It was a perfectly normal day on the Ark. Then the alarms went off. Nothing too odd there.

"Sir, we have detected a very severe dimensional anomaly," commed Perceptor.

Okay, now Optimus was concerned. "Send us the coordinates immediately. We cannot afford to procrastinate on this matter."

The Autobots immediately moved out. The source of the odd signal turned out to be in Australia. The Decepticons arrived at practically the same time. "Megatron, is this your doing?" demanded Optimus.

Megatron smirked. "We may not have caused this anomaly, but we plan on making use of it!"

Both sides got ready to fight…and then the anomaly suddenly blew up.

Rather than causing some sort of catastrophe, it just widened before suddenly spitting out several mechs and then collapsing on itself. Several mechs on both sides suddenly collapsed as well.

Ratchet immediately started examining Jazz. "What just happened?"

"The anomaly disappeared," said Perceptor. "I guess it just temporarily tore a hole in time and space."

"Then who're these guys?" asked Ironhide.

The mechs did look familiar, even if their pain jobs were a bit weird. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me," groaned Cliffjumper.

That was when the lone seeker in the group caught sight of Megatron. "Megatron!" He ran over and enveloped the Decepticon leader in a hug. "You're alive!" The scene was made even stranger by the fact the stranger spoke with Starscream's voice. Everyone was shocked into inaction. Prowl nearly glitched.

The one bot not affected was Cliffjumper. "Starscream! That's not your Megatron! Get away!" Of course that just caused more confusion.

Megatron then broke out of the mystery seeker's grip and kneed him in the chassis. A scarred mech that looked oddly like Sideswipe cursed, ran over to the beat down, and tackled Megatron. At that point, the battle finally started.

Usually, Cliffjumper would happily jump in, but he needed to hold back the urge for the moment. Instead, he made his way to the remaining mystery mechs, who looked like they were getting ready to start fighting as well. "Hey!"

That caught their attention. "Oh, the red Cliffjumper," muttered what looked like a recolored Jazz.

"Yeah, this is my universe, which means Autobots are good, Decepticons are bad, and all that stuff! And what are you doing here anyway?!" shouted Cliffjumper.

"Oh no…That means that we…" The Shockwave doppelganger was cut off when a grinning Sunstreaker shot at him. Cliffjumper quickly shot his glass gas at him.

"Okay, survive now, worry later," said a white Soundwave duplicate. He picked up Shockwave and a mech that looked really similar to Mixmaster. "You got any medics?"

"Will Ratchet or First Aid work?" asked Cliffjumper as he dodged some laser fire. The white mech made a face. "Hoist is back at base!"

"This is gonna take some getting used to," muttered the other mech as he tried to make his way over to the Autobot side. Once Cliffjumper was certain they were out of range, he ran back into the thick of things and over to Optimus.

"Optimus, these guys are from an alternate dimension!" shouted Cliffjumper.

"Can't say I didn't expect that," admitted Optimus.

"But the Autobots are evil and the Decepticons are good in that dimension!"

Optimus paused. "…What?"

"Remember when I disappeared for a couple of months in that accident? I got blown into their dimension! That mech that hugged Megatron is their Starscream!"

"You're sure?"

"They recognized me! And that's not something you forget!"

"So the ones that look like our friends are potential enemies, and the ones that look like our enemies are potential allies?"

"Yes!" Cliffjumper paused. "Except for Sideswipe. He defected to the Decepticons in that universe. He's the one that tackled Megatron."

Optimus peered over his cover. "It looks like most of the ones that could be considered enemies are standing with the Decepticons at the moment."

"Scrap! They must have figured out the difference when Megatron started beating up Starscream!"

"I take it that's unusual for them?"

"The other Megatron's…nice, understanding, all that stuff. I thought it was kind of creepy, but it wasn't bad. He'd never hurt Starscream. But for some reason every Autobot considers it funny to beat Starscream to within an inch of his life."

