Prism 13
Engagements
A Transformers Prime Fanfiction
*Whoops! Did we forget to mention that Pejuang was a girl?* Vince sent a wave of glyphs indicating his innocence.
*Get her off of me! I can't breathe!*
Only rumbling laughter was his response but the woman let out a gasp, pulled slightly away, and looked at Jack in confusion.
"Woah there my man, since when is a friendly little welcome to rough for da big boy Megatronus?"
Her voice was familiar but exotic at the same time. A thick accent he couldn't quite place colored her English and it was hard to concentrate with her pressed up tightly against him like she was.
"I'm sorry, I'm not, I mean," Jack was gasping out.
"Oh my poor Kekasih! What did that mad scientist do to you? No matter, you are back with me and I am going to make it all better! Screamer is at the debriefing now so we got four, five hours at least. How bout we start with a back rub?"
"Wait!" Jack shot a frantic look over at Thundercracker and Vince but deduced from the wide grins they were both sprouting that there was no help coming from that direction. "I'm not Jack! I mean I'm not your Jack. I'm from an alternate dimension!"
The woman stepped back and placed a fist on her hip with a snort. Jack got a better look at her. She was slightly shorter than he was with a long braid of dark hair and wearing a flight suit identical to the one Vince had on. There was something distinctly familiar about her but the dim light concealed her features.
"Really Jack? This is a poor joke."
*No joke Pej,* Vince interjected, *the ground bridge malfunction swapped out your Jack for this little one.*
The raven haired youth felt a surge of annoyance and was about to snap at Vince over the 'little one' comment when he found himself sitting on the floor with stars dancing around his vision.
"What?" he demanded.
"You creeper!" the woman was snarling into his face. "How could you let me fawn all over you like that knowing you weren't my man? I ought to toss you out the nearest airlock. Where is my Kekasih? You better bring him back or else I am gonna smack you clear into the next dem, hey!"
The tirade was cut off as the lights suddenly flicked on and a dark form appeared behind Pejuang grabbing her upraised fist.
"Easy there girl," a soft but powerful voice murmured. "I think you might want to listen to what the man has to say."
"Let me go Guy. I have to rain vengeance down upon this deceiver!"
"Ah, because he was the one who jumped on you and started feeling you up?"
"Well no, but."
"And he has clearly been planning this since the random accident ripped him from his home universe."
"Ugh! I give up," she snarled twisting out of the large man's grasp. "But you better not try anything!"
With that final warning the woman jumped down to an empty berth and stalked over to an alcove containing a computer and a hammock. Jack stared after her in bewilderment, her honey colored eyes seeming to burn into his mind.
"Hey," a gentle Australian accent inquired, "you okay there mate?"
"Guy Green?" Jack asked accepting the massive calloused hand that was proffered to him.
"The one and only! Sorry about Pej; she can get a little intense," a warm grin composed of flashing white teeth broke out across a weathered caramel brown face.
"I can see that. She kind of reminds me of…Wait, Miko?" the raven haired youth suddenly gasped.
"Who's Miko?" the woman demanded coldly sticking her head out from around the alcove.
"You are!" Jack stated. "I mean I think that's your name in my dimension, and you're smaller."
Slowly and carefully, like a panther stalking prey, the female came up to him again. Despite this sudden revelation; or perhaps because of it Jack was glad for the large comforting mass of Guy beside him.
"So you just didn't recognize me?" she demanded.
"Well, you come from Indonesia, Pontianak specifically, you're fifteen, your coloring is right, and so is your attitude," Jack hesitated there trying to decide how much of her personal life to go into. "I mean that's the story of the girl in my verse."
"I'm sixteen, closer to seventeen," she snapped.
"Well, okay. You weren't too sure about your exact birthday. So that's right."
The woman glared at him a moment then began to circle him.
"You look soft," she growled, "like you grew up somewhere peaceful."
"Yeah, no Quintessons where I come from," he stated as he turned to keep an eye on her.
"Really," she flexed her fingers and something caught the youth's attention.
"You're engaged?" he asked surprised looking at the glittering gemstone on her left hand.
"Duh! To you idiot!"
O
O
"This individual poses a clear threat to our security," the calm emotionless voice was beginning to grate on Megatron's processor.
Not that that was anything new. The tactician that was standing so calmly before him was infamous for irritating even the friendliest of mechs.
"Prowl, I am aware of the risks," the Warlord stated, "however in order to retrieve our own Jackson it is important that we keep this alternate close to our research facilities."
"Be that as it may I suggest you limit your interactions with this human. As much as he resembles your sparkling he is not. I fear however that your personal feelings might compromise your reason in the case of."
Megatron let out a snarl interrupting the black and white mech and shot to his peds. No words were spoken but the ruby optics glittered with ill suppressed rage. Prowl narrowed his own blue optics and assumed a submissive pose, but he didn't back down.
"As long as the boy is in this dimension he is under my protection and will be treated as if he was my sparkling," the massive mech growled. "I appreciate that we cannot entrust him with the same codes and freedoms that my own Megatronus was. Thus he is not here at this meeting. However no restrictions are to be put on him that would not be put on a new Foundling. Is that understood Prowl?"
"Understood Lord Protector," the smaller mech replied dutifully.
The Warlord continued to glare at the tactician for a long moment before turning to his chief scientist.
