Hi, guys! We've got another chapter here! :)

Shadescribe - I know, right? And I had a lot of fun writing that part, too, which is really odd...as for Goldbug's counterpart, well, you'll figure that out soon enough. Happy Holidays to you, too!

Here's the chapter!

Chapter 21

Maria's armor shifted back to its normal coloring as she cracked her neck. Giving a smirk and a nod to Wildfire, the Reploid turned and looked over at Miko, Jack, and Raf, who had various looks of eagerness, caution, and curiosity on their faces. "Okay. So you guys have met are friendly Decepticon now, right?"

Miko nodded, then gained a pouting expression. "I didn't think that he was a math teacher..."

"I think it's interesting what kinds of things can happen in different dimensions," Raf remarked thoughtfully. "Like what Dark Smoke sounds like. It's almost like he's one of the lesser villains you hear about in comic books."

Miko nodded in agreement. "Yeah. The ones that could follow the good guys around for a bit, then betray them at the worst possible moment." She sighed and shook her head. "It's too bad that Smokey had to turn out like that."

Jack shook his head. "This is a bit too much for me to wrap my head around. I mean, an alternate dimension where the Autobots are evil? I don't even want to think about what my counterpart is like!"

"I have yet to arrive on Earth, but the humans which I have come into contact with aren't that bad," Tronus offered from above them. "I am...unsure about your counterparts, but I am sure that there are still some kind humans in my universe."

"But what if they're bad guys from this one?" Miko pointed out. "Like Silas?"

"You mean the former leader of MECH?" Joshua came over, wiping off gloved hands with a large, oil-stained rag. "It would be interesting to meet someone like that. Maybe MECH is working towards a peaceful, technological harmony in their dimension." He paused. "Although, that would mean that the US Government is actually playing the part of the villain, which is not quite such a pretty picture."

Maria nodded in agreement. "Yeah." She suddenly looked a bit uneasy. "And what about me? What is my counterpart like?" She paused. "If...if I'm a World Jumper...what does that make her?"

That particular question got a number of mixed reactions from the others - mostly leaning towards uneasy.

"It would probably be unwise to think of such things at the moment," Tronus finally commented. "Considering that there are some Autobots here that I have not heard of or seen before, it is likely that you do not have a counterpart in my universe."

Maria hummed nervously in response, folding her arms across her chest as she frowned. "Maybe..."

"Speaking of counterparts, what are we going to do with Dark Smoke?" Miko jabbed a thumb in the direction of the warehouse where the alternate dimension Smokescreen was being held. "Are you gonna take him back to your place? What's happening in your dimension, anyway? Have you made any human friends yet?"

Tronus shook his helm. "We have yet to reach this world in our dimension. For the moment, we have been focusing on keeping the Autobots from leaving Cybertron - and, as a result, we have been forced to remain there, as well. However, I have heard much of Earth from Cliffjumper, so I am not quite as confused about this place as I might have been when Smokescreen and I had arrived."

"What's Cliffjumper like?" Maria asked, glad to have something to distract her. "We never got to meet the guy."

"Well, I highly doubt that the two of them are similar. The Cliffjumper I know is quite paranoid and is also shorter than the average mech. He was quite difficult to get along with at first, but he has - begrudgingly, at first - become a part of our team. If it were not for him, Optronix and the others might have reached Earth by this time, and their world would be in great danger as a result."

"How bad are they?"

The kids looked over at Nurse Darby, who paused when she saw the curious and surprised gazes of Maria and the others.

"You've told us about your versions of Ultra Magnus, Optimus, and Ratchet, but that can't be how all of them are like." The woman frowned. "Are they?"

Tronus hesitated, looking away from the Earthlings below him. "I am sorry to say that the Autobots of my world are far different from the Autobots of this one. While there are some who haven't entirely changed, most of the Autobots here...are the exact opposite of their treacherous, twisted counterparts."

