Drip. Drip. Drip.

He twitched.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

The noise seemed so loud it was drilling into his brain. With considerable effort, Cheetor groaned and lifted his head.

He was on the edge of a rocky pool in some sort of cave; the surface of the water was still. But every few seconds, a droplet would fall and cause ripples from what he assumed was a stalactite. He tilted his head, but he couldn't spot it. Confused, he craned his neck, and the sight that met him confused him.

The ceiling of the cave was much higher than he would have expected. How far had he fallen that the cavern would be this deep and this spacious? He had a vague awareness of a second tremor while he was drifting in and out of consciousness. Was that what caused him to fall so far?

He grunted in pain while his joints ached and complained loudly as he moved. There was no sound in the cavern, apart from the dripping and its echo, which was lengthy: this place must be vast.

The absence of other sounds suddenly snapped him to his senses. Where were Tigatron and Softpaw?

He looked around the cave, and saw the lake was of indiscernible depth, and went all the way to the edges. Great, he thought, no way around it. He spotted the silhouetted outline of a Cybertronian standing in the distance; on the other side of the lake.

Cheetor recognised it as his bunny friend. He called her name, but his voice simply carried pitifully and dropped halfway across the huge body of water. "Slag it." He tried the com link, but yet again there was interference. On either side of him, there were sheer walls that extended to the cavern ceiling. No dry way across. "Slag it!" he said again. He tried once more to call her, louder this time. And again. And again. So desperate was he to avoid the water, that he tried all sorts of volumes and pitches to catch her attention. Squat.

He finally let out a frustrated shout and cursed loudly. He psyched himself up and before he could change his mind he dove into the water, which was ice cold. He expelled a string of colourful profanities as he paddled his way across. Once he was within earshot - or so he thought - he called her name again. She did not respond to him.

Eventually he reached the shore and clambered out, shivering, then strode towards her with purposeful strides. When he reached her, he was wet and irritated. "What's the big idea?" he demanded angrily, but she was still facing away from him. He moved to her side. "What the heck, why didn't you answer me?!"

Still she did not respond. In fact, it was hard to tell if she'd even noticed him at all. She was staring through another cave mouth and into the distance. He turned his head to follow her gaze...and he discovered the reason for her awe. His jaw dropped.

He was looking at a vast underground ecosystem. A sea of green swept across the floor as far as the eye could see. Including the walls of the caves, there were cliff sides made of staggeringly tall hexagonal basalt columns, draped with liana and ivy and other flora he couldn't identify from that distance.

He couldn't figure out how anything could thrive down here, let alone an entire jungle. He looked up. Shafts of light shone down from...somewhere. He was not sure if they came from the surface through cracks, or some other source. It was truly breathtaking. And yet it was unnerving and eerie. Where were the sounds of the local wildlife? In such a dense expanse of jungle he would have expected to hear birds or the chattering of monkeys. But there was nothing.

They stood in silence for who knows how long, taking the view in.

"Woah..." Cheetor eventually managed to say.

"Yeah..." Softpaw concurred, her expression misty-eyed.

"Oh, you got audio receptors now, huh?" he asked snidely.

She shook her head in response. "Sorry Cheets, but this place is...strange..."

"Yeah no kidding," he answered somewhat sarcastically. "It's an entire ecosystem underground."

She punched his arm. "Not just that, Spots. There's something else here."

He was about to retort, but a sudden chill ran down his spine and he was inclined to agree. "The weird readings?"

She nodded. "Possibly. Should we report back to base?"

"How? The coms are still down and I don't even know where we fell in." And it should have gone without saying, but he was not getting back in the lake.

"So...what you're saying is we should...continue to investigate?" she asked with a wry smile.

"And catalogue our findings?" He pretended to think about it and nodded. "Sounds like a plan."

"But watch out for the creepy crawly," Softpaw warned. "I last saw him around the cave entrance."

"Seeing as our scanners are as good junk right now, we'd best transform so we can sniff him out," Cheetor advised, changing to beast mode.

"Agreed," she said, doing the same. "There's obviously a reason he came down here. Bets are, it's not a good one. Shall we?"

They gave each other an affirming nod, and ascended the ivy-strewn hill.