Arcee growled as she swung her arm, effectively using her blade to scratch at the Decepticon trooper's chassis before jumping back a little as he threw a punch. Her servo transformed into a blaster and she shot for his faceplate, managing to hit him a few times. He stumbled, covering his faceplate with his servo. She jumped up, grabbing his helm between her pedes, and twisted, effectively twisting his helm off from the rest of his frame. He fell to the floor and she jumped off, landing on her pedes as she faced the three human children who had snuck into the fight. As usual, she was placed on babysitting duty. Why Miko insisted on getting herself killed, the two-wheeler would never know.

Currently, Miko Nakadai was hiding behind an energon crystal with her two other human companions, Jackson Darby and Rafael Esquivel. She, of course, just wanted to see some action. The 'cons had been silent for a while and she was getting restless. So when Ratchet found evidence of 'con activity at an Energon mine, she jumped at the chance of running through the GroundBridge to watch, causing Jack to chase after her, and Raf to chase after Jack.

Arcee sometimes wished that those three were separable.

However, the GroundBridge had been acting up lately, and before Ratchet could shut it down properly, it sputtered and shorted out as Raf ran through. Ratchet felt immediately better as he asked Arcee if the boy had made it and she confirmed he had. But now the Autobots were stuck fighting the Decepticons without a way to retreat. Ratchet was doing as best he could to fix the GroundBridge, but Arcee was growing impatient.

Starscream was in the mine, dealing with Bulkhead as Optimus and Bumblebee both dealt with Vehicons. They needed this energon, surely, but the thought of not being able to bridge back if it was needed was a little..."unnerving" to the Autobots.

Optimus punched a vehicon into the ground as Bee finished shooting up another. Bulkhead was busy avoiding shots from Starscream's blaster as the seeker was smirking. He had managed to use one of his missiles to injure the wrecker, and Bulkhead's reaction time was a little slow as he was processing everything. He swung at the seeker with his mace, but Starscream jumped back and shot at him again. The shot hit Bulkhead, but it didn't impact him much. With a grunt, he jumped forward to smash Starscream, and the seeker yelped as he tried side-stepping out of the way. He failed to do so, and crashed to the ground as Bulkhead punched him multiple times.  The seeker tried to wrestle free of Bulkhead's grip, and when an opportunity opened, he raised his arm and fired his last missile at the wrecker. Bulkhead rolled out of the way, and the missile continued flying through the air, looking for a target.

And its target was now Optimus Prime.

Bulkhead yelled out to the Prime to warn him, but through the sounds of blaster fire and fighting, Optimus only processed his warning until it was too late. Something smacked into him, but it wasn't the missile.

It was Bumblebee.

When the Prime recovered, he gently moved the scout off him, before realizing there was a hole in Bumblebee's abdomen, and Optimus realized Bee had taken the shot for him. Starscream smirked, wiping some energon off his faceplate. He transformed, flying away without leaving them with one of his infamous remarks.

"Get back here you Decepticon coward!" Bulkhead yelled as he chased after him.

"Optimus Prime to Ratchet, do you read?" Optimus asked; a digit on his audio receptor as he supported the scout in his other arm. Bumblebee was limp, and Raf, who had seen the entire thing, was being held back by Jack as he tried going to his guardian.

"I read you, Optimus," Ratchet replied. "Did you need something?"

"The bridge being fixed would be nice," Arcee cut in before Optimus could reply. Bulkhead took over fighting Vehicons as Arcee tried helping by shooting them from where she was at.

"I'm doing my best, Arcee," Ratchet replied a little defensively as he looked back at his work. There were parts scattered throughout the floor and he sighed.

"When you have time, old friend, preparing Sick Bay would be a wise idea," Optimus added. "Bumblebee is injured."

"When is he ever not?" Ratchet muttered quietly to himself, before looking up at the screen.

"Noted, Optimus. I'll work as fast as I can."

Once the call ended the medic immediately returned back to his work, reaching for a wrench and working back on the GroundBridge, working a little faster than before.

***

The Deceptions were really taking the opportunity of fighting the Autobots when they couldn't leave. They tried moving around, Bulkhead taking the kids and Optimus carrying Bee as Arcee provided cover, but they decided to not do it again as Decepticons swarmed them. The kids were back to hiding, behind a large rock this time, and Optimus set Bee down as he helped the others.

"I worked as fast as I could," Ratchet reported, before a bridge opened up.

"That's a sight for sore optics," Bulkhead said happily as he punched a Vehicon, sending him flying through the air. Optimus helped the scout up, who was drifting in between consciousness and unconsciousness, and they headed for the bridge.

"Wait," Arcee said, stopping in front of the others, causing them to stop. She felt it, like some invisible force was pulling her to the bridge.

"What?" Bulkhead asked, but before she could answer, the bridge started humming, and soon its color changed from a blue-green to a purple-black.

"What in the AllSpark?" Arcee exclaimed.

