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dens_tf_den2016-11-07 12:01 am
dens_extra_pups) wrote in dens_tf_den2016-11-07 12:01 am
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NanoWriMo 2016 Fic Day 7: 10404 words
Continued from here.
He also seemed to be a warrior build of some sort, Optimus absently noted... And he made funny sounds when Den gave him a bit of a shake. He cringed a bit at the apparent rough treatment their hostess was giving the poor mech, and wondered to himself what the bot had done to warrant such an action.
Ironhide snorted as he watched the strange looking Autobot get a shake by the scruff bar, impressed that Den knew just where to grab to keep the weird, red opticked Autobot from escaping. "So, who is that?"
"The brat is named Sideburn. He is from a different reality string entirely. One that is similar to the one Optimus and Perceptor come from, but still different. I caught him napping on top of my clean laundry." Den seemed quite irritated at that fact, while Sideburn at least had the good grace to continue to look sheepish.
Ironhide snickered, having worked out just what articles of clothing Den owned that Sideburn had been napping on top of. "Mech, you are an idiot." Sideburn managed to turn his head slightly to scowl at the weapons specialist.
"I am not!" How Sideburn managed to look like a human child on the verge of a temper tantrum was beyond Ironhide, though the look the weapons specialist was getting from Den was a good indication that he was treading on dangerous terrain.
"Ironhide, Sideburn, that is enough." Optimus spoke up then, in an effort to diffuse the situation. Den snorted softly, dropping Sideburn so he landed on his skidplate on the bottom step and moving to bring Perceptor the newer laptop. Optimus made a mental note to speak with her later, after she had calmed down from her upset at discovering where Sideburn had decided to rest his optics.
------
Almost two hours later, the plan to talk to Den had gone out the proverbial window, as efforts were currently in action to extract the black colored Ironhide from between the couch cushions. It likely would have gone quicker if Den had not opted to grab her digital camera and begun filming, but the Autobot Prime could not fault her. She had been startled by the discovery of a certain rowdy Dinobot in her shower, alerted to his presence by the sound of his tail hitting the shower door with a thud that had been heard from across the house.
Grimlock was currently protesting that he was KING from where Den had duct taped him to the wall next to the fireplace. Strangely enough, the Dinobot team leader seemed to be in a cheerful mood, despite his protesting. That had helped make the overall mood a bit less stressful, though Sideburn had been carefully booted away from the fireplace no less than six times by Den in an effort to prevent Grimlock from trying to roast the warrior.
It had turned out that Grimlock was not the last of the bots to have been found within the house proper. When Den had returned from retrieving the duct tape, she had spotted a slender black and gold mech, who had seemed a bit put off by being spotted hiding amongst the evergreen boughs and other decorations that Den had admitted to bringing inside over the course of the year.
The thing that had surprised Optimus the most was that the slender mech had the same designation as his third in command, Prowl. Even more surprising was the fact that this Prowl was what was known as a Cyber Ninja in his reality of origin. Though, he supposed, it made sense for a Cyber Ninja to be less heavily armored than a warrior, and the black paint made sense in that regard as well.
Den had made the Cyber Ninja promise that he would go no further than the deciduous tree out in the backyard, the one that had the homemade bird house and several feeding stations for the local birds and occasional squirrel, before allowing Prowl to leave the safety of the indoors. Ironhide and Sideburn had protested about that, before Den had pointed out that she knew the most about what was out there, as well as facts about each of the current house guests that would make things easier on everyone if they were brought out into the open. Case in point being that this version of Prowl preferred solitude and quiet to the cheerful chaos of what most of the Autobots were used to.
The Jazz that Ironhide knew had climbed out of one of the kitchen cupboards once he'd known that this house was safe, and a different Jazz, one more solidly built and very obviously taller than the Jazz Optimus himself knew had emerged from one of the bookshelves in another room of the house, only to be joined by a Jazz of similar build to the Cyber Ninja Prowl, and had soon gone outside to join his friend in the tree.
