Chapter Text
Cody had to screw his eyes shut when the pair entered the building, bright and blinding colors shining in the water.
“Whoops, sorry about that.” Deepsting hurriedly tapped on a panel beside another doorway that soon opened, allowing a stream of water to enter a large room with a pool along one side. Deepsting slid into this pool with her head above water, Cody’s bubble still resting in her servo. Once she had settled her upper half on the edge of the pool, she uncorked the bubble and allowed Cody to slip out and gaze around the room.
It was set deep underground, and the entire dome-shaped ceiling was probably made of Cybertronian glass. The room itself was large and rounded, he guessed it was a meeting hall of some sort, with the pool taking up half the space inside, a low wall separating the wet half from the dry one. There were a pair of doors on the other side that lead elsewhere, two dark caves beside the doors, and Cybertronian holograms lined the walls. The faded blue lights of the holograms lit up the room, along with lights installed in the floor of the pool itself.
Peering around at the holograms on the walls, he saw that they were faces, and he recognized Flickfin, Reverb, Terri-Bull and both of the snake mechs, as well as Deepsting. There were others as well, but since he didn’t recognize them, he guessed that they were the other pod members.
“So, what is this place?” Cody asked, his voice lightly echoed.
“Our meeting chamber, it's where we-” Deepsting began, before she was interrupted by a low growling sound that made Cody almost jump out of his skin and Deepsting whirl around in the water to spot a dark-colored something crawling out of one of the caves, which was probably another entrance, if Cody had to guess.
Whatever it was looked partially like a Cybertronian, a bit like Deepsting, actually, but very different. Its violet optics appeared to be shattered, and a red chevron was prominent on a sleek black helm with two fin-shaped helmfins on the sides that sloped down into sharp cheek guards. The armor was mostly black, making it blend into the shadows of the cave, with a white midsection, arms and face, its two servos black and tipped with sharp claws, and there were pale red biolights running down its sides in spots, like lateral lines in fish. The tail was thick and marbled with black and white, like a killer whale, with those red biolights spotting all the way to the tail fluke. The entirety of the bot’s lower face was obscured from view by a cruel iron mask that looked like it was tightly secured to the back of its helm.
As the bot, a mech he now realized, crawled closer, making that same growling noise, Cody was suddenly swept up in Deepsting’s servos, the femme hurriedly sliding him into the bubble again and corking it. She hid Cody in her arms as she slowly swam backwards, away from the violet-eyed Cybertronian.
“Oh, scrud, no, no, go away, Muzzle!” she stage-whispered, sounding and looking panicked. The boy in her clutches blinked at the odd name.
“Muzzle?” Cody asked in bewilderment before the bot called Muzzle seemed to “crouch” using his arms. Before he could think of anything else, Muzzle actually leapt into the water, catapulting himself over the low wall with just his arms, and almost landing on top of Deepsting. The femme, thinking fast, rolled away from beneath him and towards the water entrance, darting through it as fast as she could.
“Oh scrud, oh scrap, oh Primus, help us!” Deepsting shrieked as she exited the doorway just in time for Muzzle to almost slam into the closing doors. Cody couldn’t see much as the boy couldn’t keep his balance and his friend was holding tight to his bubble, but he heard her quiet expletives as she tried to put distance between herself and the black mech. She hid behind one of the buildings, taking in water through her vents as she “panted”, unfurling her arms enough to see Cody.
“You ok?”
“I’m good, but who was that?”
Deepsting sighed in relief before she said, “That was Muzzle, he’s our medic's…. Well, he’s not a pet by any stretch, but he’s definitely not Cybertronian anymore. He acts more like an animal, so we just say that he’s Reef’s pet and move on. I’ve never heard that mech speak before, I don’t even think he can.” Cody’s eyebrows furrowed, he didn’t like the sound of that.
“Why did he chase you?” She shuddered.
“He’s super aggressive, that’s why he has that mask on, he used to bite people. You should have seen what he did to the Quints when-” his friend stopped right there, her lights quickly dimming as she got a haunted look on her face before shaking her head and mumbling, “Well, anyways, Muzzle’s not nice, I think he wanted to eat you.” Cody shuddered. If that was true, then he was thankful Deepsting got them both out of there in one piece.