dens_tf_den | Kriti's reality of origin, Outside the Ark, Changing Perceptions

When the scenery around them suddenly changed from redwood forest to sun-scorched desert, Rocket knew he and Sonar would be in for trouble. When an orange and black Nissan Fairlady Z shot past the pair blasting a cheery tune and Sonar had groaned over the comms, things only got more interesting.

//Rocket?//

//Yes, Sonar?//

//Was that an orange Fairlady that just left us in the dust?//

A quick sweep of sensors on the speeding car, and then Rocket had an answer, //That was another Autobot... A femme...//

//...//

//...Sonar?//

//Let's show 'Clipsie how it's really done.//

Yeah... Today was going to be one of those days.

---

After what seemed like several hours of seemingly endless chase, the orange Fairlady lead Rocket and Sonar down a winding road flanked on either side by sharp cliffs.

And then a flash of red, white and blue streaked past them, and an oddly small sonic boom echoed through the cut. "Eclipse!" cried a shrill little voice. "Wait for me!"

Eclipse's laughter could be heard as she slowed to a stop, "I thought you said you could keep up, Starscream!"

The shock of both seeing the all-too-familiar paint scheme, along with hearing Eclipse address the Seeker by name, was enough to bring both Rocket and Sonar to a screeching halt.

"I can! But I stopped when I saw something pretty for you!" The little jet settled on the Fairlady's roof, his engine purring now with a sound unique to sparklets.

"Oh? What'd you see?"

The familiar sound of transformation filled the air, and then something winked in the Seeklet's hands. "Iron pyrite," he said proudly, unaware that the malleable nature of his pretty rock showed him to be in error.

Eclipse transformed herself and caught the little mech as she scanned his find. Then she gently patted his back with a small smile. "Actually, that's not iron pyrite... Remember what Beachcomber's book said about what looks like iron pyrite?"

Starscream blinked, his dark tiny face creasing in confusion. "Gold. But it said that most of the rocks that are found prove to be iron pyrite."

Rocket frowned, nudging Sonar and pointing out that if the Seeklet was Starscream, then something was seriously wrong. This earned him a "Shhhhh" from Sonar, who, deciding that he wanted a closer look, crept over to peek around the nearest boulder at the orange femme and her ward.

Eclipse nodded. "Remember how you test to see which you've got, if you don't have anything else on hand?"

Starscream looked up at her from where he nestled in the crook of her arm, then lifted his pretty rock and stuck it into his mouth. His first tentative chomp made his optics go wide with shock. "Eclipse... I found gold!"

Here it comes, thought Rocket. This is where greedy old Scream shows his true colours.

Eclipse's smile was one of pride as she nodded and praised Starscream for figuring out his mistake on his own, "Very good! Do you want to show the others what you found?"

The little Seeklet was shaking with excitement, his vocalizations coming out in clicks and chirps instead of words. He was totally unaware of the significant looks exchanged by the two watching mechs.

Eclipse clicked soothingly, gently rubbing the Seeklet's back as she held him close. "Easy, Starscream. Circulate air, okay?"

The little mech did as she told him, then held up the rock he'd been hugging so closely that it was now flattened. "Now Spike can go to his school and learn how to fix things better! Like he wanted to!"

Eclipse nodded, pride shining in her optics as she moved to head into the Ark with Starscream, "C'mon. Let's go tell him."

"Oh! But you were racing with your friends." He looked around, his optics narrowing slightly with confusion as he failed to see the pair. "Where'd they go?"

Eclipse nodded, "They're around here somewhere..." Her casual attitude, and the fact that she looked right where Sonar would be if the boulder wasn't in the way, told Rocket that she knew that he and his brother had heard everything.

"Are they playing hide and seek?" Starscream snuggled, once more hugging his rock.

Eclipse carefully shrugged, raising her voice slightly, "If they are, they're kinda lousy at it... I have 'em both on my scanners."

