Cybertronians vs Earth Life

by Niiwasong

Summary:

Adapting to a new planet takes time, especially when there are weird life forms around. The Cybertronians learn this the hard way.

Earth is very different from Cybertron. The atmosphere is different, the weather is different, and the inhabitants are different. How humans managed to become the dominant species of their planet when they’re so soft and squishy, Optimus has no idea. Not that he’d ever say it aloud to the humans he works with, it’s just a quiet question that floats around in his server and comes to the forefront of his mind whenever he watches the humans do something dumb. 

Part of why it baffles him that humans are in charge is because their fellow Earth life seems pretty dangerous. Certainly more so than the humans themselves. Some of them have built in armour like the Cybertronians, others have multiple limbs, and some can run very fast. Others are just disturbing, their designs seem to be odd even for Earth life in a way that almost seems counterproductive. 

That’s not what he’s thinking while he works with the human military to sort out the moving of a crashed Cybertronian ship. There’s no bot on board, it was obviously an unmanned scouting ship but they can’t just have it floating around on the coast of Southern California. Humans are clumsy and have very poor self preservation skills, it wouldn’t take long for one of them to find the crashed ship and hurt themselves. It needs to be moved.

This isn’t a very complicated mission, certainly not one that requires a lot of fire power, which is why he’s brought a relatively small crew. Just himself, Arcee, Mirage, and Bumblebee and he only brought those three because he didn’t want them causing trouble around the base in his absence. They’re the youngest three Autobots and while they’re usually mature, it does get boring sitting around the base with very little to do. It wouldn’t be the first time the three of them got up to trouble while he was gone and Ratchet, Jazz, Ironhide, and Ultra Magnus deserve a night off. 

That doesn’t mean they’re helping. No, they’re wandering around the coast by the ship looking at things. Even from a distance, Optimus can hear Mirage complaining about the sand getting in his joints and Arcee kicking water at him. At least they’re relatively out of the way.

“Make way!” One of the humans called, ushering the other humans out of the way. 

A human cargo ship has arrived to move the Cybertronian ship, a smaller vessel launching to pull it to the bigger ship. At least now with the human ship coming in, the younger Autobots have found a way to be useful, helping it manuver to the crashed ship without hitting against the side. 

“Thank goodness for them.” Commander Lennox says from Optimus’s feet. 

He just nods, not willing to tell the human that he could have handled this alone but he didn’t want to have to deal with the cleaning up after the younger bots and what they did to their base later. 

While he and the human commanders settle in to do ‘paperwork’ for moving the vessel, Arcee, Bumblebee, and Mirage start hooking up the Cybertronian ship to the human boat. As heavy as they are, none of them can swim, they just sink, but they walk along with the boat for a while, making sure no lines get tangled or that it hits a sandbar. 

“Ohhhhh! What the fuck is that!”

As soon as he hears Mirage scream, Optimus is standing at attention with his cannons drawn. Arcee and Bumblebee are freaking out in the water, blasters drawn and angled at the waves. Mirage has climbed onto the Cybertronian ship and is clinging for dear life.

“Optimus!” Arcee shouts, glancing over her shoulder to look for him. “Hostile life force found!” 

Bumblebee is blaring his car alarm, antenna flattened against his head. The humans on the boat have fallen back to the centre of their deck and he realises very quickly that they are not armed. If whatever his Autobots have found is, indeed, dangerous, they need to make sure the humans on the boat are safe.

“Optimus!” Commander Lennox shouts, running behind him. 

Stooping, Optimus grabs the commander and lifts him up to his shoulder so he doesn’t step on him and carries him to the water. The other humans in the army fall back at Commander Lennox’s command while they investigate. 

When they reach the beach, Optimus finds himself agreeing with Mirage, the sand in his joints is unpleasant but there are bigger issues to be dealt with. He pushes out into the waves, careful of any traps the hostile life force may have laid, until he’s standing between Arcee and Bumblebee. His scout whistles at him and points at the life form, its appearance startling him. 

No question about it, it’s disturbing.

His disgust must show on his face because Mirage is shouting from his perch.

“I told you! I told you it was dangerous!”

The creature is flat and grey, moving its edges in the water like a bird would. But it’s not a bird, it has no feathers like a bird and Optimus has never heard of a bird like this. When it circles near the Cybertronian ship, the creature lifts itself up and flaps around the wall of the ship, showing off its white underside and making Mirage shriek. Arcee charges up her blaster, ready to fire, when Commander Lennox starts laughing on his shoulder.

“It’s just a stingray!” He calls, making a bouncing motion with his hands. “It’s not going to hurt you!”

