Ghosts of the Present (Rescue Bots AU)

47. All the Trees are Falling Down, Falling Down, Falling Down...

"Okay, okay, I got one..."
Cody slowed his pace, looking to his father, Boulder, and Chase as they hiked up the trail. "So, if a tree falls in the woods, and no one is around to hear it, did it actually make a sound?"

Chase tilted his helm, "Are collapsing arboreals beyond the range of human hearing?"

Chief Burns chuckled, "No, Chase. It's just something to make you stop and think."

Chase did stop, "...I do not know what to think, now that I've stopped."

Cody rolled his eyes with a smile; the question was an old one but seemed so appropriate to the topic of their hike.

"Well, I think it's sad that these trees are falling..." Boulder hummed as he walked over to one such collapsed tree. He ran his fingers along its bark as if petting it gently. "...These spruce trees are endangered."

"That's why we're up here." Chief Burns reminded, "To see if someone's been cutting them down..."

Cody looked to Chase as he caught up to them again, "How's it going with your training?"

Chase sighed, "I am uncertain what sort of block is preventing me from mimicking the same actions as the others... I am determined to uncover my elemental form, but it is still taking some time."

"You'll get it, Chase." Boulder encouraged, "It's not quite as easy as we made it look, trust me."

Following the Camp Itsa Craftsee Incident, Blades had taken a few days off from active duty- not just to recover from his ordeal, but also to get a better grasp and understanding of his new alternate form. He figured the better he understood how it worked, the better he could explain how to do it to the others.

Boulder and Heatwave had both gotten it within a few tries; just as Blades had predicted, Heatwave's took on a water-like form, his various components appearing like floating droplets of colored liquid that shrunk and grew with his movements.
Boulder's was more like a cloud of dust, rapid movements sending little particles tumbling down to the floor and then disappearing.

Both of them had succeeded in shifting but were only able to hold it for a few moments before reverting back to normal. Still, it was progress. Cody had his suspicions that it was due to the interior of the garage lacking the proper elements; whereas Blades had air around him at all times, inside, there was little water and dust in the air thanks to filtration systems, which limited the hydrokinetic and geokinetic's abilities to maintain those forms.

Chase, on the other hand, was struggling to shift at all. His best guess as to why had been that his processor just... Wasn't as creative in that way. Boulder told him that after reading the detective book the policebot was writing saying he wasn't creative was a lie; just the same, Chase was having trouble actually envisioning what he needed to extend the energy outward.
Boulder was right, he would get it, it just was taking him a little longer.

Their conversation was then paused by a faint whirring sound, coming from somewhere in the woods.

"That sounds like a chainsaw." Cody hissed.

"Looks like we've found our lumberjack."

Chief Burns headed up the trail faster, and Cody and Chase followed, but the bot paused as he saw Boulder was now lagging behind. "Boulder."

"S-Sorry!" Boulder apologized, hurrying up the hill to him, "Got distracted by a flower."

"Well, we can continue our Botany study later, hmm?" Chase teased as he grabbed his brother's arm and tugged him away from the plant.