Drabbles and Snippets - #2
“ME GRIMLOCK KING!”
“NO, ME GRIMLOCK KING!”
“You’re both Grimlock!” Wheeljack cried, waving his arms as he tried to get between the two behemoths before their battle turned physical.
“Not both! No can be both Grimlock! Only ME Grimlock King!”
“ME GRIMLOCK KING!”
The engineer heaved a deep sigh through his vents, burying his face in his hands. “Percy, got any ideas…?”
The dark ninjabot merely lofted an optic ridge from his shadowed hiding place, watching the green and white mech desperately trying to separate the two huge Tyrannosauruses, the other Dinobots lingering in the background behind their respective leaders - the newcomer had two more bots under his command, and with the assistance of the three mechs lingering about, could have captured or destroyed the other Dinos by now, but they seemed loathe to do so, instead scrambling to keep them apart, seeming confused by the whole ordeal - much like Prowl himself.
“C’mon, Grimlock, he’s not any better than you - you guys are the same!” A boxy yellow mech, only about half as tall as the others - a minibot, Prowl decided, though with something of a distinctly out-of-date model design - was trying (and failing) to push their Grimlock back to the rest of the group, which only caused his counterpart to advance with a territorial snarl.
“Nothing as of yet, I’m afraid,” the third answered, ‘Percy’ as he had been addressed. “As far as my sensors can tell, we’re exactly where we started - Dinobot island - but this is clearly not the same place as it was before. I have previously attempted to send a beacon to the Autobots but I am uncertain if it has reached any of them - while my communications are not blocked, it is difficult to say whether or not my transmissions are being affected by this… flux, shall we call it?”
Aha… so he was the one sending the distress beacon on the unused channels. Prowl tapped his comm. link lightly, keeping his voice low, “Optimus, I have found the source of the signal we received - you might want to see this.”
--
“My name is Optimus Prime.”
Three decidedly unconvinced gazes stared back at the Autobot group, then shifted to glance at one another in question. “Well,” Wheeljack began, moving forward and circling Optimus, examining him, “he certainly bears a resemblance to the Prime…”
“I could see him as Prime’s sparkling, maybe,” Bumblebee was murmuring, also curiously examining the young mech, “but not Optimus himself - he’s way too small, for one thing, he’s younger than I am… maybe even as young as Bluestreak. Way too young to be leading a war…Plus, where’s the rest of the bots? The whole army would have been out here by now if Prime thought something like this was happening.”
Wheeljack moved on to the rest of the group, similarly circling them one at a time, examining them closely. Perceptor had taken his place in scrutinizing the young Optimus, microscope lens whirring busily away on the mech’s sleek plating. Bumblebee paused in front of the medic, optics wide and bright, head tilted to the side. “Are you… Ratchet?”
Ratchet lofted an optic ridge, hands on his hips as he stared down at the minibot. “Yeah? And who are you, exactly?”
“I’m Bumblebee.” The minibot was obviously choking back his amusement with the way his voice module was straining and laced with static.
Ratchet gazed appraisingly at the boxy mech, then turned to the unnaturally quiet yellow bot behind him and back again, “Really now…”
“Well ye-- oh…” The minibot’s gaze fell on the yellow mech behind Ratchet, optics widening just a fraction more. “Then that makes you… me?”
“As if!” the yellow mech chirped, arms crossed and frowning suspiciously at his counterpart. “There’s no way that you’re me in that outdated frame. Get with the times, man, it’s all about the curves now.”
“Bumblebee, that’s quite enough,” the dark ninjabot rumbled softly.
“Yeah, ‘Bee,” the white and blue added cheerfully, “ya don’t know where they’re from - maybe squares are the new circles in their world. They could be from an entirely different universe or somethin’, ya dig?”
The three mechs paused, glanced to each other and started to laugh softly. “Definitely Jazz!” Wheeljack declared.
“Everyone else I can kind of recognize - the colors and designs are similar, if somewhat exaggerated, from the bots I know - but you,” Bumblebee peered curiously at the dark ninja. “You I don’t know - can I ask your designation?”
“My name is Prowl,” he intoned quietly, solemnly, with a slight nod of his head, apprehension rising unbidden in his tanks. Everyone else seemed to exist in this other universe - was there a chance that he didn’t?
Bumblebee stared at him, and then sputtered suddenly before breaking out in laughter. He quickly put one hand over his faceplates, the other waving frantically, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! That just … caught me by surprise, is all…!”
