The Diego Diaries: Copycat (dd8 550)
=0=Aboard Tennyson
Hard Drive sat with the scientists to get a preliminary report on what they'd discovered thus far. At the moment it wasn't looking too good. As they did a battered looking Prime and Prowl limped in along with Ratchet seconds later. Prime pulled a chair and sat as the others did. "Lord Optimus, I can assume the escapees are under control."
Prime glanced at him with a curt nod. "That is correct. What is the situation thus far?" he asked.
Prowl who was steaming next to him glanced at his grand genitors. He gave them a nod, then glanced at the monitor nearby showing the 'known knowns', the grisly possibilities for the future and suggestions not just about continuing the research on this but to prepare for its inevitable numerous possibilities.
Perceptor glanced at Wheeljack, then continued. "Here's a catch up for the three of you ..."
=0=Some time earlier at the shit show
Prime and Prowl stared out of the elevator toward the staircase that led to the roof helipad. There was a fire fight going on and they debated together whether joining it was an asset. :SPRINGER! WHAT IS THE SITUATION!:
:ITS FUBAR!: Springer said as he pushed one of the mechs over the side of the helipad to fall to the ground ten stories below. "PUSH THEM OFF! BOTH OF THEM!"
None of the two had guns but they were almost ready to snatch them as the mechs rushed the last one and bum rushed him off the roof. His bellow followed to the ground, then it stopped.
"Go down. Let's go. PRIME! THEY WENT OVER THE SIDE! GET DOWN THERE!" Springer said as he and his squad ran for the door and the way down. Prowl and Prime were ahead of them.
=0=Shrine
:Then we have a plan? Everyone know their timing and place?: Drift asked as the mechs outside complied with agreement. :Alright. I'll count to three, then we move after you tell me you're ready:
Radical Wind, Victorious and Parabolas in pretender gear waited on the platform as they synced into their frames in space and elsewhere in the colony. Radical Wind was rotating into the Unassigned Titan Guard Squad that did security duty here on Mars, at Cybertron and the Empire. It rotated to allow all of them to work together to coordinate combat training. Not all of them were dedicated warriors, though most knew how to fight. Parabolas and Victorious as Earth2 and half of Unidad Terra 1 were always here. Right now they prepared to guard the individuals inside where they were hiding.
Given that they could create energy domes and security shields both on ground and in space, especially during combat, they were going to do the same here. No one knew where the two were but they located all those inside. Three more islands of citizens were inside by materializing in to throw up a shield around them against gunfire. At that point the squad with their help could take the two out without compromising anyone who was a civilian in this fight.
They coordinated, went over their plan, then signaled Drift. :We are go, Commander: Parabolas said.
:Good. Everyone ping receipt: When they did Drift began to count for the titans, then his own team. :First count … three … two … one!:
The sound of mechs materializing inside the room, the humming sound of shields flaring then solidifying filled the room as Parabolas, Victorious and Radical Wind beamed in and secured the civilians. The sound of it drove the two mechs up and they began to run to the back of the Temple.
After a follow up count to let the titans secure the civilians, Drift and the others entered and were in hot pursuit.
=0=Outside the City Hall on the plaza
Prowl and Prime ran out with the rest of them out of the City Hall toward the Shrine side of the Plaza. They ran around the corner, then slid to a halt nearby where two mechs were laying sprawled but groggily trying to sit up.
Springer and the others slid to a halt beside them. "WHAT THE FRAG! THAT SHOULD HAVE KILLED THEM!" He looked up to the roof then down at the two. "WHY AREN'T YOU DEAD!?"
Ratchet hoofed it over to scan them. He glanced at Prime. "Nothing is broken. Nothing is out of order but their processors. They're only shaken. We have to get them over to Femme and quick. Its scary the rate they're coming back on line."
It took all of the titans to hustle them to the hospital as the three titans picked the two up and bridged them there accessing the tech of their frames wherever the frag they were at the time to do it again. By the time Ratchet and the mechs were in Metro Femme heading down to the Morgue to do battle with the two renegade fugitives, Prowl and Prime were running to the Shrine with their weapons out and true grit on their faces to help bag the remaining two.
=0=Elsewhere
"Well, that was novel," Prima said quietly almost to himself.
"Springer has to work on his temper," Solomus said with barely veiled amusement. "We have a problem here with them. Another one."
Prima nodded as He watched, His handsome face dark with concern. "We do."
=0=Shrine
The mechs inside rose and watched through flickering light for the two who began to beat feet to the back door of the building. It was riotously noisy as Drift and his team ran up the two main aisles past icons of immense prestige and age, images and statues of Solus in all Her magnificent beauty in the flickering candle lights. The back door was a long way away but they reached it and burst out with Drift and the others right behind them. As they did Prowl and Prime ran in through the front doors to follow.
Radical Wind was crouching nearby in an alcove holding in his force field two priests, a friend of theirs and a pair of femmes. Nearby was Victorious who stood in front of three elders who were pressed against the wall behind him as Parabolas rose to check the scene. Kneeling behind him was the acolyte and his bond. He looked down at them, then curtailed his screen. "Let us leave here now," he said gently as he helped the terrified pair to rise and stumble out of the shrine. Behind him came the other two and their victims. Soon the baby would be reunited with his genitors and never the worst to show for it.
Meanwhile, Lon, Bezel and Whirlaway were crouched behind a low wall that encircled the Shrine. When the two burst from the door they began to fire at them to slow them down. It would take everyone following to affect that and the three titans along with several others popping in to hold them down before Ratchet arrived to deactivate them.
