Cube

Summary: A space trickster kidnaps a group of Autobots and Decepticons, trapping them in his devilish Cube. Can they solve the puzzles and escape?

Binary Star System

''This was a binary star system is in the K'Tor cluster within the Rainbow Climbs. Ever since one of its stars went nova, everything left in the wake of the shockwave - gutted planetoids and other debris - has been teaming with energon. It's turned into a race to see who can take most advantage of the situation. Alien freighters, miners, traders, pirates, empire warships, scavengers, and others are all here.

 The channel seems to go into a static sound before a strange sound comes over the air-waves. Something just took over all the broadcast frequiencies.

 Colonel Marissa says, "This is Colonel Faireborn. Our link-up with the Autobot communications grid seems to be malfunctioning. Is there any issues on your end?"

 Raindance says, "Issue issue all fall down!"

 A voice speaks over the channel, it has nearly a dark sound to it, "Come one and come all, to the event of a life-time. You think you're so strong, so smart, well I know someone who has a challenge for you. He dares you to come to his side of the world, to challenge your courage and strength, your minds and wills. He calls to you to come and join the fun and to challenge fate for a better throw!"

 Chief Medical Officer Peacekeeper says, "... What in the world...?"

 Raindance says, "NOT in this world, Peacekeeper. WoOOOoooo"

 Nightbeat says, "This could be a lead, Raindance. Just what we need to crack this case."

 Chief Medical Officer Peacekeeper says, "Oh yes, that reminds me. Nightbeat. You and I will have to talk later about your treatment of my staff."

 The voice continues, "Today is your lucky day, for you have been choosen-- choosen by his greatness and all powerful master-- come, come little ones, come play with us, and see if you can master the puzzle-- if you fail, you will be ours!" The voice seems to cackle before the channels go static once more and then they seem to return to normal-- or so they seem anyhow.

 Monstereo says, "Oooh, step up, bring it on and let's get it onnnnnnn. So, Tetris?"

 Colonel Marissa says, "Puzzle? What puzzle? Where?"

The large cube seems to appear from nowhere in space, a bright light shines from its sides and beams of light flash outward snatching its targets-- wanted or unwanted to partipate in this little event.

 Fireflight says, "Hey, what's that big cube thing? Maybe that's ---"

 Chief Medical Officer Peacekeeper says, "Huh? What--"

'Cube

''The room looks to be a massive cube in structure, several doors line the way. Holes along the walls, strange writings, and the light seem to be highly bright here in this 'room'. One would think by its size, that it was only a small section of the large cube. The voice sometimes blares out, and it is always impossible to track down when it speaks; and the image of the captor seems to be a holographic image that can walk through walls and move about the cube room as if gravity didn't exist for him... or so one can hope that is a hologram. One also might notice the captor looks alot like David Bowie--- what the heck is David Bowie doing in space with a giant hairdo from the 80s and wearing this leather and spandex stuff... seriously - At least there is a small difference with this 'David Bowie' and that is the cat like eyes and the long pointed ears-- ok, so now it's a David Bowie meets Puk! ...joy!

 Raptor says, "what Cube--"

 Scattershot says, "I slaggin' HATE puzzles."

As Monstereo disappears he plays a sound bite of Deforest Kelly: "Now wait just a damn minute..." As he reappears he looks around himself. "I hate it when I get beamed without permission. I feel so dirty."

Raptor gets beamed into the room and blinks, He glances around quickly, "Wha' the?" Ok-- this was really new. He never been teleported before-- well, outside of the space-warp, but this was like instant!

The sleek red spaceship known as Redshift was just floating along, making yet another boring Energon transport run. Until, that is, he is zapped by a white flash of light, which seems to have teleported the red ship inside the giant flying cyber cube.

Space-Gun  gets involuntarily beamed into the cube. For a moment there the Decepticon commander ponders a colorful streak of curses he heard from fellow Decepticons over the years but that would not help in any way. Instead he simply transforms into his robot mode and begins examining the walls composition to see if he can blast or cut a way out. Sometimes the simplest approach is the best.

The room pulses with a strange, unearthly light as the new arrivals appear. The place is simply a small cube, with doors on each side, each one locked. But there is also... a man there. A gaunt, thin looking man wearing lycra, with gigantic hair and 80s makeup, smoking a cigarette in a holder. Is it... David Bowie? Nah, couldn't be!

The stranger starts to strut forwards towards the arrivals, playing with a metal sphere in his hands. "Greetings!" he says in a british accent. "Welcome to... my LABYRINTH! In my domain you will know not friend nor foe, but must work together to find the way to go!" He rolls the ball over his shoulders and into his other hand where it vanishes, a twinkle in his eye. "You have until the clock strikes twelve to complete my puzzle, or you will forever lose the chi-" He pauses, looking at a bit of paper

"Oh, well, okay. You have until the clock strikes twelve to complete my puzzle, or you will remain here as my slaves!"

Scattershot materializes in the cube, then immediately crashes into the ground with a resounding KRONNNNGGG. Because he is the least aerodynamic space ship in the history of anything and his physics-defying engines weren't on out in space. Who knows why.

It takes a moment for Scattership to collect himself, but he transforms, rubbing angrily at his head, and glowers at the cube in general. He quickly stalks towards one of the doors and begins hauling on it to no avail. Because they are locked. He tries the next one, but is interrupted by the arrival of the cat person. Scattershot squints, hands twitching as if wishing they were holding a gun. "What makes ya think I ain't jus' gonna slag ya right here an' now, ya pointy-eared buckethead?"

N.I.T.E.Porsche <Nightbeat> is now parked in a cube. It transforms into Nightbeat. "Initiating Bran Google Protocol," he says, regarding Space Bowie. "He looks curiously like the holographic robot whose face I rearranged during Operation: Fistmaster last night," he asys to himself, crossing his arms over his chest. "I'm onto you, space man. First sign I see of the Juice, you're either wearing the cuffs or wearing a body bag."

Peacekeeper also seems to've gotten teleported into the cube as well and reappears nearby. "Ghn. What was that?" She mutters as she rubs her visor with one hand before looking around--only to spot the odd newcomer. She narrows her optics slightly at him, not trusting him one bit, and decides against trying to start up with an argument. "Scattershot, I have a feeling we don't have time for arguing or threatening," she comments mildly as she makes a note of who also got teleported into that cube.

Marissa was on the Intrepid moments ago. The Terran Shuttle had returned to Metroplex after a brief stop on Earth to have its science gear removed and its full complement of weaponry reinstalled. She had been overseeing modifications being done to the engines by engineering staff when, in a flash of light, the EDC Colonel vanished off the deck of the ship and reappeared here, inside the flying cube along with Autobots and Decepticons. Figures, she's the only human around. Eyes wide as she instinctively places her hand on her sidearm, Marissa's gaze falls upon 'David Bowie'. Unimpressed by the parlor tricks, she asks, "Which clock?" she asks, slowly sidestepping over towards Peacekeeper. Non-coms have to stick together.

Scattershot crosses his arms. "I /always/ got time t'argue an' threaten," he replies, sulkily.

Redshift transforms into his robot mode, with his gauss rifle in hand. "Hey old man! I'm not gonna be /anyone's/ slave, you better let us out or there's gonna be /trouble/." He says, pointing his rifle at the mysterious elderly being. Redshift makes a few furtive glances at the others present, narrowing his optics at the Autobots.

The strange space man laughs loudly, and bows in the direction of Nightbeat. "Oh, don't get too HOT under the collar, my friend. I'm sure you will solve your friend's rock'n'roll suicide sometime." He waves his hand and points to a clock on the wall, which seems to move jerkily, not at any constant rate at all. "In this domain, there are a thousand paths, and a thousand dangerous rooms. It is up to you to get to the end, or there will be great... sorrow!" And with that, he vanishes!

Monstereo optic-brow waggles at the Bowie-like being. "But I don't wanna be a slave Ricky, waaaaaaaaaaa!"

Magnetically attached to Shockwave's hip is a small fuschia cassette; Geo, having been there the whole time!

"Suicide...? Well, I'll be--" Nightbeat cuts himself off, as he pulls his space revolver from its shoulder holster. He opens the chamber, spins it and takes one laser bullet out. He closes the chamber and holds the gun with both hands, pointed to the ground. He surveys his 'companions,' and chooses to move over to Scattershot. "It seems like logic and quick thinknig are on the menu. Things are never what they seem. Be ready to annihilate everything at the drop of a robot-sized fedora, Scattershot."

The large form of Quickswitch tumbled into the cube in jet form, scrambling himself into robot mode as he hit the ground, picking his enormous hulk from the ground, shooting a sharp emerald glare at this pointy-eared human looking -thing-. He looks around, his facial expression growing grim, particularly at the mention he hears of the word 'slave.' Noting the others present, Quickswitch wills his frenetic cog to remain still as this situation presents itself. The room goes silent now, as the lights dim for a moment and only light up the two doors. Then slowly raising from the center of the room is a globe, however it isn't moving. There are two knobs on either side and over the whole globe looks to be little figures of everyone stuck to the globe. What a strange device-- In closer examination it looks like the globe can be spun, and is connected to the smaller spheres which can be pulled on from either direction, the question is-- how does it work?

Blueshift, who has also been there all along, scratches his head, letting his robo-fedora fall to the ground as he does so. "So uh, this place. Where's the exit then. That'll be easier..." He stares as the globe comes down and gets out his gun. "Quick, shoot it!"

Peacekeeper is hardly a 'non-com', medic or not, but she won't argue the point. "Then argue and threaten on your own time--not when it seems like we've got a deadline to meet," she replies to Scattershot in that same neutral tone. She studies the clock, but eventually dismisses it when it seems like it has no distinct pattern. "So, basically, we don't know how much time we've got..." She glances at Raptor, then at the globe as it appears. "Now what?"

Marissa glances briefly at the clock to see how much time they have left. Of course the hands aren't moving at a constant rate but hopefully she can make a reasonable estimate with the average of how fast the hands are moving. Marissa finally takes her hand off her holster. "It never ceases to amaze me how many all-powerful alien races enjoy kidnapping Transformers and making them jump through hoops," Marissa sighs. "Earth never had these problems before the war," she jokes to Peacekeeper as the weird globe thing appears.

Raptor raises an optic ridge as the being seems to fade away before nearly getting crushed by the globe, "What the heck is it and more correctly-- what kinda joke is this!?"

Scattershot growls, bristling at the holographic being's continued insolence. He points a finger dramatically at the figure. "Who ever said I would be yer slave, ya galooot?!" he demands. "I don't CARE what kinda starman y'are! I ain't afraid!" The finger curls into a fist. "Jus' wait 'till I get my hands on ya! Then it's gonna be ashes t'ashes for YOU!"

But the figure has vanished, and poor Scattershot is left shouting angrily at open cube. Which looks foolish. He turns his optics on Nightbeat. "Well, y'all're the detective," he replies. "I'm jus' a guy with lotsa guns. This kinda thinkery's more yer arena..." he trails off as the globe appears, staring particularly hard at the two noobs. "Wow," he says softly. "I think I saw them two noobs playin' Counterstrike 15. They were awful."

