My First Catastrophic Blaster,
or the tragedy of the barmech who chose the wrong quest at the wrong time, and with wrong company
A case study on the relevance of engex
Thinking back, Swerve couldn't put a finger on the event that started the chain reaction. Perhaps it was the sixth or seventh time he heard Brainstorm cursing loud, and appointed himself to the new quest of finding out what made the scientist-jet so agitated ever since the Lost Light's engines made the first jump. Or maybe it was the drink he shared with Brainstorm in hopes of finding a clue for this quest. Or it was Brainstorm's acidic comment that he should start a target-practise quest, since every other Autobot on board (and the Decepticon in the box under the ship's frame) were better sharpshooters that he was.
That. Maybe that was the moment when everything started to go wrong.
He succeeded in making Brainstorm particularly illuminated that night. Just one more dram of engex (undiluted engex – great tasks require great investments) would have opened the jetbot's mouth. Yet another, and Swerve would have had access to the mysterious briefcase cuffed to the blue jet's wrist.
Would have.
In the last moment, however, the science-jet pushed away the glass, and gave a very strange look. There, maybe that was the moment when everything went wrong for Swerve.
"Your small hands would be a blessing in this case" he said, completely without context. Maybe he even said 'please' or Swerve was imagining things. Maybe it was just a drunken mech's babble. "Come with me to the workshop. I will need you to hold a tool I've been working on."
A glimpse at Brainstorm's workshop? And more: a guided tour? This promised to be a good source of to-be-public information, so Swerve was hyper-eager in an astrosec. "Don't touch anything... else!" the jet-bot warned him.
With sixty shanix's worth of pure engex in him, the scientist couldn't really walk straight. Swerve was sure the briefcase was constantly pulling him to the right, and he offered his help with it, but of course the blue mech declined. He wasn't as drunk as to let the minibot carry something of his own size.
Once inside his sanctum, Brainstorm straightened.
"Here. This is a consequence-switch" he said, placing something bright and gun-like in the mostly red Autobot's hands. An orange tip with a sarcastic grin was prominent right under the barrel. "I fashioned it to look like a child's toy so that no mech would tamper with it" he explained. It was clearly the engex talking in him, and Swerve was looking forward to learning more while he was still drunk. If all goes well, Brainstorm won't remember anything of tonight's adventures, the tiny red mech thought. He should have known that things didn't tend to go well. They were on the Lost Light, after all.
"Looks nice" he nodded. "I love that self-portrait you placed above the T letter. And I suppose all those multicolored light bulbs are indicators of some super important kind?"
"What light bulbs? Those are the consequence emitters" Brainstorm replied, as if he was hurt in his art. "Now, hold that and do not pull the trigger unti..."
He spoke too late.
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A case study on the relevance of marksmanship
"Just great!" Brainstorm let out yet another tirade of swearwords and unintelligent glyphs, and held on to Swerve with one hand as they were spiraling in space. "You sent us into an inconsequence loop, you idiot! I told you not to..."
BANG.
They literally fell on the surface of an organic planet, Northern hemisphere, an island by the coastline of an ocean.
"That was intense!" Swerve observed. "Look it! This place looks oddly familiar. Brainstorm, are you hurt?"
"And I know you aren't, either" the blue jet answered as he stood up. Despite its doubtlessly organic origin, the white rock they landed on was comfortably solid below their feet. "We can't get damaged in an inconsequence loop. We can't have any effect on the world you landed us in, either. Useless heap of slag."
"How? Why? What happened? Hey these light bulbs... consequence emitters are off, and they were off when we started to fall..."
"Yes they were! That's the problem!" A rather irritated Brainstorm replied. "You successfully neutralized the effect of everything in that gun's range. You switched off your own consequences."
"You mean I can do anything here, and it will leave no effect?" Swerve asked cheerfully.
"Yes" Brainstorm replied. Apparently, he just ceased to be a happy drinker in this moment. "Now we are stuck with... wait. What were you thinking about in the last moment those lights were on?"
"Is that important?"
"That's the ONLY thing important!"
"Do I need to tell you? It is some... rather private matter."
