumped the side of Miko's car in the game.
Miko's car then crashed as Jack stood up. "In.. your.. face!" He exclaimed in victory.
"Ugh." Miko said.
"Whoa!" Jack said as the lights suddenly cut out, "What the..?!"
The lights, and TV's powered back on, "Great. Power failure." Jack said.
Miko looked at the TV's for a second, before putting on a mock surprised expression. "Aw. It wiped out our game."
Jack looked at the TV that was previously displaying the game, looked back to his controller, then put his hands on his head. He gave a short, slightly aggravated noise before following Miko, who was making her way towards the stairs.
"But," He took a second to scoff, "I was winning!"
"Bummer." Miko replied.
Meanwhile, Ratchet was bent over an area of the floor, the panel having been lifted to reveal a large amount of, what look to be, motherboards. He carefully pulled out one of the motherboards, although this one had chunks of it missing, along with some black lines around where those missing chunks previously were.
"We most definitely have a problem." Ratchet said as he inspected what he held. "But what could have caused this?"
As he looked at it from a few different angles, the lights flickered again, drawing everyone's attention up to them.
"Or that?" Bulkhead both asked and added.
"Might be the main grid." Ratchet said, looking back down to the motherboard in his hands. "Hopefully, it isn't a substation malfunction."
Before anyone else could pipe up a question, Raf called out, "Hey, guys. Look what I found."
Ratchet looked up from his work to the direction of his voice, "We're busy! AHH!" His small scolding was cut short when he saw the creature Raf held close in his hands.
Everybot jumped up and started backing away, Bulkhead quickly yelling, "Whoa, WHOA, WHOA!" His voice turning slightly more hysterical near the end. Bulkhead and Bumblebee both pulled out their blasters and pointed them at it, whilst simultaneously pointing them at Raf.
Both Miko and Jack quickly came in front of Raf, they're hands out as if they were doing crowd control. Behind them, Raf had a surprised expression on his face, however it slowly changed to one of hurt as he looked up at the bots.
"HEY, HEY! What's with you guys?" Miko yelled, Jack was just looking up at them wide eyed, more so shocked at they're reaction.
The bots were slowly inching away, Bulkhead screamed whilst pointing with his blaster, "SCRAPLET! SCRAPLET!"
"What's a Scraplet?" Raf asked as both Miko and Jacks expression swiftly changed to one of confusion.
Ratchet, this time, was the one to respond, "The most dangerous vermin ever to crawl upon the face of Cybertron."
Both Miko and Jack relaxed, then turned to look at what Raf was holding.
"This?" Jack scoffed, "Are you kidding me?"
"You're giant robots." Miko said, while raising her arms for emphasis. "Scrappy here is... teeny." She put her pointer finger to her thumb, again for emphasis.
"You have no idea the damage that teeny thing can do!" Bulkhead began, as he backed away a bit more.
"Aw, he wouldn't hurt anything." Raf said, gently petting it's head a little.
Suddenly the creature woke up, it's blue-purple optics blinked as it looked around.
The Scraplet made a small humming sound, before it's eyes locked onto Bumblebee. It's mouth opened to reveal a large number of teeth, lined up like a sharks would, or more accurately, a Whispering and or Screaming Deaths.
It made a whirring sound before it jumped out of Raf's arms and ran towards Bumblebee at full speed. Both Bee and Bulkhead shot at it, but it jumped away from they're shots.
It jumped onto Bees leg and began eating away at his plating. Bee stumbled and feel backwards as the Sraplet started making a trail up his leg. He tried to pry it off with his hand, but it twisted out of his grasp and started eating his arm platting instead.
He used his other hand to swipe it away, but it got back up and started running at them again. However this time, Raf came and crushed it with a crowbar. He kept on hitting it until Jack stopped him.
"Whoa, easy there, killer." He said as he took the crowbar away from Raf.
Raf stopped, panting for a second, then gasped as he ran over to Bumblebee.
