Bouncing Balls 3
Title: Bouncing Balls 3
Rating: G
Characters/Pairings: The original culprits are revealed
Warnings: None
Universe: G1
Summary: The Prank gets returned
Disclaimer: I, in no way, shape, or form, own the Transformers© franchise or the characters it contains. They belong to Has/Tak, No infringement intended.
The tiny brightly colored rubber balls just kept pouring out of his room and flooding their bouncing and rolling way down the hall. Now Cosmos sat on the floor in the hall outside the door to his quarters, where he had in surprise, frantically stumbled backwards and tripped on what he now recognized to be some hundreds of thousand, tiny bouncing rubber balls. The things were pouring out the door, bouncing off his half buried frame, before spreading out down the hall in both directions.
As the tiny brightly colored rubber balls continued onward in their bid for freedom and flooded their bouncing and rolling way down the hall Cosmos wondered, “How in the pit did the twins learn it was us? And why today when all I want is some recharge? Why couldn’t they do it while I was still on shift floating around the planet? All I want is a couple joors of recharge to go along with the energon I just had. Everyone else gets shifts correlating to the local time keeping method of hours in a day and I get ones still measured in Orns.” He broke off his internal ramble in surprise when he heard both his roommates inside the room.
“Oh hey Cosmos my man,” the first called, “I have to say we are very glad you came home today. Took you long enough though. We were really beginning to worry that Prowl had decided to keep you up top for another couple of cycles.”
This additional surprise was enough to get Cosmos to collect his wits enough to scramble to his feet and cautiously step through the door way. Inside, he found his roommates starring at him from berth and floor respectively. As he stood and stared, “What?” was all his recharge deprived CPU could think of to say.
“My Commanding Officer” was Bumblebee’s dry reply.
“Jazz?”
“He is my immediate commanding officer” was the sarcastic reply.
“I thought we pranked the twins?”
And here Beachcomber chuckled, “Four and a half months ago Cosmos. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker pranked Prowl with these last week.”
“OK, so how do you know it was Jazz? He is an officer after all. I can’t see Prowl letting him do this.”
Bumblebee and Beachcomber stared at Cosmos in disbelief. “Cosmos, you really do need some recharge. This is Jazz were talking about. Being an officer has never stopped him before.”
“And we’ve had a very long uncomfortable day to think about it” continued Bumblebee. “First, he’s bonded to Prowl, and while it’s not common knowledge, I happen to know Prowl made Jazz, not the twins, pick these things up by himself, so he had ready access to them. Second, if you will remember, he’s how I got the furlough for Red Alert and Inferno so he knows we started this. Third, he is prank craftiness personified when he wants to be. And while it is much tighter for him than us, he can fit in the Ark’s vent system, where the Twins most certainly cannot. Their Toughline frames are just two big. And finally, last but certainly not least, both our comm. systems were disrupted, something Jazz could have done overcharged, standing on one leg with one arm tied behind his back. And I don’t think Sideswipe or Sunstreaker could have done the comm. units without us coming out of recharge. “
“ Especially as they, like most every other bot here, were beyond the ‘over charged’ state and into the ‘completely cratered’ state last night.”
“Guess you do have this thought out.”
“We have been stuck here, unable to call for help and unable to move, let alone twitch, fighting with the effects of a major high grade hangover, for the past 7 hours waiting for someone to open the door. We’ve had plenty of time to think.”
“You’ve been stuck in here all day?”
“Neither of us had shifts today.”
“It was like being a statue in a box of the humans packing peanuts.” added Beachcomber
“Except a statue would not have had a hangover from the ‘we thoroughly beat the cons and had no injuries’ party last night.”
“Wow, I think he certainly one upped our prank.”
“Why thank you Cosmos, I do enjoy knowing that my work is appreciated.” said Jazz, from where he stood in the hallway, happy grin in place.
Two sets of optics and one visor turned in surprise towards the door. “Oh I respect the creativeness Sir, not sure I’d go so far as to say I appreciated it. I just came off an orn long shift. All I want is to recharge. And this I can see is going to delay that.”
“Ah Cosmos, don’t do the crime if ya can’t do the time.” Jazz smiled. And with that piece of advice, I’m here to tell you three that you need to pick all of these balls up by hand and remove them from the Ark.”
“By hand sir?”
“Yep!” and Jazz smiled wider. Ya see, the twins had to pick these up by hand. I had to pick them up by hand. Now you three have to pick them up by hand. And I suggest you get it done before Optimus, Prowl, Ironhide and Red Alert return from their meeting in Portland. Wouldn’t want to freak Red Alert out or anything.” Jazz paused, then added slyly, “or the twins get back from patrol. Their due back about six by the way.”
A round of answering moans was the response. That’s in 3 hours.
“You best get rolling then” he said with a grin. The crates we’ve all been using are in cargo bay 3.”
“Just what are we suppose to do with them once we remove them?”
“Ya know, my orders end once I see you three remove them from the Ark. Prowl never said anything beyond that. And I’m the only one besides yourselves that knows you started it. All of us have managed to keep this off the security cameras each time.” Jazz smiled, this time deviously.
And Cosmos picked up on it. “So we could, oh, move them anywhere we choose as long as they get removed from the Ark first?”
“Call me when you have them removed from the Ark” Jazz smirked as he left.
Cosmos looked at Bumblebee. “Bee, you want to take care of the cameras again?”
Chapter 4