Prowl was quiet as he took in the conversation and carefully considered the information. He had questions that needed answers before he would accept the parallel universe explanation. He scowled and turned to Wheeljack. "How could someone from one universe enter another? If that were so, you could have pulled any one of our doubles into this universe and someone could have met themselves. That shouldn't be possible. No one can be in more than one place at a time."
"Good point, Prowl," Perceptor answered. "I'll have to go over my calculations to determine what exactly happened."
"He could be from another time stream," Wheeljack added thoughtfully. "Then there'd be no paradox, of course."
Prowl nodded cautiously. "Sideswipe, what year is it?"
Sideswipe frowned at the notion of time travel. He had not touched the time switch on the control panel. "The Earth calendar says it's 1988."
The others nodded. "Well, that rules out time travel," Wheeljack confirmed. "That's the right Earth year."
"Until this gets sorted out-" Prowl began, but stopped when he heard several sets of heavy, metallic footsteps thundering toward the lab. "Autobots, weapons ready! Ironhide, Brawn, stand guard!" he ordered. He and the other two drew their weapons and turned around to face the lab doors.
"What's going on?" Sideswipe asked, but before anyone could answer the large doors were flung open and the hulking forms of Grimlock, Slag and Snarl pushed through the entranceway into the lab. Prowl and his two bodyguards were forced back to avoid being knocked out of the way by the three large Dinobots.
"Stay back, Grimlock," Prowl ordered, but the chief Dinobot stepped forward defiantly and surveyed the laboratory.
"What going on, Prowl?" Grimlock demanded loudly when he saw the red warrior. "Why you hide Sideswipe from me, Grimlock?"
"What the heck are the Dinobots doing here?" Sideswipe asked, confused.
"Grimlock's been stirring up trouble ever since we lost Prime," Wheeljack explained to Sideswipe.
"What?" the red warrior responded in shock. "Prime…?"
"Autobots keeping secrets from Dinobots not good, leader Grimlock," Slag growled as he clenched his fists.
Grimlock snorted and reached for Prowl. "This not good… for little Autobots."
"I'm warning you! Back off!" Prowl shouted as he fired an acid pellet at the Dinobot. But Grimlock was undeterred, even as the acid hissed away at his arm plating.
Ironhide readied himself for an assault, pointing his fingertips toward the towering head Dinobot. "Let's see if a little liquid nitrogen'll cool off that over-heated ego of yours."
The ends of his digits opened and dense streams of liquid nitrogen jetted out of subspace toward Grimlock. The super-cooled liquid gas lashed over Grimlock, freezing him in mid-reach. The excesses of cool vapor buffeted Slag and Snarl harmlessly.
Slag scowled at the Autobots. "We fight!" he cried and transformed into his triceratops form. His steely mouth opened, ready to hurl a searing fan of flames at Prowl and his bodyguards. Ironhide wasted no time and redirected his jets at Slag. "I've got enough of this left to give you a taste, too." Streams of liquid nitrogen shot from his fingertips and quenched Slag's fiery storm. Roiling steam boiled out of Slag's superheated belly. His jaw seized and frost traceries etched their way across his metallic skin. Bellowing in agony, his flame-throwing ability retarded, Slag hurled his bulky tail around at Ironhide. The great mass of hardened steel connected with the red and grey Autobot and threw him with tremendous force across the lab, where he landed hard against the wall, narrowly missing Perceptor.
"No!" Perceptor called out excitedly as the fight escalated. "You'll destroy the space bridge control module!"
"We have no choice!" Prowl hollered as he targeted Snarl and let loose a volley of acid pellets. The pellets hit their marks as the third Dinobot transformed into his robotic stegosaurus form, wreaking serious internal damage. Snarl growled with rage as the searing acid corroded and fused his joints from the inside. With Snarl momentarily incapacitated, Prowl's attention was drawn to the triceratops glaring at him and pawing the floor. Slag had thawed out. "Brawn! Stop Slag!"
Brawn leapt onto Slag's back, hoping to distract him before he could charge at Prowl. The stocky minibot gripped one of Slag's brow horns in one hand and relentlessly pounded on the Dinobot's steely hide with his free arm. Slag bucked his back end furiously but the clever minibot was seated too far forward. The enraged Dinobot could not dislodge Brawn from his mount, but the poor minibot was taking a nasty beating in the process.