Redshift grumbles as the David Bowie-eqsue alien vanishes. "Could be worse, he could've turned us all into /humans/ before making us go through this blasted thing..." He mutters. "Looks like we don't really have much choice." He says, loud enough for the rest to hear. He steps closer toards the mysterious globe, but doesn't try to touch it. "Blueshift, start pulling on those spheres, see if it does anything."

Blueshift walks over to one of the spheres, cupping it in a hand, before he stares at Redshift. "Heeey! Why do I have to do what you say! You pull on the sphere! It will probably shoot spikes or something through my face!"

"Yeah, they had doods all over their base, Scattershot," Nightbeat replies. "Let's go take a closer look," he says, still holding his revolver, stepping carefully toward the globe. "Let's let the Decepticons get spikes through their faces first, team."

Monstereo gives the globe a glance but turns his attention towards the walls, taking a gander at the 'strange writings.' "Bathroom stall graffiti or something educational?"

Raptor counts the decepticons, then the autobots. He places his hands on his hips and walks over to Quickswitch to make sure he is ok, kinda keeping an eye on the decepticon. After making sure he is ok, he walks over to Peacekeeper, "You ok, Peace?"

Monstereo turns briefly towards Nightbeat. "I'm sorry to say, the Canadian survey says you're the one who will get us all killed. Saavy?" He smiles and turns back to the writings.

Redshift shrugs to his blue brother. "Well, it /might/ shoot spikes through your face. But if you don't, I will /definatly/ shoot you in the face. So yanking on those things seems like the safer bet."

Blueshift hesitantly puts his hands on the two globes. "Pfft, I am the best at putting my hands on control globes, just ask Fusillade!"

Quickswitch is perfectly fine. The Sixchanger observes the space-faring brothers with a faintly amused expression.

Peacekeeper grumbles softly at the two Shift's arguing, but doesn't say a word. "Must see it as amusing, for some reason," she remarks back to Marissa dryly. "Aye, I'm fine, Raptor. I don't think this is some sort of joke, though." She frowns as she studies the orb from where she stands, recoginizing the figures on them as being similar to their own appearances. She glances at the doors, wondering if the spheres on the sides are linked to the doors somehow... As Redshift pulls the two orbs, the globe makes a click sound and seems to want to move both ways as the orbs. How strange--

Looking at Monstereo, Nightbeat frowns. His chest opens robocop-style into a shoulder holster, where he places his space revolver. His chest closes. "Look, pal. No one wants to die in a wacky space cube, me least of all. I want it even less than you. Try to wrap your brain around that." He moves closer to the globe and hunkers down, watching Blueshift expertly handle the orbs.

Perceptor studies the globe, and the two orbs ponderously. "You know, if Kup were here, he'd have some obscure story about being trapped in a cube."

Marissa nods back to Peacekeeper and remains by her side. Not being as protected as the others, Marissa isn't particularly eager to get fried by strange globes. "Shall we inspect some of those doors?" she suggests to Peacekeeper. She's the techie around here, after all.

"Hey!" Scattershot bellows as Blueshift starts pulling on the orb. "Those're AUTOBOT property!" Ignoring Nightbeat's completely sound advice, he sprints forward, diving to grab the opposite side of the controls. He starts attempting to wrestle the globe away from Blueshift. "I ain't gonna let ya win!"

Redshift is glad to see that Blueshift has not been disintergrated. If he were, who would wander around being an idiot and making Redshift look good? And what ever happened to Rupture, he was good at that too... "So, is it doing anything yet?" He asks, even as Scattershot starts wrestling with one of the pieces. "Hey, we saw it first, it's Decepticon property!"

Peacekeeper glowers at Nightbeat briefly, but nods to Marissa and walks towards one of the doors as the scanners in her visor whirr to life. She presses one hand against the door and lets the sensitive sensors in her hand start taking readings. Let the others fight over the orb--they're doing a good enough job of that, it seems. If they can figure out how to open the doors--or which one is the right door to start getting out of here--that would probably help too. As the Orbs are fought over along with the globe a small pulse can be heard from inside of it then it slams the fighters away from it with an energy pulse, then a buzzard can be heard, before a voice speaks, "Please try again-- thank you."

Marissa walks quickly to keep up with Peacekeeper. Marissa of course hasn't any sensors, but she has her own two eyes and sharp intellect. Every so often she looks over her should to see how the epic battle over the orbs are going. "Jesus, you'd think they could stop fighting for just a few minutes," she asides to Peacekeeper. "The Decepticons, I can see."

Quickswitch approaches the globe, a passing curious snort at the two matching Decepticon brothers as he looks at it. Placing large metallic hands on the globe surface, he turns it counterclockwise, first in a slow motion, experimentally and slowly building up speed. Surely the scientists could come up with a way out of this. Hmmm.

Raptor shakes his head and knocks on one of the doors, "They sound pretty darn solid.. I don't think they can be cut or hurt.." He was no scientist-- but he knew strong metals.

"No way, Decepticreep!" Scattershot shouts at Redshift. "It's Autobot because we ain't evil!" Then, he is sent flying backwards away from the globe. "WAAAAH!" he cries. "WHY'S THERE A BIRD IN SPA--" KTHUNK. The Technobot Commander slams against the door next to Peacekeeper and slides slowly to the ground. "Ooogh," he moans, putting a hand to his head. His optics find Peacekeeper. "Ya found anythin', Peace?" he asks woozily. "I ain't much of a sciencetist, but I know yer just about th'best at this stuff."

As Blueshift and Scattershot are pushed away by an alien pulse laser device, Nightbeat stands erect and walks toward the globe. "Dirty looks aren't solving this puzzle, believe it or not, Peacekeeper," he notes, before turning to Perceptor. "You've had dealings with fruity cross-dressing aliens before. What's your analysis, Perceptor?" As The orb spins the room starts to spin with orb-- ok.. maybe that was a bad idea.

Monstereo stumbles and clings to the wall he was examining trying to read the writings. "Wheeeee! I feel like Keith Richards!"

Redshift is pushes back by the pulse of energy, and further disoriented as the room starts to spin. When it subsides, he looks around. "Whoa, the whole place is moving! Did anything change?" He looks around, his gaze settleing on Peacekeeper. "Any luck with those doors?"

As the room spins, Blueshift does the only thing he can - he takes out his gun and starts shooting wildly. "Death! Death! Death to you all!" he screams in an attempt to fix everything with the power of violence

Peacekeeper glances at Nightbeat as data scrolls down her visor. "Watch it, Nightbeat," she rumbles warningly. She jumps slightly as Scattershot slams into the door next to her and shakes her head to clear the data from her visor. "Raptor's right--it's too strong to cut, blast, or otherwise damage to get past," she replies. "What about the--?" Her question is cut off as the room spins around. "Yipe! Watch it!" She shields Marissa as a stray shot from Blueshift strikes about a foot away from the tire on her left shoulder. That's... not helping.

Perceptor looks drolly to Blushiftm and as the room starts to spin, he moves towards the mechanism and sits down, planting his hands on either side. "My analysis is that petty squablings about who has claiming rights over this is irrelvant. Neither one of us are going to come away with this, so just get used to that idea right now." he pauses, "Have you ever thought, just for a moment, that there might be more advanced races than us, with technology that is just as advanced to us as ours is to our human friends?" he sighs and turns back to the globe and the orbs. In fact, thinking selflessly, he spins the globe to Redshift and tries to pull on orbs. The figuring is that trying to help someone who isn't an Autobot or like him - in fact, someone completely opposite.

Raptor ack as the room starts to rotate, he uses his anti-gravs to float in the air and then takes ahold of the human, and then peacekeeper, to keep them from rotating with the room, "Quickswitch! Don't do that again!" As the room stops spinning he lands back down and grumbles.

As Perceptor pulls the one orb after spinning the globe, the room starts to rotate in that direction, however the pulling of the orb stops the spin and the door to the left opens up. One puzzle down-- who knows how many to go!

Marissa grabs onto Peacekeeper's leg for support as Scattershot hits the wall next to them. Peacekeeper proves to be a solid structure to hold onto. Even as the room spins, Marissa mutters a queasy 'thanks' to Peacekeeper for the save and tries to see if there's any other way out of here. You wouldn't believe the number of times there's a nook or cranny just large enough for a human to slip through. Afterall, 'David Bowie' seemed to be after Transformers, mostly.

Quickswitch slams his hands down on the globe to bring it to a stop. The motion is punctuated by a heavy fist slamming into the glo--He flexes his fist, "Hey, it worked!"

Blueshift stands up and brushes off his hands. "No need to thank me, it was easy" he mutters, as he walks out of the door and into whatever MYSTERIES the next room will bring. "Really, perhaps we could kill all the Autobots and still get out of this. We don't need them after all..."

Redshift ducks an oncoming laser blast from Blueshift, and glances at Perceptor. He supresses a sneer, and stashes away his weapon, since clearly firepower isn't the answer here. "Looks like poindexter here's got the doors open. He follows after his blue-plated twin into the next room.

Hitting the ground as the room spins, Nightbeat props himself up on an arm, and it sort of looks like he's doing a breakdance, but he's really just trying to keep his face from grinding against the floor. As the door opens, he gets up and shakes off the vertigo. "Nice use of sciences and big words, Perceptor. Let the Decepticons go first, in case there are any face-spikes."

Raptor hears Blueshift and narrows his eyes, "..Too bad that alien didn't think of disarming us.. then again-- this keeps up we are going to get into a fist brawl." He then glances over to Marisaa, "Maybe you outa hang out on one of our shoulders?"

Perceptor looks at Blueshift and shakes his head, "You're an idiot." to the others he offers, "Shall we proceed?"

A flurry of motion and then there's a noticable tap-tapping on Blueshift's crescent wing. The laser pistol has come to say hello, "Don't try anything."

This room looks like a magical christmas scene. Snow drifts down from the ceiling, and there is an old man sitting by a fireside (that is getting covered in snow) wearing a pullover and playing at a piano. Beside him stands the alien. He waves at the mechs. "Oh, hi, I was just sitting here with my friend Bing, waiting for you to turn up. And again Bing!" The both start singing to the tune "Iiiii will play for you, rum pum pum pum!" The alien then points to what is in the middle of the room. "Your next task, you rebel rebels! Five gifts. But what will you do with them? Will you be heroes, or not live to see your golden years?" And then... he vanishes. In the middle of the room, getting covered in snow, are several objects. A toy trike, a toy soldier, and a plastic tree. There are also five neatly wrapped presents, labelled: red, yellow, green, blue and blurple As the snow continues to fall on everything, the old man continues to play on the piano, singing over and over again: "Iiiii will play for you, rum pum pum pum!"

Peacekeeper nods to Raptor with a muttered 'thank you' as he keeps her and Marissa from getting /too/ disoriented, and offers one hand to Marissa for her to climb onto. "Raptor has a point. Come on, let's get going while we still can."

Monstereo looks to the open door, then to the closed ones. "Gee, I hope this door leads straight to the castle and not to the minotaurs lair."

