“Is that all you have Redalert?”
“Yes sir. The Decepticons have been rather quiet the last couple of stellar cycles and there's been no signs of any new minicon's.”
“Hmm, I doubt Megatron hasn't heard about what happened on Cybertron. If he's been that quiet it only means he has something planned. He probably thinks there's a connection with the moon incident and Ranma's arrival. Most likely he'll try an offensive against us to try and even the odds. I want systems on high alert and no solo missions for the time being.” As he finished Optimus stared dead at Jetfire.
“Oh come on Optimus, it'll be okay. I can handle myself.”
“Jetfire this is serious. While Earth may only be a small battle compared to the others you've been it is no less important nor dangerous. It might have just become the most dangerous one as well.”
“What do you mean sir?”
“Simple, so far there hasn't been anything on whatever destroyed the moon, right Redalert.”
“Yes, that's right.”
“Which means that there's something new which destroyed one of Cybertron's moons. I'm willing to put good odds it'll arrive here next. Which is why I want all of you to be on your guard.”
It was at that point Ranma yawned audibly. “So what was it you needed me for anyway?”
“I didn't. I thought you were still sleeping.”
“Red woke me up. I thought it was something important.”
Optimus just looked over at the kids. Oddly enough he managed to pull off a very impressive disappointed look. She wasn't sure how he did it; his face didn't look like it could even move.
“Well we thought that she should attend the meeting. Besides all she's done is sleep.” Huffed Alexis. “Oh and his names Ran not red.” She finished at Ranma.
“You know I'm from Japan right?” Started Ranma tiredly. Seeing the kid’s nod she continued. “Do you know what time it is in Tokyo at the moment?”
“Um wouldn't it be twelve in the afternoon?”
“No Carlos, due to the curvature and size of the Earth different places are at different times.” Explained Redalert.
“And Right now it's 5am in Tokyo.” Finished Ranma.
“Oh.” Dejectedly chorused the kids.
“Well since I'm up you wanna pick up from where we left of Blurr?”
“Sure, besides Hotshots too easy to beat.”
“Hey! You take that back Burr!” Hotshot cried indignantly, only for Blurr to ignore him as he left the command room.
Meanwhile in an underground bunker in America.
“Dr! Dr!” A young woman called as she ran down a hall. Quickly opening a door at the end she rushed into a locker room. Inside was a man in his late twenties. He had just finished changing into a white lab coat.
“Now Jessica I know I'm a very successful and good looking man, but that doesn't mean you should try and seduce me in the men's locker room. Besides it's much more effective if you lure me into the women's locker room when you're changing.” Replied the man upon seeing Jessica enter the room.
“Dr...” She started but was silenced as the man quickly made a shushing motion.
“I don't start my shift for another half an hour so remember, it's Jack. He corrected sternly.
Slightly off put by his oddity Jessica decided to drop the argument and focus on what she had originally came for. “Jack we just got a recording in. The X02 was stolen!” Holding up the disc the incident was on she made it clear he was to watch it.
“So what? It was a piece of junk any ways. It couldn't even do mk1, its shape if poor, it's take off speed is slow, its weapons don't work, all it has for it is the same thing the X01 has. And it's much easier to study the X01 as well.” He finished brushing off the recording as meaningless. After all he had thoroughly examined everything that was able to be examined on the X02. There wasn't anything special about what he found.
“Just watch the recording.”
“Fine, if it means so much to you that I watch a video about the X02 then I will. So much for my extra time on the X01 without some idiot pestering me to try and take it apart.” He finished tiredly. Seriously why couldn't the higher up read what he had written about the X0's already?
Following Jessica they moved to a small room with a few chair and a TV and DVD player. He knew it was going to be a waste of his time, but he might as well humour the girl. Then Jessica hit the play button.
Blurr sprang back. While he had fought Transformer that were far bigger than himself Ranma's size made her one of the larger transformers. The only odd thing was her lack of weapons, she could summon a sword, but apart from that it appeared she didn't have any weapons.