Parallel universe or not, Sideswipe could not stand by and watch his fellow Autobots get pounded by the Dinobots. "Need some help, Brawn?" he called as he dashed toward Slag.
The red warrior leapt onto Slag's head as Brawn, exhausted, fell to the floor. He planted a foot at the base of each of Slag's two long brow horns and used them to steer the triceratops. "Yahoo!" Sideswipe called triumphantly as he struggled to hold onto the angry, bucking triceratops. Heaving with all this strength, he kept Slag's head turned to the front while Brawn recovered and repositioned himself to grapple with the Dinobot from behind.
But the Autobots were only holding their ground. Snarl's acid-scarred joints had limbered up and he was eagerly taking swings at Prowl. The strategist was nimble enough to stay clear of the Dinobot's punishing tail. Time and again the stegosaurus whipped his barbed bludgeon at Prowl, but Prowl was always quicker and jumped clear with inches to spare. Even when Snarl's searching tail twisted around and swept back in his direction, Prowl was ready and hit the floor, narrowly avoiding the chromed spikes as they lashed through the air.
"Call for back-up!" Prowl hollered at Perceptor before rolling out of the way of a clubbing tail strike and then back up into a squatting position. He fired at Snarl's face to blind the stegosaurus, but the Dinobot moved too unpredictably for him to get a clean shot at Snarl's optics. "Get the Protectobots! I don't care what other duties they're performing! Just get them, now!"
Wheeljack moved to provide cover for Perceptor. Crouching, he pivoted his shoulder cannon toward Snarl and braced himself to absorb the recoil of his weapon. "Let's see you whip that tail around after I hit you with one of my gyro-inhibitor shells!"
He fired and the shell burst into pieces against the side of the stegosaurus. Snarl's tail dropped heavily to the floor and he staggered unevenly on his four legs.
"Snarl not feel good," he groaned, "feel sick."
"Good shot, Wheeljack!" Prowl commended the engineer as Snarl collapsed onto one side and groaned from destabilized equilibrium sickness.
Wheeljack turned and aimed at Slag.
Sideswipe saw Wheeljack preparing the second shell and called to him. "Don't fire! You'll hit one of us!"
At that moment, Wheeljack was surprised by a grey hand that rested upon his shoulder. He turned to see that Ironhide had finally picked himself up. The veteran's circuits sparked from the impact with Slag's tail, but that was not about to stop Ironhide from rejoining the battle. "Lemme handle this."
"He's all yours," Wheeljack stated, letting Ironhide pass by.
"Why, thank you," Ironhide responded with a half-grin. As Ironhide approached Slag, he rotated the super-goo cartridge into place inside his forearms.
Prowl looked up at Grimlock, who was starting to move. "We don't have much time! I only hope the Protectobots can get here quickly enough!"
"Hey, Ironhide!" Sideswipe called as he swung Slag around by the horns to face the old veteran. "Where do you want me to park this thing?"
"Just to there'll do," Ironhide directed Sideswipe as he knelt down on one knee to get a good aim. He ejected the super-sticky, viscous fluid through his fingertips at the front and back leg facing him. Sideswipe tightened his grip on the furious triceratops. The goo quickly cured, fusing Slag's two legs to the floor. Ironhide circled the seething Dinobot and glued the other two legs to the floor with more streams of his adhesive fluid.
With the triceratops immobilized, Brawn climbed up on his back and stood triumphantly atop the Dinobot. "All right!" Sideswipe laughed and twisted around to give the rugged minibot a high five. But the victory was short-lived as the ice cracked free of Grimlock's thawing joints. Sideswipe and Brawn leapt down from Slag's back and prepared to take on Grimlock.
Slag was humiliated. In a menacing display of sheer strength, he clenched his thawing jaw shut with a thunderous crunch of shattering ice. Unfazed, Ironhide stood guard opposite Slag in a stalemate with the great triceratops. The Dinobot could energize the tips of his head and nose horns to fire a blast at Ironhide, but Ironhide stood ready to blast him back with a cold rush of liquid nitrogen.
Grimlock was starting to move.