Marissa used to find being carried around by Transformers degrading, but after working with them for several decades she's grown more used to it and sees the practical side. Marissa climbs up Peacekeeper's hand and sits on her shoulder, laser pistol at the ready. This officially means that Peacekeeper has the most awesome shoulder weapon in the history of the Transformers.

Redshift quickly snatches up the gift labeled 'red'. "Oh hey, he got me a present. And there's one for you too, Blue!" Redshift says. Of course, he doesn't open the gift, he's just laying claim to it in case it becomes important.

"OH MAN THANKS!" Blueshift shouts, as he eagerly snatches up the gift labelled 'blue'. With the eagerness of a small child, he tears it open, trying to be faster than Redshift, and lifts the lid of the box under the wrapping. And then BLAM! Face spikes, straight to the face! Blueshift screams, staggering about and clawing at his face, before falling to the ground and twitching.

"'blurple'?" Marissa asks, peering at the tag from here. "Is that intentional or is our mysterious alien friend not entirely fluent in English?" Mulling over the puzzle, she says, "I suppose we're supposed to open them, perhaps in order? Via the rainbow? Alphabetical?" Marissa bites her lip however as Blueshift rips open his box and gets spikes to the face. It'd be hilarious if it didn't mean everyone else was also in mortal danger. Still... /kinda/ hilarious.

Moving to the presents, Nightbeat snatches the blurple one and puts it on the piano. "Mr. Space Crosby, this is for you," he says, and walks away.

Perceptor enters the room and looks around. Yes, there are neatly wrapped presents, but the trike, soldier, and tree are what gets his attention first. He watches Blueshift recieve his face spikes. "Happy Holidays, indeed." he says dryly and turns back to the three items. The tree gets his most intense inspection though.

Raptor walks into the room and listens to them sing, he then looks at all the gifts, "..hey-- isn't that song from a christimas carol?" He asks looking over to peacekeeper and Marissa who knew more about earth history then he did, then glanced over to Perceptor as well.

Peacekeeper nods to Raptor and follows the others through the door into the next room, making a mental note to be careful since Marissa's now sitting on her shoulder. She pauses slightly once entering as she glances around, noting their new surroundings. "Interesting," she murmurs. "Aye, Raptor, something like that. Can't quite remember which one, though." The two Shift's antics catch her attention and she winces at the result for Blueshift. "That had to hurt..." She walks towards the green one and picks it up, looking it over carefully.

Monstereo strolls to the Bing and asks, "So, play for us why don'tcha?"

"Yes," Marissa replies, thinking back over the lines. She isn't one for Christmas carols. There were no toy trucks and dolls under her Christmas tree when she was a child. No, just M-16s, grenades, and the keys to a Shrike fighter jet. "Little Drummer Boy," she finally recalls.

Redshift lets out a sigh as his comic-relief brother gets his face perforated profusely. "See, that's why I didn't open mine." Redshift lifts his gift to his ear, and gives it a soft shake. "Well, it could be a music related puzzle. But what did he mean about being heroes..."

Bing doesn't seem to notice Monstereo, he just continues to stare ahead, playing on his piano as the snow keeps drifting down. "Iiiii will play for you, rum pum pum pum!" he keeps singing

Raptor flinches a little as blue gets hit with spikes and looks over to Marissa, "Little drummer boy?" Then looks at the boxes and figures, "....drummer boy--"

Quickswitch heads forward and looks at the row of these colorful presents. What are they? He transforms into Puma mode and bats at the yellow one with his claws lightly. It's the same color as his face. He transforms back into Robot mode and raises it optic level... Yes. This was something the humans did. Exchanged these things. A light dusting of snow turns the Sixchanger into a christmas candy cane. His photon blaster appears in one hand, pointed at the box, which he pokes with and nudges the top off.

Peacekeeper ponders a little bit as she looks at the green one in her hands. "I wonder if the clue to getting out of this room is in one of these boxes..." she muses quietly, nodding slightly to Raptor in agreement. "Marissa, would you please move to Raptor's for a minute?" She asks, resting one hand on Raptor's shoulder to create a bridge out of her arm. Yes, she intends to open the green present she currently has, so this is a simple 'just in case' measure.

From the yellow box emerges a... little marching bandman, with a key in its back for winding up. How odd. Meanwhile, Bing has stopped playing as he notices the blurple present Nightbeat puts on his piano. "Well young man, how wonderful. This is for you!" He reaches under the piano and passes the Autobot detective an Dark Blue present, and then continues to play as if nothing had happened.

Marissa thinks back over the details of the song. It's a somewhat obscure religious Christmas carol. "It's about a boy who, unable to afford a gift for a newborn Jesus, plays his drum instead." Marissa waves her hand dismissively, "I can't see this test meant for Cybertronians to be about an obscure human song, though." Per Peacekeeper's request, the awesome shoulder weapon that is Marissa transfers over to Raptor. Much like how Laserbeak perching on someone's shoulder denotes who the leader of the Decepticons is at the moment, Marissa denotes who the coolest Autobot is at the moment. Congratulations, Raptor.

Raptor looks over to Redshit, "Being a hero-- and yet he is also sing Drummer Boy-- there has to be a connection right." He stares over to Nightbeat and everyone else. Then looks to the Toy Solider, then what Nightbeat did. Then he looks over to marissa, and at the toy solider, "A hero-- Oh!"

Holding the dark blue present to his chest, Nightbeat hmms thoughtfully. He strolls up to Peacekeeper, "I am going to watch it, Peacekeeper. I am gonig to watch your face melt with joy as you open this present. It's for you." He shoves the dark blue present at her.

Monstereo thumps his foot to the drumming beat of the song, leaning one elbow on the piano.

Redshift peers at his present again. "So, Blueshift get's crazy spikes shoved into his HEAD, but Quickfreak get's a toy? So not fair." He watches closely as Nightbeat shares thre dark blue gift to see what happens.

Perceptor looks to Raptor, "Mmm yes, the connection is that heroes and golden years refer to songs recorded by David Bowie. He also did a duet with Bing Crosby, called Little Drummer boy." he turns back to the tree. "Wait. Isn't the human Christmas tradition to have the gifts under the tree before you open them?"

Raptor picks up the toy-soldier in his hands carefully and walks over to guy over on the Piano. He lays down the toy and steps back a little waiting to see what happens.

Marissa nods to confirm Perceptor's question and is taken on a ride over to Bing. Marissa studies the piano man carefully to gauge his reaction.

Peacekeeper grins faintly. "In that case, this one is for you," she replies to Nightbeat, handing him the green one in return. She kneels and rests the dark blue present on the ground before carefully opening it.

Being an unwound wind-up toy, the soldier doesn't do much. Bing ignores it, continuing to play. "Iiiii will play for you, rum pum pum pum!" And what is in the dark blue box? Why, its a little toy boat. But it has wheels on the side too, how strange! Meanwhile, the snow keeps drifting down, and it is getting obvious that it is starting to fill up the room....

"I am investigating... the spirit of giving!" Niegtbeat says, as he opens up the green present carefully, stacking the paper and ribbons into a neat little pile.

Raptor blinks as he notices that its getting a tad harder to move in the room as he walks. Bad enough he sucks at walking anyhow. "..Um-- Guys, we really need to figure out this puzzle soon, I think." He then kicks off some of the snow. He then looks over to Perceptor, "How many presents do we have left?"

Inside the green present are two objects - a toy cuddly lamb, and a small model of a fire truck. But the fire truck is broken in half. How odd!

"Heroism!" Quickswitch barks, "Something the two of you would know nothing about." he hurls at the Decepticon space-faring brothers. The marching bandsman emerges from the present. What. In Primus' name....? Useless! He turns the key on the back with raised optic ridges and places it on the piano. That seems to produce some kind of results. A smug chuckle toward Nightbeat. He always did know how to get things done. Quickswitch looks at the Bing, "Hmmm," he surmises carfully, "Would you stop playing for a moment?" he inquires. Perhaps a lapse in these sounds will cause something new to occur. Robots trading fancy wrapped presents was lunacy.

Marissa hops off Raptor's shoulder and lands near the toy soldier in a practiced crouch. "Call it a hunch," she says as she winds up the toy soldier. Hopefully it'll actually do something now!

Redshift grumbles, as everyone else seems to be getting presents inside thier presents. Redshift really likes his face /un/perforated, though, so he holds out the red gift to Perceptor. Because Perceptor is also red, and had a cool toy.

Perceptor takes the red gift, "Oh, well um..thank yo Redshift." completely taken both aback and by surprise. He examines the box for a moment and places it under the table, and whistles a bit of "deck the halls" and he smiles.

The toy soldier starts to walk up and down the top of the piano, banging its little carved drum. Bing starts to sing a bit more this time. "Shall I play for you, pa rum pum pum pum, On my drum?", but repeating the same phrase over and over again

Cradling the broken fire truck, Nightbeat notices that it's full of the Juice. He pulls a big ziplock evidence bag from somewhere, puts the firetruck in, and zips it up. He puts the evidence away. He hands the cuddly lamb to Marissa. "You'll need this," he says without a smile.

Monstereo stares at the Bingmeister for a while then glances back to the boxes. "Shall we play for him? Bring him what you've got and play."

Raptor glances over to Marissa as she winds up the toy, He was getting more worried about the snow now. If anyone knew this fly-bot, he was closter-phobic in some sense.. He then notices Bing sang another lyric, "Peacekeeper-- give him the boat-- tied it to the solider, get it moving." He tripped in the snow and with a bluff of snow floating upward. He hated the ground--

Marissa takes the adorable toy lamb from Nightbeat. "Ah, thanks?" she says before setting it back down again. The toy soldier got a bit of a reaction from Bing, but not much. "Yes?" she tries answering Bing's question. As the snow continues to fall, it seems to get colder as well. Marissa can see her breath in the air. She didn't pack for a winter wonderland.

Peacekeeper picks up the wheeled toy boat and looks at it. "Well now." She glances at Raptor and the activity surrounding the toy-soldier, at Monstereo at his suggestion, then at Raptor again as he trips. Well, it's worth a shot, isn't it? She ignores the snow overall as she walks towards the piano, but fully realizes that the room is now filling up and making it harder for her to move about. She rests the toy boat on the piano and ties the string to the toy soldier so that the boat would get pulled along with it.

The snow is falling harder now, visibly making the room smaller as it fills up. Only Bing is safe, protected by the fireside that is beside him. He looks at Marissa and winks, as he continues to play "Pa rum pum pum pum!" The little soldier on top of the piano then climbs into the boat, and starts to drive it up and down. "I played my drum for Him, pa rum pum pum pum" sings Bing happily

Redshift idly scoops up a pile of snow, and makes a snowball, which he tosses at Blueshift's inert body. He glances at Perceptor. "Hey, aren't you going ot open the red persent? It's probaly a VITAL CLUE that will win our freedom." He says. Although really he hopes it's a face full of pointy death.

Perceptor shrugs, "well I thought I would see what happens when I put the gift under the tree. No such luck though." he shrugs and takes the gift and opens it, making sure to not look directly into the gift until after it's been opened.

As Perceptor opens the red gift, FACE SPIKES shoot out of it, aimed directly for his head!