"That is how we can get out of this fraggin' loop" the science-jet replied. "Out with it. Were you planning to run down the Black Block's central vault with it?"
"No. I..."
"Yes?"
"I wondered how it would look if I fired this thing at Megatron."
Brainstorm's initial reaction was a relieved sigh. At least they wouldn't have to find that vault to escape from this technical malfunction. Then the situation dawned on him.
"You mean... Megatron?! Megatron, of all mechs?"
"Yes, why?"
The jet's only reaction was a sad wave with his non-briefcase hand.
"You will get a pit of sharpshooting practise" he replied.
...
Finding Megatron was the easy part for the duo. Getting in shooting range, with a bright and ridiculously colorful blaster, was another thing – there were plenty of lower-ranking 'Cons around him. Although the Decepticons here could not effect them, that didn't mean the pair went unseen and unnoticed. Brainstorm reluctantly explained to him that the ramifications where their presence would have changed anything in the flow of events around them, simply ceased to exist in the moment they diverged from this timeline.
"And likewise, we cannot slag Megatron for real, either" Swerve growled. "Then why did you build this blasted blaster, to start with?" He got no reply.
Once they got inside, Swerve froze for a moment at the sight. A black-helmed Megatron with yellow optics was beating the scrap out of a purple and silver mech, and what was even worse: that stranger's spark energy signature read exactly the same as Megatron's, although their frames and alt modes were obviously different.
"Now what?" Swerve asked. At least, ignoring the staring Decepticons around him was an easy feat for him, once he experienced that their lasers, fists, or bullets couldn't do any harm to him. Likewise, the 'Cons lost interest in them once they noticed how futile it was to try and keep them away.
"Well, there is a Megatron in front of you! Fire and let's go home!"
"Easy for you to say" the red minibot murmured. He took aim.
He missed by a metric or two.
The weapon in his hands started playing a melody, and informed him in an automaton's irritating voice that he should keep practising.
Well, it informed him, and everyone in the gun's range. If they hadn't had the present Decepticons' attention before, they certainly had it now.
"Keep trying!" Brainstorm commanded.
Swerve shot again. This time, he accidentally hit the purple mechanism Megatron was fighting. The mech shrugged it off and continued beating up his silver-and-black counterpart.
"Yee-haw! You hit a target! Congratulations!" the blaster sang, impossibly loud.
"Now hit Megatron" Brainstorm hissed. "I should be doing serious research in my lab, not waste my time in the Marvel universe with a windbag moron like you."
"What universe?!" Swerve asked back. "You've been here before?"
"Fire already!"
The minibot lifted his weapon again, and aimed it at the silvery mech yet again engaged in the fistfight with his purple counterpart.
"Awww, you missed" the gun played again. "Keep practising!"
"Brainy, is there a way you could mute this thing?"
"If I tried to perform any modification on it right now, it would also be inconsequential" Brainstorm explained after a hukkle of engex.
Swerve missed again.
"Nevermind, keep shooting" the jetbot told him.
"That's also what your fraggin' gun is telling me!"
"It's correct, then" Brainstorm said with a proud undertone. He had constructed that weapon, afterall.
To his surprise, after Swerve's next shot the red, blue and green bulbs on both sides of the barrel lit up, and the gun started playing a triumphant melody and sang "Hooray! You scored a direct hit!"
Thus, Brainstorm was only the second to happily congratulate.
.
A case study on the relevance of continued practice
This time, it didn't feel as if they were falling. Rather, it was like the world would have fallen around them. The black-helmed Megatron disappeared, along with the purple mech who was and wasn't his double.
Another Megatron was standing about half a mile in front of them. He was on the top of a wrecked dam and attempting to beat Optimus Prime with a purple mace. The red truckbot was wielding some yellow blade-weapon, but he was too fast with it, and too far from the inconsequent two mechs for them to see it.
"Are they out of their mind, fighting this close to water?" Swerve snarled.
"Slagging water!" Brainstorm echoed. "Swerve, for our entire world's sake, do not short-circuit that blaster in the water, or we'd be stuck here."
