Ghosts of the Present (Rescue Bots AU)

43. Camping Trip

"The speed in which you snagged all those missing patches to level up in such a short amount of time..."
Cody brushed random bits of fuzz from his Lad Pioneers uniform, "...I'm proud of you, Blades."

The copter beamed, "Well, I had to make a goal for myself for something... That's one of the patches. Make a goal and finish it... Last one!"

The Lad Pioneers all stood at the top of a steep hill, watching Heatwave utterly soak the ground for an old-fashioned mud run. Complete the course and they'd be leveling up to Teen Pioneers- Or whatever age Blades was; Cody wasn't exactly sure, and neither was Blades.
"Not a sparkling," he'd said, which Cody guessed was their equivalent of a child.

And if the bots were little kids at one time, that of course brought on a long list of other questions, some of which Cody was afraid to ask.

Chief Burns looked to them from a little further down the hill. "Alright, only one last patch to earn, and you'll level up! On your marks... Get set..."
He then blew the whistle hard, and they were all off.

Blades had been provided his own trail through the course, allowing him to go as fast as he wanted without worrying about trampling any humans on the way. Even so, Cody was almost keeping up with him at the front of the pack despite their massive difference in stride.
Within seconds, there was enough mud sticking to his clothes to fill a dump truck, making his grip slippery, but the teenager shimmied up the rock wall, clamored over the rope bridge, and then quickly clipped to the zipline and shot across, landing on the platform a few seconds before Blades. "Ha! We did it!"

Blades beamed, wiping mud from his visor. "Woohoo! Nice job, Cody! Teen Pioneers, here we-"

"HELP!!!"

It seemed a rescuer's work was never done, not even for a mud run.
The pair looked up, seeing the next member on the zipline had gotten himself stuck halfway across- and the rope holding him to the line was splintering. "Uh oh."

"Kyle! Stay still and hold on!" Chief Burns hollered from the other side of the canyon. "We're coming to get you!"

Cody looked to the copter, "Try and hold him up with your air, Blades!"

"What?"
The copter grimaced as he looked back at the boy, "But I-"

"Come on, Blades. I know you can do it! Hurry!"

Blades nodded hard and then stretched out his hands.

It had been almost two weeks since what Kade had been calling his "Super Saiyan Incident," and Blades had clearly been rattled by it; he barely trusted himself to forge a mild breeze anymore, much less a gust strong enough to hold up a person. He hadn't fully retracted himself like Chase did, but between his emotional outburst following Dani's racing antics and the event with Bumblebee on the beach, he didn't trust himself to keep his powers in check.

Fortunately, he was able to focus enough this time, forming a strong gust up from the canyon that cushioned the boy enough for him to be gently lowered into Heatwave's cupped hands.

Cody gave a sigh of relief, and then both he and Blades hurried down the platform to the ground level as Heatwave placed the other pioneer down on the grass.

"Heh," Heatwave chuckled as Kyle's legs wobbled and he then dropped to the grass with a sigh of relief, "That's earning your badge the hard way."

"Nice work, team..." Chief Burns congratulated, "And congratulations on earning your last patch."

Blades took the giant copy of Cody's provided to him, and gave a smile. "The last patch... I get misty-eyed just thinking about it."

"Don't worry Blades," Cody assured, "We'll get to do even cooler stuff once we level up to Teen Pioneers."