Raptor gets up and lifts up Blueshift from the snow, however as he hears the sound of spikes. His anti-thrusters kick in and slams into Perceptor, taking the spikes right into his arm and yelps in pain as he falls down to the ground, holding his arm. "Geeh.." He slowly gets up on his feet and starts to try and pull the spikes out.

"Oops!" Redshift says, raising his hands up defensivly. "I hads no way of knowing there were spikes in /that/ gift too. I just thought gift-sharing was the way out of this blasted puzzle room." Although really, he's happy it wasn't /him/ getting spiked.

Peacekeeper taps her chin slightly. "Marissa, see what happens if you put that lamb toy on the piano too," she suggests. The activity over near the tree catches her attention and she winces. "Perceptor, Raptor! Are you two alright?" She asks, seeing that Raptor seemed to've gotten the worst of it.

Monstereo looks over and watches the face spike trap springing in horror. "That's not in the spirit of Christmas."

Marissa just stares back at Bing, clearly not knowing what they're supposed to do to get out of here. The little soldier meanwhile has hopped into the boat and is driving it around. This is amazingly unhelpful, and Marissa is soon distracted by Raptor as he receives an arm full of spikes. Per Peacekeeper's suggestion, she places the lamb on the piano. If this fails to do anything good, she'll put the lamb in the boat. Although she's never played computer puzzles games, she is already using the tried and true tactic of using every single thing that you have together with every other thing that you have in every possible combination. This is the sure route to victory.

Raptor grits his teeth, "..everyone-- get whatever toys you find over with the Piano--" Didn't Nightbeat get two toys? "Nightbeat-- we need that other figure-- and I know-- you stashed it away." He says gritting his teeth pulling out another spike.

With a great sigh, Nightbeat takes out his evidence baggie, fire truck inside, and places it on the piano. "Not to sound ungrateful, Mr. Space Crosby. But I need that back. A fire truck died in Oklahoma, and no one pulled to the right for its sirens." He brushes snow off of his face.

Perceptor dusts himself off, "I'm..I'm fine." he's obviously shaken up, but gets back to his feet and starts helping to remove the spikes and help repair the damage.

Quickswitch is standing there with blasters in hand, called up at the sound of spikes, "Primus!" he curses, certain the Decepticons who handled the gifts have something to do with it!

As Marissa places the lamb on the piano, Bing smiles wider. "The ox and lamb kept time, pa rum pum pum pum! I played my drum for Him, pa rum pum pum pum! I played my best for Him, pa rum pum pum pum! Rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum! Then He smiled at me, pa rum pum pum pum! Me and my drum!" And with a flourish, he stops playing and stands up. Applause as if from an audience echoes throughout the room, and with the sound of clicking, the next door opens!

Marissa breathes a deep sigh of relief as the door opens. "Thank God," she mutters. She wasn't familiar with the full lyrics of the song, but she isn't going to forget it now. The Colonel jogs towards the next door - not because she's eager to visit the next challenge, but because it's fricking cold here.

"Sweet, getting somebody to be spiked a second time was /clearly/ the way out of the room. Onward, to victory!" Redshift says, and starts dragging Blueshift's corpse into the next area with him.

Raptor quickly scurries to his feet, "Get me out of this winter-land nightmare and into some open air!!" Really-- he hated cramped rooms and the pain in his arm was nothing compared to being locked in a room slowly getting smaller. However-- running into a room, probably wasn't smart though-- was it?

Monstereo smiles and bows to Marissa. "Well done, Toys R Us kid."

Nightbeat snatches his evidence back.

Peacekeeper smiles as this puzzle is solved, although her smile disappears as Raptor bolts. "Primus have mercy," she murmurs as she runs after him.

Quickswitch turns toward the door and heads for it, his fingers clenched around his blasters, the snow collected on him is shaken off.

The next room looks... very clean. It is a large Transformer sized kitchen, wall to wall with cupboards and really nice tiles. In the middle is a worktop where the alien is leaning, filing his nails. "Oh!" he says in a british voice. "Well, you took your time, I hope poor Bing didn't get cold. Actually... I'm feeling pretty chilly too, I think I need something to warm myself up. You can handle that, can't you?" He walks off, vanishing through the wall! On the worktop is a toaster, kettle, spork, big jar and a bowl of rice. There is a sink to the side, and the cupboards are full of foodstuffs and jars. What a mystery!

Marissa offers a wave back to Monstereo. "All part of the job," she says with a tense laugh. Entering the large kitchen, she slows from a jog to a walk. Being too short to see over the counter, she has no idea what this puzzle is going to involve.

Monstereo cues some 50's kitchen advertisement music full of plinking notes. "Galloping gourmets, Batman!" He sees the human before him straining to see and hecrouches, offering a lift with his hands. "Upsie Daisy?"

Redshift looks around the Transfomer-sized kitchen, and then looks down at the one human present, Marissa. Although the Junkion might know a ting or two from watching TV, the human is likely the expert on eating. "Ok, we need to feed it. You're the organic, solve it."

Peacekeeper frowns slightly at the alien as he disappears. "Somehow I feel like we're running out of time..." she mutters under her breath. She looks at the items as she blinks slightly. "Human cooking utensils?" She asks in disbelief, not sure what to make of this beyond Redshift's comment. It's not as if Transformers were given a home-ec class during training, after all. /If only we had Foxfire here.../

Ignoring everyone else, Nightbeat rummages through the cupboards, "Not blue enough, too perriwinkle, too gel-like... okay, that's not even food..." he loudly shifts through things.

Red Alert trails along after the others. He keeps a suspicious optic fixed on the Decepticons present, but other than that he seems at a loss about what to do.

Marissa looks up at the Decepticon, blinking. "Feed what?" she asks. It should come to nobody's surprise that Marissa is not particularly well adept in the kitchen. As Marissa gets a lift by Monstereo, Marissa strides off and onto the counter. "Well... if our friend Mr. Bowie is looking for rice I know how to make /that/, though I've never heard of anyone trying to warm up with rice. Someone check to see if there's coffee, hot chocolate, or liquor in the cupboard, will you?"

And inside of one of the cupboards is... a very tiny tape deck? And gosh, that coloration looks familiar. It doesn't seem to do anything, though...

Marissa blinks as something small and purple catches her eye inside the cupboard. She squints at the tape deck. What th-... why does she suddenly have this urge to pick it up and walk into Autobot HQ with it?

Raptor looks around the kitchen, "Anyone-- know how to cook?" He says looking at everyone then as marissa instrucks he starts looking around. "Hey-- couldn't we take the bow of rice-- make some fire and the place it into the kettle?" It was a random guess-- but it looked like the only thing that could be heated up.

Since trying to make the human do it didn't seem to work, Redshift decides to try turning on some of the appliences, although he doesn't know exactly what they are. He fiddles wit the toastiness setting on the toaster.

Monstereo gives Marissa a nod and goes towards the big jar. "Gee, I hope there's not a diamond in here." He glances towards the poor face spike victims and then opens it up and looks inside.

Perceptor looks around, a little shy to get near anything now that he had spikes try to infiltrate his facespace.

As Redshift fiddles with the toaster, it seems to get really hot. Meanwhile, Monstereo opens the big jar, to reveal... a foul-smelling viscious black sludge

Raptor walks over to the kettle and checks it out. Crouching down to look it over. How did this thing work anyhow? He knocked on it gently with his metal knuckles to see what happens if he does.

The kettle gives a hollow ringing sound as Raptor knocks it. How odd

Monstereo gives the jar of sludge a good long stare and then walks to some drawers to look for cuttlery. "I don't know who to blame. Alice or Marsha." He slides open a drawer.

Peacekeeper rumbles softly as she walks towards the cupboard as well, carefully moving things around to try to find the items that Marissa had suggested.

Raptor then stands up and looks into the kettle, his battle-visor sliding down as he scans it. Then places his hand inside, seeing if anything might be hiding inside and making sure it was truely hallow.

Antique Tape Deck <Soundwave> suddenly transforms, springing out of the cupboard. He flies past Peacekeeper's head as he reverts to robot mode. "Idiots. This puzzle is unsolvable. I have tried to do so over thirty-five times today and failed! You are trapped here, as am I." He shakes his head in dismay.

Quickswitch looks around at the kitchen amidst a mix of impatience and scorn, "I'm an assault warrior, not a femme."

Having found sufficient evidence, and logged it all in his wristcomm, Nightbeat opens another cupboard... it's not a very large door compared to him, but it's labelled 'pepperpots.' "That was Firestar's nickname for the desceased," he muses to himself, opening the door and crouching down.

Redshift says, "This thing is getting warm," Redshift says, indicating the toasty toaster. He peers down inside of the toaster(being wary of face spikes!). "It appears to accept rectangular objects. where's Soundwave when you need him..." And then poof, there he is! For some reason. "Soundwave, it looks like a cassette can fit in this slot.""

Monstereo startles as Soundwave appears. "Great Marley's ghost! You scared the Dickens out of me." He sighs. "Try to be useful and fetch us some water, Jack."

Marissa ducks as Soundwave flies over her and nearly smacks Peacekeeper in the head. S'good thing she didn't reach for it after all. Another Decepticon, though possibly a useful one. As her minions start scouring the cupboards for useful items, Marissa claps her hands together. "Well in the meantime we might as well do the obvious thing and make some rice. We'll need boiled water-" she gestures at the kettle Raptor is screwing around with, "And a pot."

As Raptor puts his hand inside the kettle... he will find that it IS indeed empty. Whew! Save for a heating element of course. And as Monstereo opens the drawer, he will find... FACE SPIKES that shoot out of it towards his face! Meanwhile, Nightbeat opens the 'pepperpot' door to discover... a swiveling alien creature, shaped like a pepperpot with strange stick-like implements sticking out, shooting laser bolts and screaming "EXTERMINATE!" as it trundles towards the detective!

Quick as a greased whistle, Nightbeat reaches into his robocop shoulder holster and pulls out his space revolver. He even has time to open the chamber, spin it and close it again before pointing the pistol at the pepperpot-hitler-bot. *PEW*PING* goes the laser bullet.

Raptor glances up as he hears 'Exterminate' and blinks, "..Ok-- its a talking.. shooting pot. You don't see that every day." He ducks as a laser bolt flies over head. "..I'll get a cup for that water." Then ducks again, running for the place that is labeled cups, then getting behind the cabnet draw, he slowly opens it, before peeking around the cuboard door.

Soundwave stares at Redshift. "If I did not know better, I would say that you were mocking me, Redshift. Your idea is..." He pauses as he thinks about it. "...something I have not tried yet. Americon, eject. Operation: Toaster." He opens his open tape slot and the red, white, and blue Decepticon pops out and flies in a neat trajectory straight into one of the toaster's slots. That accomplished, Soundwave turns away to let the Junkion know what he thinks about taking orders from him when--

What the heck is that?! Soundwave whips out his concussion rifle and aims it at the creature. "Yet another of those accursed mechanoids!"

Laser Pistol <Quickswitch> transforms--and seering bluish-white photon beams blast at the pepperpot creature, "Nightbeat!" Pewpewpew. Pew.

As Nightbeat shoots it, the creature instantly explodes in a mess of metal and flying octopoid limbs. Meanwhile inside the cupboard, Raptor finds... a very nice porcelian mug, and a loaf of bread!