Ironhide had determined that there were several objects of interest hidden between the couch cushions at that point, and had sought to retrieve them, but had underestimated the grip that the fabric covers would have on his armor, which had resulted in the mech becoming stuck with his lower half exposed and legs kicking as he sought leverage to attempt to extricate himself from his unintentionally chosen prison.
"If I knew this would not cause trouble, I would SO post this on YouTube." Den said with a chuckle, the silver Jazz draped over her left shoulder, a grin that reached his dark bronze colored optics and made his entire expression bright firmly on his face. Seeing the optic color of this particular Jazz, who was almost an entire head shorter than the one Optimus knew, had been quite surprising. Though... It did fit the personality of the saboteur, he reasoned. And it was not an unpleasant color, for as unexpected as it was.
Whatever Ironhide said in response to the statement Den made about "YouTube" was lost, muffled by the cushions. Perceptor had become engrossed in improving his locator program, and as a result was paying the current situation at hand no mind. In a way, Optimus could almost be envious of the scientist, able to ignore the chaos of the situation in favor of something he considered to be essential. Granted, it was actually proving to be very essential, as locating comrades was likely to be the key to returning everyone to their proper reality string...
"Sideburn, leave Grimlock alone. Everyone else, off the couch so I can get Ironhide out." Den eventually said, shutting her camera off. The bigger Jazz carefully climbed down, chortling softly as what was very likely swearing emanated from between the cushions once more. Optimus moved to climb from the arm of the couch to the nearby table so he could observe.
Den crouched, so as not to cause the silver Jazz to fall, then parted the couch cushions enough that she could remove the center one, which caused Ironhide to fall over sideways, his swearing no longer muffled. "Serves you right, trying to couch dive, 'Hide." The scowl that the weapons specialist leveled at the silver Jazz just caused the smaller mech to chortle in a similar manner as his larger counterpart.
"Me, Grimlock, say you, black bot big dummy!" And of course, Grimlock had to chime in, which did not improve the mood Ironhide was in.
"Say that again, I dare you!" And there went the cannons, charging up once more.
"Ironhide, so help me, I will duct tape you to the wall, too." Den pointed out, irritation bringing a scowl to her face. "Do not put it past me... Or maybe I should tie you up, string you from a tree, and let everyone else use you as a pinata."
-----
Later that night, everyone had been tucked into various baskets that Den had put blankets into, but Optimus could not shut down for some rest, despite his best efforts. The events of the day had continued to play in a loop in his processor every time he tried, and finally, the Autobot Prime climbed out of the basket that Den had set up for him. He could hear the faint clicking sounds of her laptop keys, a sign she was still awake, and that helped him locate where she was, a pair of glasses on her face as she worked.
He made a throat clearing sound, a clip he had gotten from Jazz at some point, causing Den to look up and over at him where he was watching from the doorway. "Hey, OP. Trouble resting?" Den asked quietly. From this angle, Optimus could see how tired the woman looked, due to trying to keep the peace between seven Autobots and one Dinobot. Optimus nodded and moved to approach.
"Yes. I apologize if I startled you." Den chuckled softly as she offered to show Optimus what she was working on. She had pulled up the locator program that Perceptor had written, as well as a map of the area, and seemed to be plotting points on the map, as though she was looking for a correlation between who was found and where they were found. "This is a map of this area, correct?"
"Yeah... Something about this whole situation has been bothering me ever since we found Ironhide earlier. I kind of wonder if the epicenter of the arrival locations is somewhere either in the house or on the property, but it is too late and too cold to try and find out for sure." Den explained, frowning a bit as she absently traced paths between points with her finger. "If we find anyone else tomorrow or the next day, I may have to go to the craft store to get more baskets."
"I apologize if we are inconveniencing you in any way, Den." Optimus said quietly, startling when the woman holding him snorted softly.
"Please. I would say something if you were doing that. I need to go there anyway, so I can get yarn to make some Christmas presents and some birthday presents for next year. It is not like I would be going out of my way to go." As Optimus watched, her hand stilled, and her eyes widened. "Wait a minute..." He was surprised to be carefully hugged closer to her body as she worked, copying the map she had made and pasting it in a new window of the program she was working in. "There IS a pattern. The Jazz Party each said they had wound up somewhere close by the house... But Perceptor and Ironhide were each found more than five miles from the house."
