Prowl wished he knew when he onlined that it would be a strange day at the Ark. He would have used one of his 'off-duty days' and gone straight back into recharge. Sadly, Primus did not bestow upon him the gift of clairvoyance; so as he left his quarters to check in with Red Alert at the security station, the last thing he expected to see duct taped to his door was a large—even by Cybertronian standards—spiral notebook.
But that wasn't the oddest part. A blue bull's eye was hand-painted on the cover.
"What am I getting myself into?" the tactician murmured as he ripped off the duct tape and opened the notebook.
Written in scratchy handwriting on the first page was a note addressed to him.
Prowl-
I overheard some bad things of the conspiracy variety going on the other night...and I would report it straight to you, but I don't want these bots to find out I said something and call me a tattle-tale and not trust me anymore. So I'm going to leave you clues around base, like the one on the cover of this notebook. I know you'll be able to figure it out, 'cause that's what you do, ya know? You figure stuff out!
Oh, and it would be really great if you didn't mention this to anybot else. I think you can guess why.
Ok. Thanks.
-Bluestreak
Prowl closed the notebook. He looked at the cover again, half expecting the bull's eye to bounce away. It didn't, although he really wouldn't have been surprised if it did.
After checking in with Red Alert and assuring him that the mice he spotted about base were not Decepticon spies and would be dealt with as soon as possible, Prowl ventured towards the common room for his ration of energon. As he neared said room, two loud, distinct voices could be heard.
"How 'bout now? Is it still funny now?"
"Ack! I didn't do it, I swear!"
"If you're going to lie, at least lie to my face, you fragging coward!"
"I'd love to, if you'd just let go of me!"
Prowl prepared for the worst and opened the door. Inside, a furious Sunstreaker had his brother in a tight headlock. The SIC frowned. He was just about to pounce on the troublemakers and reprimand them for infighting when he noticed something.
"A clue!" he whispered, doorwings springing up. Sure enough, painted on Sunstreaker's rear-end was a bright blue bull's eye identical to the one on the notebook.
"If you didn't do it, then who did? We share the same quarters, numb nodes!" the yellow warrior growled, tightening his grip.
"Oh yeah? What about that bot you sneak into your berth, carburetor breath?" his brother spat back.
"Shut up!"
Prowl shook his head as the twins continued to torment each other. After analyzing the situation, he spun on his heels and walked out of the room. He'd get his energon later. It was Ironhide's turn to separate the twins, anyway.
As he commed the weapons specialist, Prowl made a note of Sunstreaker's new decal in the book. This made him wonder just how many more clues he was supposed to find, and where they would be.
For an extrovert like Jazz, monitor duty was like suffering through a tedious court trial with a looming sentence of Death By Boredom. He spent most of his shift teeter-tottering between counting and naming the family of dust bunnies living under the control panel and 'testing' Red Alert's famous Zeek Zap Censoring and Security software. But, alas, there were only so many ambiguous words and double entendres one could search.
He was about to slip into recharge when Brawn made a grand entrance carrying a large, stuffed brown sack over his shoulder. He reminded Jazz of an overworked Santa Claus.
"Ho ho ho, Brawn." the Porsche said, suddenly awake and alert. "What's that, another sack of mail?"
"Yeah. It never fails." Brawn grunted. The mail that the Autobots received every-so-often was mostly written by students and private citizens wishing to thank them for saving their city from the Decepticons. Prime especially loved to read the stuff.
Brawn handed a manila envelope to Jazz. "Will you give this to Prowl? I had to sign for it. Must be special."
"Sure thing." Jazz nodded, turning the envelope over in inspection. How strange, the Porche thought. Prowl never got mail. He grinned. This was just the thing he needed to alleviate his boredom.
When his shift ended at noon, Jazz sauntered into Prowl's office.
"Hey, Prowl! Mail time!"
"Not now, Jazz. I'm in the middle of something."
"But you got a letter!"
"Jazz, I said I'm-..." Prowl paused. "A letter? Addressed to me?"
Jazz nodded, handing Prowl the manila envelope. The SIC noticed that the seal was broken.
"It's a Beta tape!" the Porsche grinned.
"Jazz!" Prowl scolded. "It is illegal to open mail that is not addressed to you. Not to mention rude."
"I know, I know...but it was bulky! I had to make sure it wasn't a bomb or somethin'!" he defended.
Sighing, Prowl withdrew the tape. He only had time to glance at it before Jazz distracted him. "Wonder who it's from?" he pondered aloud.
"There's no return address?" Prowl questioned, setting the tape on his desk and examining the envelope. Jazz immediately took notice of the strange marking on the tape.
"A bull's eye?" the Porsche inquired, pointing at it.
Prowl quickly snatched the tape before Jazz could grab it. "You weren't supposed to see that."
Jazz's face scrunched up in confusion. "Wha? Why not-?"
"I cannot disclose that information to you."
Jazz stared at Prowl for a moment, and then grinned lecherously.
