Little Gladiator

Chapter 30: Hanging in the Balance

Megaton ignored the indignant cries of everyone he shoved out of his way in his mad dash to the energon well in the center of the plaza. Orion was hot on his pedes as he called the rescue squad hotline. Megaton lunged for the falling length of chain to try and slow Bee's descent, but the chain went taut before he could get a hold of it. Everyone made room as the gladiator roared his frustration.

He was about to jump down to carry Bee back out when Orion grabbed his arm and yelled, "Wait! A rescue squad is on its way. It should take a few breems-"

"There's no time! Bumblebee could be dying!" Megaton reached for the chain to gently pull Bee up, but Orion stopped him again. "WHAT!?"

"You could aggravate his injuries. Create further damage whatever body part the chain is tied to. I have an aerial view of the squad's progress; they'll be here before you know it."

"And if he dies, I will murder the piece of slag that thought he could take my sparkling from me," Megatron's optics burned a furious shade of red before returning to their normal color.

Scythe and Ariel raced up to them. "What's going on? Where's Bumblebee?" Scythe asked.

Ariel pointed and asked, "Why is the bucket down there?"

"Bumblebee?" Scythe connected the dots quickly. A moment later, she snapped out of her shock. "Bee!" She too would've jumped in the well if Ariel hadn't held her back.

The sound of sirens grew louder until the crowd parted to let a group of rescue vehicles through. They transformed and a red mech, the same one, Megatron realized, that helped them after the station explosion, came up to them and said, "Can you tell me what happened?"

"My sparkling was pushed into that well. Someone tried to hang him!" Scythe nearly yelled. Lubricant welled in her optics and threatened to spill. One drop finally did.

The mech, Heatwave, calmed her. "Don't worry, ma'am, we'll get him out. I need all of you to stand back. We need room to work. Chase, call for back up. As of right now, this is attempted murder. Blades, call for paramedics and prepare first aid just in case. Boulder, ready your winch. We need to send someone down there to extract him." To the crowd, he bellowed, "Okay, we need a volunteer from the crowd. He or she must be lightweight and small."

"How about one of us?" a pair of feminine voices said simultaneously. They belonged to Sola and Luna, famed talk show hosts.

"Are you sure? It might be dangerous," Heatwave warned them.

"I don't care if the Chaosbringer himself wanted to help. Just get my son out of there!" Megatron yelled. He was struggling to hold in his tears, but his optics were still wet.

"Your son?" Sola asked, her optics widening at the possible piece of gossip.

"NOW!" he roared.

The femmes took a step back when Megatron's optics flickered between red and blue. "I'll go," Luna offered. "I guess being a minibot has its perks. What do I need to do?"

x

Luna was carefully lowered into the deep energon well via the rope and winch Boulder was using. Cutting on the lights from her compact alt mode, she followed the chain until she could see a small dot of yellow slowly growing in size.