"And I was within five hundred yards of your back door." Optimus pointed out, getting a nod in response.
"I think I know where to look for the next arrival. See how the points form a sort of spiral?" Den pointed out, having connected the dots with lines of different colors. Optimus studied the image, then nodded. It was a spiral, formed by the lines between the points, though the inner edge of said spiral did not touch the house after a certain point. "It is a Fibonacci sequence. The frickin' Golden Spiral!" Den stated with a laugh.
"Fibonacci sequence?" Optimus asked, puzzled by that terminology.
"Yeah. Basically, it is a series of numbers where the next number in the sequence is the sum of the previous two numbers. It starts off with either zero or one. So for this one, it would be zero, one, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen... Which means the next one is twenty one..." Den explained, pointing to a location on the map that corresponded with twenty one. "We will start there tomorrow."
-------
The next morning brought even more chaos as Den attempted to corral Grimlock long enough to get the Dinobot into her sport utility vehicle. Ironhide was not being helpful in the least, and Grimlock was refusing to listen to anyone, because apparently, that was just how things were going to go today. Optimus sympathized with the efforts Den was making, having resorted to trying to drag the obstinate Dinobot onto a blanket.
"Me, Grimlock comfy in basket! Why you wake up?!" The Dinobot bellowed as he was dragged by the base of his tail. Den grunted and used her larger mass to get the mech onto the blanket in one last almighty heave.
"Because, we are going to someplace where you can chase birds and squirrels, and because I did not want to duct tape you to the wall again, because that would just be mean." Den snapped, crabby from trying to get the metal Tyrannosaur out of the house and into the sport utility vehicle. Before Grimlock could get another protest out, Den had bundled him up into the blanket and stuffed into the back of the vehicle. "Now quit being so stubborn, so we can get going!"
"Me, Grimlock not stubborn! Me, Grimlock KING!!!"
It was going to be a long day.
------
Half an hour later found the Autobots and Den on the freeway, where yet again, Den was cursing at other drivers, with Ironhide encouraging shenanigans against said other drivers from where he had worked himself under the middle row of seats. Optimus had chosen to sit in the front seat with Sideburn, who was watching the traffic go by, attention firmly on any little red sports car that went by.
Perceptor, all three versions of Jazz, and Prowl currently occupied the middle row of seats, while Grimlock had finally settled down to sulk on the blanket in the back of the vehicle. Ironhide had originally been in the middle row of seats, but he seemed quite content to search for items beneath the seat and encourage Den to curse and yell at other drivers. Optimus was reminded of the one time he had attended a party with Kup and the mechs and femme on the same team.
Remembering that incident made Optimus feel a bit homesick for Cybertron, surprisingly. He had not thought of that particular party in many millions of years, instead focusing his time and energy on the war, and trying to defeat Megatron so rebuilding could begin, and the universe could be safe from the threat the warlord presented. He cycled air and let it out in a soft sigh, attention going to Sideburn when the young warrior spoke his name.
"Yes, Sideburn?"
"Are you alright? Den tried getting your attention five minutes ago, and then we got stuck in traffic so she was not able to ask you whatever she was going to ask you."
"My apologies. I was distracted." Optimus admitted.
Sideburn snorted. "Yeah, you were. You totally missed this really stunning little number with a scoop and racing stripes."
"Sideburn, seriously? You have issues." Den stated as she took the exit she had been trying to get to as she navigated traffic. "For all you know, that could have been Megatron in drag."
"Hey! That only happened one time!" Sideburn replied with a huff. "And how do you know about that, anyway? Are you some kind of psychic?"
"No, I just know about the Multiverse Theory and a bit of how it applies. Now shush." Den replied, never once taking her eyes off of the road or the traffic on the road.