At that point, Sir Soundwave had reached Ratchet. "Yo. You a medic?"

Ratchet looked up from where he was still trying to figure out why Jazz had collapsed, even though Jazz insisted that he was perfectly fine and had just felt dizzy for a moment. Ratchet's optics went to their sigils. "Purple Autobot symbols?"

"No worries. We're not gonna try anything." He placed Shockwave and Mixmaster on the ground. Then he ran off before Ratchet could ask any questions.

"Did that seem strange to you?" asked Jazz.

"Extremely," muttered Ratchet as he examined the Shockwave doppelganger. No important parts had been hit, but an important energon line had been damaged that needed to be immediately patched. He wasn't sure what was wrong with the other one. He didn't seem to have been harmed physically.

Back on the other side, Sideswipe finally managed to get Starscream away from Megatron when Optimus ran over. Megatron decided that he'd rather fight Optimus than beat up the seemingly random seeker. Sideswipe picked up the unconscious Starscream and ran for the Autobot side, completely ignoring the gawking Starscream who'd been staring the whole time.

As Sideswipe was rushing to the other side, he ran into Sideswipe. Both recoiled a bit. Sideswipe recalled how the two Cliffjumpers had immediately realized who the other was as soon as they saw each other, even though one had just been brought back from the dead and wouldn't have had any way of knowing what was going on. Apparently, this was normal for dimensional counterparts.

"You're-"

"I'll explain later. Just direct me to the nearest medic!" demanded Sideswipe.

Sideswipe pointed towards Ratchet. Sideswipe tensed up, remembering his experience with the Ratchet back in his dimension. Of course, if it was the opposite Ratchet, this Ratchet was likely concerned with keeping his patients alive. Sideswipe ran over to Ratchet and noticed that he was treating Shockwave. He must have been shot at some point. "Hey, you done yet?"

Ratchet looked up with an annoyed look on his face that nearly had Sideswipe reaching for his blaster. As soon as Ratchet saw Starscream though, his expression changed to one of concern. "Put him on the ground."

As soon as Starscream was on the ground, Ratchet was opening him up and patching all sorts of malfunctioning equipment. Sideswipe was certain that if this universe was anything like Cliffjumper had described that Starscream was in good hands, but…It was Ratchet. Sideswipe just couldn't equate him with a caring medic.

Sideswipe growled. No wonder Cliffjumper had seemed to be in a state of confusion half the time he was in their universe.

And where was Soundwave?! He should've been keeping an optic on them! Sideswipe turned to look for the ninja and nearly ran into Sideswipe. "Do you mind?!"

Sideswipe didn't seem to hear. "You're me."

"Yes, I'm you, and you're me. I'm sure we can have an in-depth discussion about the ramifications once I've made sure Soundwave hasn't done something stupid that'll get him killed!"

That took Sideswipe back enough that Sideswipe could step around him. He still couldn't find Soundwave. Darn ninja.

Then Soundwave popped out of nowhere, threw a bomb at a seeker, and ran back over to the Autobot side while jauntily waving at any Decepticon that happened to see him.

No one could see it, but the other Soundwave was freaking out at his counterpart's behavior.

Sideswipe rolled his optics. "Was that really necessary?"

"Yes it was. Did you see the other Soundwave?"

Sideswipe groaned. "Really?"

"Decepticons, retreat!" ordered Megatron. The Decepticons started flying away…and it looked like the bad Autobots decided to follow after them.

Optimus scratched the back of his helm. Well, that had been…odd. He turned to look at the rest of the group that had come out. Three of them were out of commission. He could place who their counterparts were. "Greet-" The two suddenly moved into positions that suggested they would attack if Optimus got any closer. Optimus abruptly froze.

Right, opposites. "Cliffjumper, what exactly was my counterpart like?"

"You don't wanna know."

Right. Optimus took a few steps back. This was something they were going to have to handle very delicately. The retreat didn't seem to help.