The stingray circles around again, looping out towards Optimus, Bumblebee, and Arcee and making them step back cautiously. Arcee even grabs onto his arm to steady herself.

“Okay okay! Drop the guns, big guys, it’s harmless.” Commander Lennox laughs again.

“It’s trying to get on the ship!” Mirage shouts, “It’s trying to get me!”

“Don’t let go Jack!” Bumblebee calls in Kate Winslet’s voice.

“I’m trying, you yellow moron!” Mirage calls back. 

“Let go Jack!” Bumblebee retorts, modifying the line.

“Why is it near the ship if it isn’t dangerous” Arcee asks, cannon still trailing it.

“We’re stirring up a lot of sand, they eat things that live in the sand.” The commander explains. “It’s like a thanksgiving feast for the little guy. Trust me, it does not care about you.”

“It tried to eat my foot!” Mirage says.

Bumblebee nods vigorously in agreement, using his radio to make a noise that Optimus has to assume is similar to the one the creature made. 

“Like I said, you’re stirring up the sand. It doesn’t want you, it wants the things that live in the sand.” Lennox soothes. 

Mirage doesn’t look convinced and neither does Arcee, though Bumblebee seems to be coming around to the idea of this stingray. That does sort of make sense though, given that he’s been on this planet the longest and has some experience with Earth creatures. 

“Let’s just go back to shore.” Arcee says, backing away when the stingray glides towards her.

Bumblebee whistles his agreement and the pair start towards the shore, still keeping a cautious eye on the sea creature. Optimus turns, trying to set a good example by not showing his discomfort, when Mirage starts yelling behind him.

“Don’t leave me out here with it!” He cries, metal clacking against metal when he moves.

“Just walk out!” Lennox calls. “Come on, you’re way bigger than it is!”

“It smells fear!” Mirage yells dramatically.

“By Primus.” Optimus mutters, scooping the human off his shoulder and handing him off to Bumblebee.

While the other two race back to shore, Optimus turns around and goes to the ship, trying his best to stay away from the creature. Now that there aren’t other things in the water, he can see that it’s mostly floating around where the water is cloudy. Perhaps it really does just want the sand creatures. Regardless, he’s also unnerved by it. 

Once he’s close enough, he grabs Mirage under the arms and hauls him up and off the ship, ignoring his shrieks. The smaller bot scrambles against his chassis, clinging to him and wrapping his arms around his waist to keep his pieds away from the water. It’s awkward without a doubt and Optimus glares at Arcee when she blatantly takes a picture, clearly to embarrass Mirage later. The spy is proud too, perhaps too proud for his own good, if he’s willing to humiliate himself like this to avoid the stingray, he must be more bothered by it than he’d originally thought. 

As soon as they reach the shore, Mirage is squirming to be put down, shaking off his discomfort like they’ve seen the military dogs do after a swim. The younger bot storms away from the water, putting as much distance between himself and the stingray as possible.

“I hate this planet.” He mutters, examining his pied to make sure he isn’t missing a digit. “I want to go somewhere else.”

“Fly me to the moooon!” Bumblebee sings, looking his comrade over to make sure he isn’t injured.

“So long as there are no more of those things, I don’t care where they fly me.” Mirage agrees. 

“Just keep loading up the ship.” Optimus tells the humans. “Unless that thing is dangerous to you.”

“It’s not.” Commander Lennox assures, climbing down from Bumblebee's shoulder. “Come on! Get’er loaded up!”