------
Den had gone to the craft store, as she had told Optimus she would need to do, but had not brought any of the Autobots inside, citing the fact that other humans would question her and the fact that she did not have a believable explanation for why she had eight Autobots in miniature in her shopping cart. By the time she had returned, Ironhide had emerged from under the middle row of seats, numerous small toys and trinkets in his storage compartments and in hand. The weapons specialist refused to divulge why he had the toys and trinkets, though it did not take very long for the three Jazzes to relieve him of all of the trinkets and toys, to his consternation.
Optimus had attempted to break up the scuffle in the back where Grimlock was, but when he saw the Dinobot move to sit on Ironhide, he (rather wisely, he felt) decided the best course of action would be to pay the tussle no mind. Den, at least, had been amused by the sight of Grimlock sitting on the head of the weapons specialist, and had made a comment about not playing fart tag in the sport utility vehicle, before chortling and moving to get back into the vehicle in order to drive.
That had been twenty minutes ago. Den had absently begun singing along with the radio, which was playing a song that Optimus did not recognize, but was clearly one that Den knew by heart, going by how well she synchronized with the original singer, despite said singer being male. Despite the fact that Den had a speaking voice that sounded almost flat, she had a surprisingly lovely singing voice, and had clearly had past experience in the activity.
The sounds of the three Jazzes divvying up the various trinkets and toys slowed to near silence as Den continued to sing along with the radio, pausing only when the song changed to a different song entirely, this one sung by a female singer. Den obviously knew the song just as well as the previous one, as she lost no time singing along to the new song.
Soon, all of the Autobots were listening attentively, though they were not sure why. Perhaps it was the contrast between how Den presented herself and how she sounded when she sang, or maybe it was just the fact that she could sing. Whatever it was, the sport utility vehicle was silent aside from the radio and Den as she pulled into a parking space and turned the engine off. "... What?"
-----
Jazz watched Den as well as he was able to from the backpack she had put on her back, in which were both the silver version of himself from the same reality string as the black colored Ironhide, and the Cyber Ninja version of himself who was clearly friends with the skinny black and gold Prowl. Speaking of the skinny guy, he was currently making an exodus toward the straps of the backpack. Den had put a makeshift leash on Grimlock, to the consternation of the Dinobot, and the amusement of both Ironhide and the blocky looking Optimus.
Continued here
He also seemed to be a warrior build of some sort, Optimus absently noted... And he made funny sounds when Den gave him a bit of a shake. He cringed a bit at the apparent rough treatment their hostess was giving the poor mech, and wondered to himself what the bot had done to warrant such an action.
Ironhide snorted as he watched the strange looking Autobot get a shake by the scruff bar, impressed that Den knew just where to grab to keep the weird, red opticked Autobot from escaping. "So, who is that?"
"The brat is named Sideburn. He is from a different reality string entirely. One that is similar to the one Optimus and Perceptor come from, but still different. I caught him napping on top of my clean laundry." Den seemed quite irritated at that fact, while Sideburn at least had the good grace to continue to look sheepish.
Ironhide snickered, having worked out just what articles of clothing Den owned that Sideburn had been napping on top of. "Mech, you are an idiot." Sideburn managed to turn his head slightly to scowl at the weapons specialist.
"I am not!" How Sideburn managed to look like a human child on the verge of a temper tantrum was beyond Ironhide, though the look the weapons specialist was getting from Den was a good indication that he was treading on dangerous terrain.
"Ironhide, Sideburn, that is enough." Optimus spoke up then, in an effort to diffuse the situation. Den snorted softly, dropping Sideburn so he landed on his skidplate on the bottom step and moving to bring Perceptor the newer laptop. Optimus made a mental note to speak with her later, after she had calmed down from her upset at discovering where Sideburn had decided to rest his optics.
------
Almost two hours later, the plan to talk to Den had gone out the proverbial window, as efforts were currently in action to extract the black colored Ironhide from between the couch cushions. It likely would have gone quicker if Den had not opted to grab her digital camera and begun filming, but the Autobot Prime could not fault her. She had been startled by the discovery of a certain rowdy Dinobot in her shower, alerted to his presence by the sound of his tail hitting the shower door with a thud that had been heard from across the house.