“The chevron’s the giveaway,” Wheeljack chuckled softly. “And maybe some of the mannerisms, but past that - he’s really nothing like our Prowl, is he?”
--
“So where are we?” Sides chirped, apparently excited with the ‘change of scenery’.
Optimus regarded the front liners momentarily, then gave a nervous shuffle of his feet and an embarrassed cough into his fist. “I’m sorry - who are you?”
Swideswipe immediately deflated, shoulders slumping dejectedly. Sunstreaker snorted lightly, arms folded across his chest. “You heard him - Iacon never fell for them. We’re probably still on Cybertron, blissfully unaware of the war.”
“Which means Praxus never fell either…”
“Which means…” All optics turned to Bluestreak where the gunner had begun to tremble, tears flowing freely down his face.
“Wh-wh-which m-m-means…” his vents hitched several times, barely able to speak, “m-m-my f-family… is st-still…”
“Still alive, Blue…” Wheeljack wound his arms around the young mech’s quaking shoulders.
“Praxus is alive… Iacon too,” Sides continued, looking pensive, “which means we were never in the Gladiator Rings…”
“We never had to kill anyone,” his brother concluded quietly, then gave a start as Bluestreak choked out a particularly harsh sob at that revelation, sinking to his knees. A small crowd gathered quickly around the gunner, Prowl at the forefront, flanked by Jazz, Wheeljack still holding tightly onto the weeping mech.
“Our world,” Prime intoned solemnly to the young Optimus, “has seen far more destruction - I hope our presence does not bring the same sorrows to your world as well.”
“I have to see them!” Blue cried, clawing his way free of the comforting group of mechs to grip Prime’s arm. “W-we have to go to Cybertron! Please! Please I MUST see them! I have to know!”
“Blue, we don’t know what our being here will cause to happen,” Wheeljack reasoned with the frantic gunner, tugging gently at his shoulders, trying to ease him back from his death-grip on the Prime. “This island could be a neutral zone, but beyond its borders, we could cause a temporal distortion.”
“I second Bluestreak’s request,” Prowl called, hurrying to the side of his fellow Praxian. Taking a brief moment to compose himself, he glanced towards the young, very confused, Optimus and then at his own Prime. “I believe this would provide an excellent morale boost to the crew.”
--
“Boring, humorless, constantly scowling - yeah that sounds like Prowl.” Bumblebee chirped. Prowl regarded his counterpart, barely withholding a grimace at the bot’s features - the overall design was sleek, agile, and even attractive, if he should think so without feeling narcissistic for it, but the elongated faceplates… his optic shutter twitched slightly as he turned back to the young, exuberant Bumblebee.
“Nah, Prowler’s got a great sense o’ humor,” Jazz’s arms wound about the doorwinger’s waist from behind, rubbing his audio horns lightly against the other’s cheek. The other Prowl stiffened, his visor widening just slightly, and took the smallest of steps away from the other grinning Jazz. The white ninja chuckled, discreetly covering it with a cough at the suddenly glaring visor turned his way from Prowl.
--
“Everybody was Kung-Fu fighti-ing! HYAH! Those kicks were fast as lightning!”
Both opponents froze at the loud start to the music and the sudden laughter from the rest of the bots, turning to seek its origins. The three Bumblebees had formed a line, the largest one in the middle blaring music from his speakers, and were dancing in unison, the smaller two singing along loudly. First one Jazz, then the other, broke down in loud snickers, which quickly dissolved into helpless laughter, sinking to the grass with only each other to support them. Hound and several others were recording the dance, as well as Jazzes’ subsequent hysteria. Jazz noted with some satisfaction that Prowl’s doorwings were twitching wildly despite his blank, frowning faceplates, a clear sign of his forcefully restrained amusement, and the other’s visor was glowing nearly white, lips pressed firmly together, corners struggling to remain turned down.
The humans had no such reservations and were rolling in the grass, laughing hysterically.
--
“A CORVETTE?!” Sideswipe demanded of his silver counterpart. “Are you frelling kidding me?! I’m a Lamborghini - A Corvette is a serious downgrade! I wouldn’t touch that alt mode with a 50-meter titanium pole!”
Alrighty - that's all I got. Another one of those things keeping me preoccupied aside from work and the weather making me sick. Blah. I'unno - should I bother fleshing this out more? Might be entertaining or it might just dissolve into pure idiocy.