"Black hole!" Raf cried as the pull from the bridge suddenly became stronger, lifting the boy off his feet. Miko grabbed his arm, and Jack grabbed hers as he wrapped his arm around a rock. The Autobots focused on staying away from the bridge themselves, as Bulkhead was holding onto Arcee and was holding onto an energon crystal. Optimus was placing all his weight on the back of his pedes, holding onto the scout to keep him from flying off.

"Miko!" Jack screamed over the noise, though she could barely hear him. "Don't let go!"

"You're telling me to not let go?" Miko screamed back as she was lifted off the floor. Jack's grip on her slipped from her arm to her hand. Raf looked back at the black hole fearfully. He really didn't want to experience being in one. Reading about it was enough.

Jack's grip on Miko's hand tightened as he looked over at his grip on the rock. He was slipping. There was no way out of this.

They were going to die.

He looked down, seeing Miko looking up at him. Their eyes met, and Miko mouthed something.

'I'm sorry'.

Jack shook his head and smiled at her a little, trying to tell her that it wasn't her fault. He hesitantly squeezed her hand, and she smiled, and Jack looked up again.

Debris flew into the bridge, rocks and dust and small energon shards. They simply bounced off the Autobots' armor with a 'clink', while they cut into the humans' skin. Suddenly a sharp rock grazed across Jack's face, making the boy grunt in pain as a cut was made on the side of his forehead down to the side of his jaw. The cut surprised him and his grip loosened, and soon slipped, and the three were sucked into the hole. Jack's eyes closed, he didn't want to look. The last thing he heard was Arcee, calling out their names.

Raf realized what happened a little too late, Jack had let go and they were in the hole. His eyes were closed. Or were they? It was too dark to tell. Oddly enough, it was silent, except for the sound of his breathing. Weird, he thought. He would have expected the hole to be at least louder than it was in the mine.

And...he also expected to be dead already. So what was going on?

He moved his fingers a little, just making sure that Miko's hold on him was still there.

It was.

He used his free hand to travel up her arm to her shoulder, then to her other shoulder and back down her other arm, before finding that she was still holding on to Jack. The boy smiled, and, without letting go of Miko, hugged Jack.

Jack felt someone hug him, and with his free hand tried figuring out who it was, before feeling the person's hair. Raf only had hair like that. Jack smiled a little and hugged him back, before turning his head in the direction he thought Miko to be, and let go of Raf for a second to reach over and pull her into a hug.

Why they were hugging, Miko didn't know. They were still stuck in some hole, and they were going to die...right?

They started to hear voices. They surrounded them, whispering things. The voices sounded familiar, but yet, didn't.

Who knows, maybe this was heaven. Maybe they already died.

The voices started to get louder, and the things they were saying were starting to become more decipherable.

"Soundwave! Can't you shut it down any faster?"

"Working...on it!"

"Megatron, we lost the kids!"

"The kids are gone?"

"Yeah, and we'll be gone too if we don't get this thing shut down!"

Raf didn't realize they had been spinning rather fast until they started slowing down, and it started getting lighter around them.

"It's closing! Soundwave, you've done it!"

The kids slowed down even more, and soon, their feet touched solid ground. Under the exhaustion of what they had just done, all three sunk down to the floor at the same time, still holding onto each other. Miko was the only one to open her eyes.

"Guys...?" she whispered. "We're...back at base."

Raf opened his eyes next, hesitantly looking around before his gaze landed on the Autobots in the room, who, in fact, were not Autobots at all.

"Guys?" Raf asked fearfully, and Miko turned to see what the boy was looking at.

"No way..." she said quietly, as Megatron, Starscream, Breakdown, Knockout, and Soundwave were looking at them and conversing quietly with each other.

"Jack?" Raf asked, turning to the boy, whose eyes were still closed.

"Jack...you might want to see this."

The raven-haired teen slowly opened his eyes, feeling lightheaded from his injury, and didn't say anything as his eyes met Megatron's blue optics.

"Jack?" Miko asked, noticing Jack's behavior.

"You've got to be kidding me," Jack whispered, before starting to fall backwards.

"Jack!" Miko cried as she caught him. "Jack, are you...?"

She didn't finish, as she realized that he had just passed out.

Meanwhile, Ratchet had the biggest surprise of his life when he saw three humans exit the bridge, all huddled together, the middle-sized bearing a striking resemblance to Raf and the shortest looking a lot like Jack. Miko even looked different...she was taller than the others.

"Optimus...?" Ratchet whispered.

"Yes, Old Friend?"

"When you're able to come back...you're really going to want to see this..."

~~~

FIVE 1/2 PAGES ON WORD AND NEARLY 2,000 WORDS YES

Okay sorry, I just am really proud of this chapter.

Welp

Welcome to another book of mine! I hope you enjoy your stay.

...And tbh, I personally think the cover for this book is one of the best I ever made :P

Okay, so the whole thing with the GroundBridge-turning-black-hole was taken from RiD 2015. So, it may not be scientifically realistic, but it's Transformers realistic, capiche?

Thanks for reading, I'm excited for this book.

But that doesn't mean I've given up on Undercover Rookie!