Prime and Prowl burst out guns in servo, then halted before the scene.
Titans were lifting the still aware but deactivated pair to teleport to the Morgue at the Hospital.
"Go ahead, boys. I'll follow. Teams are waiting," Ratchet said.
The mechs nodded, then all of them beamed away in a burst of light.
Ratchet turned to the crew. "Don't you look a sight for sore optics."
"What's the score, Ratchet?" Prowl asked as he subbed his gun and stingers.
"Us'ns, all, them, none. We have to remove their spark chambers and put them in the deepest stasis we have until we figure out what this is, how it works and what to do about it. There's a weird kind of tachyon signature to them that's hard to figure out that we read when we began to remove their sparks to the Spark Chamber Containment Room. I'm going to give it to the team. We didn't see it the first time around."
"What does that mean?" Bezel asked with loathing.
"It means, my little Padawan, that these fraggers are working out how to dimensionally jump without a ship," Ratchet replied grimly.
"Oh frag," Prowl muttered. "WHY!?"
"That's for us to find out," Ratchet said. He paused to take a message. "They got there and the titans are going to help them control things until their spark chambers are in the cooler. I'm going to remote the codes that I use for this placement to lock them in when its finished. Its for the worst of the worst of the worst and my codes are fire," Ratchet said with a dazzling smile.
Prime grinned in spite of himself. "We better get back to Tennyson if all is well here."
"I'll go there to check, then go to Tennyson. Springer here, my tallest and oldest progeny can handle the rest. Amirite?" Ratchet asked dazzling him with his very best smile.
They stared at it a moment, then broke up with a chuckle.
"Good thing you aren't a mud fence or I'd shoot you right now," Prowl said as Prime called for a bridge. The two stepped in and were gone.
"Mud fence?" Lon asked as he grinned at Ratchet. They began as a group to walk and limp to Metro Femme nearby.
"Some old timer once said to someone to insult them 'you're as ugly as a mud fence'. Great burn I'm told in the Wild West," Ratchet said as they disappeared around the corner of the City Hall.
Given it was western, everyone agreed as the sound of sirens and horse patrols appeared to do the scene and get the reports ready for everyone.
=0=Tennyson later
"You said that you had a new finding, Ratchet," Perceptor said as he sat.
Everyone stared at the slightly battered medic. It was grim in the room.
"Well, I have the job to tell you that there's a whiff of tachyons in their make up. We didn't find them with Crader before because this process was still unknown. Its my speculation that they not only want to dimensionally jump with ships, they want to do it at will themselves," Ratchet replied as he handed his data pad to Stealth.
That worthy studied it with Shadow, then glanced at Ratchet. "This wasn't picked up the first time then."
"No. I'm unclear whether the process was understood enough at the time to see it or its a new thing ranging through them. Consider the possibilities if they can do that. No one in any dimension would be off limits. We've had this experience with a phase sixer shortly ago who wanted to hunt and kill all the Primes in every dimension that exists," Ratchet said. "It might do, Percy, to look into him. I didn't get a clear bead on him because we wanted him in the freezer right away. A new autopsy of his frame is in order. Expect to be mystified completely about how he did it."
Stealth and Shadow glanced up sharply from the data pad. "Did he hurt any of them?" Shadow asked.
"No but he was trying for one in the next dimension up from us. He also found one way up the scale, an Optimus Prime who was fulfilling a very impressive lifeline. He in that dimension was actually Thirteen Prime living as a god among The People in a world that didn't know anything but what fell out of His aura everywhere. It was remarkable to speak to Him and work out how to take this killer out," Ratchet said.
The two stared at Ratchet, then Prime.
Prime stared back impassively.
"It is our theory that the timelines running congruently to each other follow a basic pattern and idea. If you landed in an active timeline, that is, the one from which a dimension is dedicated to running then anything is possible but there are certain basic features. The major features are the characters and the basic outline of events which differ slightly or not with each dimension. If you landed in say, Lord Optimus's timeline, a branching one linked to only his lifetime which we all have … the roads not taken … then he can theoretically be anyone and every possibility including Thirteen Prime, not just himself now," Shadow said.
"Which was it then?" Prowl asked with an edge. "His personal timelines or the active one that all of us live in here?"
Stealth stared at him, then Perceptor. "If it was the active timeline, the main branch in which all of that dimensional activity is centered, then … from the active timeline do all our individual ones branch. They aren't disconnected. All of us in our Cybertronian Collective are linked together to make this all happen in our dimension. Its just that we are able to take other paths on our personal timelines through our choices, but still remain with everyone else. That is how one individual through their personal choices can affect us all. That phase sixer jumped and broke lines between dimensions which I suppose you corrected?"
Prowl nodded. "We did. But we know about each other, Thirteen and us. There's another with the dimensional breach. That timeline differs from us in many ways, degree of damage in the war, the flipping of the characters from us to them and back again. We call it a mirror universe or shattered glass universe because we are the bad guys and the Decepticons are the good. Their Megatron is their Prime and he's a mirror of Optimus in personality and style."
Stealth and Shadow chatted off line a moment, then Shadow looked at Prime. "We have to get this pulled back. They cannot maraud through dimensions. I am sure that The Powers are aware as well. They could do so much damage if they're not stopped."
=0=TBC 10-19-2022
Thank you for the tazer info. Sirius Ordo. We used to have one like you described way back in the day. It is a scary thing, tazers. Hugs, darling. Readers are GOLDEN!
ESL
congruent (kun-grew-unt) in agreement or harmony
