Trouble with a Capital 'B' _ Chapter 7

"'Allspark' shard?" I asked, turning to Blitzwing, "What the crap is an 'allspark'?"

"Eet'S SomeziNg sparKley!" He said, shrieking with laughter.

"Seriously though; what is this thing and how the heck do you expect it to help us out exactly? I mean, it'd make an epic key chain, but I doubt that tiny thing can help much." I said as he handed it to me.

I held it up in the light and inspected it closely.

"It's all cracked and shit, too!" I exclaimed disappointedly.

"According to the information we've collected from the Autobots, (here Blitzwing switched to Hothead and was promptly shushed to prevent an interruption) this 'Allspark' is a massively powerful object. It's something like their version of the Ark of the Covenant. Important and well worth a high price, in both lives and resources, to recover it," the Captain explained. " This piece was recovered shortly after their initial arrival; since robotics and energy efficiency are my specific strong points, it was brought to me and I've been personally charged with the unlocking of it's secrets."

He heaved a sigh and rolled his eyes , "But so far I've got diddly-squat on it. The energy pulsing from this thing is just impossible to figure out. You understand I'm going to need this back fairly quickly, right?" he asked.

"Absolutely, Cap. But could you clue me in as to how exactly this will help us? I get that it's got power, but does it do anything special?"

Blitzwing had gotten down from his chair and come to stand next to us, his gaze completely concentrated on the shard.

"Zhey usually do unusual zings vhen zhey haf activated," he said. He made a 'gimme-gimme' grabby motion with his hands, asking to hold it. I handed it to him and he held it up near his face in his little fist, inspecting it closely.

"Zis von does not seem to have been activated jet zho," He said as he passed it back to me.

"Un-activated, huh? " The Captain said, " I don't know about that, kid."

Blitzwing glared at the Cap, but was quickly stared down.

"This thing has caused enough confusion, but nothing like the chaos that the other shards that've been recovered have caused."

"Huh? Whaddya mean, Cap?"

He raised his gaze to meet mine, "Exactly what I say; Tank, This little crystal has been noted to randomly duplicate items. In all controlled tests it's done bupkiss, but every so-often when something is set beside it, say, a pen for instance, you can leave the room and come back to two pens." I stared into his eyes, searching for any hint of a joke. I didn't find any.

"You're completely legit? Two pens? Exactly the same? That's freaky." I stated.

"Not exactly the same; remember, I said duplicate, not clone. The duplicate pen had absolutely nothing inside it. In other words, empty space was given the appearance of the pen, the appearance, but not the complete make-over. Do you get my point? It hasn't acted up lately, so I need you to take extreme caution when handling this thing. Nothing living has been in the vicinity at any time when a duplication has taken place, and we don't have any idea what it could do if there were."

He looked us each squarely in the face and strongly enunciated each of his next words, "Be very careful."