The garage was quiet that morning, which was probably because Salvage and Blurr had gone to the Rescue Bot Training Center to make sure nothing needed repairs after a storm had hit the coast. A lot of storms had been hitting them, but that was typical of springtime weather. It had kept the Rescue Bots increasingly busy the past few weeks, which enabled Blades to get back to full functionality after what the island was calling the 'Egg Incident.'

That morning had started out like almost any other morning; Heatwave was sparring with his dummy, Chase and Boulder were both sitting and reading their respective favorite genres, and Blades was trying his hand at painting, since the weather had temporarily taken out the TV reception.

"How's the painting going, Blades...?" Boulder murmured.

"...I believe humans would call it 'abstract.'" Blades replied with a grimace. "You don't mind having a big helm, do you?"

Boulder chuckled, "Why paint me when you have your own tiny model there?"

Heatwave smirked as he paused in his sparring, "Snowblast's not really in the mood to pose right now..."

Blades looked away from the canvas and over to his son, who was slumped on top of the freezer, wings drooping on either side of it. "I'm sorry, Snowy...!" He cooed, "You look miserable..."

Though he couldn't fly or walk yet, the tiny pterosaur could crawl and most definitely climb. He'd dig his little clawed fingers into surfaces and shimmy up like Mr. Pettypaws into a tree, which kept Blades' anxiety up, because he'd lose track of the tiny bot and then find him dangling from the rafters like a bat. He liked to hang from things, and Blades dealt with this by letting him wrap his wings around his neck and just dangle when the helicopter was at the Firehouse.

When the team left for a rescue, however, Snowblast would sit in the Command Center with Cody; a solution they'd decided on after the first time Blades left him, and Snowblast wailed for hours in the nest because he was all alone.

But as the weather had slowly shifted from cold to warm, there'd been a change in the youngest member of the team as well. As it turned out, he didn't take heat very well, and most of them suspected that it had to do with the abuse his egg had taken before he hatched. Some mornings, Blades would wake up and find Snowblast curled up on the cool, concrete floor of the garage below where the nest was situated off the ground.

Boulder predicted his systems would eventually adjust to cope with it better as he got older. For now though, they just did what they could to keep his tiny frame from overheating.

Blades walked over to the freezer and collected his son into his arms, stroking his crest and earning a soft squeak in response. "I know... It'll be chilly here again soon."
Snowblast squeaked to his parent, who chirped back in response. The helicopter-bot couldn't explain how he was able to translate his son's sounds, just that it must be a side-effect of the Budding process.

The loud blaring of the Rescue Alarm caught their attention, and Blades looked at the wall. "...All of us are up." He announced, looking back down to his son. "Da will be back later, okay?"

As the Burnses exited the elevator, Blades slipped Snowblast into it and waved to him before the doors closed back up and it moved up the shaft.

"What's the emergency?" Heatwave inquired.

"Snowmelt has washed out some of the hiking trails and started a mudslide. We need to get those hikers out of there." Chief informed.

Heatwave nodded, "Rescue Bots, roll to the rescue!"

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

As the caravan of energency vehicles made their way up the hillside, they could see the massive amount of melted snow from Mount Griffin had diverted the river somewhat, washing out some of the trails, as the Chief had said.

Heatwave had taken up the rear, and Kade wasn't sure how he felt about it. His partner's engine revved hard as he chugged up the slope, but it was clear to him that the rescue bot was struggling. His wheels spun as they tried to keep traction on the road that was now more mud than gravel, and Kade was certain he heard a clattering sound coming from somewhere under his partner's hood.

"Heatwave, you doing okay?"

"Fine...!" Heatwave hissed, "Don't...Distract me...!"

Kade gripped the wheel tightly as Heatwave finally found something to grip his tires into and jerked forward. The slope softened into a plateau, and they pulled up to the rest of the team.

"Good, you made it." Chief announced, "For a second it looked like you were having some difficulty."

"No problem..." Heatwave panted.

"Boulder, Graham, head uphill and see if you can divert this water back towards the river so it won't wash out the trails further. Blades, you and Dani see if you can spot those hikers from the air."

"Got it!" The pair of duos replied before heading off on their jobs.

"The rest of us will search down here on the ground. Stay together and radio us if you run into any problems."

Heatwave nodded, and then transformed into bot mode. Kade heard the clattering again, but he didn't comment as his partner trudged through the mud. He was struggling, but was obviously not going to admit to it... It was one of the things the two had in common.

Heatwave grunted as he pulled his feet out of the mud, the mud making loud sucking noises as his feet broke free and then squished back in several feet ahead. "Seeing anything?" He asked.

Kade's eyes skimmed over the surrounding trees, finally spotting a flash of pink in one of them. "Over there!"

The firebot trudged towards the tree, where two teenage girls were clinging to the upper branches of the tree. "Need a hand?" Heatwave teased as he held his palm up.

"We wouldn't mind it...!" One of them answered, carefully shifting position until she could drop down, her sister landing beside her. "All of a sudden the trail was just...Gone!"

"Hop in, girls." Kade welcomed as his partner opened the cab and he ushered the teens into the seats. "Did you see anybody else around here?"

"No...No wait! We saw Milo! He was going up to the Mount Griffin Trail."

Heatwave looked up the slope and gave a hard sigh, "Of course he did..."

"Can you make it?" Kade inquired.

"Do I have much choice?"

Heatwave yanked his feet free of the mud, continuing his walk up the slope. A low rumble from above alerted him to an approaching thunderstorm, which would mean rain, which meant more water soaking the ground and loosening it from the slope. He needed to work fast.

"Milo!?" He hollered, looking around the trees for the man.

Milo sometimes was more trouble than Heatwave thought he was worth; his eagerness to take drastic measures to simple problems drove the bots up a wall, especially when it resulted in them having to save him from his drastic measures gone bad.

"He also has a bad habit of not answering when you call for him...!" Heatwave thought aloud, optics narrowing. "MILO!"

"Took ya long enough!"

The New-Yorker accent came from somewhere ahead of them and to the left, and Heatwave gave a hard sigh as he passed some trees, seeing Milo half-submerged in mud.

Primus, help me...! He thought. He wanted to swear so badly right now, but not in front of the kids in the cab. "Come on, Milo..."
He wrapped a hand around the man and tugged him free of the mud, optics rolling back into his helm with a sigh when Milo's boots didn't come out with him. "I hope you've got a spare pair, because I'm not...digging..."

"Heatwave?"

Kade's grip on the wheel tightened as his teammate teetered, catching himself on a nearby boulder to keep from toppling. "Heatwave, don't pass out!"

"N-Not...Going to..." Heatwave grunted through gritted teeth. He opened his cab and placed Milo inside before leaning back against the boulder. "...Just gotta rest for a second..."

"You're not okay, are you?"

Heatwave swallowed hard, looking forward as his vision blurred for a moment. He'd been feeling a little out of sorts for a few days, but he couldn't keep it from his partner, not anymore. "...No." He admitted.

"Can you make it back down the slope?" One of the girls asked.

Heatwave forced himself up onto his feet again, "...I don't have much choice, now do I...?" He panted, "...Chief-"

We heard you, Heatwave. Chief Burn's voice came through the comms loud and clear. Just get those three back to town and then get yourself back to base.

"Yes sir..." Heatwave took a few steps down the slope, shifting to his hands and knees at places where he felt he might slip.

Kade bit his lip, a memory reaching his mind. "...Remember the last time one of you crashed during a-"

"Stop." Heatwave interrupted, "Just stop. I know what you're thinking, and it's false... I don't know what's up with me, but I can tell you with absolute certainty...I am not carrying."