Grimlock was currently protesting that he was KING from where Den had duct taped him to the wall next to the fireplace. Strangely enough, the Dinobot team leader seemed to be in a cheerful mood, despite his protesting. That had helped make the overall mood a bit less stressful, though Sideburn had been carefully booted away from the fireplace no less than six times by Den in an effort to prevent Grimlock from trying to roast the warrior.
It had turned out that Grimlock was not the last of the bots to have been found within the house proper. When Den had returned from retrieving the duct tape, she had spotted a slender black and gold mech, who had seemed a bit put off by being spotted hiding amongst the evergreen boughs and other decorations that Den had admitted to bringing inside over the course of the year.
The thing that had surprised Optimus the most was that the slender mech had the same designation as his third in command, Prowl. Even more surprising was the fact that this Prowl was what was known as a Cyber Ninja in his reality of origin. Though, he supposed, it made sense for a Cyber Ninja to be less heavily armored than a warrior, and the black paint made sense in that regard as well.
Den had made the Cyber Ninja promise that he would go no further than the deciduous tree out in the backyard, the one that had the homemade bird house and several feeding stations for the local birds and occasional squirrel, before allowing Prowl to leave the safety of the indoors. Ironhide and Sideburn had protested about that, before Den had pointed out that she knew the most about what was out there, as well as facts about each of the current house guests that would make things easier on everyone if they were brought out into the open. Case in point being that this version of Prowl preferred solitude and quiet to the cheerful chaos of what most of the Autobots were used to.
The Jazz that Ironhide knew had climbed out of one of the kitchen cupboards once he'd known that this house was safe, and a different Jazz, one more solidly built and very obviously taller than the Jazz Optimus himself knew had emerged from one of the bookshelves in another room of the house, only to be joined by a Jazz of similar build to the Cyber Ninja Prowl, and had soon gone outside to join his friend in the tree.
Ironhide had determined that there were several objects of interest hidden between the couch cushions at that point, and had sought to retrieve them, but had underestimated the grip that the fabric covers would have on his armor, which had resulted in the mech becoming stuck with his lower half exposed and legs kicking as he sought leverage to attempt to extricate himself from his unintentionally chosen prison.
"If I knew this would not cause trouble, I would SO post this on YouTube." Den said with a chuckle, the silver Jazz draped over her left shoulder, a grin that reached his dark bronze colored optics and made his entire expression bright firmly on his face. Seeing the optic color of this particular Jazz, who was almost an entire head shorter than the one Optimus knew, had been quite surprising. Though... It did fit the personality of the saboteur, he reasoned. And it was not an unpleasant color, for as unexpected as it was.
Whatever Ironhide said in response to the statement Den made about "YouTube" was lost, muffled by the cushions. Perceptor had become engrossed in improving his locator program, and as a result was paying the current situation at hand no mind. In a way, Optimus could almost be envious of the scientist, able to ignore the chaos of the situation in favor of something he considered to be essential. Granted, it was actually proving to be very essential, as locating comrades was likely to be the key to returning everyone to their proper reality string...
"Sideburn, leave Grimlock alone. Everyone else, off the couch so I can get Ironhide out." Den eventually said, shutting her camera off. The bigger Jazz carefully climbed down, chortling softly as what was very likely swearing emanated from between the cushions once more. Optimus moved to climb from the arm of the couch to the nearby table so he could observe.
Den crouched, so as not to cause the silver Jazz to fall, then parted the couch cushions enough that she could remove the center one, which caused Ironhide to fall over sideways, his swearing no longer muffled. "Serves you right, trying to couch dive, 'Hide." The scowl that the weapons specialist leveled at the silver Jazz just caused the smaller mech to chortle in a similar manner as his larger counterpart.
"Me, Grimlock, say you, black bot big dummy!" And of course, Grimlock had to chime in, which did not improve the mood Ironhide was in.
"Say that again, I dare you!" And there went the cannons, charging up once more.
"Ironhide, so help me, I will duct tape you to the wall, too." Den pointed out, irritation bringing a scowl to her face. "Do not put it past me... Or maybe I should tie you up, string you from a tree, and let everyone else use you as a pinata."