"Most?" Raf repeated with surprise. "What do you mean by that?"

"Well, there are some who have managed to remain neutral, despite the fact that there is a war going on around them. Sparkseer's Gladiator Team is the most famous among them, causing trouble for both sides as they desperately try to stay out of the conflict - and end up sabotaging quite a few things as a result."

"Gladiator Team?" Wildfire spoke up. She and Sparkseer came over, curious expressions on their faces.

"I hadn't thought that we would break off completely from both sides," Sparkseer continued. "We were too entrenched in the war before it even began."

"You mean, they aren't part of the Autobots?" Maria asked in surprise. "You don't have to fight against a twisted version of Wildfire?"

"No; mostly because Wildfire had offlined during a particularly dark point in the war some time ago." Tronus looked at Wildfire somewhat apologetically. "You were infected with Dark Energon and subsequently went on a rampage. Sparkseer - with some assistance from Starscream - was forced to put you down at your insistence before you lost yourself."

Wildfire's optics widened for a moment before she gained a dark expression, and she looked over at Sparkseer, who also appeared to be somewhat grim.

"Do they use Dark Energon?" Sparkseer inquired grimly.

Tronus understood who Sparkseer was referring to, and inclined his head in thought. "Sideswipe has mentioned it a few times - mostly when he talks about his distaste for Optronix and how far the mech has fallen. He hasn't seen it himself, but he knows of its affects. I believe he attributes finding it to Optronix's becoming insane."

"That sounds like it could be true," Joshua remarked. "According to what we've discovered, Dark Energon is the blood of Unicron. I don't think anyone would be able to resist his influence for very long - they'd get addicted to it instead."

"I think Mom and Dad compared it to a drug when they first heard about it," Maria agreed, nodding. She shuddered. "I definitely don't want to suffer from that anytime soon, let me tell you!"

Tronus frowned. "Unicron? Are you referring to the mythical opposite of Primus?"

"Mythical?" Miko snorted. "You're standing on him!"

Tronus looked down at the hangar's floor in surprise.

"The Thirteen Primes defeated Unicron many centuries ago," Sparkseer explained. "Over time, he became covered over by many asteroids, which merged together and eventually became this particular world."

Maria murmured something that sounded a lot like "God had a lot to do with that."

"We had to fight him in order to keep him from waking up," Arcee added. "He shouldn't have to deal with him anytime soon."

Tronus, who had been stiffening out of alarm, relaxed somewhat when Arcee mentioned this. "Ah; I see. It would have been quite worrysome if he was still around to cause you trouble."

"We get enough of that from the Decepticons," Arcee replied, frowning disapprovingly.

Tronus frowned. "Well, yes, I suppose..."

A loud alarm suddenly started coming from the monitor, causing Tronus to stiffen while Ratchet quickly moved to find out what was setting off the alarm.

"We have Decepticon activity in the area!" the medic warned. "And it's in the same area where Wildfire and Maria found our dimensionally-displaced companions!"

"What would they want there?" Wildfire frowned. "There's nothing there except for a large crater."

"There could still be residual energies left behind from when Tronus and Dark Smoke arrived here," Joshua spoke up suddenly. "Their ship could have picked up the energy signature as soon as they arrived in the area, and they could have sent down a crew of Decepticons to investigate."

"Well, that's not gonna bother us," Miko commented, smirking.

"Actually, it could." Joshua wagged a finger warningly. "They could follow trace amounts of that energy here and find the base - or, they could find out a way to replicate the energy and eventually manage to break through to an alternate dimension - much like the Autobots in Tronus' dimension have."

"That sounds somewhat farfetched," Sparkseer remarked, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "It would take a large amount of trial and error in order to find the source of only a trace of energy that could have been found."

"Not unless you're Shockwave."

The group turned when the heard Jolt's grim tone of voice.