"So now this gun can be effected?" Swerve growled as he approached the fighters. He had his own opinion about how reliable a drunken Brainstorm appeared to be.
He took aim.
"Aww, no!" his blaster sang. "Pay attention when you fire!"
Boom.
"Keep practicing!"
Ba-BOOOM.
"Hooray, you hit a target!" Fortunately, Optimus recovered from the shot in a moment.
"You told me you wanted to shoot Megatron" Brainstorm reminded the red minibot. "At least try to do so."
"Aww, you missed it!" the blaster sang on. "Missed again. Keep trying!"
He did.
In front of him, the two leaders ruined the last bricks of the dam under their feet, and the flow of the now-unblocked river washed first Optimus, then Megatron away.
But before the silver-helmed mechanism would have disappeared from sight, Swerve's one last, desperate shot hit him. After the triumphant trills, the brightly colored gun landed the two travelers in yet another continuity for Swerve to shoot Megatron.
On this occasion, the place felt to be almost the same. It was definitely the same planet, although the scenery changed. Well, maybe not just the scenery, rather the time. Brainstorm curiously watched as they travelled dozens of vorns in fast-forward.
In front of them, two beasts were fighting each other, with the exact vehemence they have displayed a minute (or millennia) before. One of them was a gorilla, the other looked like a cross between a dinobot and a very angry lizard.
"Which one is which?" Swerve stared. Brainstorm shrugged a shoulder.
"Aim for the purple one" he suggested.
Soon, the blaster in Swerve's hands sang "Yee-haw! You hit a target!" happily.
"I said the purple one" Brainstorm sighed.
"I'm trying."
"Try harder!"
The gorilla and the dragon came closer to them, snarling in rage. Brainstorm transformed and took off before a falling tree would have crashed his wings. He hoped Swerve would not be stampeded before he would get them out of here. In theory, yes, neither of them could have been hurt in an inconsequence loop, but he didn't want to take unnecessary risks.
Below him, the purple dragon transformed. One of his hands was formed out of his tail, the other was his neck and his head on it. Brainstorm heard a loud YEEEEEEEEEES but he wasn't sure what exactly the dragon was approving of. Then he had seen Swerve's colorful blaster hit him in the chest and the six consequence emitters light up. Yet, he didn't witness the change he was hoping for. The scenery, the time, the odd sight in front of him remained the same. The only thing that changed was the dragon.
Now he was shining in a metallic shade of red, he had grown wings, and thus he provided so large a target area that not even Swerve could have missed. The green, blue and red light bulbs lit up again.
"Your aim is improving!" the blaster announced. "I'm so proud of you!"
There was yet another change, this time they travelled backwards in time, but moved little from their earlier spot. Where trees and ruins used to be, now huge building stood and organics of Swerve's size were running around in panic.
The dragon was yet again recolored, and he was sporting a new frame design. He screamed out like a stereotypical psychopath, and started hunting the fleshlings for someone called Kenneth Onishi.
"Geez, your paintjob is more ridiculous than this blaster's!" Swerve shouted between two shots he missed. In the roar of the battle around them, however, his voice was unheard. "Did you share fashion tips with Senator Shockwave at some point of your miserable life?"
"He can't hear you, we're inconsequential" the winged scientist reminded him.
"That is no excuse for those optic-hurting neon colors!" Swerve replied. "Under any other circumstances, I would call this a mercy shot!"
BANG. The colorful blaster congratulated for a nice hit for the second try.
Brainstorm was honestly relieved when he felt the now familiar swift between the continuities. This loop they got stuck in was irritating, and a waste of his brilliant processors, but he hoped he would get out of it eventually. With every continuity they passed, with every incarnation of Megatron Swerve successfully shot, they got one step closer to escape.
If only his head didn't ache as much. He really shouldn't have drank so much engex back when there were still consequences in his existence. He shouldn't have counted on the baseless rumors about Swerve diluting his drinks.
He learned the hard way not to fall for baseless urban (or ship) legends.
While still in the air, he found himself staring at a huge statue.