"Oh! I get it." he snickered, leaning on the SIC's desk. "It's one of those tapes, right?"
Prowl's doorwings sprang up. "It is not!"
"It's nothin' to be 'shamed of, Prowler." he continued. "It's a healthy practice–"
Before he could finish, Jazz's comm. link mercifully came to life. "Jazz! You're due for your checkup! Where are you?"
"Sorry, Ratchet." Jazz winced. "Somethin' came up. I got distracted."
"Just get your chassis down to the med bay before I sic Prowl on you."
"Ooh, that sounds like fun." he grinned at the SIC, who rolled his optics.
"Jazz!"
"On my way."
As Jazz left, he stopped in the doorway to wave a quick goodbye to Prowl.
"Try not to give Ratchet too hard of a time." the tactician waved back.
"Who, me? No way! Ratchet and I are tighter than salt an' pepper!"
"Exactly."
"Aw, you know I save the really annoying teases for you...Prowlrika."
Prowl narrowed his optics as Jazz skipped away.
Since his office lacked a Betamax player (he preferred VHS), Prowl needed Teletraan-1 to play the tape for him.
When he entered the Teletraan room, he saw the bulky red form of Warpath monitoring the system.
"Excuse me, Warpath. I need to use Teletraan-1."
"Bam! Sure thing, Prowl! Skidoo!"
Prowl's optics flickered. "Did you...just say 'skidoo'?" he muttered. Warpath was already on his way out the door.
"What's that? Kabam! Didn't catch 'ya!"
"...Nevermind." the SIC grumbled, loading the Beta tape into Teletraan. Warpath shrugged and left.
Upon pressing the PLAY command, a blue screen appeared. It was soon replaced by a scene of two humans on a dock.
"And now, we return to As the Kitchen Sinks. Episode 374: The Purple Curtain."
"Jack! I thought you drowned!"
"Looks like all those swimming classes at the YMCA were worth it, Donna."
"I'll say! I thought for sure those sharks would–"
Prowl stopped the tape.
"I see. So what do an angry Sunstreaker and As the Kitchen Sinks have to do with each other?" he wondered. "Sunstreaker doesn't watch Kitchen Sinks. Hm. Perhaps it is not the series, but the episode itself? What was this episode about, again? Did Donna have her baby yet? No...that's after Gordon is resurrected..."
Prowl stared at the screen in silent ponderment. He snapped his fingers once he had it figured out. "Aha! This is the episode in which Jack ruins Bob's restaurant, the Purple Curtain, for vengeful reasons too inane for my logic circuits to handle."
He ejected the Beta tape and stuck it in his subspace. "I should have expected that this would involve Sunstreaker and revenge. But I'll have to wait for another clue to appear before confronting anybot on the matter."
By early evening it was Prowl's turn to report to Ratchet for a checkup. He was painfully reminded of this fact when Ratchet's voice boomed in his audio receptor via his comm. link. The tactician assured the CMO that he would be on time, to which Ratchet replied, "That's what they all say. And then when they stroll in half a cycle late, I make sure I use the extra large wrench."
Prowl quickly left his office.
As he rounded a corner, he saw a frustrated looking Wheeljack in front of the main entrance to the bay. He appeared to be working on the keypad to the door. Toolboxes and their contents encircled the engineer's feet.
"Everything alright?"
Wheeljack spun around. "Oh, hi Prowl. Yeah, I'm fine. This darn door just won't open for some reason. If you were going to the bay, you'll have to go through the breezeway in my lab."
"Very well. Thank you."
As the tactician entered Wheeljack's laboratory, he felt as if he was walking into a painting. Not because the area looked pristine or picturesque, but because there were cans of spilled paint everywhere.
"Alright, now this is just ridiculous, even for him!" Prowl grumbled, tip-toeing around so as not to get any wet paint on his peds. "What does he even need all this paint for?"
But before he could reach the breezeway, something caught his optic: a specific color he'd recently become very familiar with.
"Another clue!" Prowl remarked. Bluestreak's bull's eye was hastily painted onto a piece of machinery on one of Wheeljack's workbenches. Prowl immediately recognized it as Mirage's electro-disrupter—the technology that enabled the Autobot spy to become invisible.
"If I'm not mistaken, it was Sunstreaker that broke this!" he declared. Finally, the pieces were coming together. "So, if I have interpreted the clues correctly, somebot is going to extract revenge on Sunstreaker in correlation with his breaking of this electro-disrupter! But who?"
After his checkup, Prowl's processor was flooded with ideas regarding Bluestreak's clues. Whenever something unusual like this happened (and it happened more times than he'd like to admit), the only way to settle his system was to sit in his big office chair and think things out. His battle computer and logic circuits, sophisticated as they were, couldn't handle such...childish circumstances without freezing up on him. So with a sigh, he forced them offline—CPU now free to wonder without restraint.
Of course, even with his battle computer offline, it didn't take long for Prowl to figure everything out backwards and front. It was so obvious after all, as if the answer was dancing before his optics.