“I hate this planet.” Mirage repeats. 

~~~

If you asked Jazz, he’d happily tell you that he thinks Earth is a very boring planet. Everything here is too delicate for a being his size to do anything fun, the lifeforms are too squishy to really hang out with, and the weather is annoying. Why does frozen shit fall from the sky? Gross. Imagine having to put up with that for your hundred year lifespan. Couldn’t be Jazz.

Still, despite the fact that it’s boring, this is where they are and he promised Optimus that he’d follow him back on Cybertron so he just has to suck it up. Besides, sometimes they get to kick Decepticon ass and that’s fun regardless of what planet you’re on. Especially when it’s Starscream, that dude is so dramatic it never fails to get a laugh out of him. 

The clean up is less fun. Apparently, they do “a lot of property damage” and “should help clean up as a sign of goodwill” to “make the humans feel safer”. Total rotten oil if you asked him but if he refuses, so will the younger bots, so he has to set a good example and do his part. Maybe the humans should consider building more resilient buildings, that’d certainly help.

“This blows.” Sunstreaker complains, grabbing an armful of broken buildings to dump into the trailer Optimus pulled in. “I’m chipping my paint job!”

“The sooner we get it done, the sooner we can leave.” He assures the smaller bot. 

“I say we should make the Decipti-scum clean this up.” Sideswipe says, joining his brother. “We wouldn’t have needed to make this mess if they hadn’t tried to blow up the city.”

“We can’t even get them to stop trying to blow up humans, you think we can get them to clean the streets?” Jazz asks, even though he does kind of agree. 

At least Arcee and Bumblebee are having fun. The two of them are throwing debris from a distance, doing more and more intense trick shots while Mirage and his human friend Noah cheer them on and assign points based on some system only they understand. Bulkhead, Ironhide, and Wheeljack are barely hiding amusement at their antics as they work around them. 

“Esxuse me, mister big robot?” A tiny voice asks.

Jazz, Sunstreaker, and Sideswipe startle, looking down to make sure they don’t step on the source of the voice. Way way way waaaayyy down below them is a tiny human, so small that Jazz needs to engage his microscopes to properly see it. The human is obviously a sparkling, its hair is dusty and its clothes are torn. Clearly, despite its age, it got caught up in the chaos. Thank Primus it lived to tell the tale. 

“Hello, little human.” Jazz greets, getting down to his knees and lowering his head to try and look the human in the eye. “Are you lost, little one?”

Humans this young usually have caretakers, right? He’s fairly certain that he’s seen humans this size with bigger humans before, so why is this one alone? Oh Primus, is it orphaned? Another innocent victim in this forsaken war?

“My Mommy’s over dere.” The human says with a shake of the head. “But I need help.”

Oh thank the Matrix, it still has its caretaker. Jazz can smell the relief pouring from Sunstreaker and Sideswipe as Jazz carefully scoops the human into his cupped hands and lifts it closer to his face.

“What can I help you with?” He asks, scanning it over for injuries.

“I-my kitty is missing!” She declares. “An-and mommy says you guys are heroes and heroes find lost kitties!”

Oh this human is definitely young. Evidently, its vocal processors aren’t fully developed yet. It’s kind of cute, the last sparkling he interacted with was Bumblebee, the Allspark hasn’t been making a lot of Sparklings due to the war. If this little human wants them to find her ‘kitty’ then he can oblige. Beats cleaning up rubble.

“What does your kitty look like?” He asks.

“She’s black. She has green eyes. Her name is Shadow!” The sparkling says happily, bouncing in his hands. 

That’s not a lot of details but they can work with it. How hard can it be to find a kitty? 

“Okay, we’ll look.” He promises, stepping around other bots and piles of garbage until he finds a human that looks like the sparkling. “You wait with your caretaker.” 

“Okay!” The human agrees, waving enthusiastically at him.

Engaging his scanners, Jazz starts looking around for the kitty, cycling through the World Wide Web to figure out what a kitty is. As it turns out, it’s a feline, a type of animal humans often keep as pets. That certainly narrows it down. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe are looking as well, no doubt looking for an excuse to not clean up the streets and knowing Optimus will give them a pass if they’re helping a human. Especially one so young, their leader has a soft spot for human younglings.

Using his scanners to scan for non-human life, Jazz tries to find Shadow. He finds many displaced human pets but none that match the description of the one he’s looking for, so he checks that they’re okay and continues searching. 

When he sees a black tail slip between a crevice in the rubble, his spark rises. He crouches to the ground to peak into the darkness, lightly flashing his headlights into the makeshift cave, seeing two green eyes peering back at him from inside.

“Hello Shadow!” He called, wiggling closer to stick his hand inside the opening. 

Shadow bites him but the World Wide Web told him felines do that when stressed. This must count as stressful. With one hand engaged with the feline, he used the other to open the cave, exposing the feline completely. 

“Come on, your human is waiting for you.” He said, scooping Shadow up.

The feline is bigger than he thought it’d be. Still small and squishy, but larger than he’d have expected. It's not like humans really mind big pets though, some of them ride their pets. As he carries it through the city, Shadow gets more and more aggressive, claws digging into his plating and teeth bared. The feline's tail is lashing angrily and the animal is squirming to get out of his hold.

“Little human!” He calls once he gets closer to the crowd, wishing he’d thought to ask its name. “I found Shadow!”

Ironhide glances at him and his very angry package before edging away from him, not wanting his plating damaged any further. The other bots follow suit, giving him a wide berth. 

Commander Lennox starts shouting, waving his arms to get his attention and Jazz heaves a sigh of relief. Hopefully, their human companion has found the little human and he can give the feline back to its owner. 

“What the hell are you doing?” Commander Lennox demands.

“I am returning this feline to its owner.” He explains, narrowly avoiding a claw in the optic.

“That’s not a feline!” The commander shouts. 

“Yes, it is.” He says, cocking his head.

This thing is definitely a feline. It matches the description exactly!

“Okay, technically, it’s a feline. But it isn’t a damn housecat! You’ve got a fucking leopard!” Lennox says, stepping back when the big cat tries swiping at him.

Jazz looks down at the creature in his arms. The very angry, very sharp creature. 

“Well, who does this belong to?” He asks. “Maybe I can give it to them.”

“It probably escaped from the zoo! Skywarp fell into it earlier.” He sighs. “Look, that thing’s dangerous. It’s one of the most lethal big cats in the world.” 

“Why do you have lethal life forms in your cities?” Jazz asked, somewhat embarrassed. 

“To look at them.” Lennox shrugged. “Look, just don’t drop it, I’ll call for proper transport.”

And then the human is turning away, grabbing the walkie on his hip and talking into it. Jazz stands up, feline still flailing in his hold, and he curses the humans and their stupid desire to host this thing in their city. Why would you even want to look at this thing? It’s not very pleasant, it’s going to take serious patches to get rid of the scratches it’s putting in his armour. 

“What have you got?” Ultra Magnus asks, standing a cautious distance away from him.

“Apparently not a pet.” He grumbles, adjusting his hold on the feline.

“But what is it?” Magnus asks again.

“Commander Lennox called it a leopard.” He says. “It escaped the zoo.”

“Humans keep these things?” He gasps. “On purpose?”

“That’s what I said!” Jazz agrees, suddenly very jealous of all the bots that are picking up scrap. “Hey, wanna trade places for a bit? I’ll pick up scrap and you hold this thing?”

“Not even if Primus himself told me to.” Ultra Magnus declines. “No offense, but I like my plating.”

And then he’s off, grabbing up an armful of bricks and drywall so he can’t have the angry feline shoved off on him. Jazz mutters curses under his breath while he watches his friend leave. This is the last time he does anything nice for humans, that’s for sure. Or at least, the last time he tries to help them with one of their pets. 