"Back! Get back everyone!" Prowl warned as he backed away himself. "Ironhide! Keep an optic on Slag!" Prowl ordered. "Don't let him breathe fire on us once his furnace thaws out!"
Grimlock's joints hissed and creaked. Beneath the frosty patina on his armor, Grimlock's behemoth body was taut with concealed hydraulic tension. Silence filled the laboratory. The Autobots stood ready. The last frost faded from his metallic skin. Then, with terrible fury, Grimlock surged back into motion. He was still leaning dangerously forward and in his overbalanced, reaching posture he nearly toppled. Catching himself with his great black hands, he fixed his gaze on Prowl and crouched menacingly.
"Get him!" Sideswipe hollered, and raced to tackle the mighty Dinobot. He pulled in his hands and withdrew his pile drivers from subspace as he closed on his quarry.
Hearing Sideswipe's war cry, Grimlock turned to watch with interest as the Lamborghini threw himself at one of the Dinobot's legs. A second later, Brawn followed the assault and grabbed hold of Grimlock's other leg. The minibot tried with all his might to throw Grimlock off balance, but Grimlock only chortled and kicked Brawn off as if he was no more than a nuisance. Then the Dinobot slowly drew himself up to full height as Sideswipe delivered blow after punishing blow, to no effect.
Prowl pelted Grimlock's chest plate with his acid pellets but they too had little effect on the Dinobot leader. Grimlock, ignoring Prowl's futile attack, focused on Sideswipe and his thundering pile drivers. He bent over, grabbed the struggling red warrior in his gigantic fist, and recklessly tossed him across the room. Sideswipe flailed wildly as he spun through air, hitting the ground hard and sliding with a crash into the side of an old circuit bank.
Prowl stopped firing to call to Grimlock. "This is madness, Grimlock!" He was worried that the Dinobot leader had harmed Sideswipe. "Break this off immediately before we destroy each other!"
"Me not destroy anyone unless me, Grimlock, want to," Grimlock responded arrogantly. He cast a derisive glance over at Sideswipe, who was struggling to lift himself off the floor. "How he get here?"
"Keep away from me, slagger!" Sideswipe growled at Grimlock as he limped across the lab toward Prowl.
Grimlock stood up tall and looked over his shoulder at Slag. "No fight no more," he commanded the triceratops. With anger surging in his fuel lines, Slag narrowed his optics at Ironhide, but obeyed Grimlock, the stronger Dinobot. Grimlock turned to assess Snarl over his other shoulder, but the stegosaurus still lay in a heap on the floor with his optics closed.
Prowl seized the moment and addressed the Dinobot leader. "Grimlock, this is unacceptable. You could have-"
"Me want to know how Sideswipe alive," Grimlock pointed at the red warrior, interrupting loudly over top of Prowl.
"Shut up, Dino-dolt," Ironhide spat back. "Prowl's in charge and he's talkin'."
Grimlock clenched his fists and growled at Ironhide in return.
"Here we go again," Wheeljack slapped his forehead and sighed through his vocalizer.
"No," Prowl stated firmly. "This is over, now." A troop of hurried footsteps echoed in the hallway outside Perceptor's lab. The Protectobots had arrived.
The lab doors opened and the powder blue leader of the Protectobots appeared with his team in formation behind him. They quickly took up their positions and stood at attention, awaiting their next orders. If the Protectobots were startled by the sight of Sideswipe, they did not show it.
"At your service, Prowl," Hot Spot stepped toward the strategist. He saluted crisply before falling back into line.
"Thank you, Hot Spot," Prowl nodded in acknowledgement.
"Me not finished," Grimlock declared as he swept his hand through the air. He looked sternly down at Prowl. "Me want to know why you hide Sideswipe. Where are other Autobots? Where you put Optimus Prime?"
"Nobody's hiding anything, Grimlock," Prowl replied.
Grimlock paused in confusion.
"Our experiment with the space bridge control module seems to have opened up a tear in the fabric of our universe," Perceptor answered from across the lab. The others turned to look at the Autobot scientist, who they had forgotten about during the struggle.
"We think that Sideswipe here might have come from another universe," Wheeljack added.
"'Nother universe?" Grimlock puzzled aloud.
Brawn laughed. "That's why Prowl's in charge and not you," he stated, hooking his thumb back at Prowl. "He can understand these things."
