A Transwarp Christmas
(I wrote this in about 3 hours. It's not going to be perfect, but I'm not missing the Dec 25th deadline!)
(I'm using Beast Wars characters/names, but on Planet earth)
Orbiting above the planet in a Maximal space station, Optimus Primal enters into the main command room to see Cheetor, Rattrap and Silverbolt at computer stations
"Well, tomorrow is Christmas Day. Cheetor, check the transponder on Santa's sleigh."
Cheetor types in some commands into the computer. A holographic projection of Earth materializes over a circular table. A red dot with readout information appears over the holographic North Pole.
"How many drones were assigned to protect them? I don't want a repeat of last year." Primal says.
Silverbolt speaks up "I assigned one hundred to escort Santa and the reindeer. The Predacons shouldn't try again this year."
"That's good. Keep on eye on the scanners though. Anything can happen during those twelve hours which Santa has during the night."
Deep within the earth, the Predacon HQ is hidden from the surface.
Megatron sits on a large metallic chair, which is obviously built for the commanding officer. He looks at the computer screen in front of him. "Christmas day. Bah Humbug. All this cheer – humbug. All this music. Humbug! At least I'll find pleasure in watching recordings of these humans trample and fist fight each other in the pursuit of materialistic happiness. Music to my ears...hearing the chaos which this holiday brings. But..Santa never brings me anything. I'm just trying to reclaim what is rightfully the Predacons."
"Attacking his wooden sleigh and nearly killing his reindeer didn't help matters" Black Arachnia says with a smirk as she enters the Predacon command center, approaching Megatron's throne.
"Instead of trying to stop Christmas by killing their gift bearer, how about going after the source?" she says with a chuckle.
"What, prey tell, do you mean, she-spider?" Megatron asks.
Black Arachnia pulls out a data pad and taps the screen. A series of images appear on Megatron's screen, showing passages from the Christian Bible, detailing the story about Jesus' birth.
"Christmas exists because of this man." Black Arachnia says. "There would be no Christmas, without him."
Megatron strokes his chin. "I need to have the ancient humans do this using their own laws and policies." He taps his commlink. "Tarantulas and Dinobot, report to the command center. Now." He turns to Black Arachnia. "Retrieve one of the transwarp cells."
Just outside the ancient city of Jerusalem, a circular formation of blue light appears above the ground, Dinobot and Tarantulas steps out.
"Now, remember, we must take the form of one of these Roman soldiers so we can blend in." Tarantulas speak as they seek out a hiding spot behind some large boulders.
"That might be a height improvement for you, spider, so I'm sure you're fine with it!" Dinobot quipped back at him.
Two Roman soldiers walk past the two Predcons without noticing them. One of them sees two flashes of light from the corner of his eye. They both turn around and notice two more Roman soldiers walking away from them. They turn and continue on their patrol.
Dinobot and Tarantulas, now disguised as Roman soldiers, walk along the dirt road. "I feel ridiculous." Dinobot says. "I feel like I'm wearing a dress." He looks down at his legs.
"Learn earth history, Dinobot." The spider says. "Roman soldiers were feared and respected. What they said was law and very few people had the guts to argue with them. Why do you think we had to choose these forms?"
Dinobot sighs heavily. He knew that Tarantulas was right.
"According to scholars, the humans we are after left the town of Nazareth under the cover of night before the Census of Caesar Augustus. That is tonight. We have a lot of miles to cover." Tarantulas says
"Where are we going, specifically?" Dinobot says with annoyance in his voice. Tarantulas looks to Dinobot and a beam of light shoots back and forth between the two sets of eyes, sending the data to Dinobot.
Later that night, Dinobot and Tarantulas hide behind some trees, using the information given to them by Megatron.
They spot two humans; A roughly eighteen your old man and a sixteen your old pregnant woman.
Dinobot is the first to emerge from behind a tree "Halt!" He tells them, but in Hebrew. They stop, but the woman chooses to sit down.
"Caesar Augustus has commanded that a census be taken. Yet you are fleeing. Why?"
The young man looked up at the Roman Soldier/Dinobot. "I know you may not believe me, but God told me."
Tarantulas stepped out from behind another tree and approaches the young man. "Doesn't God also tell you to listen to people in positions of authority?" The young man nods "Yes."
"Come with us, her too." Tarantulas says
Dinobot and Tarantulas escort the young couple away.
In the morning, Dinobot and Tarantulas approach the Roman Governor at the time. "Sir, we intercepted these two Jews attempting to evade the census."