~~~

Ironhide doesn’t like Earth. If he had it his way, they’d have just taken what they needed from this rock, humans be damned, and have been on their way before the week was out. He didn’t have it his way, however, and so they’re still here, not only among the humans, but working with them. They mostly work with the human army when Decepticons are involved, but that’s not the only thing they help them with. Just recently, they helped the human army rescue humans who had been caught in an ‘earthquake’ because apparently, this damn planet just shakes sometimes and squishes its inhabitants. 

 But worse than the humans, is their chihuahuas. He’s hated the damn things since one lubricated his foot in Sam’s yard and they have not endeared themselves to him. The human army has tons of them, though they’re much bigger than the one Sam had and they bark almost incessantly whenever they see him. Commander Lennox has explained that they don’t like the Cybertronians because of the noises their joints make, but he thinks that’s a load of rotten oil. He doesn’t like the noise the chihuahuas make, that doesn’t mean he goes over and makes loud noises at them.

He hates working with the chihuahuas. He doesn’t know why Optimus keeps making him work with them, perhaps their leader has a sick sense of humour buried down somewhere deep. So here he is, walking through the fields near the base, with a human and two damn chihuahuas. One of which won’t stop flicking its slimy tongue over his pieds.

“Please, make that thing stop.” He asks, once again pulling his pied away from its reach.

“Sorry, I wonder if you stepped in something.” The human apologises. “She normally doesn’t do this.”

Ironhide doesn’t care what the chihuahua usually does, he wants it to stop licking his pieds. The damn thing is going to make him rust. 

“What are we hoping to accomplish with these things?” He asks, falling back to walk out of their reach.

“We’re training the dogs to identify Cybertronian technology.” The human explains. “We’re hoping they can be used later to seek out traps set by Decepticons.”

The female chihuahua doubles back and licks his pied again, making him grunt in annoyance.

“Then is my presence here not counterproductive?” He asks, fighting the urge to show the chihuahua his cannon. Not only has that never worked, it makes the humans distressed and gets him a lecture from Optimus.

“Well, we don’t want them alerting when they’re around you and the rest of the Autobots. That wouldn’t be very helpful. We want them to treat you guys like they treat us.”

He’s fairly certain the human’s name is Pete. An odd name, but whatever. Human Pete makes a decent point.

“Do they lick your pieds too?” He asks, glaring at the creature. 

“Sometimes, if they think I spilled something on them.” Pete shrugs. 

The chihuahua that isn’t trying to lick him freezes, stares off over a hill, and then takes off running towards it, howling. Ironhide claps his hands over his auditory intakes to try and ease the discomfort while human Pete runs off after his rogue chihuahua, the other one bouncing along after him.

“Frags sake.” He curses, stomping along after them.

One thing interesting about chihuahuas, they are fast. Not faster than them in their alt forms, but definitely faster than them when standing up. It’s their only redeeming quality, that they’re fast. 