-----
Later that night, everyone had been tucked into various baskets that Den had put blankets into, but Optimus could not shut down for some rest, despite his best efforts. The events of the day had continued to play in a loop in his processor every time he tried, and finally, the Autobot Prime climbed out of the basket that Den had set up for him. He could hear the faint clicking sounds of her laptop keys, a sign she was still awake, and that helped him locate where she was, a pair of glasses on her face as she worked.
He made a throat clearing sound, a clip he had gotten from Jazz at some point, causing Den to look up and over at him where he was watching from the doorway. "Hey, OP. Trouble resting?" Den asked quietly. From this angle, Optimus could see how tired the woman looked, due to trying to keep the peace between seven Autobots and one Dinobot. Optimus nodded and moved to approach.
"Yes. I apologize if I startled you." Den chuckled softly as she offered to show Optimus what she was working on. She had pulled up the locator program that Perceptor had written, as well as a map of the area, and seemed to be plotting points on the map, as though she was looking for a correlation between who was found and where they were found. "This is a map of this area, correct?"
"Yeah... Something about this whole situation has been bothering me ever since we found Ironhide earlier. I kind of wonder if the epicenter of the arrival locations is somewhere either in the house or on the property, but it is too late and too cold to try and find out for sure." Den explained, frowning a bit as she absently traced paths between points with her finger. "If we find anyone else tomorrow or the next day, I may have to go to the craft store to get more baskets."
"I apologize if we are inconveniencing you in any way, Den." Optimus said quietly, startling when the woman holding him snorted softly.
"Please. I would say something if you were doing that. I need to go there anyway, so I can get yarn to make some Christmas presents and some birthday presents for next year. It is not like I would be going out of my way to go." As Optimus watched, her hand stilled, and her eyes widened. "Wait a minute..." He was surprised to be carefully hugged closer to her body as she worked, copying the map she had made and pasting it in a new window of the program she was working in. "There IS a pattern. The Jazz Party each said they had wound up somewhere close by the house... But Perceptor and Ironhide were each found more than five miles from the house."
"And I was within five hundred yards of your back door." Optimus pointed out, getting a nod in response.
"I think I know where to look for the next arrival. See how the points form a sort of spiral?" Den pointed out, having connected the dots with lines of different colors. Optimus studied the image, then nodded. It was a spiral, formed by the lines between the points, though the inner edge of said spiral did not touch the house after a certain point. "It is a Fibonacci sequence. The frickin' Golden Spiral!" Den stated with a laugh.
"Fibonacci sequence?" Optimus asked, puzzled by that terminology.
"Yeah. Basically, it is a series of numbers where the next number in the sequence is the sum of the previous two numbers. It starts off with either zero or one. So for this one, it would be zero, one, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen... Which means the next one is twenty one..." Den explained, pointing to a location on the map that corresponded with twenty one. "We will start there tomorrow."
-------
The next morning brought even more chaos as Den attempted to corral Grimlock long enough to get the Dinobot into her sport utility vehicle. Ironhide was not being helpful in the least, and Grimlock was refusing to listen to anyone, because apparently, that was just how things were going to go today. Optimus sympathized with the efforts Den was making, having resorted to trying to drag the obstinate Dinobot onto a blanket.
"Me, Grimlock comfy in basket! Why you wake up?!" The Dinobot bellowed as he was dragged by the base of his tail. Den grunted and used her larger mass to get the mech onto the blanket in one last almighty heave.
"Because, we are going to someplace where you can chase birds and squirrels, and because I did not want to duct tape you to the wall again, because that would just be mean." Den snapped, crabby from trying to get the metal Tyrannosaur out of the house and into the sport utility vehicle. Before Grimlock could get another protest out, Den had bundled him up into the blanket and stuffed into the back of the vehicle. "Now quit being so stubborn, so we can get going!"
"Me, Grimlock not stubborn! Me, Grimlock KING!!!"
It was going to be a long day.