"Whoa. I did not see that coming." Miko said, standing beside Jack.
Ratchet was crouched over Bumblebee, checking the wounds he got from the Scraplet. Raf ran up towards Bees arm, his expression full of worry and guilt.
"I'm sorry, Bumblebee." He said, looking up towards his guardians faceplate. Bumblebee buzzed something in reply to him.
"Is he gonna be ok?" Raf asked Ratchet.
"Only a mesh wound. He'll live." Ratchet stated.
"Now do you believe me?" Bulkhead said from behind both of the other mechs. "All Scraplets do is dismantle machinery, and eat anything metal- especially living metal."
"Well, bug squashed, game over, right?" Jack asked.
"No." Ratchet said. "When it comes to Scraplets, there's never only one." He turned around to look behind him, " And I fear I know how they got here."
The bots and humans left and went towards they're previously frozen pod, said pod now mostly unfrozen. Along with a bonus gaping hole in it, said hole clearly made from the inside.
"It's a trap- A Scraplet trap." Ratchet said as he pointed his welding tool into the trap, just enough for him to see inside.
"Uh, an empty Scraplet trap." Bulkhead added.
"Most likely ejected into space eons ago, only to wind up in the Arctic, where the temperature kept them in stasis."
"Until we brought the thaw." Jack said, walking a bit closer to the trap.
"Now they're wide awake and ready for-"
Before Miko could finish her sentence, a loud roar sounded out of nowhere, quickly followed by the sounds of crashing.
They all turned towards the hall, then Ratchet gasped as realization struck.
"THE PREDACON!" He yelled as he ran towards his Med-bay.
"The what now??" Miko asked as everyone began running to catch up with him.
*Equinox 3rd person mixed POV, just a minute before people started running*
Equinox was running on top of the seemingly endless ocean, around him on all sides was his pack mates.
He tilted his head up slightly as he enjoyed the breeze, the feeling he had as he ran for... oh who cares how long! It was a great feeling he'd live through again, and again, and-
Ow.. why does my arm hurt a bit? And- ow, and my tail? What's happening- why...
His thoughts quickly lost him as his dream world faded away, the memories of him falling through the portal and meeting the Autobots returned to him just as fast. He was sad that it was all a dream, but he was eager to learn more about-
He was interrupted by a sharp pain shooting through his body, his eyes opened and quickly adjusted to the light. Despite himself, he stayed still, just to asses the situation he was in.
What he found startled him, tiny creatures were crawling along about half of the things in the room he was in. When he looked at himself, he saw these creatures were on him too.
And they we're what was causing him pain, biting and making trails along his armor. He was frozen in shock for a moment as he saw one pause and look up, not at him directly.
It's mouth was wide, it had closely lined rows of teeth, the image of a Whispering Death flashed in his mind as his body started reacting on instinct.
He rolled off the bed he was on, some of them came loose, but some still stayed on. He roared in both Anger and Fear, mostly the latter, also hoping to get the attention of one of the bots.
If they hadn't been eaten alive yet.
He twisted around and started biting, clawing, and stabbing anything he could get his teeth, claws, and or tail stinger on. He was temporarily delighted to find out his tail stinger still worked, but swiftly went back to destroying any parasite he could reach.
He had gotten through most of them when he heard rushing metal feet come his way. At first he was relieved, but then he remembered that these parasites would eat them too.
"Wait! Don't come in yet! There's mini Whisperers in here!" He tried to bark the warning, but was both too late and still not speaking English, so no one understood his warning.
Ratchet swiftly opened the temporary door and gasped at the sight, the others still coming up behind him. Equinox winced, both in pain and the guilt as he went back to killing the parasites.
Or well, he tried to.
He was able to get one last one in his jaws as another came flying towards his face. He crushed the one in his jaws and got ready to bite the next when it paused. It's eyes went wide, it made a horrendous high pitched noise and ran away. The others took one good look at him, both the ones ready to attack and the ones eating random equipment, made a similar noise that had a recognizable hint of fear, and ran away.