Of course with the skill she was displaying he doubted she needed much in the way of weapons. He knew if it wasn't for the fact she was still unused to fighting in her current body he would probably have been knocked down many times. As it was he had to take advantage of her uncertainty of her body to keep knocking her down. It also helped that she had no experience fighting someone so drastically smaller than herself.
If he could keep it up he would probably be a decent sparring partner for Ranma for another Astro cycle. It was painfully obvious her hand to hand skills were above his own. Of course in a real battle he would still beat her even if she was used to her current form. But at straight hand to hand, once she got used to her body he would lose.
The kids could only watch in shock with their jaws hanging openly. They had seen the Autobots fight many a time before, but nothing like this. Blurr and Ranma were moving at a speed and grace that boggled the mind. It looked completely unnatural for beings of such size to much so fast so easily.
“She's improving rather quickly, isn't she?” Commented Optimus. It was amazing how skilled Ranma was. He hadn't thought that the Terran's had been able to bring hand to hand fighting to this level. And since Ranma was still young by human standards that meant there were still humans with more skill. It was no wonder that the humans were considered one of the more violent race if they developed fighting to this level.
“Yes, I had no idea that humans were at this level. Once she fully adapts to her new form she'll be a match for you in your super form.” Casually replied scavenger as he watched Blurr take advantage of his smaller size to take Ranma's balance and throw her to the ground. “Though she is a bit soft. That'll need to go.”
“Yes, But from what I understand the area she's from has been rather peaceful for a long time. By their standards anyway. I doubt she's used to war. But then a lot of us weren't either.”
“True, but that cost us far too much.” Sigh scavenger as he moved to the fight. “Al right that's enough! Blurr I want you to return to training with Hotshot. And no buts!” He waited until it was obvious Blurr was going to do as told. “Now Ranma I want you to bring out your sword.”
“Umm... how?” She replied lamely. She had no idea how it appeared in the first place.
“I don't know, and I don't care. Until you work out how to arm yourself you're a liability. Which means we have to leave you behind.”
Dropping her head Ranma knew he was right. That Decepticon had almost sliced her in half. Besides she had mostly workout how to fight as an Autobot. Now to work out how to call forth her sword.
“Wait, go back and pause the tape. Now change it to the slowest setting.” Jack ordered as he started mumbling under his breath as he watched the recording. He kept it up until the X02 had left the screen, the cameraman unable to keep up with its speed.
Signalling for Jessica to pause the video tape he sighed as he let his weight go. “There's no way. Just no way that's possible.”
“Jack?” Jessica was worried. While she had only been working here for a short time she had learned that should never come out of his mouth.
“From the frame rate on the DVD and the speed the cameras moving I worked out X02's acceleration. Any human would have died instantly. Even the super humans we had come a while would have blacked out after a couple of seconds.”
“It's that fast?” Sure it looked fast, but then she didn't think it was that fast.
“At that acceleration it could do a stationary start go straight and leave the atmosphere faster than we could have a shuttle leave the atmosphere from an ideal location.”
“That's fast.”
“Which make me wonder how it could achieve that speed with its shape? I thought it would come apart if it broke the sound barrier. Added that in testing I doubted that it could even reach mk1. Which then leaves the question of what happened to make the X02 preform like this. And just what are you smiling about anyway.”
“It gets better. Watch.” She pressed play. In the next couple of minutes Jessica got the distinct pleasure of seeing the great scientist Jack's brain shut-down and reboot. Which then was followed up by Jack pinching himself on the cheek. Hard.
“Ouch! No not a dream. Which means that the X02 is an extraterrestrial machine.”
“Um Jack, don't you think that's a bit hasty?” Sure she doubted that anything on Earth came close to making something like that, of course the giant robots did lend a LOT of credit to the theory.
“No not really.” He casually replied as he got from his seat. His shift had stated, time to go to work. “I was ready to call them that for a few weeks now. The recording just means I don't look as much like a loon when I announce it. Oh and my shifts started. It's Dr Wheel now.”
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(Posted Sat, 25 Oct 2008 05:57)
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