Perceptor sees Raptors find, "That's it! We have to find some tea!" he starts looking through drawers and cupboards looking for tea and dressing.

Peacekeeper ducks as Soundwave flies by and transforms, but only gives him a glare. Apparently she's not impressed with the IFTD (identified flying tape-deck). "I haven't found anything yet," she replies to Perceptor as she moves from one cupboard to the next one. At least Raptor seems to've found something.

Redshift watches as the cassette mode of Americon inserts itself into the toaster, and as everyone else shoot the evil pepper shaker. "Well, that was different. I would have expected more spikes. What's that up there? It loosk like it might also fit into the slots of this device." He says, pointing at the bread.

Monstereo takes the face spikes to the face. He trembles silently for a moment as sparks shoot from the impalements. "B-b-b-booby booby booby trapped d-d-d-drawer." More sparks and he twitches again. One hand reaches up and starts carefully separating spikes from his face.

Raptor pulls out the bread and looks over at the toaster. He then raised an optical ridge as his optics go wide. He places the bread on the table. Taking out his mentor's engery sword he activates it. "I knew you come in good for something." He then slices the bread into thin slices like butter with the energy blade. He puts away the old blade, then takes the two slices of bread over to the decepticons. "Place these into the toaster."

The toaster with Americon in starts to smoke rather disturbingly. Meanwhile, in one of the cupboards Perceptor opens up is an opeque jar labelled 'tea' with a picture of some tea leaves on the front

Laser Pistol <Quickswitch> hovers around with a smoking barrel.

Marissa uses the jar for cover as the Dalek starts shooting. Drawing her side arm, she fires several laser bolts towards the cybernetic creature. "Tea is fine," Marissa says. David Bowie is British, after all, and everyone knows the British cannot get enough tea!

"Americon, eject!" Redshift says, and flicks the lever that would normally lift the toast out of the toaster. "Alright, this isn't a slot for cassettes." He says, as evident by the smoke. "Let's try the slices of food that are also the size of the slots instead."

Raptor stares at Redshift with the two slices of bread, "Ahem--" He then waves them in front of the decepticons face. Hey-- why did this autobot nearly look like Starscream anyhow with.. some alterations..

Perceptor is starting to work on the tea, looking VERY Iron Chef (or Cybertronian Alloy Chef in this case) Toast and Tea! Cut that bread into slices and put it into the toaster! He says urgently, working on the tea.

Raptor says, "already ahead of you perceptor-- soon as the decepticons get the hint--"

As the jar of tea is opened... WHAM, face spikes shoot out! Though below the spikes are delicious tea leaves!

"Thank you, Quickswitch. That little guy could have pulled my card... since Scattershot disappeared, I'm glad we still have some old fashioned overkill left on our team," Nightbeat says, blowing smoke off of his space revolver and watching the assorted robits and carbon-based's do a cooking show.

Americon flies out of the toaster and clatters against the counter. "Urrgh... so much... pain... why do you burn me, Soundwave?..." he moans.

Soundwave ignores him, though. "This is puerile. You are preparing tea in an alien prison for a creature that is likely not even organic, despite appearances. Utterly ridiculous." He observes more spikes launching everywhere, and just emits a harmonized sigh.

Monstereo gets the last of the spikes out and walks carefully back to the counter Marissa is at, oblivious to the Dalek thing commotion. He sets down the jar and then one of the spikes is set by the jar as a makeshift 'butter knife'. "Ma'am... where'd you go?"

Perceptor looks over at Soundwave, "Oh just shut your faceplated piehole and help us here, or shut the hell up!" he snaps, trying to get this done because it's obvious some sort of test.

Raptor quickly snatches the toast away from the Decepticons when they where not looking and places the two slices of bread into it. The down on the counter. He pushes down the lever and stares at it, waiting for it to pop back up.

Peacekeeper smirks. "And that, Soundwave, is why you were stuck here for so long," she remarks snarkily as she closes the cabinets and glances at Monstereo. Looks like he's OK, relatively speaking, despite the spikes to the face.

Monstereo makes spikes to the face look goooood. ;)

Redshift was about to take the toast being shoved in his face by Raptor, before it is rudely snatched away. Which thus far, has proved to be a afe apliance to interact with. Except for Americon, anyway. "Hey! Get your own thingie!"

The bread pops out of the toaster. It is now hot and crispy, as if it was some sort of 'toast'!

Red Alert wanders over to poke with his foot at the remains of the Pepperpot-Dalek, then look at Nightbeat and Quickswitch. "Apparently there are still some more conventional threats in this place." He looks at the remains again. "Sort of. Maybe we should concentrate on finding those, and leave the face-spike traps to the others."

Raptor sneer at Redshit, "The thingie is called a Toaster, decepti-chump. It makes toast-- from bread.. dur!" He then notices the toast pop up and takes the two slices over to Perceptor, "Could someone get a plate?"

"Not a problem," the pistol dips in the show of a nod as the rest of the Autobots and Decepticons scurry around, "Anything for the cause," he shifts into robot mode once more to give the kitchen a formidable presence.

Marissa remains behind the jar, still wielding her sidearm out of concern for Dalek attacks. "Monstereo!" she calls out, seeing his spikey problem. "Are you alright?" Assuming he doesn't fall over and die on her, Marissa gestures to the kettle. "Tea is simple. Put the leaves in a bag, put the bag in boiled water, wait a short time, and hope David Bowie considers it worthy to let us pass the test!"

Toast!

Yipee!

Monstereo hones in on Marissa. "Everything numba one a-okay doctah Jones!" He gives her a thumbs up before he picks up the spike, walks towards the toast, dips the spike into the jar, and scoops out some sludge to spread onto a slice of toast. "Peanuuuut, peanut butter... and jelly. Peanuuuut, peanut butter... and jelly!"

"Hey, it's not my fault I don't know what a 'toaster' is," RedSHIFT replies with a sneer. "Why would I need to know what a human food preraration device is? It doesn't make /Energon/, so what do I care?"

Soundwave glares at Perceptor for a moment, but wanders around the kitchen nonetheless. He settles upon the bowl of rice, hefting it up and appraising it. "What am I to do with this organic material? It is to be consumed, but how? As it is, or must it be prepared in some manner?"

Soundwave also gives Peacekeeper a glare, so she doesn't feel left out.

Raptor allows Monstereo to jelly the toast he made, as he hopes someone soon will get that plate so he has something to place the toast on instead of his hands.

Peacekeeper chuckles and nods to Red Alert, completely ignoring Soundwave's glare in the process. "Can't hurt," she agrees as she picks up a plate and gives it to Raptor. She then moves off to the side to get out of the way and to make sure that there would be no further interruptions (other than the bickering--but that's normal when you've got 'Bots and 'Cons in the same area having to actually work together.).

Quickswitch continues to stand back from the activity. His optics flicker with his own sentiments in line with the red Decepticon. Quickswitch keeps his blasters at the ready, all the moreso with the edgy cracking creeping along his circuits at the sight of Soundwave, "..."

Quickswitch turns to Red Alert, "Agreed."

Raptor places the toast on the plate, "Toast is done!" He says sliding over to the kettle. He then turns on the heat to the kettle, "And the kettle is heating up.." At least he had some idea of how some things worked.

Perceptor pours the hot water in the teapot with the leaves, but only after filing up the teapot with some hot water, swishing it around and pouring it out before adding the leaves. Then the water goes in with the leaves and allowed to steep for about 45 seconds...then he pours it in the cup. "Tea's ready!"

And the moment the tea is ready... the cup and toast are snatched up by the alien, who appears to have been there all along. But... he couldn't have been. "Mmm" he says, munching on the toast and taking a sip of tea. "Marmitey. Simply divine! You may be absolute beginners at the art of making toast, but there's certainly no sorrow here! Ready for the next test?" And with that, he vanishes, and with a creaking, the kitchen door opens....

Raptor glances over to the door, "..I wonder just how much time we have left--" He asks gently as he walks towards the door.

Marissa steps out from behind the jar and walks across the counter to where Perceptor is making tea. She nods her approval occasionally at each step that he follows through, and then looks expectedly at Bowie. "If I didn't know better I'd guess they're trying to simplify the tests for us." Making tea? Difficult for Transformers, perhaps. Sitting with her legs dangling over the edge, Marissa hops down from the counter and heads for the next event.

Redshift once again drags Blueshift's inert corpse onward to the next challenge. You never know when you might need a body-double to confuse the horrible-looking alien who runs this joint.

Soundwave drops the bowl of rice after the alien reappears, and it shatters, spraying rice everywhere. It doesn't really show, but he's absolutely livid. "WHAT?" He says nothing else, then grabs Americon and shoves him back into his chest, stomping off into the next room. If he ever finds what species that guy belongs to, oh boy...

Monstereo sighs in relief. "Can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. BAM!" He gives the kitchen a glance around and takes some face spikes, including the 'butter knife' one as a souvenir. Could be useful someday.

Luckily at this point, Blueshift mysteriously recovers, shaking his head and pulling all the spikes out. "Did.. did I get us out of there Red?" he murmurs, staggering to his feet.

Peacekeeper follows the others silently, folding her hands behind her helm in the process. How much time do they have left and how many more rooms are left?

"You better not have been faking it, Blue," Redshift replies, a slight snarl on his face. "And yes, by getting stabbed in the face, you helped unlock the gift-box room, once Perceptor also opened a face-stabbing box the door opened."

Perceptor shakes his head, "I rather dislike face stabbing boxes. I don't understand your predication with them. Honestly."

Quickswitch continues on, wielding his photon blasters, his face sinks further and further into a serious line. The room is rather large, and oddly-- looks like a lush paradise in the big room. Water-falls seem to cascade down, but the floor, its broken up, peices lower then others, some higher then others. On the other side, looks to be a throne with an orb in the seat. Problem is-- its a long way over. The peices then seem to shift and move around-- then they stop again. This.. looked to be fun.

Blueshift hovers into the room on his rocket boosters as he gives a wave to the Autobots. "Hah, sucks to be you, Autobots!" he grins as he turns to Redshift, rubbing his face. "Well, at least Perceptor got spiked in the face too..."

A voice echos out, "The orb, the orb, it will help you out, if you can get to it, but one must have no doubt! No flying, no tricks, just team work your see, if this is disobeyed-- the orb will become further you see.."

Raptor glances over to Blueshift and hovers up to his level, "What about it sucks to be an autobot?" Yet-- its an autobot who could fly, however as the voice speaks, he finds his anti-gravs shut off and he crashes down with an ouf.

Redshift looks around at the lush surroundings. "Ah, this place isn't so bad. All we need are scantily clad femmes to obey our every whim, and we're set." He says. "What, no flying? That sucks." He watches as the floor moves around, trying to discern a pattern. "Doesn't look so hard."

"Oh," Marissa says as she walks into the beautiful Eden-like room. "This is amazing," she murmurs, taking all the sights in. Gazing at the floor she notices the flickering ground. "Ah. Alright, we need to figure out the pattern and move accordingly," she declares, trying to do just that.