The Governor looked at the young couple. "Tell me, why did you try to avoid the census?"
The young man spoke up "I got a message from God to leave."
The Governor gives a look of disapproval as he looks at the young man "I have decided on the suitable punishment…."
At the Maximal orbiting station, ships fly by the window, carrying cargo from various planets to earth, and from earth to other planets.
Suddenly, the alarm activates. "Warning, warning. Category 12 occurance." The space station begins to shake violently.
SilverBolt looks at the screen " I'm detecting a temporal storm, affecting the whole planet."
"How large?" Primal asks
"This one is massive. Largest ever I've seen." Silverbolt replies.
Activate the transwarp shield so we don't get caught up in it." Primal orders.
Rattrap taps some buttons quickly. "Transwarp shield in place."
"Cheetor, try to find out what time this one originates. Compare any new information with what we have already stored." Primal says.
"Right on it!" Cheetor says as he begins to tap furiously at his keyboard. The holographic table projector shows a time readout, going backwards, and the image of the earth zooms in towards Africa.
"Almost there." Cheetor says as the holographic image changes rapidly. "Got it!" he exclaims as the time reads "Time of origin: 3 BC"
"This was twenty six hundred years ago. What happened around that time?" Primal asks, confused.
"Primal, look at this." Silverbolt says somberly as his screen shows churches around the world fading into nothing.
"Huh…" Primal looks at the screen, getting more confused. "Get a birds eye view of the Vatican."
Silverbolt nods and taps some more keys. It shows where the Vatican should be…but with shops instead of a religious center. The shops have "Happy Saturnalia" all over it.
"This doesn't make any sense…" Primal says sadly.
"I think I know." Cheetor says, as he tried accessing well known Christian based websites.
"I can't get access to anything about Christianity. It's like, it just vanished. I also found this." He says as he points to a book called The Torah. "Just The Torah. I've looked for any references to Jesus, Mark, Luke, Matthew, everything. The entire New Testament is missing. Yet our copy, the one stored here, has it in tact."
"It was unaffected by the transwarp shield. Quickly, search the historical files which we have access too on earth. Start with Rome's records."
Cheetor's screen changes with a flurry of activity as he searches and searches.
"Found something Primal." Cheetor says as he brings up a history document about a particular census.
Primal begins to read. "It says here that 2 unidentified Roman soldiers caught a couple fleeing that city at night. Where are the names?" He says as he scrolls quickly. As soon as he reads it, his eyes widen "This is why! Oh slag. We need to fix this."
Primal taps his comm unit. "Rhinox, do we have any spare transwarp cells?"
Rhinox's voice can be heard over the radio "We have two left, but the Maximal Elders have strictly forbid the use of transwarp technology ever since the Beast Wars."
"I'll take full responsibility. Now, prepare the Space Bridge using the transwarp cell with information which Silverbolt will give you." He taps his comm and says to Cheetor "You're with me. Rattrap, give me live updates. We might be able to fix this if we know the consequences as they happen."
Cheetor and Primal step onto an elevator to the lower levels.
"Is the Space Bridge ready?" Primal asks.
"Yes it is, but when the Elders find out…" Rhinox begins to speak, but Primal interrupts him. "They won't find out, because if we get this right, nothing will change."
Cheetor and Primal step into the Space Bridge. The bridge activates and a glowing light envelopes the two Maximals.
Outside of Nazareth, a ball of glowing light appears on a dirt pathway, and it vanishes to reveal Cheetor and Primal. They hurry to hide behind some trees that are large enough.
"We need to take of humanoid form." Primal says.
"We do have earth modes. Our animal forms..." Cheetor begins to say, but Primal interrupted him. "The humans at this time would find it very odd to find a cheetah and an ape walking together, especially talking. And we don't want to appear like this. They would think we're some sort of god. We do not want that to happen." He pauses for a moment, and then sees two Roman soldiers walk by. "If we are to move around as freely as possible, we need to use those two."
"Them?" Cheetor asks. "History has told us that Roman Soldiers weren't exactly friendly."
"We have no choice. We need to have free movement. Quickly, scan one." Primal says.
The Roman soldiers walk by without noticing Cheetor and Primal.
"Alter the faces slightly so we don't look like clones of any of the others." Primal says, as their human faces begin to shift around like a liquid to their final shapes.
"Now, we race to the pathway between Nazareth and Bethlehem. Hopefully, we can undo the damage. Also, we need to remember, we can't leave any evidence behind. Not one piece of metal, Cybertronian fluid..nothing."