Over the hill, he and Pete easily find the chihuahua, with its teeth bared at Wheelie. The small Decepticon-turned-Autobot is screeching in fear and trying to scramble his way onto a fallen log. The chihuahua is snapping at his wheels, pulling him off the log at every attempt.

“Rosie! Off, that’s one of ours!” Pete yells, trying to get the creature to leave Wheelie alone. 

“Frag off! Ya slobbering mutt!” Wheelie snaps, smacking at the ‘mutts’ snout. “Before I blast ya!”

Ironhide rolls his optics and steps over Rosie to scoop up Wheelie, getting him away from the angry chihuahua. The smaller bot climbs up his arm until he can rest on his shoulder, both of them looking down while the human reigns in his animal.

“Sorry!” Pete calls up. “She’s still learning.” 

“She’s gonna learn to fear my bombs!” Wheelie threatens, shaking his fist at the chihuahua.

“I thought they were only supposed to track Decepticons.” Ironhide mentions.

“We’re training them. There are still some kinks to iron out.” Pete says. 

Rosie howls up at him, barking at Wheelie on his shoulder. His digits twitch to pull out his cannon and blast the annoying thing to Primus but he knows doing so would harm the human beside it.

“Maybe you’ve had enough for the day.” Pete says to the chihuahua, leashing the beast and hauling it away.

“Primus above.” Ironhide sighs in relief, walking behind him. “I despise chihuahuas.”

“Me too.” Pete agrees. “Yappy little things.”

Ironhide cocks his head, staring down at the chihuahuas and their handler.

“You have two of them right here.” He points out.

“What? No I-wait, do you think these guys are chihuahuas?” Pete asks.

“Aren’t they?” He asks.

“No man! These are German Shepherds!” Pete explains, petting the animals. “Totally different breed of dog.” 

Now that he thinks about it, Ironhide can see the difference between these German Shepherds and the chihuahua Sam had. These are much bigger and have different colours, their bark is lower and their fur is longer. He can’t say he cares for either of them. 

“These are a working breed, they’re smart, they’re strong, and they’re loyal.” Pete rambles. “We train them for the police force, the military, and as search and rescue dogs. My aunt had one when I was growing up and he was basically my babysitter.”

“That explains a lot about this guy.” Wheelie whispers in his auditory intake, making Ironhide chuckle.

“My point is, these guys are way better than any scrawny chihuahua!” Pete finishes with a flourish, patting the licking one on the head.

While he does that, Rosie starts sniffing around the grass, stopping to lubricate his pied.

“Ahh!” He complains, stepping back to shake his foot off unhappily. “Annoying little fleshbag!”

Wheelie is howling with laughter on his shoulder and he ponders flicking him off so Rosie can lubricate him. And maybe shake him around a little, that would lift his spark.

“Sorry!” Pete apologises, ushering Rosie away. “Sorry, I’ll help you hose off when we get back to base.”

Ironhide just rolled his optics and stormed off towards the base, no longer bothering with sticking close to Pete and his creatures.

“I hate those things.” He complains. 

“Eh, me too man.” Wheelie agrees. “When I was hiding out with Sam, I was able to ride his fleshbag pet, but that was the only one I liked!”