"Hey, opposites, right," Cliffjumper reminded their visitors.

That made them look at Ratchet. Ratchet decided to ignore this. He had experienced all sorts of disagreeable patients. This wasn't anywhere near the worst reaction he'd ever had. "I need to get him to the proper facilities or he will die. Do you understand?"

Soundwave glanced back at Starscream. Well, it did seem pretty bad. Sideswipe was less trusting and looked like he would attack if anyone tried anything.

"Cliffjumper, will you try talking to them?" asked Optimus.

Cliffjumper walked over. "Uh, what exactly happened?"

"Wheeljack made our universe implode," growled Sideswipe.

Everyone immediately looked at Wheeljack. He held up his hands. "I swear I haven't blown anything up all week!"

"I think he means the insane Wheeljack," said Cliffjumper.

Everyone tried to imagine Wheeljack crazy enough to be considered insane. They collectively shuddered.

"Anyway, I think that means ya gotta come with us if you wanna survive," said Cliffjumper.

"I'll go with 'em," said Soundwave.

Sideswipe gave him a look. Then he looked at Starscream, who was still looking like scrap. "Fine. We'll take a chance."

Ratchet kept working on Starscream the whole way back. First Aid checked over Shockwave, who was nicely repaired, and Mixmaster who seemed okay. When First Aid tried to move away, Mixmaster latched on and started whimpering. "He's a Constructicon, right?" asked First Aid.

"Yeah."

"Where's the rest of his gestalt?"

Sideswipe gave First Aid a look. "Where do you think?"

"Oh…" That made sense. First Aid had kind of been hoping there were more survivors of this opposite universe. "Poor guy…" Unlike twin or spark bonds, it's possible to survive a broken gestalt bond, but when all the other members are dead, it can be traumatizing. Treatment included keeping them close to another available gestalt since it would make it feel like they were near their gestalt somewhat. It made the pain somewhat muted so that they could get used to it in steps.

"Didn't one of the Constructicons decide to join the Autobots at the beginning of the war?" asked Jazz. "Maybe we should call him…"

"Right, I'll make a call when we get back," said Optimus. "I'm sure Hauler would be happy to help."

Sideswipe nodded. Then he frowned when he realized that Sideswipe was staring at him. "Stop staring before I shoot you."

Cliffjumper facepalmed. "This is gonna be weird…"

Upon reaching the Ark, Ratchet transported Starscream, Shockwave, and Mixmaster to the medical bay. Sideswipe and Soundwave…They weren't really free to go wherever they pleased, but they couldn't be put in the brig either.

Eventually the Autobots settled for putting them in the rec room with a few other bots to make sure they didn't try anything. "Now I know how Cliffjumper felt," commented Soundwave. "No wonder he was so jumpy. I wonder how the others are doing…"

Once Megatron had realized they had some extra tag-a-longs, he'd thrown them into the brig until he could ransom them or integrate them into his army. He wasn't sure which was appropriate quite yet.

Given the death threats Sunstreaker was shouting, he would fit in just fine with the Decepticons.

"Why did it have to be an organic planet," muttered Hound.

"I didn't make the device, the Dinobots did," groused Mirage.

"We said it might not work," said Sludge as he tapped at his cell. "It was new territory, and we didn't know how to test it. Although it probably is why we didn't go with our universe so it must have been a step in the right direction." Sludge paused. "By the way, how're you doing First Aid?" First Aid made an odd groaning sound. "Stay alive long enough, and I'm sure the Constructicons will be sure to give you a chance."

"Will you shut your damn fool mouth!" shouted Jazz. "I've had it up to here with your shitty threats!"

"You want shitty? I'll give you shitty!"

Back at the Autobot base:

"Obviously, this is a very strange situation we find ourselves in," said Optimus.

"No kidding! I saw me with that group that popped up," said Jazz. "Talk about freaky."