Angered by the jab at Grimlock, Slag struggled to transform into his robot mode, but his feet remained glued to the floor. "You not leader," the triceratops growled disdainfully at Prowl. "Grimlock strongest. He only leader!"
"Enough!" Prowl barked at Slag.
The other Autobots jumped. They did not expect to see Prowl lose his temper.
"You no tell Slag be quiet! Me leader!" Grimlock bellowed, asserting his authority. "Me stronger and better than little Prowl."
"Don't argue, Grimlock!" Prowl pointed and shouted at the Dinobot leader.
Grimlock glared back at him, flexing his fists. His optics burned with resentment.
"Hot Spot!" Prowl called out sharply. The Protectobot leader stepped forward. Prowl turned to Hot Spot with a tight faceplate. "Arrest him."
"Me leaving," Grimlock replied sullenly, turning toward the door.
"Whoa, whoa," Streetwise ushered the big Dinobot with his photon pistol tightly in hand. "Stop right there."
Hot Spot moved in to back up Streetwise with his impressive fireball cannons, loaded and ready, one in each hand. "I don't want to have to move you to the brig in a laser cage, Dinobot. But if you give me no choice…" he threatened.
Perceptor flinched at the notion that Hot Spot might open fire at close quarters. A stray shot from his cannons could easily melt sensitive lab equipment down to slag.
The other Protectobots closed in around Hot Spot and Streetwise to add weight to the warning. Blades removed his photon pistol from subspace and pointed it at the floor in front of the Dinobot's large feet. Groove and First Aid stood at the ready. Grimlock halted. The team of five emergency responders was poised to form the Autobot juggernaut, Defensor. Grimlock could not take on Defensor and win. Choosing to avoid the humiliation of defeat, he snorted contemptuously at Hot Spot and turned his back on the Protectobot leader.
Hot Spot turned to his left. "Streetwise, Blades," he ordered, "Stay sharp." The two Protectobots moved in, keeping their weapons trained on Grimlock. "Groove," he continued, "stay with First Aid." Groove nodded and drew his photon pistol. He kept it lowered as he moved in beside First Aid. "First Aid," he said, turning to the doctor with a nod of his head, "execute Prowl's order." First Aid deftly produced energy shackles from a hidden subspace compartment. Grimlock stood quietly as First Aid looked him over. Then the doctor strolled up to the Dinobot and applied the restraints under Groove's watchful optics. Hot Spot turned back to Prowl and nodded.
"Excellent work," Prowl commended. The firm, confident tone of an Autobot leader returned to his vocalizer. His optics snapped over to Brawn and Ironhide. "Take him to the brig," Prowl ordered with clipped words and a flick of the head. Prowl's two bodyguards nodded. He turned back to the Protectobots. "Blades, Streetwise, cut Slag out. Groove, First Aid, attend to Snarl."
Blades reached around and removed the helicopter rotor blades from his back. Holding them down by his side, he flicked the rotor shaft in his hand as if opening a switchblade. The long blades whirled to life and, within seconds, were cutting the air at an intimidating speed. One of Slag's triceratops optics rotated backward. At the sight of the large cutter, he frantically struggled to pull free. "I'll have you out before Streetwise can decide where to start," he taunted. Blades smirked at the other Protectobot.
"Wanna bet?" Streetwise returned the challenge with a competitive chuckle. He spun his photon piston on his index finger like a gunslinger and dropped it into subspace. An energy saber cleverly appeared in its place. Grinning, he twirled the device between his fingers, ignited the fusion blade, and set to work on the panicky, writhing Dinobot.
Across the laboratory, Groove and First Aid administered an equilibrium-restoring remedy to Snarl. Prowl surveyed the field as Hot Spot kept a wary optic on the proceedings, one loaded fireball cannon clenched in each fist.
Satisfied that the Dinobot insurrection was quelled, Prowl approached Wheeljack. "Take Sideswipe to his quarters," he instructed. Prowl paused as he swept a suspicious gaze over the red warrior. "Remain there until I summon you," he commanded Sideswipe, raising his index finger in a warning gesture. Prowl turned back to face the engineer. "I want to discuss this experiment with you and Perceptor. Return here as soon as you're ready."
Wheeljack nodded.