"How are the defense projects coming along?"
Equally as emotionless as the smaller Prowl the massive purple mech turned his one gleaming red optic on his leader and began to describe the progress that had been made in the past year. It was as the mech had expected; good that more mechs than he had expected had arrived to boost their defenses, bad that the synthetic energon refineries were having trouble mass producing the needed liquid, and so very many unknowns. Megatron's optics strayed to the human officers sitting around the conference table and a small smile pulled at his faceplates. There was his defense against the unknowns, the random madness of an organic species; the greatest unknown of all.
The majority of his processor still paying attention to Shockwave's monologue the Warlord absently pinged his sparkling's comm. To his surprise the response was a prompt if confused jumble of data. He sent back a simple text response and felt an odd sense of pride well up in his spark. This might not be his Jack exactly but he was still an outstanding and adaptable human. Prowl was certainly not to be faulted for being suspicious, that was the tactician's job after all, but the war weary gladiator could feel to his very core that there was no more guile in this boy than in the other.
O
O
"So, what's Starscream like?" Jack asked quietly.
The raven haired youth was sitting in the edge of Thundercracker's berth. After a grunted greeting Skywarp had reclaimed his Found and Guy had gone back to sleep on the mech's chestplates. Vince and Thundercracker were off in one corner completing reports. Miko, no Pejuang , he reminded himself, was sprawled out with her head in his lap chatting away about everything and nothing in particular about this universe. Here apparently she had been found as an infant in a burning sector of her home city. The girl had grown up dodging through the subway tunnels and hunting the aliens sent to exterminate them. She had been raised as the warrior princess of a besieged people. The better nutrition had fueled her growth and made her larger, she was more trusting of her fellow man, but the fiery spirit was still the same. Now she stared up at him thoughtfully.
*Scream? He's my Seeker you know. He found me, like a second father he is. He's quiet, only speaks when something important needs to be said. He hurts a lot. See he was Air Commander when the Great Armada was destroyed by the Quints. Sometimes when I look into his optics,* the woman's voice faded and her eye unfocused, *sometimes I think I can see them dying over the skies of Cybertron. What's he like in your verse?*
Jack took a deep breath and pretended to be focusing on trying to use his comm. while he struggled to come up with something to say that wasn't a lie and wouldn't sound awful.
*Starscream, he has a knack for science.*
*Mine too! ~GENIUS~*
Jack smiled at her use of the glyph. He was learning to accept them and interpret them as easily as the words now even if he was having trouble forming them himself.
*Thundercracker and Skywarp aren't on earth yet. Our Starscream, I think he's off too. The war can't have been kind to him.*
*Hasn't he got his Found yet? I mean I know it's not your me, but he should have his by now," her honey colored eyes glanced up at him thoughtfully.
*No he's spent most of his time on the Nemesis.*
*So he survived the final retreat in your verse huh?*
*Starscream?*
*No, Trypticon.*
*Oh, yes except.*
*Yeah, right. No Quints, no retreat. I keep forgetting. Anyway in this verse old Trip and the Ark were covering the fleet that evacuated Cybertron. They were both too badly damaged to save; The Ark got its outer skin stripped off by energy discharges, Trip had his CPU crisped by some Quint super weapon. The Cys stripped his armor and rebuilt the other ship with it; renamed it the Arc, because it carried them away from Cybertron. So here we all are.*
*So when is this Second Wave supposed to happen?* Jack asked.
*No one knows; could be a hundred years from now, the first bombs could hit before we eat dinner. That's why it's so important that the data Megatron gathered gets processed by the eggheads like yesterday.*
*But he came to see me first,* Jack stated softly.
*What can I say?* the girl shrugged her shoulders. *The big lug loves you almost as much as I do.*
Jack blushed at that and the girl let out a hearty laugh.
*Sorry. I keep forgetting that you're not really my Jack!*
*I've been meaning to ask you about that. Why are we engaged so young?*
*Young? We're both sixteen and we're not actually getting hitched until eighteen.*
*So that's normal here?*
*Duh.*
*Actually it's a valid question Pej,* Vince interjected. *Mom used to talk to me about that. Back before the First Wave, when everything went crazy, it was normal for two people to wait till their late twenties to get married.*
*Lots of stuff was weird back then huh?*
*I guess,* Jack sent uncertainly.
Suddenly he stiffened as a new and powerful voice came over the comm.
*Jackson, the debriefing is over for now. Meet me in our quarters.*
*Okay Megatron,* the human replied.
He knew there was no threat from this mech, but he still couldn't avoid a slight twist in his gut when he thought of being alone with him. He made to stand up and Pejuang squawked in protest.
"Didn't you hear Megatron calling me?"
"No, he would have been using a private frequency," Vince explained with a yawn. "Well I need to get to bed anyway."
The tall grey mech stood and moved over to his berth, dislodging the two human's on it carelessly. Pejuang landed lightly on the floor in a crouch and stretched.
*Well let's go see Daddy Megs.*
*But he only asked for me.*
*I'm your faïence dude. Of course he meant me too.*
Jack looked at her oddly for a moment.
*What?*
*It's just he never mentioned you to me.*
A look that was far too innocent spread across her face and for a moment Jack was staring at Miko instead of the fierce warrior.
*Now why would that be?*