Two sheepish mechs dragged themselves out of concealment, both of them having a little trouble meeting Starscream's curious gaze and the grin that said he was delighted to find them again. "Um," muttered Rocket. "We should get back. Ironhide's gonna yell, and.... Yeah."

Eclipse grinned a bit, shifting Starscream to her hip as she fished around in her subspace for something, "You know, you two really stink at hide and seek."

Rocket and Sonar blushed and scowled. "Well at least we can race," said Sonar, stung.

Eclipse nodded, "So can Pa, Dad, Solar Flare, 'n me..." Seeing Rocket's puzzled look, she gave Sonar a Look of her own, "You mean, you never told him 'bout us?"

Sonar suddenly acquired a great interest in the ground.

"Hey, Eclipse, don't be mean, okay?" said Starscream, looking up anxiously at her face and missing how the brothers were now squirming.

Eclipse clicked quietly to her ward, absently patting him on the back, "I'm not... I just figured that since Sonar's got a younger brother, he'd at least take the time to explain about alternate realities and family ties and all that stuff..."

"Family ties?" asked Starscream, those wide optics still focused on hers.

Eclipse nodded, "Yeah... like how Wheelie, Wake, Ariel, and Orion Pax are a family unit... and like how you, TC, and 'Warp are a family unit... Wheeljack, Bluestreak, Solar Flare and I are a family unit too, but we've also got family members in other realities..."

"Like Kriti?" asked the shrill small voice quietly.

Eclipse nodded, "Yeah... and remember that time you and I went to the noisy place with all the funny-looking mechs and femmes?"

"Pooka's house?" Starscream grinned. "And we had fizzy energon, and then I backfired on Slingshot. And that made Skywarp choke on his energon because he was laughing."

Eclipse, Rocket, and Sonar all had a difficult time keeping straight faces, though Eclipse managed it somehow, "Remember the two human-sized people we met who looked different from us?"

Starscream tried to think past the joys of being puppy slurped and of backfiring on Slingshot, but then his frown brightened into a grin and he nodded. "I do."

Eclipse's expression became a bit more serious, "Remember what they said their names were?"

"Rachel and Jack?" His brow plates went up.

Eclipse nodded, "And remember how Jack admitted that he and Rachel were really Autobots after you scanned them?"

Starscream nodded, then blinked. "They were Ratchet and Wheeljack."

Eclipse nodded, "They weren't the ones from here though... They were alternates... but I still consider them part of my family, because that Wheeljack is an alternate of my Pa..."

"They said they only had three Dinobots," remembered the Seeklet, and he frowned about that.

Rocket looked back and forth between Eclipse, who was explaining about different realities to the Seeklet in her arms, and Sonar, who was looking anywhere but at him or at Eclipse.

"You knew all this, and you never shared?" he said quietly.

Sonar seemed to shrink in on himself, "I didn't think we'd ever wind up meeting 'Clipsie again..."

"Oy! Don't call me that, Sonar!" Eclipse scowled a bit at the red and white mech.

"She really doesn't like it." Starscream's expression was an adorable version of the black scowl that both brothers had seen before on his larger alternate.

Eclipse sighed a bit, fiddling with the small device she had pulled out of subspace, "Guess I should prolly help you two get back home... Your Pa's prolly worried, and if your Ratchet's anything like the one here, he'll be worried too..."

"And teaching Seeklets things they shouldn't say." Starscream hugged his rock, his optics now wide again.

Eclipse ducked her head, but that wasn't enough to hide her snicker as she offered Sonar the little device. "H-here... It's got a coordinate scanner built-in... and no, it's not one of Pa's inventions."

"Has he been near it?" Sonar didn't reach for it right away.

Eclipse blinked a bit, adopting her own wide-opticked look, "I don't think so... I think this is the one Hound's group used way back when we didn't know about Kriti and we thought that Showtime and Desinex were completely and utterly gone..."

"Has your brother been near it?"

"You're in danger of being kicked," warned Starscream solemnly.