It portrayed a tankformer, one with great antlers and various tank parts positioned randomly across his frame. The sky around him was dark, depressing, devoid of energy.
"Where are we?" Swerve whispered. That tone alone would have alerted Brainstorm that there was something very-very wrong with this place.
"I have no idea" he said, landing. After touchdown he examined the metal below his feet, terror and disbelief in his tone. "Cybertron" he murmured.
He tried to stay awake, but the engex in his frame was getting the better of him. His wise head felt heavy. His optics were harder and harder to keep focused. His mind told him that Swerve would succeed in shooting this universe's Megatron on his own, although his spark clunched at the idea of going offline in such a hostile environment. But he had to admit, there was nothing for him to do, really. It was just Swerve shooting Megatron after Megatron with that gun-shaped consequence switch. Yet he couldn't fall asleep, he couldn't...
He woke for a human rolling some sort of carriage drone over him. Because he was inconsequential, the carriage didn't even tilt as it passed. Despite the inconsequence working both ways, he could very well feel the crashing pain in his sensitive wings. They weren't broken, praise Primus, but they still hurt. He looked around, and found they were inside a fleshling-built structure. And of course there were humans all around, wearing uniforms with S7 written on each of them, looking very busy and very important.
To his surprise, Swerve was tapping a huge, cube shaped thing not far from him, and seemed to enjoy what he was doing.
"Hey Stormy! This thing is giving off healing energy! Don't you try it? You sure seem to need it! Come!"
The scientist took a few measurements with his tools at hand. Then, in disbelief, he unsubspaced some other tools for further examination.
"Whatever that cube is" he murmured "it's emitting Cybertronian lifeforce. You'd better move on and find your Megatron in this place. If you're lucky, you'll find a freshly-seeded spark in the cube's proximity." And he didn't say anything about not touching the consequence emitter to the cube, because if he had said so, he was sure Swerve would have done just that. The last thing he needed was for the colorful blaster to come to life.
The red minibot gave a very confused and somewhat shameful grin.
"There's a little problem here, Brainstorm. I ran through this entire base three times already, and couldn't find anything that would look vaguely similar to any Megatron we came across. This will be even harder than last time. You missed it, so let me amuse you with the story: I only recognized that 'verse's Megatron because we've seen the statue of him at arrival. It took me some time to work it out, but see, I managed without you. After identifying him, I shot him at first try."
Swerve shut up, and quietly considered what Brainstorm might have been thinking at that moment. Did he still remember why they were travelling in an irrevelance loop? Or did he sleep it off, along with the rest of the engex he consumed the night before?
Apparently, the jet-bot remembered everything. This wasn't a very good thing, Swerve realized.
"This is not the time for you to play lone hero" Brainstorm said, still massaging his own, run-through wings. "Hey, there's a Megatron-sized mech frozen in the other room. Have you tried shooting him?"
Swerve shook his head.
"His size is the only thing that resembles Old Buckethead. The locals dubbed him Iceman. Apparently, it's some clumsy explorer who got himself trapped in frozen water somewhere in the arctic. Any similarity with Megatron must be sheer coincidence."
"Go for that sheer coincidence" Brainstorm suggested. Swerve took aim.
The red, green and blue lightbulbs lit up as soon as he fired. "Congratulations! You scored a direct hit!"
"That was weird" both mechs quietly admitted.
But then, they were thrown into yet another odd place, in front of yet another odd Megatron. At least, this one was recognizable.
Only, he was missing his body.
"Aww, what an interesting place this is!" Brainstorm gaped. "Like my own lab, only more equipped! Hey, look! An Allspark Key! I need one like this for home!"
Swerve, on the other hand, saw nothing to be enthusiastic about. Maybe that tutor-bot. It had a fascinating design, a regular robotic frame with a huge, square monitor for the head. Other than the drone, there wasn't much in the lab to see. So, before Brainstorm would have started taking notes of how to re-create that key, he shot the decapitated Megatron in the head, and prepared himself for anything else that would await them at the next stop.
But then, he just stared.
And stared.
And kept staring.