"At least your counterpart's not a zombie," muttered Cliffjumper. He'd been included in the emergency meeting due to his familiarity with the subject.

"Your counterpart's a zombie?" asked Wheeljack.

"Well, he was dead when I first ended up there and came back to life later."

"Huh, how'd that happen?"

"Focus," said Prowl. "We need to discuss this situation and figure out what to do exactly."

"Fortunately, I saved the information Cliffjumper told us when we brought him back from their dimension," said Perceptor.

"But all I told you was that Autobots were bad, and Decepticons were good," said Cliffjumper. After that, it'd been obvious that no one believed him so he hadn't bothered to go into any more detail.

"…We'll add on."

Optimus coughed. "Yes, we owe you apology for not listening to you that time. For now though, we need to know everything you know about our guests."

"They got embers instead of sparks. I don't know what the difference is except that it has something to do with reversed polarity."

"Is there some sort of bond between counterparts?" asked Jazz.

"Yeah, if they're in the same universe, they recognize each other and can sort of tell where the other is. No emotions or talking though, thank Primus." Cliffjumper did not want zombie Cliffjumper in his head ever.

Ratchet frowned. "Are you experiencing something similar to that?"

Jazz frowned and nodded. "Yeah, you get a little dizzy when the bond forms?" Cliffjumper nodded. "And I know that guy was me."

"Sounds about right," said Cliffjumper.

"If that's the case then we have Jazz, Hound, Mirage, Sunstreaker, First Aid, and Sludge's counterparts with the Decepticons," noted Ratchet.

"And Sideswipe," interjected Cliffjumper.

"He's here though."

"Am I the only one worried about what it means that Sideswipe's counterpart defected to the Decepticons?" asked Red Alert.

"That's been bothering me too," admitted Cliffjumper.

"Well, why don't you tell us about him?" suggested Optimus.

"He had a friend that wanted to leave the Autobots, but Optimus found out and killed him. So Sideswipe decided he'd had enough and was gonna leave. But Optimus found out and tried to kill him. Sideswipe barely managed to survive and drag himself to Decepticon territory, where someone found him and the Constructicons repaired him except for that scar going through the Autobot sigil. Then he joined the Decepticons so he could have revenge, but he didn't seem to be going out of the way to do the avenging thing. He's violent, but he's also serious and down to Earth. He usually listens to authority…When he doesn't he usually has a good reason."

"Maybe we should have Rung do a psych evaluation," suggested Wheeljack.

"Bad idea. The other Rung was a psychopath and liked reprogramming bots," said Cliffjumper.

"Smokescreen?"

"Scam artist to the extreme."

"I think we should give them some time to get used to things before we introduce them to bots they would normally consider extremely dangerous to their physical and mental health," noted Optimus. "How long do you suppose it would take?"

"A while."

Optimus wished Cliffjumper would try to go into more detail. "Is there anyone they would be comfortable around?"

"Me. Maybe Sideswipe. Definitely not Sunstreaker." Cliffjumper thought a moment. "Maybe the Dinobots but I'm not sure they'd actually be safe around them. Starscream would probably be comfortable around Skyfire, but the others wouldn't."

"We're getting off subject," said Red Alert. "What about the others?"

"Sir Soundwave-"

"Sir?"

"He won't answer if you don't use sir, and it helps keep him apart from Soundwave," explained Cliffjumper. "Anyway, he's a ninja, and he's a pretty decent ninja except for the fact that he's talkative and it sometimes causes him to break cover."

"How is he as a communications officer?" asked Prowl.

"He's not allowed anywhere near sensitive information."

"What? Why?"

"Ravage…" Cliffjumper tried to think of a way to explain this. "Ravage is a LOLcat."

Jazz laughed. "Really?"

"Yes. He had a facebook page that he was always updating with what he did, he blabs about everything he knows, he talks ridiculously, and he has a weird fascination with Steeljaw so if he knows something the Autobots are going to know about it."