"He can clone ancient CNA and bring extinct beasts to life," Jolt continued. "He's done unethical experiments on both Autobots and Decepticons." He paused for a moment, then continued in a shaky voice, "He is even capable of splitting a mech's Spark to experiment with creating life."

Coil, who was standing next to Jolt, looked up at the blue mech worriedly.

Tronus looked somewhat disturbed. "I am afraid that I cannot decide which is far worse: my dimension's Ratchet, or your dimension's Shockwave."

"We don't have time to debate about who is worse," Ultra Magnus spoke up abruptly, approaching the group. "We must mobilize and attack the Decepticons before they can have a chance to do more damage than they have already."

"I could use a little warm-up," Wildfire spoke up, grinning.

Maria grinned. "I could-"

"No."

Maria stopped short, blinking in surprise as she looked up at Optimus Prime, who was standing at the hanger's entrance.

"While your techniques might be useful against the Decepticons, I highly doubt that it would be wise for them to learn of your existence," Optimus said. "It is even likely that they are aware of you already."

"Shockwave could be curious about you," Jolt piped up in agreement with a shudder. "And I don't want to see you get taken by him."

Maria paused at that, frowning slightly. After a moment, she let out a sigh and nodded in agreement. "Yeah, that would probably be pretty bad..."

"Wildfire, Arcee, Sparkseer, Bulkhead, and Wheeljack." Optimus nodded to each of the Autobots in turn. "I require your assistance."

"Sure." Wheeljack grinned wickedly. "I'm looking forward to smashing more Con heads."

Optimus turned and looked at Ratchet, who inputted the coordinates and opened the Ground Bridge, allowing the six Autobots to run through towards their destination.

As soon as the group was gone, Ratchet shut down the Ground Bridge, then turned to face the monitor again, pulling up what looked like a chemical formula of some kind. Joshua and Jolt joined him a moment later, and they started discussing something quietly among themselves.

Tronus looked over at them curiously for a moment before looking back at the others present. "Those three are planning something involving Energon, are they not?"

Maria looked over at the three for a moment, frowning slightly. "Are they...? I don't know; I'm not really all that science-y."

Arcee glanced over at the monitor that Ratchet, Jolt, and Joshua were looking over. Her optics narrowed slightly, but she said nothing.

"I may be a mathematician, but my second-in-command is a scientist," Tronus responded. "And that looks like a corrupted version of natural Energon. Is it a weapon?"

"It is not," Ratchet called back, looking over his shoulder with an annoyed expression on his face. "We are experiencing Energon shortages, so we require Energon made synthetically. So far, we have had very little success in making proper Synthetic Energon."

"Yeah!" Miko piped up. "The last time Ratchet tried to do something like that, he ended up acting really weird - like an adrenaline junkie!"

Tronus raised an optic ridge at the statement. "Adrenaline junkie?"

"Someone who lives for thrills," Matthew explained.

"I don't think we can necessarily call Ratchet on 'Synth-En' an adrenaline junkie," Joshua called over. "According to the list of symptoms he gave us, he became more reckless and acted more like-"

"I can give him my own diagnosis," Ratchet snapped. "I acted like I was a mech who had recently come from the Well of AllSparks and was going through an extremely reckless and rebellious phase. We are all lucky that Megatron did not succeed in killing me when I apparently decided to go after him."

"Apparently?" Tronus blinked.

"After he took his second dose of the stuff, his memories didn't decide to stick around," Arcee said. There was an almost reluctant tone in her voice as she spoke. "Next thing he knew, he was waking up in the medbay in our old base."

"I see..." Tronus trailed off, frowning. "That would make this...Synthetic Energon to be quite dangerous."

"In its present form of equation, yes," Ratchet replied.

"We're trying to figure out what exactly is wrong with it," Jolt added, "so that we can actually use it for something other than a decoy of some kind for the Decepticons to pick up and try to make use of." He paused, then frowned slightly. "You know..."