A quick comm to Inferno at the security station revealed the location of the two mechs he wished to speak with—the common room.
"Ah, that's right...I never did get that morning ration of energon, did I?" Prowl thought as he left his office. "As Jazz would say, better late than never. Hmm...and I'd rather not think of what Ratchet would say."
The common room was quite crowded, and had been since the last shift had gone on break. Between shifts, news had gotten out that Trailbreaker and Skids—critically injured in the last fight with the Decepticons—had finally been released from the med bay. Base morale, which had taken a nosedive due to the combined threat of losing two valuable Autobots and facing Ratchet's dreaded annual checkup, rose back to its usual post-victory high. Prowl understood the need for celebration, but what he saw happening in the middle of the room was just unacceptable. He didn't care if Primus himself had just appeared with a basket full of energon goodies, Sideswipe and Blaster should not be dancing to Michael Jackson on a table.
With doorwings in an agitated 'V', he approached the table with the full intention of dragging the sports car and the tape deck to the ground.
Jazz, who had been chatting with Bumblebee nearby, saw the SIC's focused march and dashed to intercept.
"Hey Prowl, what's with that frown, man? Can't you see this is a fun zone?"
"That" the tactician pointed. "Is not fun, it is reckless behavior."
"Reckless?" Jazz smirked. "Aw, ain't that a bit harsh? We're just celebratin'."
Prowl sighed in exasperation. "I am glad that Trailbreaker and Skids have healed swiftly, but I do not think Ratchet would appreciate having to weld anybot's exhaust pipe back on after they broke it off whilst 'celebrating'."
"You trust our mechs on the wings of a Seeker, but not up there?"
Prowl's frown was quickly on its way to becoming a scowl. "Actually, I–!"
His doorwings perked up at a noise. He glanced to his left at the sound of laughter. It was not directed at him, but at one of two mechs sitting alone at a corner table. Prowl turned back to Jazz.
"I will not dignify that with a response, as I have another matter to attend to. Go make them behave."
Jazz, surprised at Prowl's sudden change in course, watched him walk away. He didn't want to kill Sideswipe and Blaster's fun, but Prowl didn't seem to be in a very flexible mood that cycle, so he obeyed.
The tactician approached the corner table calmly, so as not to startle the mechs he was confronting.
"Good evening, Hound. Cliffjumper."
The mechs in question looked up pleasantly.
"Good evening, Prowl." Hound smiled. "Somethin' we can do you for?"
"There is something important I would like to discuss with the both of you."
The soldiers glanced at each other.
"Yes?"
"While I am glad that Mirage has found loyal friends in the both of you, I do not believe said friendship should include protective revenge."
"...Sir?"
"I know of your plan to get back at Sunstreaker for breaking Mirage's electro-disruptor during their tussle at the Magenta Research Center the other day. I ask that you cease and desist all plotting and leave the matter be immediately."
Hound ducked his head in guilt, while Cliffjumper crossed his arms in a huff.
"How'd you find out?" the minibot asked.
"I have my ways–" Prowl replied, and added when the two tried speak, "Which are none of your concern."
Hound wisely accepted this and kept quiet, but Cliffjumper, well...
"Frag and scrap this! What about that no good yellow twin? Sorry Prowl, but I can't drop this without making sure that he's suffering as much as Mirage is without his equipment! It's unnatural — like you without your battle computer, or Blaster without his music!"
The SIC frowned. "Sunstreaker has already been given his due punishment. He has lost his wash rack privileges for an Earth month, and his patrol shift partner has been changed from Smokescreen to Tracks."
"Ooh." Hound and Cliffjumper flinched.
"Yes. So you see, he is quite miserable enough without you two antagonizing him."
"Gotcha, Prowl." Cliffjumper nodded.
"Yes." Hound added. "From now on, we'll leave the meting of punishment to you."
"Good."
It was late in the night when Optimus Prime finally finished reading his mail. He leaned back in his office chair as he opened the last letter. The back of the envelope was decorated with smiley faces and hearts. The bright blue construction paper on which the note was written smelled of colored pencils and ink.
Dear Mr. Optimas Prime and the Autobots,
Thank you very much for protekting Planet Earth. Also, thank you for saving my life when the Deseptikons smashed my Daddy's work on Daddy Dauter Day.
Love,
Mikaela Smith from Mrs. Banes's 3rd grade class
At the bottom of the page was a hand-drawn picture of the likenesses of Prime (there was a helpful arrow pointing at him, noted as "you") and Sunstreaker (indicated as "the Autobot that helped me") standing on a much smaller planet Earth. A speech bubble protruding from Prime's mouth said, "You will never win, Megatron! We are cooler than you." while Sunstreaker's bubble simply said, "Yeah!"
Smiling, the Autobot leader tucked the note in a side table drawer he reserved for his favorite letters.
A/N:
I can't tell you how much fun I had writing all those Blue's Clues allusions. hehehe.
Thanks so much for reading. I hope you had a laugh. ^.^
All reviews appreciated.