Interdimensional

Chapter 1

Swerve was no stranger to Brainstorm's workshop but the haphazard layout combined with the clutter made it hard to navigate. He pushed by a set of boxes just as Whirl entered the lab with Brainstorm.

"So on a scale of one to dead, how deadly is it?" Whirl asked.

"It's not a gun this time, Whirl." Brainstorm said. "It's a shield."

Some of Whirl's enthusiasm seemed to fade. "A shield?"

"Not just any shield!" Brainstorm announced to both him and Swerve.

Leading the two to the back of the workshop, the sky blue jet revealed a large round object. It was mostly see through, like it was made out of glass, but had two metal bands lined with short jagged spikes wrapped around it.

"It looks like a torture device..." Swerve remarked.

"... Only if you're outside of it." Brainstorm said. "I call it the hyper accelerated multi-shielded terrain experiment rollaround. Or H.A.M.S.T.E.R for short. Anyway, I want you to get inside."

"What?!" Swerve looked back at the invention, and it suddenly looked even less friendly than it did before.

"Can I get inside of it?" Asked Whirl.

"No." Brainstorm said, putting his hands on his hips."You're going to be the one shooting at it."

"Double what?!" Swerve regretted leaving his bar for this, even if he was off shift. He cursed his curiosity.

"I've already tested if it was bullet-proof." The Scientist said, rolling his eyes. "You'll be safe. I just need to workout how it moves while it's under fire."

"I get to shoot at Swerve while he's jumping around inside the giant hamster ball?" Questioned Whirl. "My life is awesome."

When Swerve still looked apprehensive, Brainstorm sighed and handed Whirl a gun.

"I'll prove it's safe." He said, going to the side of the shield.

He opened a panel and slipped inside.

"Alright Whirl, shoot me."

The instant the words left his mouth, Whirl opened fire, emptying the entire clip on the HAMSTER. Every bullet slammed into the clear orb, but bounced free of the surface. None of the shots made it through.

"Ha!" Brainstorm opened the side panal and stepped out, gesturing to himself. "Not a single bullet."

"Alright... I believe you."

The small red bot made his way tentatively to the shield. He mimicked Brainstorm's actions and opened the panel. Stepping inside, he closed it and gulped. He wasn't quite sure how this was going to end.

Outside the orb, Whirl stepped from one foot to the other in anticipation. If he'd still had a face, he would have been grinning right now.

"What do you want me to do?" Asked Swerve.

"Just... Roll around. It's not complicated." The jet pulled a datapad out of subspace. "'Kay, Whirl. fire!"

Swerve flinched when the first shots slammed into the shield. After a moment, he recovered and took stock of the situation. He saw each bullet as they struck, sinking into the large ball he was currently standing in, and being flung back as if they were made of rubber.

Gathering some courage, he placed his hands on the side of the orb. With shots still firing on him, he gently rolled forward.

The small red bot soon gained more confidence and was rolling around the workshop at a quick pace. Whirl hooped and hollered as he now had to run around in order to shoot Swerve.

Sometime later, Brainstorm called an end to the test.

"I've got all the data I need now." He announced.

"You know, that was actually alot of fun." Swerve said, stepping out of the shield. "Maybe we should get a bunch of these together and hold races in the bar. Now that would really bring in the customers!"

"We can't end now!" Whirl complained. "I didn't get to ride around in the ball-thing."

Before anyone could say anything, Whirl tossed his gun to Swerve and jumped inside the shield.

"Shoot me!" He demanded.

Swerve stared and Brainstorm shrugged.

"Go ahead Swerve." The jet wrote something on the datapad. "We'll see how this works with chicken legs."

Swerve glanced down at the gun and cringed at some unpleasant memories he had of firing guns. He bit his lip and fired at Whirl.

A catastrophic chain of events followed.

The bullets ricocheted off the shield and slammed into a weak point in the roof of the workshop. Steel gurters broke free and landed on the dangerous equipment Brainstorm had moved out of the way for this experiment. The large steel rods acted a wires, connecting together strange machines that should never have been connected.