The mech in front of him looked like Megatron except for two small details. Small, but apparently important details. It would have taken an entire quest in its own right to find why his Decepticon symbol was red instead of the traditional purple. What was even more puzzling, was the benevolent and friendly smile on his face. It looked incredibly out of place, yet it was the most honest expression Swerve had ever seen on any mech. He almost felt a pang in his spark for shooting this kind and gentle being, his only comfort was the fact that it wouldn't do any damage to the heroic silver mech.
"Yee-haw! I think you're getting a hang of shooting!" the colorful blaster sang to him, as he was transported into yet another continuity. He looked around to find Brainstorm.
"You've seen it? Direct shot on the first try, third time in a row!"
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A case study on the relevance of consequences
This place was abandoned. There were two or three people in the entire city, which didn't meet the "entertainment capital of the world" statement in the brochure Swerve picked up. He was quick to voice his discovery.
"So where are we?" Brainstorm asked in a detached tone.
"Well, it says Jasper, Nevada" the red minibot replied. "Any sign of Megatron, so far? I hate being without a target."
Brainstorm took off, but before he would have transformed to his jet-with-a-suitcase mode, shooting and bombing echoed from a nearby valley.
"No need to tell me" Swerve grinned, readying the My First Blaster for yet another easy victory. Then he was taken aback as he spotted the local Megatron on the far side of a canyon. He looked much like the "Iceman" they had seen in the concrete building, only, this one was awake.
And he was hiding from five miserable Autobot civilians behind an entire army of undead mechanisms. Taking a closer look, Swerve also spotted some humans, though neither of the three were fully developed. One was insanely small, another was incredibly narrow. This specimen was armed with a cellphone, and she seemed quite confident with it.
Again, Swerve didn't bother to hide his opinion from the scientist (as there was no other robot to talk to).
"You seem to have gotten quite critical lately" the science-jet remarked.
"What's wrong with that?"
"And your marksmanship skills have also evolved noticeably" Brainstorm added. "I don't like this. The consequence emitters should not at all fire back at the wielder of that tool."
"Just admit, not even you knew what you were putting together! Did you? Did you have one faint idea of how this gun would work?"
"I have intended to use it for testing more developed technology" Brainstorm murmured. "Just shoot that shameful excuse of a Megatron before he would bravely run away."
Swerve heeded the rightful warning. There was an entire canyon between himself and his target, but nevertheless, he decided to try. He wasn't looking forward to going closer if it meant crossing a valley full with zombies. He fired.
"Amazing shot! Congratulations!" the blaster sang.
"See? Fourth time in a row!" Swerve cheered.
"That only proves my point" Brainstorm inwardly sighed.
The next moment, they found themselves on a spaceship, which was a comfortable place for Cybertronians, and a lot more homely than the dust-planet where they had spent most of their unplanned journey.
"That symbol looks familiar" Swerve commented. "I swear to you, I have seen that red Decepticon logo today. Or whatever stands for 'today' with this silly invention of yours."
Brainstorm didn't comment back on the remark, but he took mental notes. He had never before tested the long-term effects of consequence regulation, and apparently he had severly overlooked something.
A door before them opened, and Megatron strode right towards the duo.
He looked much like the decapitated leader Swerve shot in the laboratory, only, this one had his complete frame, and was sporting Ultra Magnus's colors. And that odd red Decepticon insignia which Swerve found to be so disturbing. He fired at it, aiming the consequence switch at the center of the wide chest. The gun in his hands applauded happily, and lit up even more brighter and more colorful than ever before.
And then... they were home.
For a moment, the red minibot wondered what the others on the Lost Light would think of his newly gained sharpshooting talent. But then, it wouldn't have been his Inconsequent Quest if he had ever brought it up.
...
The red mech was literally paralyzed by fear as he stared into those familiar optics. Three pairs of angry red, one pair of pitch black, and a red X that was also the universal keep-away sign. Pit, Brainstorm had told him that the consequence switch hadn't functioned properly. He had scored no less than eleven direct hits at Megatron, thinking boldly that it wouldn't be of any significance.
'Inconsequent, my aft' he thought. These five guys KNEW what he had done.
But then, wasn't it worth it?