The next time Optimus assigns him to work with the german shepherds or chihuahuas or whatever they’re called, he’s going to tell him where he can shove that order. 

~~~

Of all the Autobots, Bumblebee is perhaps the most fond of Earth. He likes the humans, he likes the drive in theatres, he likes the car washes, he just likes all of it. He’s well aware that his fellow Autobots don’t always share his sentiment, but that’s fine, he’s sure they’ll come around eventually. 

Today, he’s off base at a big pond in a continent Commander Lennox called Africa. He can’t remember which specific part but he is twitching his antenna happily, remembering the drive in movie Charlie took him to see years ago, The Lion King. He thinks that was set in Africa. Maybe he’ll see a Timon. After they’re done looking for the weapons the Decepticons planted, he knows Optimus will be upset if he abandons his task to look for creatures he saw in a movie, no matter how good that movie is. 

“Here kitty kitty kitty.” He calls on his radio, sticking his head under the water to search for the planted traps. 

Why are the Decepticons even planting things here? It’s pretty isolated, the nearest human settlement is far away and it doesn’t look like there’s much activity near the pond. Jazz also says there aren’t any big stashes of Energon nearby, so this doesn’t even seem strategic on Megatron's part. Perhaps they’re just bored and causing problems on purpose. 

He pulls his head out from under the water, shaking quickly to get the water off his helm, and then moves further down the bank, optics peeled to see anything suspicious. 

“Be careful Bumblebee.” Optimus calls from a point across the pond and up the bank. He and Ironhide are scanning the ground for traps. “I don’t want anyone getting hurt.”

“Aye aye Captain”! He calls using the Spongebob intro.

Wheeljack is up with the humans at the camp they’ve set up, working on dismantling the machines they’ve already found. He’s trying to figure out what they are and why they were placed here. So far, they’ve determined that they aren’t explosives, they seem more like surveillance things, but that’s also weird because as he’s already observed, there isn’t much human activity out here. Perhaps a Cybertronian that heard Optimus’s call that Earth could be a refuge is hiding nearby and they’re looking for them? 

The reeds nearby move and Bumblebee whistles inquisitively at them, creeping forward and running his hand over them. He can’t see what made them move, perhaps it was just the current.

In the otherwise still water. Yeah, that doesn’t make sense.

“Here kitty kitty kitty.” He calls, sticking his head into the water to inspect it.

Perhaps it’s the control point for the other Decepticon things nearby? If he can find it and grab it, perhaps they can use it to locate all the other ones. That would make this go faster and then he could spend the rest of the afternoon looking for Timons before they have to get back on the plane home. 

He does not find any control point. Instead, he’s met with a gaping maw filled with pointy teeth, clamping around his head. He startles, shrieking in terror and his pieds slip dangerously on the muddy bank, the monster flailing to pull him into the water with it. He digs his digits into the bank and pulls himself back, monster coming with him and he pulls it and his head out of the water. 

The creature isn’t terribly heavy but it is strong and its location is not ideal. He can only see the inside of its scary mouth and with his antenna squished down the way they are, he doesn’t have great situational awareness. He’s also not getting great auditory input over his own screaming. 

He fires off a shot, trying to hit the creature and evidently failing. He shrieks again, engaging his alarm to let everyone else know that he’s in serious trouble, and falls back against the ground, the monster landing on his chassis, its clawed paws thrashing against his plating.

“Bumblebee!” Optimus’s voice calls, closer than it was a while ago. 

He shrieks again, shaking his head violently to try and free himself from its grasp. He can feel some dents forming in his helm and for a moment, he’s scared that this thing is going to crush his head completely, that he’ll die here and be eaten by this awful monster. No doubt, this is something the Decepticons planted.

A strong hand grabs him under the arm and hauls him up, pieds completely off the ground, his body folded awkwardly under the weight of his attacker. An arm wraps around him, forcing him to stay still, while a blast of light goes off in his peripheral and the monster’s weight lessens considerably. His head immediately shoots up and the jaws slacken enough for him to shake the mouth off him.

Once he can see again, he sees the head of the monster on the ground, still connected to its top half, but most of the rest of it is gone. There are lots of guts littering the ground and floating in the water though. Optimus is holding him, scanning him frantically to make sure he’s not terribly injured. Ironhide is beside Optimus, cannon still drawn and optics trained on the edge of the water.

“Autobots, fall back!” Optimus orders, voice stern.

The leader of the Autobots doesn’t put him down, which he’s grateful for at this moment. Usually, he hates being treated like a helpless sparkling, but right now, he’s grateful to have his mentor nearby, literally holding him. Optimus leads the way back to the base while Ironhide brings up their rear, walking backwards to make sure they can’t be ambushed from behind. Wheeljack is there to meet them once they get closer to the tents, medical scanner in hand to make sure he isn’t actively offlining. 