...whut? .-.
He looked back in Ratchets direction when he heard a set of gasps. He looked at the bots, noting that he only saw three, then down to where they were looking.
He saw three, tiny humans.
He made a sound similar to a squeal of delight as his tail wagged back and forth. He quickly ran up to them and crouched to they're level, two of them backed up as the medium sized one gave their own squeal of delight.
"W-what is that!" The tallest one yelled, Nox was slightly hurt they were scared of him, but couldn't help but completely melt over how cute and small they were.
He knew now these were not Vikings, not even close. Even though they kind of looked like them. Actually, that seems to be they're only similarity... at least so far it is.
The medium sized one with black and pink hair gave him a pet on the nose, he purred at how adorable and small they're hands were compared to him.
However, as all things must, all good things come to an end, as Ratchet quickly stomped in towards Equinox, with an angry expression on his face.
Equinox moved his head above the children, even though he was a bit nervous himself, he didn't know if the angry giant would punish the children for him coming to them.
Ratchet paused, surprised by Nox's actions, he sighed then crouched down to his level.
"Look, I'm not going to hurt them. I was more concerned that you would, actually. Regardless, I need to asses your injuries and see how bad the damage is, and I cant have them in the way while I work. So, would you kindly release them so I can do my job?" Ratchet said in his grumpy way.
Equinox gave him an offended look, again with them thinking he'd hurt some poor, cute, defenseless hatchlings? But he, reluctantly, let them go to stand be side Bee and Bulk.
It was now that he noticed the trailing lines on Bees arm and leg, he winced as he glanced back at his own wounds. There was one on the upper part of his right thigh, one on his left shoulder, and one at the base of his tail.
However, they we're clearly not as bad as Bees. Yes, they hurt, but they didn't go to deep.
Ratchet gave a sigh of relief, muttering something along the lines of "I guess I doubted the strength of your plating."
"So, when did you guys get a Raptor!" Miko asked, both Ratchet and I turned to look at her. I tilted my head, what in the name of the Titans is a Raptor?
"What? Oh, no.. this is what we call a Predacon. An ancient and ext- Ehem.. thought to be extinct species of Cybertronian wildlife. They lived long before our kind existed, even longer than before your planet had any form of life on it." Ratchet said.
Equinox tilted his head at Ratchet, then looked down towards the ground as he got wrapped in his own thoughts. So.. anything remotely similar to me is.. gone?
He shook his head as he focused on the conversation at hand.
"So, like earths Dinosaurs?" The small one said, then the medium one shouted "Cool!"
"How long has it been here?" The tallest one asked. He glanced between me and Ratchet, clearly nervous about the situation.
However, as the lights flickered above them, the conversation was quickly put on hold.
"We will answer your questions later. Right now, what we need to do is focus on fixing the ground bridge to get Optimus and Arcee back to base." Ratchet said as he slowly stood up.
I tilted my head, trying to piece together what was happening. Arcee and Optimus we're somewhere we couldn't go without the ground bridge? Where, maybe I could reach there and see if they're ok!
I followed them to the main room, I saw part of the floor was missing, and under it was some thin green and gold things that looked important. One, however, had been taken out and was on the table the 'Monitors' were sitting on.
I didn't need to know what is was or how it worked to know it was broken.
They gathered in a circle, I stood just behind where the children where, just incase any of those pests come around.
Yeah, that's what ima call them now, and no one can do anything about it! >:>
"Well, I was gonna say 'And now they're ready for Brunch.', but it's a little late for that." Medium said, I still have yet to learn they're names.
"So... how many are we talking about?" Small said, looking up towards Ratchet. I to looked at Ratchet, as I tried to grasp what and how bad the situation was.
"Thousands." He replied as he looked over the ground bridge controls. "And the power malfunctions and ground bridge damage are sure signs that their infestation is well underway."
I growled lightly at that, as soon as I find these creatures... I will rip and tear through all of them till nothing remains.
No matter the cost.