Quickswitch shifts into various modes with flight capacity--each one of them landbound, and even the pistol laying helpless on the ground. Finally he shifts back to robot mode. The Sixchanger rubs his brow and emits a disatisfied grumble.

Soundwave was JUST about to fly when he heard that warning. He assesses to difference in height between one section of the floor and the other. "Hnnh. We can still jump, I presume." He stomps up to a raised section of ground, and tries to leap for its edge.

Peacekeeper glances around. Ohh, this will be fun. She jogs over to Raptor to check on him. "Seems like they wanted to make sure there was no cheating," she remarks. She eyes the moving sections of the floor, trying to discern a pattern--if there even is one.

Perceptor looks around, "This one looks fairly simple. We're going to have to have people step on the higher ones, to bring the lower ones into line. Unless I miss my guess, only one of us will be left to walk across."

Quickswitch peers around the room. Whatever it was the others saw in the waterfalls and the floating land masses, Quickswitch didn't see it. They were geologic formations and metacoordinates, he realized with a slight shiver. As Soundwave reaches that one and all the higher ones lower down and one that was lower, goes up.

Monstereo looks around to the bots, the cons and the human. "The Bad News Bears back in training. Nerds in Paradise." He pauses. "I vote our human friend be the last to take a step... booby traps and all that nonsense."

Nightbeat is looking for evidence. Perpetually.

Blueshift stands on the side, tapping his foot as he stares up at Soundwave. "Come on Soundwave, hurry up so I can walk across and get that orb, or whatever it is!"

Soundwave now finds himself LOWER than where he initially started out. "Silence, Blueshift!" he snaps as he stares at the shifting land masses. He considers his next course of action for a moment... ah! He'll just sit here, right where he is. Maybe eventually it will take him to the orb?

Raptor smiles up at Peacekeeper and he slowly gets up, "So-- we can move these things around to get from point a.. to point b?" He says pointing to the orb in the throne. "That shouldn't be hard right." He then watches Soundwave lower down. "..yea-- should.. be easy.."

Quickswitch flips around into puma mode and stretches his claws out over the ground, making clawed rifts in the earth out of paradise. He yawns widely and takes a step forward... watching with all the regal disinterest of any feline. As Quickswitch steps out, that panel lowers, along with all the ground panels, the one Soundwave is on goes to 'ground' level, and the ones that were low, go high.

Peacekeeper nods to Monstereo. "I agree." She taps her chin slightly as she watches the panels shift again. "Three levels..." She shrugs and steps onto a panel as well, crouching slightly as she has no idea what to expect or anything else.

Raptor quickly follows Peacekeeper, sense he refuses to fall behind her.

"Alright," Marissa replies to Monstereo. She doesn't mind the danger, but she knows that arguing with Autobots (and Junkions) over such things just tend to waste a lot of time. What a time to be without her faithful Warthog.

Monstereo picks out a high raised panel within reach and makes to get up on top of it. As he climbs he cues up a Price Is Right yodelling game sound bite.

This time, nothing seems to happen. The floor panels do not move at all, expect stay where they are. However if one gets a good look below, there seems to be something moving in the pool below. A voice speaks out to Soundwave, whispering to him, "What is it you desire?"

Soundwave considers for a moment... okay, so that platform or whatever this is didn't move. He peers over the edge at a lower platform... yes, that's it. He 'll drop down and...

A voice? He looks about for the source, but cannot find it. His answer is something he considers carefully--obviously he can't tell this person what he REALLY desires. So he simply states another, more obvious wish. "I desire to leave this place."

And then it starts. A shock throughout the Sixchanger's system and his form reverts back to robot mode, several spasming shifts. His modes... No.. "You've--cut off half my modes, I can't fly in them!" his vocorder crackled at its edges. He looked around himself frantically, the grips of his photon blasters clutched so tightly his hands shook. Primus, no... But he could still... He shifts forms and springs in a panicked. feral leap toward one of the landmasses. Soundwave's block seems to move foreward till it stops half-way and as Quickswitch leaps, the platforms shift yet again, some going up and some going down.

Monstereo de-subspaces his chain, holds the loop at his side and considers which spot to try to reach next. "If only I could Accio orb. Oh well, at least there's no snakes." He leaps for the next nearest spot.

Soundwave braces himself as the platform moves, and looks about questioningly. So answering that question correctly seemed to get positive results... is he going to be asked another question? Or was that it? He's not too sure what to do next. Waiting seemed to work before, so he tries that again. Maybe that voice will speak to him again? The platforms move yet again, but this time they all seem to move foreward, getting Soundwave closer to the end! The voice whispers to Quickswitch, "What is you desire?"

Perceptor does his part, moving when he needs to - staying put when it's required. He watches them move, bit by bit, ever closer. He finds this all fascinating.

Marissa, presumably on one of the platforms that are being moved forward slowly, is unaware of any whisperings going on. She's focused 100% on getting to the other side. Although her player isn't sure how this works, Marissa herself seems to have a firm grasp on the mechanics of moving the platforms.

Soundwave folds his arms smugly. Ah-ha! He appeared to guess the solution much more easily this time. He'll be able to reach the orb in no time.

Peacekeeper flinches as people seem to move and the blocks shift as a result. She's uneasy, but not scared--she would've remained near the door if she was scared. She stays put at first, judging the position of the platforms for now while making sure that they're staying put, then jumps to the closest one to her current spot as well once she's certain that she isn't going to misjudge her target. The floor panels move up and down, and then some move side-ways, It seems the closer they get to the orb, the more sporadic the movements become.

Assault Beast <Quickswitch> lands on his feet, shakes his head roughly before he finds himself in robot mode, half leaned against the ground, a hand clutched to the side of his helm. Primus... He stiffened. Was he hearing voices now too? A spasm of his fuel intake, "What do I...?" What /did/ he want? Amidst his mind were a morass of swirling thoughts, contradictory, but it came down to one thing, "I want..." he spoke quietly, answering abd barely a whisper, "...to be whole, stability, clarity," he tells the voice, precisely what it is Quickswitch thinks he wants of himself.

And does want indeed. Though how was this relevant? The Sixchanger blinked as the landscape continued to shift.

Raptor goes to follow however as the floor panels move again he cries over to Peacekeeper, "Peace!" How he hated this-- A light hits Quickswitch and it causes the panel to go gray. When the other panels move, his does not. It unsure though if the beam of light did do anything to the mech-- or just froze the pannel. The voice whispers to Perceptor, "What is you desire?"

Soundwave watches as the panels suddenly change formation more rapidly. Will his own platform be thrown into the jumble? He ponders whether or not he should leave. Maybe he'll stay on a direct course for the throne, as he is now?

Perceptor thinks about this and answers -

Perceptor says, "A new golden age for Cybertronians and Humans. An end to the war."

Whether anything was done to the Sixchanger, looking around himself with a lurch in his fuel pump. A Light beam hits Perceptor and like Quickswitch’s freezes the panel he stands on, however for Perceptor, he is allowed to see such a thing, something so real, it was nearly breath-taking. A golden age-- in the future. The panels continue to move and Soundwave's is only a leap away-- however the leap looks rather along way, away-- can the decepticon actually make that jump.. or his minions?

Peacekeeper glances back at Raptor with an apologetic look. She didn't mean to leave him behind, but it can't be helped, it seems. She spots Soundwave being close to the orb, but stays put on her own panel. She doesn't really care who gets the orb, at this point--just as long as someone can.

Monstereo thinks on the increasing chaos that is the moving panels and the ones frozen in place with the others standing on them. Peculiar. He experimentally finds one behind himself and leaps to it.

Soundwave judges the gap between himself and the throne and orb--no, he won't risk it. Better to send a cassetticon! Ejecting an olive-green tape, Soundwave commands, "Flinga, eject. Operation: Acquisition. Without using anti-gravity, clear the chasm and claim the orb." And so the brown and white tape is flung out towards the objective, transforming into his monkey mode. Flinga reaches for the edges of the other side of the room, proclaiming. "Hm, bit of a spot this is, I dare say..."

The monkey seems to make it and needless to say the orb was very shiney!

Monstereo feels a pang of barreness in his empty Cassette storage womb.

Flinga stops at the throne, peering curiously at the orb. "Amazing... what is this thing?... It could be dangerous. It may be filled with those... face spikes! Yet, alas, I have my duty to perform. I must acquire the orb--for Soundwave!" The monkey reaches for the orb... As The monkey reaches for the orb, the water-falls turn into flames, and the tiles all fly into proper postion as the throne lowers. However, way in the back-- the tiles start to fall down into the water turned lava. Now would be the time to panic!

Monstereo peers back at the decreasing safe floor space. "Yo ho ho me mateys, to the orb!" He starts moving to usher those nearby to move it. "Move it or lose it!"

Raptor blinks and yelps. He notices Perceptor frozen there and quickly picks up the mech and runs with Perceptor in arms. Attempting to not trip as he runs.

Soundwave runs across the rest of the way to the throne, scooping up Flinga, who transforms so that Soundwave can return him to his chest. The tape commander looks back to the others, watching them struggle almost disinterestedly. The tape commander does not so much as lift a finger to help anyone else get to his side.

Faster than the eye can follow, Quickswitch transforms into a mecha-puma.

Peacekeeper's optics widen as she spots the water turn into fire and/or lava. "Pits, this isn't good," she shouts, knowing perfectly well that she's stating the obvious, taking Monstereo's advice as she runs as quickly as she can to safety.

Assault Beast <Quickswitch> leaps ahead as the panels drop away, waiting for the others to hurry forward before he leaps ahead toward the throne, fleeing the falling tiles! They enter the last room, which a bright stream of light could be seen at the end. A voice spoke up, it sounded like mister labyrinth guy again, "Oh, you have made it this far, but do you honestly believe I will let you get out so easily? Oh no-- You are also running out of time, hm-- well, Good luck, hahah!" The room darkened slightly as giant robot looking warrior came out from the walls. They marched foreward and then turned around to face those who were wanting out. They stood at attention, with lances in there hands and shields. They were probably as tall has Ultra Magnus and Sixshot. However the armors started to then fall off as the light scanned them all, and the armors took shapes of former cybertronians, the weapons altering as well. Now who stood there was Optimus Prime, Megatron, Offroad((Raptor's mentor)), Ratchet, and some random decepticon((poor smuck)).

Monstereo blinks at the figures. and fumbles in his thoughts. Finally he comes up with a quote recording from the late Optimus Prime himself: "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings." Gosh he hopes this isn't a test of battle.

Soundwave, after entering this last room, is obviously alarmed to see Megatron here--he doesn't care anybody else popping out. "Megatron? Is that... no, you are not real." He shakes his head sadly. "It would seem that this being has decided to play one last cruel joke upon me," he mutters to himself. But Soundwave doesn't make any hostile moves just yet. Instead, he waits for the duplicates to make the first move, occasionally glancing at the Autobots to see what they do.

Marissa, who is back on the screen again after only making a few cameos during the last event, frowns at the sound of the voice. "If we make it through here, I hope you're going to at least give us some sort of explanation about what all this was about." The Colonel is reminded very much of the alien Jigsaw, who several years ago ran Transformers through tests similar to this. Could that little twerp have made a return? As the giant robot appears, draws her laser pistol. "Who's that?" she asks, gesturing to the random Decepticon shmuck.