------
Half an hour later found the Autobots and Den on the freeway, where yet again, Den was cursing at other drivers, with Ironhide encouraging shenanigans against said other drivers from where he had worked himself under the middle row of seats. Optimus had chosen to sit in the front seat with Sideburn, who was watching the traffic go by, attention firmly on any little red sports car that went by.
Perceptor, all three versions of Jazz, and Prowl currently occupied the middle row of seats, while Grimlock had finally settled down to sulk on the blanket in the back of the vehicle. Ironhide had originally been in the middle row of seats, but he seemed quite content to search for items beneath the seat and encourage Den to curse and yell at other drivers. Optimus was reminded of the one time he had attended a party with Kup and the mechs and femme on the same team.
Remembering that incident made Optimus feel a bit homesick for Cybertron, surprisingly. He had not thought of that particular party in many millions of years, instead focusing his time and energy on the war, and trying to defeat Megatron so rebuilding could begin, and the universe could be safe from the threat the warlord presented. He cycled air and let it out in a soft sigh, attention going to Sideburn when the young warrior spoke his name.
"Yes, Sideburn?"
"Are you alright? Den tried getting your attention five minutes ago, and then we got stuck in traffic so she was not able to ask you whatever she was going to ask you."
"My apologies. I was distracted." Optimus admitted.
Sideburn snorted. "Yeah, you were. You totally missed this really stunning little number with a scoop and racing stripes."
"Sideburn, seriously? You have issues." Den stated as she took the exit she had been trying to get to as she navigated traffic. "For all you know, that could have been Megatron in drag."
"Hey! That only happened one time!" Sideburn replied with a huff. "And how do you know about that, anyway? Are you some kind of psychic?"
"No, I just know about the Multiverse Theory and a bit of how it applies. Now shush." Den replied, never once taking her eyes off of the road or the traffic on the road.
------
Den had gone to the craft store, as she had told Optimus she would need to do, but had not brought any of the Autobots inside, citing the fact that other humans would question her and the fact that she did not have a believable explanation for why she had eight Autobots in miniature in her shopping cart. By the time she had returned, Ironhide had emerged from under the middle row of seats, numerous small toys and trinkets in his storage compartments and in hand. The weapons specialist refused to divulge why he had the toys and trinkets, though it did not take very long for the three Jazzes to relieve him of all of the trinkets and toys, to his consternation.
Optimus had attempted to break up the scuffle in the back where Grimlock was, but when he saw the Dinobot move to sit on Ironhide, he (rather wisely, he felt) decided the best course of action would be to pay the tussle no mind. Den, at least, had been amused by the sight of Grimlock sitting on the head of the weapons specialist, and had made a comment about not playing fart tag in the sport utility vehicle, before chortling and moving to get back into the vehicle in order to drive.
That had been twenty minutes ago. Den had absently begun singing along with the radio, which was playing a song that Optimus did not recognize, but was clearly one that Den knew by heart, going by how well she synchronized with the original singer, despite said singer being male. Despite the fact that Den had a speaking voice that sounded almost flat, she had a surprisingly lovely singing voice, and had clearly had past experience in the activity.
The sounds of the three Jazzes divvying up the various trinkets and toys slowed to near silence as Den continued to sing along with the radio, pausing only when the song changed to a different song entirely, this one sung by a female singer. Den obviously knew the song just as well as the previous one, as she lost no time singing along to the new song.
Soon, all of the Autobots were listening attentively, though they were not sure why. Perhaps it was the contrast between how Den presented herself and how she sounded when she sang, or maybe it was just the fact that she could sing. Whatever it was, the sport utility vehicle was silent aside from the radio and Den as she pulled into a parking space and turned the engine off. "... What?"
-----
Jazz watched Den as well as he was able to from the backpack she had put on her back, in which were both the silver version of himself from the same reality string as the black colored Ironhide, and the Cyber Ninja version of himself who was clearly friends with the skinny black and gold Prowl. Speaking of the skinny guy, he was currently making an exodus toward the straps of the backpack. Den had put a makeshift leash on Grimlock, to the consternation of the Dinobot, and the amusement of both Ironhide and the blocky looking Optimus.
Continued here