“What happened?” Sergeant Walker demands, followed by several men with guns held up, ready to charge.

“Bumblebee was attacked.” Optimus grinds out, battle mask starting to form. “Some creature in the water attacked him.”

“And it did some decent damage.” Wheeljack adds, looking at the dents on his head. “It punctured through his plating.”

That explains the headache he has forming. His hands reach up, feeling around at the dents and punctures on his frame. It’s not just on his head, there are marks in this neck and shoulder. He can’t help but shudder at how close he came to being offlined. 

“What did it look like?” Walker asks. 

“This.” Ironhide pipes up, projecting the monster from his shoulder recorder.

Now that he gets a chance to actually look at what attacked him, he whistles lowly. It’s terrifying. Long and log-like, with clawed feet and a long snout filled with fangs. It’s skin looks rough, almost spiney, and it has a very thick tail that also looks like a weapon. 

“Oh! You met a crocodile.” Walker says, sighing and looking relieved. 

Bumblebee does not feel relieved. That thing had his head in its mouth! His head is dented because of it!

“You know what this beast is?” Optimus asks, looking furious.

“Yeah, they’re pretty famous. Sorry, I guess I forgot to add them to the mission briefing.” Walker apologises. “They hunt things near the water, it probably though Bee was something to eat.”

“He isn’t.” Ironhide snarls, cannons starting to glow.” 

“I know, but it didn’t know that.” Walker says. 

“This creature, it’s an Earth native?” Optimus asks. “Not something the Decepticons left here?”

“God no, these things have been around since the dinosaurs! It predates us.” Walker chuckles. 

Optimus hums, though what’s going through his processor, Bumblebee doesn’t know. His leader sets him gently on his own pieds, hands still holding his arms incase he falls. 

“Are you alright?” He asks, leaning down to examine his head.

He nods, not trusting himself to use his radio. Sure, he hurts but he isn’t offlining. He does want to go home though, real home, Cybertron. Not this freaky place with its scary monsters. He doesn’t remember much about Cybertron, other than the war, but he’s almost 100% certain they never had beasts like this just lurking around. 

“Really, he’s pretty lucky. They may be one of the only things on the planet that can hurt you guys.” One of the younger soldiers says, lowering his gun and pulling out his phone. “Those things have the bite force of a steel press, and it got his head. They’re man-eaters, those things.”

“They hunt humans?” Ironhide asks, optics wide.

“They have in the past, I don’t know if that one did.” Walker says. “They’ve been known to get children that are playing in the shallows.”

“It hunts sparklings? Optimus demands, clearly outraged.

His mentor’s grip on his arms tighten and Bee can’t help but lean into him a bit. He almost died, surely it’s normal to want to be a little bit reassured. Optimus welcomes him, lifting one hand up to touch the back of his head and tug him closer to his chassis. 

“They’ve been known to.” The younger man nods. “I wonder if one of them got a Decepticon too, that’d be funny.”

The mental image of Starscream being dragged into the water by a crocodile is just the picture he needs to crack a smile. The seeker is pretty vain about his polish too, he’d be pissed.

Maybe they should see if they can take some of those crocodiles back with them, to airdrop onto the Decepticons. That may be incredibly effective. It may end the war. 

Earth dinosaurs, millions of Earth cycles old and surprisingly dangerous. It may just send the Decepticons packing. 

“We can only hope.” Ironhide mutters, patting Bee on the back. 

Wheeljack is working around Optimus’s protective hovering to stick plasters to his head, making sure no debris can get into the punctures until they can get back to base and Rachet can look over him. 

“Have you figured out what these things are?” Optimus asks, nodding to the spherical things they’ve been digging out of the ground and fishing out of the water. 

“As far as I can tell, they’re non-sparked scouting bots.” Wheeljack says. “Clearly, the Decepticons were looking for something.”

“Let them look, there are monsters here.” Ironhide shrugs. “I say we let them keep coming back, maybe they’ll get offlined by the crocodiles.”

“No, we need to get them all. Or at least, as many as we can.” Optimus says with a shake of his head. “Bumblebee, are you still up for looking?”

He grimaces and pulls back, flicking through his saved files for an appropriate response.

“Fuck this shit, I’m out! Nope! Fuck this shit, I’m out! (alright then). I don’t know what the fuck just happened, but I don’t really care. Imma get the fuck up outa here! Fuck this shit, I’m out!”

All is sung while he backs away until he’s fully under the tent. Ironhide is openly laughing and so are the younger soldiers while Sergeant Walker is clearly trying to keep a straight face. Optimus just sighs deeply.

“A simple no would have sufficed.” He says. “Very well, help Wheeljack.”

“Aye aye captain!” He chirps, nodding to Wheeljack.

He may have found something he hates more than the Decepticons. One thing for sure, he’s not fishing around this place to find any Timons, not if there are more of these things hanging out. He’d rather just go back to base and see if he can get Elita-One to put the movie on the projector for him. He nearly died, surely he’s entitled to a movie.

