The air rippled and cracked as the dimensional rift opened and eight forms spilled out as long silvery tentacles reached through the portal after them.
"Go back to the technohell that spawned you, bastard. SPIRIT FLASH!" A young man's voice called out as the attack impacted the face of the creature that tried to enter this world. Magical spells, laser blasts, and a barrage of small rockets joined the initial blast to force the unknown invader back as the gateway closed.
"Is everyone all right?" The questioner is revealed to be Ranma Saotome, but he was changed from the brash young fighter most knew. He was dressed in flowing blue silk robes and bore a large jeweled staff, both of which marked him as a mage.
"Why the hell does it have to be tentacles?" Nabiki Tendo-Saotome groused. The young information broker of Nerima's past was gone, and in her place stood a young woman of exquisite beauty who gripped her arm as a burst of sparks flew from her shoulder. "Looks like I got tagged good, but I'm all right, for now. Ken? Rikku?"
"Here mother." 12 year old Kenshiro Saotome called coming out from behind a tree, his lightsaber ignited and ready. "Where's my sister?"
"Up here." The 16 year old technician growled from the tree branch her cloak was snagged on. "One of my bombs blasted me through the portal and I landed up here."
"I got her." Two female voices said in unison. One belonged to Mizuno Ami, brilliant cram school student, and Sailor Mercury, though her figure was concealed by the form fitting, navy blue battle armor molded to her like a second skin. She took careful aim and fired a low powered laser beam at Rikku's branch.
The other voice was the Autobot, Light Gate. She reached down to her forearm and threw the small blades that would become the tail rotors in her vehicle mode into the tree like a buzz saw causing Rikku to drop screaming from the tree.
"There's no need for fear of disaster." A second transformer said extending his hand to catch the falling girl. "You're in good hands with the Autobot Blaster."
"Me Grimlock wonder where we at now." The leader of the Dinobots said. "And me think Grimlocks speech pattern chip come loose again."
The last member of the party, Tenchi Misaki, slumped against the nearest tree, dressed in orange pants, a navy blue shirt, and orange vest. "That's a good question, though." He said opening a leather pouch tied to his waist and eating half a senzu bean. "We're all running low on power, and I think we all would love to finally come home."
"This universe does have a 98% dimensional harmonic resonance match." Ami said hopefully. "As much junk as we've got with us from off world, being off by 2% is pretty damned good."
"Radio frequencies match the last known reading from our universe." Blaster said. "That's two of three."
Ranma swallowed nervously. This had happened before, too many times. Please Chaos sama, let us be home. He prayed to his patron deity as he wove the lore spell. Don't make me tell them we have to move on. He could feel the groups eyes upon him as the information trickled in, and a wan tired smile crept over his lips. "My friends... for a quarter century we have wandered the multiverse." He allowed his gaze to sweep over the battle weary group. "We wander.... no more."
Reactions were varied. Rikku was so shocked that she dropped her tools to the clearing floor. Nabiki's breath caught in her throat. Light Gate sat down heavily as she whispered, "Home... finally home."
"Ranma for your sake this better not be one of your attempts to keep our spirits up." Tenchi said anxiously. "Are we really home?"
"No jokes. After 25 years... we're finally home. Japan, a few miles outside of Tokyo, to be more precise."
"So umm... what do we do now?" Ami said.
"According to my lore spell only 6 months have passed for this world." Ranma said. "So for the time being... we try to fit into our old lives if we can."
"Did ya think about how Prime and the others are gonna take a new transformer appearin' on their doorstep?" Grimlock asked. While his new speech pattern chip had made a great improvement in how he spoke, he still slipped back into his original patterns when he was extremely stressed or the chip itself wasn't installed properly.
"Then we'll just pave the way, with Blaster's communiqué." The Autobot linguist replied as he transformed into his alternate form, a boom box. "Autobot HQ, Autobot HQ, this is Blaster comin' at ya from Tokyo Japan. Do you copy?"
***
In Oregon, buried in the side of mountain, the Cybertronian supercomputer Teletran One hummed to life as a number of Autobots gathered around the massive machine. "Can you boost the signal?" Optimus Prime asked.
"Sorry Prime." Wheeljack responded. "He's pretty far out. His signal shouldn't be able to reach us at all without some kind of amplifier, but we should be able to use his signal to piggyback a response."
"Do it." Prime commanded opening a channel. "Blaster we read you, but your signal is weak."
"I'll be brief. I was gone and now I'm back. I'll be back to base in a few hours to explain it all...." The message broke up in a burst of static. "Bringing... friend... " Prime winced as the channel went dead with a final burst of static.
Bumblebee mused on the message from his comrade. "Where do you suppose he's been all this time?"
"The only one who can tell us that," Prime rumbled quietly in his vocalizer. "is Blaster. Get me Skyfire. If Blaster's in trouble I want to get him back to base as soon as possible."
***
"That's it." Blaster said. "I don't even have enough power to transform."
"I do." Light Gate said. "Anyone want a lift?"
"I got enough in me to teleport my family." Ranma said weaving a spell. "Just name a place."
"Somewhere the Wrecking Crew will never think of looking for us." Nabiki sighed.
"Normally I'd go for Fortress Maximus or Metroplex, but I'll settle for my mothers house."
"Give me a second to check everyone's communicators." Rikku said pulling out a set of fine tools. "It be a shame if we all survived demonic invasions and solar nova's only to fall apart because of communication problems."
"I'd appreciate it if you could swing by Juban ward." Ami yawned wearily coming down from the constant adrenaline rush of combat.
"If you don't mind I'll tag along." Tenchi said, reluctantly separating himself from the ground. "Light Gate can just drop me back at the shrine before they head back to Autobot Headquarters."
"Light Gate taxi service." The Autobot chuckled before transforming into an RAH-66 Comanche helicopter. "All aboard."
"I'll be in touch." Tenchi said as Ranma boosted him into the cockpit.
"Yeah, when you get tired of your girls using you for a pull toy." Ranma grinned with more energy than he felt, passing Blaster up to the other young man. "Take care man."
"May I assist your ascent, ma'am?" Ken'i asked in his cool controlled voice, offering Ami his hand.
"Why thank you good sir." The blue haired senshi smile as she accepted the boost up and Kenshiro gave her body a long appreciative stare.
"I'll be in touch." Light Gate promised flying off into the blue cloudless sky.
"Did you like what you saw?" Rikku asked, giving her drooling brother a friendly nudge in his ribs.
"Should have been a skirt." He mumbled distractedly. "I mean, I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Rikku, don't pick on your brother. Kenshiro, try not to be such an obvious pervert." Nabiki groaned, leaning heavily against her husband.
"Sorry Mom." The younger Saotomes said as the family vanished in a swirl of light.
"Hey Moe, you want some pie?"
"You lunkhead! That's not a pie, it's something else."
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(Posted Tue, 24 Aug 2004 05:43)
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