"Why's that, Primal?" Cheetor asks, as if leaving anything isn't that big of a deal to him.
"Our bodies are made up of nanocircuitry. Human scientists won't even begin to think of it until the 20th century. Just imagine if we accidentally give the Roman Empire a good two thousand year head start. They would reach computing technology about two hundred years, instead of two thousand. The other consequences are huge."
Later that night, the young couple trying to escape sees one of the soldiers (Dinobot) come out from behind a tree. "Halt!" he says in Hebrew. They stop, but the young woman sits down to rest.
Primal and Cheetor watch the scene as Cheetor whispers to Primal "I'm detecting two Cybertronian signatures; Dinobot and Tarantulas.
"Follow my lead." Primal says as they walk towards Dinobot and the young man
"Caesar Augustus has commanded that a census be taken. Yet you are fleeing. Why?" asks Dinobot.
Before the young man has a chance to respond, Primal and Cheetor walk and stop between Dinobot and the young man.
"These two citizens are free to go. They've done nothing wrong." Primal says sternly.
"These two will do as I say." Dinobot says as he shows off his Roman ranking, which is, of course, higher than Primal and Cheetor.
Primal turns to the young man "Get down!" he says as he proceeds to punch Dinbot in the jaw, hard. The young man runs over to the young woman to shield her.
Out from behind a tree, Tarantulas runs out to join, but is intercepted by Cheetor.
The young man and woman see these Roman soldiers fighting each other with confusion. Why would Roman Soldiers attack each other?
All four of the Roman soldiers in front of the young couple draw their swords, having a fierce sword fight, using moves and speed that no human could possibly do.
The young couple looks at each other. How can these people move with such speed?
Dinobot steps back quickly and begins to transform into his regular robot mode. Tarantulas quickly follows suit.
"Slag!" Primal says as he knows this can get very messy very fast. Both Primal and Cheetor transform into their regular bot modes.
Dinobot throws more caution into the wind, by blasting at Primal with his optic blasts. Tarantulas uses his spider legs as rapid-fire guns towards Cheetor.
As the fight ensues between the Cybertronians, the young man searches in his pockets for a piece of papyrus, and takes out a 'pen' (whatever they used back then) and begins to write some things down.
Almost immediately, Primal gets a call on his com "This better be important Rattrap, I'm kind of in a fight here!"
A stray blaster beam hits the ground near the young man, and he looks at the ground, noting the changes.
"This IS important banana breath. I'm seeing new entries in the religious texts." Rattrap begins to say.
Primal's arm opens up to reveal his arm cannon, firing at Dinobot. "Read it, now!"
"And there I see four soldiers in front of me. They begin to fight one another with strength and speed I have never seen. Then they all changed their form to men of metal. One of them had teeth as sharp as knives. I saw a straight line of bright light coming from his eyes and it struck another, causing his metal skin to melt. I also saw another line of light hit the ground beside me. The dark sky lit up like the sun…."
"Slag!" Primal said under his breath. "He's observing our little battle."
"What are you going to do?" Rattrap asks over the com.
"I have a plan." Primal says as he continues to fight with Dinobot.
"I'm getting tired of this!" Tarantulas says as he aims directly for the young woman. Before he gets a chance to fire, Cheetor tackles the spider.
"I have to end this NOW" Primal says as he charges at Dinobot and delivers a punch to his stomach and fires, causing Dinobot to kneel over.
Cheetor jumped out of the way from one of Tarantulas' spider webs and fires a lucky shot at his head, knocking him out.
Primal looked at the very frightened young couple. He kneels down to get more to their height and spoke to them in Hebrew.
"I know what you saw was never like anything you've seen before. It probably seemed like two 'gods' fighting, but I assure you, it wasn't. But I am sorry, that I have to do this" His eyes change color to a bright blue. "Can you two look here, please?" The young couple looks into Primal's eyes and a very bright light flashes in front of them.
_
In the Maximal orbiting base, Primal and Cheetor have Dinobot and Tarantulas in energon bindings and unconscious. Rhinox and Cheetor escort the Predacons to some jail cells.
Primal enters the main command center. "Give me some good news, Rattrap."
"You did it, Primal." Images appear on Rattrap's screen. "I had the computer cross-reference our copies with online copies of all human religious texts. Amazingly, nothing is missing, nothing is changed. No new entries. We really should think about destroying the technology now.."
"Maybe.." says Primal.