"Good thing they don't have Steeljaw," muttered Ironhide.

"What about his other cassettes?" asked Prowl.

"Rumble and Frenzy are very well-behaved and polite and will happily help you out if you ask for it. Laserbeak's still a decent spy, but is female for some reason and a lot nicer. Ratbat's a cute kid instead of a corrupt politician that got reformatted into a cassette by Soundwave."

"Does he have them?"

Cliffjumper shrugged. "Dunno. He'd probably be more upset if he didn't."

"And Starscream?"

"He got frozen in ice instead of Skyfire. He's friendly, loyal, smart, self-sacrificing, a hard worker…".

"Sounds like the complete opposite of Starscream," said Ironhide.

"Then what's Skyfire like?" asked Jazz.

"Back-stabbing, only cares about himself, lies, keeps trying to kidnap Starscream."

"It sounds like they switched places," commented Wheeljack.

"Hm…Do you think if Starscream had been the one frozen in this universe that it would be the case here as well?" asked Perceptor.

"Good question."

"What about Shockwave?" asked Optimus.

"You know how Shockwave was like before his emotions were removed? He pretty much acts like that, and everyone says he's always been like that. Can't fight worth a damn though."

Optimus sighed. "I see…He's still a well meaning scientist and politician?"

"Yeah, pretty good one too."

"I believe we should keep Shockwave away from Shockwave," noted Optimus. This was unanimously supported by everyone else. "And next is Mixmaster, I believe?"

"The Constructicons were medics and engineers, same as here. They weren't gonna experiment on anything though… More interested in the aftercare. Not sure how he's gonna do without the rest of 'em."

"He still won't let go of First Aid," said Ratchet. "He needs to be around another gestalt."

"Will First Aid work?" asked Optimus. "I suspect he won't be comfortable around the other gestalt members."

"It will do for now, but I'd like to bring in Hauler to help him out," said Ratchet.

Optimus nodded. "Now, about the Autobots that went with the Decepticons."

"What's my counterpart like?" interrupted Jazz.

"He's Mr. T and he's afraid of flying."

"So, he's like the evil A-Team?"

"And he might have a twin, but he seemed okay so I guess not." That had always been pretty unclear.

"First Aid was pretty adamant that he saw himself on the other side," said Ratchet.

"Oh, yeah. He will treat bots, but he might experiment on them if they aren't conscious or harvest their parts." Cliffjumper decided not to say that he'd picked it up from evil Ratchet. "Still part of a gestalt though so he's probably not gonna be functional for a while.

"I noticed Hound and Mirage on the other side," said Prowl. "Will they be a problem?"

"Hound's organophobic. Mirage is an ex-gladiator."

Prowl did his very best not to glitch. "Sunstreaker."

"Sadistic psychopath that likes ripping out bots' sparks and then ripping their bodies apart for sculptures. And he might be a cannibal, but Sideswipe won't talk about it."

"Sludge?"

"Built by Wheeljack. Decent fighter. Really smart. Like Perceptor smart. Could probably reason with him if ya needed to."

Prowl stared at his notes. "This is the most confusing situation I've ever been in."

Jazz chuckled. "At least other Prowl isn't here."

"He's completely crazy and keeps getting cloned," said Cliffjumper.

Prowl would've glitched if he hadn't already expected that. Well, the crazy part at least. The cloning bit wasn't. "I see…"

Optimus cleared his throat. "Will it be safe to have them around humans?"

Cliffjumper. "Sure, they like humans. Their Witwickies are bank robbers though, so…"

"Does that include Carly?"

"Yeah."

"Chip?"

"Hacker and identity thief."

"Astoria?"

"Serial killer."

"Raoul?"

"Office worker." Well at least one of them was fairly normal.

"We'll explain to both parties. Maybe see who their allies were," said Optimus. If said allies were somehow not criminals on this side maybe they could be introduced.