"I would not wish them to get their hands on it in its present form," Ratchet responded instantly. "Not only would they think themselves invincible, but they would loose all common sense! We might as well be giving them a different form of Dark Energon!"

Jolt flinched as Ratchet raised his voice. "Yeah, you're right. Sorry - I wasn't thinking."

Ratchet huffed. "Indeed you were not."

"What would Megatron on Synth-En be like?" Raf asked, considering the question.

Maria tried to picture it, and ended up shuddering - as did Matthew, Raf, Jack, and Miko.

"I think that seeing that monster ramped up on the stuff when he already has Dark Energon would be a very bad combination," Maria commented. "I mean, he normally acts like he's invincible, right?"

"It's more like he does know, and he's using Unicron's Blood to gain an extra edge that he never had in the gladiator rings," Shape-Change replied. "He was already known planet-wide as the strongest gladiator in Kaon - and one of the few who was willing to speak his mind about the caste system and how he felt about it."

"Optimus mentioned briefly that my counterpart had been risen in those circumstances," Tronus commented. "I can't help but feel slightly...uneasy at the thought that my counterpart is far more experienced in war that I ever have been."

"How do you think we feel, hearing that your dimension's Autobots are like our Decepticons?" Arcee responded.

"It is disconcerting to know that my counterpart and Optimus were not on the best of terms," Ultra Magnus added stiffly. Maria noticed that one of his servos twitched, moving upward for a moment before it was slowly returned to his side. The Reploid figured that he had been thinking about reaching for his face again - Tronus' story of his own world had obviously set the entire group off.

Maria frowned. "You know, there's one thing that you mentioned earlier to Wildfire and me that you still haven't explained."

Tronus turned his helm to regard the Reploid. "What do you mean?"

"When we found you, you asked me about how I responded to Deutsch. Can you explain now why that is?"

Morgen and Katie exchanged looks at their daughter's statement, while Tronus frowned.

"My apologies; that had slipped my mind when I had arrived here at your base. The reason I had asked that question is because you look very similar to a Mini-Con that the Autobots of my dimension have in their ranks."

"Mini-Con?" Liz repeated.

"Small Cybertronians," First Aid explained. "Usually, they aren't much bigger than the average human child, and they are usually used as spies, from what I've heard."

"They usually aren't seen with very much respect," Shape-Change added. "Soundwave has a few he deploys, such as Lazerbeak, but they're the only ones that I've seen or heard close up."

Tronus nodded. "There is an Autobot named Blaster who has a small group of his own, as well." He paused, then continued, "The Mini-Con I speak of is usually given orders in the language that has been referred to as either German or Deutsch, but it has been proven that she can understand and speak English. However, she can only follow orders or conversations properly if they're spoken to her in that other language. Most of the Autobots can speak it fluently. I had wished to bring her over to our side, but Sideswipe has told me many times that she would go back over to the Autobots as soon as she was within hearing range."

Maria felt like her core had grown slightly cooler. "You're saying that...she's under their control?"

"So it seems."

"I really hope doing that bites them in the back someday," Khrista spoke up suddenly. "They shouldn't be doing that to people, Mini-Con or not."

"Why did you ask me if I was affected the same way, though?" Maria asked, frowning. "I may be armored, but I'm clearly not a Mini-Con."

"I can see that now, but from a distance, you do look very much like the Mini-Con that the Autobots have in their possession," Tronus replied.

"Hang on." Miko looked up at the dimensionally-displaced Decepticon. "If this Mini-Con looks like Maria from a distance, what's to say that it is her?"

"Huh?" Maria looked at Miko in surprise while the others stared at the Japanese girl.

"You guys said that people have counterparts in other dimensions, right?" Miko turned and looked at Maria with a surprisingly serious expression. "Then maybe this Mini-Con Tronus is talking about it yours!"

Well then. This is getting to be...interesting. I'm looking forward to seeing what you guys think of what's going to happen in the future! :)

See you next week!