A green haze filled the room and then there was a bright green light followed by an explosion.

Whirl didn't have time to react. He watched as both Brainstorm and Swerve seemed to vanish in green light before him.

The explosion, like the bullets, couldn't penetrate the shield.

Almost as sudden as it began, Whirl found himself alone in the destroyed workshop. Swerve and Brainstorm were gone.

One moment he was in his lab, the next moment he was in a freefall above an unknown planet. Not knowing what else to do, Brainstorm shut off his optics and enjoyed the feeling of the wind rushing past. Which, he thought, would be a lot more pleasent if Swerve wasn't screaming beside him.

"Oh, Right" Brainstorm muttered. "Grounder."

He immediately transformed into a jet and flew close the the free-falling mech, hurrying to reach Swerve before acceleration made it impossible to catch him.

"Grab on!" He shouted.

Still screaming, Swerve clutched at the jet. His grip was so tight, Brainstorm wondered if it was going to leave dents.

"You can stop screaming now." Brainstorm suggested as he pulled up level with the ground.

Swerve finally settled down some but his grip didn't loosen. He looked down in terror at the ground.

Brainstorm estimated they were about 30,000 feet up, give or take a thousand. It wasn't actually that high, Brainstorm thought, not like it was above 80,000 feet or something.

"W-what happened?" Swerve questioned.

"You must have shot the experimental teleporter I was working on... And who knows what else." Brainstorm theorized accusingly.

"That wasn't my fault! They bounced off of your stupid machine!"

"...Let's just try to contact the Lost Light. we can't have been teleported that far."

Slowly, Brainstorm tipped his nosecone down. Swerve immediately started to freak out.

"Why are we going down?! Why down?! Are we falling?! Crashing?! I don't want to die!" Swerve yelled.

"I'm going to land." The jet replied, somewhat shocked by the reaction. "You've flown on jets before, you should not be this panicky."

"No. I've flown in jets before! Not actually on them. This is so not okay."

Ignoring him, Brainstorm made a slow decent for the planet below. It seemed the closer he got, the tighter Swerve grip became. The red car even refused to look as the jet made a landing in a field.

"You can let go now."

He did and immediately slumped off the jet and onto the ground.

"Where are we?" The red mech questioned.

"I'm not sure." Brainstorm said. "It doesn't matter. We just need to build a transmitter and call a shuttle from the Lost Light."

Swerve sat up and looked around area. He couldn't see much more then grass and pine trees.

"What are you going to build it out of?" He asked. "A tree?"

Brainstorm glanced in his direction, before he started walking to the west.

"I saw a city as we flew down. Judging by the height of the buildings, the natives have at least discovered steel. It shouldn't be too hard to gather what we need."

Getting up off the ground somewhat shakily, Swerve followed after the jet.

Alarms were ringing out all over the ship. Perceptor quickly sidestepped Nautica and several others as they rushed through the corridor on their way to the engines. The halls were packed as bots ran to either fix something or simple panic at the commotion.

Just a minute earlier an explosion had rocked the ship, taking out many of the ships electronic devices and causing turbulance in the engines. Several fires had broken out and several rooms had been flooded. Every one who was available was out to fix some part of the ship. Meanwhile Perceptor was on his way to investigate the cause of the emergency. He had a feeling he already knew who was responsible.

Getting ready to give the lecture of a lifetime, Perceptor turned the corner to Brainstorm's workshop and stopped.

The walls were nothing but shredded metal bending from the inside out. Everything still left in the room was charred and sparking. Some of the metals even glowed as they had reached their melting point. There was a large circular hole in the dead center of the room where the floor had simply been vaporized.

And then Whirl rolled up to him inside a giant ball.

Perceptor was speechless.

"Uh.. Can you get me out of this thing?" Whirl asked. "The door part thing is melted shut."