~~~

Why in Primus’s good name Orion would choose this back gear planet to hide out on, Megatron isn’t sure. Sure, it’s energon rich but other than that, it’s a cesspit. It seems everyday, his Decepticons come back with another complaint about this place, whining to him about their woes. Not that he usually cares but he’s in a mood today.

If it’s not Starscream complaining about the feathery creatures that get caught up in his jets, or Knockout whining about how those same creatures mess up his paint, it’s Shockwave angry that rodents ate their way through his computer terminal and Blitzwing rambling on about a four legged beast like Ravage that chased him. Yes, the lifeforms on this planet are certainly the most annoying part of it.

Today, his mood is caused by the ineptitude of his lackeys. How difficult is it to set up a death ray? The seekers came from the High Guard, Shockwave was a scientist for Primus’s sake! He built the fragging thing! This should not be taking this long.

Maybe he should join the Autobots and usurp Orion from the inside, at least then he’d have a chance at having a competent crew. 

“How much longer is this going to take?” He demands, grinding his denta.

“Not much longer, master.” Starscream assures. 

That would be reassuring, if he hadn’t heard that five times already. 

It doesn’t even look like Black Arachniss is doing anything except lean against the base. At least the others are at least pretending to be busy.

“What is the hold up?” He asks.

“These creatures are interrupting.” Knockout complains, pointing at a floppy fleshbag laying nearby.

“An Earth creature is stopping you in your quests? Are you stupid or inept?”

“They’re annoyingly persistent, my liege.” Starscream sucks up, bowing to him. “Every time we try to dispose of them, they come back.”

To demonstrate, he beckons to Skywarp, who grabs one of the fleshbags and throws it towards the open ocean. It lands with a distant splash and the crew goes about trying to shove away the rest of them. Then, not even five klics later, the same fleshbag is back, pulling itself up onto the ice, and flopping against the base of their deathray.

“See?” Starscream asks, pointing a claw at their holdup.

“So shoot it.” He instructs. 

“We risk disrupting the ice too much if we do that.” Shockwave says. “We will lose the steady base beneath it if we do so, and then we will not be able to defeat the Autobots.”

The floppy fleshbag takes that moment to lift itself up to balance on its stomach, slapping its worthless hand-things against itself. It even starts rocking, bumping its nose into Knockout's leg until the mech sneers at it and steps away. Then it flops after him and continues. 

“Frag’s sake!” Knockout curses, losing patience and grabbing the creature to throw it back into the ocean.

The floppy fleshbag did not come alone. No, there’s a pack of them and all of them are annoying. Getting underfoot, making weird barking noises at his Decepticons while they’re trying to work. Now that he’s actually nearby, he can understand why they’re taking so long to complete what should be a simple task. Too many distractions. 

“I hate this planet.” Soundwave complains.

“Indeed.” Blitzwing nods. 

“Yes yes, we all hate it here. Now set up that death ray!” Megatron yells. 

Despite the grumbling, they get back to work and he goes back to the hill he was standing on to plot the death of the Autobots. As soon as they’re gone, he and his Decepticons can gather the energon they need without hindrance and go back to Cybertron. It will be a glorious return, he can finally set his home to rights. 

He’s snapped out of his planning by shrieks from his soldiers. 

“Oh what now?” He demands. 

The floppy creatures are gone but there is another creature. This one is much bigger, has legs, and seems very vicious. It’s got Starscream's wing and the others are not tripping over themselves to help.

“Help me!” Starscream pleads, trying to fly away from the beast. 

Knockout, usually Starscream's best friend, grimaces at the things claws and shakes his head, evidently too worried about his paint job to actually be useful. Shockwave is trying too hard to protect his death ray, the other seekers have shifted into jets and are staying out of the things reach, and Blitzwing has seemingly disappeared. 

“For the love of Primus.” He grumbles, pulling out his cannon and shooting at the attacker. 

He shoots wide, not wanting to his Starscream. Not because it wouldn’t be funny, but because he doesn’t want to have to hear him whine about it for the rest of this mission. Thankfully, the warning shot does its job and the attacker releases Starscream to lumber off back into the tundra. 

Unfortunately, Shockwave was right about his warning that firing shots would disrupt the ice. Where the ice was hit, large cracks are beginning to form, spreading across the ice until water starts shooting through, pieces breaking apart to float freely. While the death ray wasn’t immediately under a crack, the ice raft it ends up on isn’t strong enough to support it alone and it ends up flipping, throwing both Shockwave and his creation into the cold ocean.

“Curses!” He spits, clinging to his ice raft while they watch both inventor and invention sink beneath the waves.

“Guess he’s walking home.” Skywarp shrugs. 

The seekers are all flying circles around them, Blitzwing has reappeared, cackling at Shockwaves misfortune. Knockout, Soundwave and Megatron, the grounders on the mission, are stuck on rafts while the rest fly around. 

“Starscream, summon the ship.” He orders. “We will regroup back at the lair and do this another cycle.”

“Right away, master.” Starscream says, tipping a wing at him.

~~~

Shockwave meets them back at their lair a few cycles later, covered in sticky ocean Earth creatures, green plants, and in a foul mood. 

“If anyone needs me,” He snaps out as soon as he walks through the entrance. “I will be taking an oil bath and then retiring to my berth.”

The rest of them mumble out a chorus of affirmations and nodding along. Even Megatron doesn’t try to deter him, standing aside so he can get to the showers uninterrupted. They all have the rare decency to keep their snide comments to themselves until he’s gone, when Starscream loses the willpower to keep his annoying mouth shut.

“Next time, we shouldn’t set up our death ray over the water.” 

Megatron smacks him.