Raptor stares at the image of his 'Mentor' and freezes up holding Perceptor, "..this-- isn't real.." He shakes his head. "It-- can't be real.."

Peacekeeper slows slightly as she sees these robots, then slows to a complete stop as they morph into fallen warriors of both sides. "What the frag...?" She wonders outloud, her gaze focusing from one mech to the next until it is finally drawn to Ratchet. "By my crosses..." She also gives no indication that she intends to fight, although she looks at Raptor in concern.

Quickswitch enters the final room and... -stunned- "Optimus Prime..." he whispers, "Impactor told me so much of your valor," Quickswitch looks upon the deceased leader, barely noticing within himself, the solidarity and strength, the single, dominant thought, clear as day, "Is--Is that really you?" he can barely speak, seeing the legend in the metal.

Marissa doesn't recognize this Offroad fellow but she can tell he likely meant something to Raptor. She puts his hand on his leg (she can't reach up that high) the way someone might put their hand on someone's shoulder. "It's an illusion or a trick, Raptor. Same as everything else we've run across so far." For her part, Marissa is most in awe of Optimus Prime. Optimus freakin' Prime, folks.

<Autobot> Hoist says, "Attention, this is the shuttle Golden Age, approaching Autobot City. Uh, you all have seen the giant cube above you, yes?" The statues didn't move, however there was something odd about the unknown Decepticon as its optics flickered gently. For a moment there was silence, before Prime spoke, "In order to pass-- you must show valor and courage. Strength in one, is not strength in numbers." Then Offroad spoke, "One of us is not real, nor has never been real. Some of us are ghosts and spirits-- trapped and unchanged by time. We watch over those we care for-- and we feel for your pains. But the one who is not real must be destroyed in order to pass-- and we.. must protect." Offroad's voice is nearly sounding sad, however he does have a nice smooth gruff voice. Megatron then spoke, "We will destroy you and all who attempts to pass and there will be no Mercy!"

Monstereo optic light flicker blinks. "Huh." He shifts his stance and wipes at his face spike hole ridden face. "One of these things is not like the others, One of these things just doesn't belong, Can you tell which thing is not like the others By the time I finish my song?"

Raptor gently lays down Perceptor as he hears the Junkion speak then looks over to the 'clones'. "..None of you are real!" Raptor yelled over, "Your all fake! There is no way you can be alive! None of you!" far as Raptor was concerned, he would just open his missile bays and blast all of them.

Soundwave aims his concussion rifle at the nameless Decepticon. "That one," he states. "I do not recognize him. I do not recognize that Autobot, either--" He nods his head towards what appears to be Offroad. "--but one of your comrades appears to. Therefore, we must destroy him." Soundwave doesn't shoot first, however. If those things start opening up on them, he wants them focused on Autobots.

"Does anyone recognize the Decepticon?" Marissa asks again, looking specifically at the Cons. Presumably they'd know. The unknown Decepticon is of course the obvious answer, though whether it's true is tough to tell. Soundwave doesn't, and if Soundwave doesn't, chances are nobody does. She furrows her brow, trying to decipher the point of this test.

Valor. Mercy. Quickswitch stood tall, favoring each of the ghostly mechs a glance in return. The sight of Optimus would be like meeting Jesus or Buddha, and he did not want to engage the Autobot icon, "He isn't familliar to me," Quickswitch called forth his pair of photon blasters, heading up the inevitable...

Peacekeeper narrows her optics slightly. The obvious one that is possibly the Decepticon gumby that nobody recognizes, but she can't be certain. "Raptor--calm down. Please," she says quietly. "Real or not, they seem intent to harm us if we aren't careful." She locks optics with 'Ratchet', her most severe expression settling into place. "And you?" She asks the other medic directly, her voice rising in challenge. "Will you also fight to keep us here?" She slowly starts to pace to the side, as if trying to circle around the group. A throwing knife appears in one hand, but she doesn't move to actually throw it--yet. Ratchet at last answers, his optics lock onto peacekeeper as if the challenge her to just try, "I have faught in this war long before you were even a twinkly on Cybertron, kid. So what do you think the answer is to that?" Megatron raised his cannon in response to Soundwave, "..Make the move-- and you will burn." Offroad shook his head, "..I can't answer you question, lad-- all I can say.. is.. I'm sorry." He then pulls out the rifle from his back and readies it. Optimus Prime watched Quickswitch for a moment before looking to the others, "..You are also all running out of time, unless you wish to be trapped here-- as much has I hate to say this, I suggest you make a move now.."

Marissa takes several steps back, again over to Peacekeeper. Her laser pistol is drawn (although small, its power output is comparable to a Transformer pistol), though she wants to make sure her own defense is taken care of first before she starts blasting. "So unless there's some sort of trick, we need to ace that mysterious Decepticon while our old friends try to protect him. Reminds me of chess."

Monstereo uncoils his chain and holds it in both hands now. A pair of speaker panels open in his forearms and Ziggy Stardust starts melodically playing: "Ziggy played guitar, jamming good with Wierd and Gilly, The Spiders from Mars. He played it left hand, but made it too far, Became the special man, then we were Ziggy's Band...." <<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5nL1AUPGr0>> Monstero points at the unknown Decepticon. "Ahma calling you out." He swings one end of his chain around in an underhanded arch, gaining momentum, and starts charging forward, swinging chain end lashing straight out forward to supposed gumby.

"I served you faithfully for millenia, Megatron," Soundwave says. He's not convinced this is the real Megatron or his ghost or what-have-you, but he'll play along, for now. "How many assassination plots did I foil? How many traitors did I uncover? And how many times has my technical ability kept the Empire ahead of the Autobots? I have always stood by your side, assisting you, Lord Megatron. All I have ever asked for in return is the authority to serve you better. Will you repay my loyal service by attacking me, now?"

Wrapping up his little speech to his former leader, Soundwave aims his concussion rifle at the unknown Decepticon, and fires off a powerful bolt. He might as well start attacking, since Monstereo just did anyway.

Monstereo answers to no one but the lord of the underworld ;)

Peacekeeper smirks widely, her optics glowing brightly behind her visor. Challenge met and accepted. "So that is how it is," she nods in understanding. Based on expressions and mannerisms, one could easily switch the two medics and not tell the difference other than appearance. "Marissa--leave the fight to us. Take down that false Decepticon while we keep the rest busy," she hisses to the human. Her visor whirrs to life with combat data as she picks up her pace, and she sharply throws that throwing knife at the gumby in question before bringing both weapons out of subspace. "No more talking. No more delays. We're getting /out/ of here."

Raptor grits his teeth and shakes his head, "Don't be.. after all in the end.. we are just doing out duty." His battle visor kicks on and his battle-plate connects as he raises his assault rifle. "Lets go---" His anti-gravs kick on and he charges for Offroad, blasting shots and yelling loudly in a semi-battle cry.

Laser Pistol <Quickswitch> angles his double barrels and aligns his sight with the unknown Decepticon, hovering at head-level. The beams slice through the air as he fires, "Til all are one!" he calls, "Wreck and rule!!" ...?

Marissa, having seen amazing things so far, isn't convinced in the least that these could be the real individuals they knew so well. Marissa opens her mouth, about to argue with Peacekeeper, but then relents at the strategy. "Alright," she says in a hushed tone. "Godspeed." Colonel Faireborn says before rushing off. Marissa has found a perfect sniping position near the wall where the statues had earlier emerged. She sets her pistol to overload. Now she waits for her friends to grab some of the most famous Transformers' attentions. The attack started Ratchet quickly smirked as Peacekeeper came, "tactical visor-- really." He then charged toward her, and leaped into the air doing the ever famous, medic ninja kick! Because really-- Ratchet was just that cool. Megatron fired at the Junkion first, to only get hit by Soundwave. He growled lowly at him, "Faithful as you were Soundwave-- I must serve!" Then turns his fusion cannon on him and charges, getting ready to fire once more. The Decepticon runs behind Prime, who takes the shot from Quickswitch and grunts, "--Focus.." Is all Prime said to the six-changer, "..and think more!" He then opens fire. Offroad jumps back of the shots then opens fire, "One thing you never learned, Raptor-- you never learned patience." Offroad then leaped forward and slammed the butt of the rifle into the flier knocking him down, "..don't make me be the one to end it here--"

Monstereo pulls back in his ineffective chain, stashes it away and then transforms into Monster Truck mode. He revs up his engine and opens up his sound system bays. Ziggy Stardust continues to play: "Ziggy really sang, screwed up eyes and screwed down hairdo Like some cat from Japan, he could lick 'em by smiling He could leave 'me to hang Came on so loaded man, well hung and snow white tan." As this melodic tune continues to play, Monstereo starts driving in a wide inward spiraling arch towards the Prime, and the music is cranked up to 11, one higher than 10, blasting out the rock n roll oldies sonic pulse at the gumbies protector.

Marissa stays where she is, like a good little sniper. She wishes she had her energon bazooka instead of her standard issue sidearm, but what are ya gonna do? Marissa crouches and keeps the pistol trained on the unknown Decepticon, but doesn't pull the trigger yet. Prime and others keep getting in the way, and she wants to make the element of surprise count.

Soundwave takes several steps back from Megatron. He never really had to worry about getting cannoned during ol' buckethead's reign, and he's not eager about finding out what it's like! He also knows he has no chance of beating Megatron in straight fight. "Wait, Lord! Remember who you are. You are Megatron. You do not follow anyone, others follow you!" Holds out his hands in front of himself, as if trying to keep Megatron at a distance. "You would never obey this disgusting flesh creature, or any other being!"

Peacekeeper grins. She has always wondered how she'd stack up against Ratchet--but she would've preferred a test in the med-bay, not the battlefield! "More like an all-purpose visor," she raises one arm to block the kick and digs in a bit to avoid getting knocked off of her feet altogether, although she does slide a fair distance to the side with a slight staggered hop or two to maintain balance, "but that's beside the point!" She throws a sharp jab at Ratchet's face or neck with her free fist--although enclosed in that fist is a throwing knife, with the point just barely poking out from between her middle and ring fingers. Not enough to be noticeable, but just enough to leave more than just a mere scratch should blade meet soft metal.

Laser Pistol <Quickswitch> has always thought, his head was always alive with so many thoughts crowding his head... "Prime?" he asks Optimus, a bit uncertainly, wincing hard as Optimus' shot connects, wincing harder as his shot connects with the Autobot icon, "Optimus Prime," the visage of the leader he had heard so much about, but never met... had looked forward to meeting if they ever got out alive. No-- Quickswitch's form expanded into his robot mode, his feet planted wide and aiming--"Impactor, Optimus Prime... forgive me," he found it difficult to aim, the sight of his blasters wavering. Then the Sixchanger shifted, leaped upward as a puma, blasters mounted on his shoulders and circled the room from above, trying for an angle behind Optimus, aiming for the unknown Decepticon. He mouths silently, something. '..focus?'