Eclipse shook her head, "No way. I told him that if he wanted one, he'd have to ask Ratchet for it."

Sonar hesitated a bit more, but then took it and looked at it closely. "What do I do with it?"

Eclipse grinned, launching into a very rambly explaination of how to scan for coordinates, how to program the device, and how to use it. Rocket blinked a bit, strongly reminded of Bluestreak as the orange femme continued to ramble.

Sonar winced as the explanation continued, then made a throat clearing sound. Eclipse, thankfully, was startled enough to trail off in the middle of a tangent.

Sonar gave her an apologetic grin. "Can we have the short version?"

"Press the button on the right hand side of the display. That will pull up your options menu," Prowl explained as he stepped out of the Ark. "Select "Scan for Coordinates", and point the PINpoint at yourself. After you've done that, select "Yes" when the display reads "Set as Home?". Then, press the larger button on the left hand side once, and the coordinates will show up on the display screen. Press the green button, which will teleport you to the coordinates on the display."

Sonar could tell from Rocket's expression that his brother shared his sudden feeling of guilt. "Thanks."

Prowl nodded, "The coordinates to this location, in this reality, are also on that particular PINpoint..." The SIC paused for a moment to gently nudge Eclipse, who was ducking sheepishly.

"Meep! Er... you guys are welcome anytime and the next time you stop by mabe we can go on a tour of the Ark and I can show you around and show you what I'm working on and introduce you to everyone else and-" Prowl was quick to cover Eclipse's mouth while giving the femme a bemused look.

Starscream frowned slightly at the chevroned mech. "Eclipse can't talk when you do that, Prowl."

Prowl gave Starscream a fondly amused look, "True, but she can't confuse these two any more than they already are if she can't talk."

The tiny Seeker blinked, doing a credible job of being confused himself.

"... Riiight... I guess we'll be going then... Quickstep's not going to believe us... oh well." Sonar shrugged, grabbing Rocket's arm to drag the younger mech away from Prowl, Eclipse, and Starscream.

"Wait!" said Starscream suddenly. "Do you have a piece of paper?"

Rocket blinked a bit, and then he and Sonar were both searching their glove compartments for the requested item.

As they did so the Seeklet entrusted his precious rock to Eclipse, and then nearly fell into his subspace as he attempted to find his favorite red washable marker. "...Here it is! Okay." His big optics went to the brothers as he settled back against Eclipse and waited.

It was Sonar that found a piece of paper first. He held it out to the Seeklet, wondering just what was going to happen.

Starscream thanked him gravely, then nearly lost the scrap while trying to get the cap off his pen. Eclipse shifted him slightly, holding one end of the paper so that it stayed put while he worked on the stubborn marker.

Starscream succeeded at last, and then very carefully, in a Sparklet's sprawling and uneven hand, he printed, 'They are telling the truth. They really came here today.' He looked at it with a little frown, and then carefully added his name in Cybertronian sigils to the bottom of it before looking up at Eclipse. "Please give it to him?"

Sonar nodded, reaching for the scrap of paper. "I'll make sure he gets this." Rocket couldn't help but wonder just what had happened to turn someone as dangerous as Starscream was into someone who more than likely wouldn't harm even a glitchmouse.

The Seeklet smiled at him, but then looked down at his small blue hand and gave a shrill wail of dismay. "Eclipse! I did it again!"

As Sonar and Rocket winced, Eclipse calmly got a container of wet wipes out of her glove compartment. "It happens, Starscream... I've got a wipey... and we can swing by the wash racks if that doesn't help get the marker off."

Starscream was nearly beside himself, but he calmed when he felt the coolness of the wipe, and settled down to wibble and watch the cleanup as Prowl recapped his marker and held it out to him.

Rocket and Sonar glanced at one another before they headed home in a swish of displaced air and a flash of light. They weren't quite sure what to make of what they had seen in the reality they visited, and both were certain they'd have a lot to talk about later.