Grimlock, Dinobot... and father?

by The Bricklayer

Part 11: Wheeljack and the Science Fair

Somewhere in Equestria...

Swamps, Breakdown had very recently decided in the last few minutes were the Pits. He'd thought he'd seen it all when it came to the filth this Primus-Be-Damned world could come up with, what with it's rules of love and friendship between... (Breakdown's mind had to force itself to say the word.) cute pastel colored ponies. But no, he'd soundly been proven wrong when it came to this. Why was he out here again, the bulky blue Decepticon thought/grumbled to himself before he remembered.

"Oh yes, Soundwave detected something coming down out here and oh so our glorious leader (Breakdown was severely though of revising his opinions about Megatron in his mind about then.) wants me and Brawl to have a little look see." Breakdown reminded himself, clearly none too pleased about his assignment.

"Well, if this thing is so important why can't Megatron come down here himself to collect it?" Breakdown muttered as he trudged through swamp water with tall trees looming all around him and unseen and unknown creatures making various sounds somewhere in the misty gloom.

"Brawl? Where are you, you big lunkhead?" Breakdown yelled, calling out for his partner and soon enough a olive green tank crashed through the undergrowth and transformed into a robot with tank treads for shoulders and black head with a faceplate to cover his mouth and a blood red visor for the eyes.

"Right here, you didn't have to yell so loud. You want the whole forest to hear us?" Brawl grumbled and Breakdown could swear he was rolling his eyes under his visor.

"Pretty sure your clanking in that tank form of yours probably already did the trick." Breakdown retorted sarcastically but Brawl ignored him and they moved on. Eventually the twosome came to a downed Stasis Pod embedded in a hillside, it's hatch open and a leg sticking out of it.

"THIS is what we came here to retrieve?" Brawl exclaimed in disbelief as he checked the leg and moved it. There was no reaction from whatever it belonged to.

"Well, whatever it was looks to me like it didn't survive the crash. Gah, this place is the Pits. I'm leaving." Breakdown grumbled as he began to walk off. His fellow Deception shouted after him.

"We're supposed to bring this thing back to the Nemesis, expired or not! Orders are orders, and I'm sticking to them!" Brawl yelled but was ignored.

"And I'm following common sense and getting out of here." Breakdown retorted and transformed to his vehicle mode and drove off. However, eventually he found himself lost deep in the swamps. Sighing, Breakdown transformed back to bot mode to take a scan failing to notice what was creeping up behind him...

Next thing Brawl heard was a loud scream cut through the forest, failing to notice the pod behind him was now empty...

---

Ponyville Schoolhouse

It was just about time for school to let out for the day and you could feel the excitement in the air as everypony readied their saddlebags for the journey home. However, while the students were happy, their teacher in fact wasn't. Ms. Cheerilee actually was rather worried, and it showed on her face as she graded the papers from the math test earlier that day.

"Well, isn't this just great..." She panicked in her mind before she took a few short, sharp breaths to calm herself. "Calm down, you can handle this problem. You've dealt with worse disasters before. Hey, maybe disaster is too strong a word. Minor crisis, yeah that's a much better term."

As you can see, her calming down techniques weren't working particularly well. Then, the bell rang and pretty soon everypony was scrambling out of their desk chairs.

"Alright everypony, single file out the door! Oh! And remember, the Science Fair is coming up next week so you'd better have your projects ready!" Cheerilee called as everypony ran out the schoolhouse door even as she mused to herself "Yeah, and I'd better have my problem dealt with..."

As they walked out the door, the CMC chatted about the upcoming event that had been the talk of the class for days.

"Isn't this awesome? I so know what I'm doing for this!" Scootaloo exclaimed in excitement while Sweetie gave her a deadpan look.

"It's that baking soda volcano thing isn't it?" Sweetie said dryly.

"Noooooo..." Scootaloo replied in a tone of voice that sounded suspiciously like denial to Sweetie. Then all three Crusaders heard a familiar voice yell out to them.

"Hey, better be prepared to lose to our super-awesome project Crusaders!" Diamond Tiara yelled out to them as she and Silver hoof bumped and trotted off with heads held high. Scootaloo stuck out her tongue and blew a raspberry at them before she noticed Apple Bloom's expression in her face. It was one of worry.

"Hey, something wrong? Don't tell me you're actually nervous about whatever lame projects those two losers can cook up." Scootaloo tried to reassure, but her friend only shook her head.

"Naw, it's not that. It's just... Did Ms. Cheerilee actually seem worried to any of y'all?" She asked and Sweetie looked thoughtful at that.

"Well, now that you mention it..." Sweetie murmured before she rushed back inside with her two friends following. When their teacher saw them, a expression of surprise came to her face.

"G-Girls... What are you doing here? I thought you were going home." Cheerilee asked from behind her desk.

"Well, you looked worried about somethin so we wanted to find out whut." Apple Bloom replied and Cheerilee let out a long sigh.

"Oh, s-so you noticed?" Cheerilee stammered in surprise. "Well, it's just that... I can't seem to find any judges for the Science Fair besides me and Mrs. Harshwhinny. We need a third!"

Then, a crazy idea came to Apple Bloom's mind as she grinned.

"Don't you worry none, Ms. Cheerilee! We know the perfect pony for the job! We'll have him here quicker then you can spit!" The youngest Apple exclaimed.

"We will?" Sweetie whispered to Scootaloo, who could only shrug. Cheerilee meanwhile, looked greatly relieved, as if a weight has been lifted from her shoulders.

"Thank you girls. If you ever need a favor..." Cheerilee trailed off as she wiped sweat from her brow. Apple Bloom face a innocent smile as she tried to press her luck.