Raptor gets slammed down and yelps in pain. He then kicks his former teacher off of him and leaps back up to his feet in a crouch. "..Don't-- you have a choice..?" Prime quickly rotates around and transforms into a semi-truck.. and where the heck did that trailer come from anyhow? Optimus screeches his Tires and gets in the way of Quickswitches change to open fire. Optimus Prime gently replies back, "..Forgiven Quickswitch--" Before he transforms once more and opens fire. Offroad is kicked off, and actually slams into ratchet as he is staggering back. Both mechs go down with an 'ouf'. Megatron held his aim, "You are correct Soundwave, I don't.. but I have /no/ choice-- as much has I would love to be free-- from.. this prison.." He then lowers his arm for a moment, then raises it again and fires. The unknown con ducks and tries to hide from the combat-- like some idiot.

Monster Truck <Monstereo> swerves and drives straight for unknown con. "Aren't you supposed to be wearing a paper bag mask?" He accelerates to ram, large monster wheels rolling into a blurr and the song continuing: "So where were the spiders while the fly tried to break our balls Just the beer light to guide us, So we bitched about his fans and should we crush his sweet hands?"

A light blinks on Marissa's pistol, signalling that it's fully powered and ready for its overload shot. It'll deplete the fuel cells all in one go, but Marissa is counting on just one shot needing to count. With Quickswitch battling Prime, Peacekeeper making sure Ratchet is distracted, Raptor working out his mentor issues with Offroad, and Soundwave trying to save Megatron, Marissa stays perfectly silent, and perfectly still, keeping the pistol trained on the unknown Con as he ducks about. She's gone through the sniper training course many times before. She has the badges to prove them. She can be patient. She just hopes her friends can survive her being patient.

Soundwave is knocked off of his feet by the fusion blast--and he finds that it hurts just as much as he thought it would! So this is what it was like to be Starscream... "Lord... I beseech you," he intones as he slowly rolls from his back onto his knees. "You must resist. You have, in the past, defied a god!" He rises up, and faces his old leader. "Surely the master of this place is a lesser foe than what have you faced before?" Soundwave lets that sink in a bit before he leaps at Megatron, trying to grab his hands, even though he knows it's pretty much useless to try and match him strength for strength. "You must resist, Lord! I and the other Decepticons must return to the Empire and continue to serve it! You must help us!"

Quickswitch is thrown back by the sheer power of the impact of the leader's attack. his body slamming against the wall and falling with an immobile thud. Smoke rises from his body as Quickswitch brings himself to his feet, then transforms again into his solid robot mode. He was forgiven...? The sheerness of that hit him just as hard, "I can't stop you, Prime," Quickswitch raises his blasters and fires sharply at the Autobot leader before leaping forward in puma mode to engage him directly, shifting to robot mode at the last moment to confound and grapple with him, "Optimus, what's going on... how do we stop this?" The decepticon leaps over Monstereo like leap-frog, however doing such a thing leave him fully opening up to the unknown attacker. Optimus takes the shots and stumbles back, "..Destroy the one whom is fake-- he must be, then you we all be free to leave and we-- will be free to return." Offroad slowly got up to his feet and helped Ratchet up. However the switched targets though. Ratchet went after Raptor, who wasn't expect it.. and Offroad, somehow managed to yank back his energy sword, he activated it with a flick of the wrist and swung it down for Peacekeeper, however Offroad did speak to her, "..Thank you for watching over him--" Because Megatron was that great of a decepticon, he gets his own single pose! Anyhow, Megatron stares down at Soundwave, "Do you think I do not want to return? To my glory! To my Empire! It was my dream, my creation-- and it was taken away from me!!" Megatron glared over at Prime as if wanting to fight the 'program' he was given to shoot Prime-- he really wanted too to.

A grim, determined expression falls on Marissa's face as she peers down the barrel of the laser pistol, training the sights on the unknown Decepticon. The mark isn't making it easy for Marissa, leaping about and jumping over Monstereo and otherwise presenting himself to be a very difficult target. But there's that slight hesitation upon landing. Knowing she'll only get one shot at this, Marissa is going for the headshot. It's a difficult shot to make, but one she's confident is within her abilities. Years of training and combat experience tell Marissa this is the opportunity she's been waiting for, and she pulls the trigger. A bright magneta bolt of energy erupts from the barrel of the souped up pistol and careens towards the mysterious Decepticon's skull.

Quickswitch beseeched the Autobot Leader, even as he leaped forward and grasped for his arms, "Optimus Prime, I never knew you while you were... here," he hesitates, chooses the words carefully, "But--think--would you fight on the side of Megatron, against your fellow Autobots?" he swallowed as he steadied himself, trying to contain the powerful Autobot leader, with the knowledge he could not do so indefinitely, "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings. Didn't--" he grunts, "Didn't you say that? Believe it?"

Peacekeeper had taken a moment to remove the throwing knife from her hand, wincing as she realizes that she'd sliced her hand a bit. She picks up her rifle, puts away the throwing knife, and unsheathes a combat knife from the small of her back. "You're welcome," she rumbles to Offroad with a faint smile as she quickly connects the combat knife to the barrel of her rifle before moving to a ready stance. She parries the blade to the side before sharply bringing the shoulder-rest up and towards the side of his helm.

Monster Truck <Monstereo> keeps driving his path before saying, "Road kill 1, red neck zero... I hate that varment." He starts making his turn to come back about and Marissa's shot streaks overhead towards the leaping con.

Raptor was knocked down by Ratchet, "..Gee--" He then narrowed his optics and slammed his fist right into the former medical officer and knocking him off. Though after shaking his fist-- "ow.."

Soundwave lets go of Megatron's arms, immediately picking up on his desire to fight Optimus Prime. "I cannot undo what has been done," he reasons. "And you may not be able to return to your empire. But there is still one more thing that you can have..." He nods over to Optimus Prime. "Revenge. You can kill your old foe, and thus claim your vengeance on him and the accursed creature that dared to presume mastery over you!" His fist clenches tightly in front of himself. "Think of how it would feel to blast Optimus Prime while he was unawares, and hear his cries of dismay. He may even consider it a betrayal. It would be amusing, would it not?"

<Autobot> Rodimus Prime says, "This is Rodimus Prime. I want a status report from anyone out in the field -- That's going on with this 'Cube' thing?" Offroad blocks the rifle hit with his arm, quickly tossing aside the energy sword, swing her rifle and her arm behind her quickly into a very uncomfortable position, "..Just because I said thanks-- don't think I'm going to go easy on ya." he makes a 'tsk' sound and then laughs. Megatron grins and his optics flare, "..Yes--" His circuts starts to spark slight as he fights off what he was 'programmed' to do, but does what he desires to do.. revenge! Ratchet is knocked over but, goes to attack again, however pauses as he hears the fire shot. "Prime--" is all ratchet has to say. Optimus Prime was about to respond to Quickswitch as he heard his name said and glanced over, and perhaps in that moment, he realized this was over-- The fake decepticon was slammed with the bullet to the head and fell over. In a loud screech-- it turned to dust. Shortly after it does, so do the 'clones' start to turn to dust with megatron yelling, "Noo!! I will not be denied my revenge!!" and ratchet quickly replying back, "Oh can it Bucket-head..."

<Autobot> Sky Lynx says, "I am not sure.. however it has a strange-- energy level."

<Autobot> Rodimus Prime says, "Nothing overtly hostile yet, I hope? Have you tried direct communications?"

<Autobot> Rodimus Prime says, "Run standard Universal Greeting protocols on tightbeam radio and laser frequencies, along with Galactic Naval Semaphore. Something /might/ work."

Marissa stays where she is for several seconds after the Decepticon crumbles into dust, quickly followed by Offroad, Megatron, Ratchet, and Optimus Prime. Once she's sure they're gone and not coming back, Marissa stands back up and reholsters her sidearm, even if the small energon cell that powers it is depleted. The Colonel walks over to where the Decepticon crumbled and looked over the pile of dust he turned into, running her boot through it just to make sure it's really there and the Decepticon really isn't.

Monstereo brakes and transforms to bot mode. He plays a Tin Allen sound bite from Zoom: "I ain't cleaning that up."

Soundwave watches Megatron and the others turn to ash. Honestly he was hoping fake Megatron could get off one last shot at the fake Prime, but alas, it was not to be. He stoops over, scooping up some of the dust in his hands and letting his run between his fingers. "Hnnh. A more accurate recreation than I thought."

Quickswitch shouts at the top of his lungs as Prime starts to turn to dust in his grip. His optics flare brightly. It's over.

Peacekeeper clenches her jaw as her shoulder-armor strains from her arm getting twisted behind her back. "Never... asked you to," she replies smirking over her shoulder at Offroad. So that's where Raptor got that verbal tic. However, as the drone is destroyed, the 'clones' also begin to crumble, so she remains on her guard but glances over her shoulder at him without trying to counter the rather painful hold. "Now, rest... Offroad."

Raptor stood there as his visor slid back and his battle-plate rolled back, "..They had such real energy signatures-- like they.. were the real thing, but that isn't possible.. is it?" He asks looking to Peacekeeper.

<Autobot> The channel goes to static for a moment as it clears up and the dark deep voice speaks over the channel again, "You are all lucky that you have lost none and are worthy to be free. For the game is over and it was very fun, thank you for playing, till the next time-- may it be a glorious one!" Then the radio goes back to normal.

<Autobot> Nightbeat says, "This is nightbeat, zero in on my position. My arm is busted and I need extraction -now-. One of you lazy flying times or lazy shuttle flying types quit having fun and get over here. I hate pulling rank, but this is an /order/."

<Autobot> Hoist says, "Understood. Location: Cube?"

<Autobot> Sky Lynx says, "This is Sky Lynx, I don't know what the slag that is-- but the Cube is seeming to be pulseing---"

<Autobot> Nightbeat says, "No, Hoist. Look at your locator, I'm not at liberty to say on broadband."

"Return to the Matrix," Quickswitch says quietly to Prime, as his player nodded off and forgot to. A bright beam of light surrounds them all, and just as they had come to be here, they were all teleported out back to where they came from-- wee!

Peacekeeper looks at Raptor as she carefully swings her arm back around and forward, rubbing her sore shoulder-joint. "I... am not sure." She looks around, Autobots and Decepticons alike. "Let's get out of here..." And then, she's gone! Fancy that.

Marissa confirms the dust is real - or as real as anything here - and stands back up. There's a beeping sound coming from one of the devices on her belt. Taking out her cell phone, Marissa declares, "I have service again. Check your radios, ladies and gen-" and then she vanishes in a flash of light.

As Monstreo dematerializes he says, "KHAN!"

Raptor blinks, "So they--" then vanishes as well. He will never know, sadly.

<Autobot> Monstereo says, "Testing 1 2 3... Can you hear me now?"

<Autobot> Raptor says, "hey the comes are working again!"

<Autobot> Monstereo says, "What a space oddity that was! Whew!"

<Autobot> Chief Medical Officer Peacekeeper says, "That... is putting it mildly, Monstereo."

<Autobot> Monstereo says, "Face spikes. Bad."

<Autobot> Colonel Marissa says, "I'm back on the Intrepid. If I had to guess I'd say we were visited again by Jigsaw."