"Well, speaking of favors, maybe you can raise our grades... Just, Y'know, a little?" She asked and Cheerilee glared as she pointed to the door.

---

The Ark: Wheeljack's Lab

When the CMC arrived at the lab, both Scootaloo and Sweetie were gaping at their friend.

"Please tell me you're not serious?" Scootaloo deadpanned. She simply couldn't believe that THIS was the judge her friend had in mind.

"Never been more serious in mah life." Apple Bloom replied to her seemingly missing her friend's sarcasm and Scootaloo groaned and facehoofed as they walked inside the lab where it's owner was already hard at work on another one of his projects. When he finally took notice of the three, Wheeljack's head lights lit up blue in happiness.

"Ah, step into my lab! What do you need? Freeze-Ray, something that can make somepony think they're in a work of fiction? Mini-Discord? Cause I can make all of those things you know, and more!" Wheeljack bragged.

"Actually... It's nothin like that." Apple Bloom replied as she shuffled her hooves. "We want (Behind her, Scootaloo mouthed "We?") you to be a judge for our school's Science Fair."

Wheeljack actually seemed pleased at the prospect.

"Of course I'll be there! Just as soon as I finish with... this." He said, gesturing to his project which blew up right about then in his face.

"Ya know, just be safe we should probably get someone else, just to keep a eye on him." Apple Bloom whispered to Scootaloo who replied nervously "Yeah, probably best." and nodded.

---

Next thing anyone in the Ark heard was the sound of Pyro's voice letting out a loud yell of "You want me to supervise WHO?"

"Pleeaasse?" The CMC asked collectively, with puppy dog eyes. Eventually, Pyro sighed to himself and rubbed his temples.

"Fine, fine, I'll keep two optics on old Jackie, often as I can spare them." Pyro replied cheerfully, although if you listened closer you could detect a hint of unhappiness in his tone. Nearby, Wheeljack took Scootaloo aside and whispered "You know, I have a idea on how to improve your volcano..."

Elsewhere, Ms. Cheerilee felt a distinct sense of uneasiness come over her...

---

One Week Later...

Time passed, and soon it was the time for the Science Fair. It was held outside the Schoolhouse, near the playground where various booths had been sat up with all sorts of projects sat up on them. Nearby, was a judging table where Mrs. Harshwhinny and Ms. Cheerilee sat, with the schoolteacher growing more nervous by the minute as the third judge still hadn't shown up.

"Come on, where is he? The girls said he'd be here. Please tell me he hasn't forgotten." She worried and wiped a bit of sweat from her brow. Then, she heard the sounds of two engines and looked to see a airport fire truck and a Lancia Stratos racecar drive up.

"Oh no, please don't tell me..."

But sure enough, the two vehicles transformed into Pyro and Wheeljack, with the latter rubbing his hands together like a mad scientist. Needless to say, this didn't help Cheerilee's nerves.

"Well, shall we?" Wheeljack asked.

---

And so, the foursome went about judging the various projects (Although, in Pyro's case, judging wasn't really the right word. All he did was write on his notepad and I quote directly "This mission is so BS.") Eventually they came to the last three projects, the first being Pipsqueak's model pirate ship which earned various good scores from all four although Wheeljack had this to say:

"Impressive, although maybe you should have added working cannons."

The young colt saluted and said "A smashing idea, Mr. Wheeljack sir!" while Cheerilee actually looked terrified.

At this, Pyro turned to his fellow Autobot and deadpanned "Y'know, now he's going to come back next year and do exactly that and blow that schoolhouse to Kingdom Come, right?"

Next, they came to Diamond and Silver's project, a Pinkie inspired cannon that instead of confetti, shot glitter instead. Pyro's only reaction was to hold up his notepad and it read "What the-(Redacted)?"

Finally, they came to Scootaloo's project: A metal volcano crackling with energy.

"Uh... Uh, tell me... Is it active?" Harshwhinny asked nervously and Scootaloo pressed a button and the next thing anypony knew a huge beam of energy shot up from the volcano and burst a hole through the clouds nearly hitting Cloud Chaser who let out a loud "Hey!"

Next, everyone else was looking directly at Wheeljack. They knew he had something to do with this somehow.

"Uh... Maybe we can do this again next year?" He laughed nervously.

END

Author's Note:

Okay, so I know in my latest blog post about this story I said I'd post this next week, but I figured you guys have waited long enough for the next update so I decided to take pity on you and update a few days early.

Anyways, on the chapter or it least it's first part. As you can see, something mysterious has landed in Equestria and the Decepticons want it, whatever it is. (If you've watched Beast Wars, I think you should be able to figure out what this something is, but please, keep it to yourself.) If anyone is questioning why I used Breakdown and Brawl for the ones to investigate the Pod, I had their Combiner Wars figures by my side as I was writing the chapter and I thought "Oh, what the Hell?"

Comments

[DaiAtlas2016]

Loved this chapter!!!

[The Bricklayer]

7441051 Hey, it was fun to write for me as well! Just asking, and you don't have to answer, but what was your favorite part or was there anything you think needed improving?

[DaiAtlas2016]

7441150
Hands down my favorite part was Wheeljack suggesting to Pipsqueak that he adds working cannons!! That is so Wheeljack!!
Isn't Pyro an G1 Autobot Leader from the European toyline?

[The Bricklayer]

7441839 Yeah, now that you mention it I think he was... Gotta explain the resemblance to Optimus Prime in his original toy I suspect.

[Guardian of Harmony424]

Wheel Jack + Science Fair = Fun. Loved this chapter. Wheel Jack is definitely one of my favorites, mostly due to his... mad scientist nature.