Triple Dinobot

by Odeena Sabnach

Everyone can count, right?

Okay, let's give it a try. One, two, three.

Hold on, there's a bug there. Again. One, two, three.

It can't be! Let's try again. One... Two... Three! Impossible!

One last time: one, two... *sigh* three.

Wow. There are THREE Dinobots in our base.

I hope I'm hallucinating...

~

*dream sequence*

'zzz... zzz... zzz... BOOM!! zzz... zzz...'

~

"Wake up!!"

"Huh??"

Almost instantly, Serena's voice came from across the room. "Forget it, Chopperface. Scream all you want, I'm NOT getting up."

I peeked through my eyelashes . Serena was making funny faces at Dinobot. I was guessing Thaliana and Alkari were still asleep after a whole evening of Paintball.

Much to my surprise, Dinobot just sighed.

"Okay." I could've sworn he chuckled. "But I'd like to see what you guys are gonna tell Optimus this time."

With that, he turned and exited. I sighed. Ooookay. Time to go back to--HOLD IT!!

One. Since when does Dinobot use slang?

Two. Dinobot giving up so easily? No way!

And three. As far as I could tell, none of the two Dinobots I knew sounded like that.

In conclusion...

"Good night", I muttered to no-one in particular, and then I fell asleep.

~

*dream sequence*

"Come on, I think he went this way."

"*snarl* I swear, when all this is over, I'll--"

"Oh shut up. This wouldn't have happened if you weren't such a CREEP."

"WHAT? I'll bite your useless head--"

"Hey hey hey here! Huntin' now. Fightin' later. Okay?"

"*sigh* Whatever... As I was saying..."

"...this way."

"Yea. Hey, do you mind waking those lazybones up? We're gonna need all the help we can get!"

"*snarl* No."

"Please?"

"No."

"I'll make more clones of you!"

"*sigh* Alright."

~

"Up."

I buried my head under my pillow. "Go AWAY, Dinobot."

"Get up, female."

"For the last time--"

"...Dua. Get up."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes!"

"Lemme alone!"

Do you think he left? Think again.

"Ouch! HEY! Let go my leg! STOP! What are you DOING?!"

The next second, I was laying on the floor. Ouch, COLD!

"Dinobot, I swear, you're in trouble", I snarled, slowly getting up. "BIG trouble."

He didn't even notice me, because he was too busy dragging Serena out of bed. I chuckled silently. I may have been the pacifist type, but Serena...

*Blam!*

Dinobot flew across the room, and I barely had the time to dodge his leg. Serena smirked.

"Teach you to mess with ME."

Dinobot cautiously picked himself up the floor. I was surprised he was still in one piece.

"That--must have hurt." I helped him up. "You okay?"

He growled. "Optimus wants you to join our search for an escaped clone", he stated. "And I will tear you apart, one atom at a time!"

"Hold on there!" I desperately tried to restrain him. "She was only kidding!"

He looked at me, then at Serena, then at me again, and he sighed.

"What's going on?" Alkari asked sleepily.

"Um..."

"A clone had escaped last night. Optimus requires that you join the search."

"A clone!" Serena was bouncing up and down. "Well why didn't you say so! Let's go!"

Slowly, a thought made its way across my skull. "Dinobot... Whose clone was it?"

Dinobot sighed again. "It was a clone of... me. That blasted Thaliana has made it."

"Thalia?!" Alkari gasped in surprise. "But... she's..."

He turned to her bunk. It was empty.

"Uh-oh."

"I think I heard an explosion last night. Any connections?"

"Yes. That explosion resulted in an... unfortunate error in his programming."

"Lemme guess. Slang?"

His optics widened. "How did you--"

"He was here", Serena supplied.

Dinobot started up. "What? When?"

"I dunno, a... while ago."

"He tried to get us up."

"And he walked away like a chicken."

Dinobot snarled at Serena's remark. Fortunately for all of us, his comm activated. "Dinobot?" an impatient voice came through. "What's taking you?"

"I am... on my way", Dinobot hissed. "Come on."

We all followed him outside.

~

We met Optimus and Thaliana halfway to the canteen. He seemed both worried and amused at the same time; Thaliana, on the other hand, was sulking.

"I guess you all wonder what's going on..."

"DUH." That was Serena, of course. "Why'd you send Bronto-Brain to ruin our beauty sleep? I thought you said we could--"

"I know what I said."

"Then...?"

"I'm afraid we have a... situation."

I made a face. "Yeah, there's a crazed clone of Dinobot running around. So?"

Optimus frowned and he turned to face Thaliana. "Tell her."

Thaliana flinched. "Well... it's much more than that. You see, I had no real intention of cloning Dinobot. I just found this weird installation and I wanted to see if it works. But then, something went wrong, and it blew up, and when I woke up--he was just... there."

I couldn't help chuckling, and neither could Alkari. "Your point?" I asked sweetly.

"My point? This is much more than a clone. It has a spark of its own, the memories of both Dinobots, Rhinox's IQ, and the personality of Cheetor, Rattrap and Quickstrike combined."

Our jaws dropped.

"Ouch", I muttered. "Sounds like a prime guy, know what I'm saying?"

"But how did you--" Serena started.

Thaliana grinned. "Well, there's more to me than it looks. I warned ya once. Anyway, we have to find this guy before he messes with the computers or something."

"Oh, NO! If this guy gets to the main computers--" I turned to Optimus. "Please tell me there's someone in the control room..."

Optimus flinched, then activated his comm. "All units, is anyone in or near the control room?"

A chorus of "No", "Negative", "Nope" and so on followed.

"Well that's just prime. We don't have a moment to waste! Let's GO!" he urged us. "Move!"

"I'll take the highway", I stated, crawling up the wall and into the ventilation system. One good thing, they were big enough for me to fit in. Once inside, I rushed for the command room.

"Great", I mused to myself. "So first, Dinobot ruins my beauty sleep. Then, another Dinobot comes and wakes me up. And now, I'm rushing to find the first Dinobot... or, was it the third..? Slag."

~

I silently crawled to the end of the ventilation tube and peeked through the grill. I could see the back of someone standing there, but I couldn't tell who it was. It looked like Dinobot--but the colors were entirely different. His armor was mostly blue, a dark, royal blue, with splatters of tan here and there. Flame red lines decorated both his shoulderguards.

I turned on my cloaking field generator and silently removed the grill, crawling out. He didn't seem to notice me, being too busy working at the main console. "Strange", he snarled. At least, this Dinobot's voice was no different.

I cautiously moved around so I could see what he was doing. A few more steps--and I froze. His hand was hovering undetermined over a big, red button. It said, 'Self destruct'.

"No!" I wailed. "Don't touch that!"

He whirled in his chair. "Huh? Who said that?"

I switched off my CFG (abbreviation for Cloaking Field Generator). His optics widened.

"How'd you do that?"

"Um... let's just say I have this little gizmo that makes me invisible. But let's keep that our little secret, okay?"

He nodded. "Okay."

"Thanks."

His hand was still dangerously close to the red button. Before I could say anything else, he turned back to the main console and began typing something.

"Um... what are you doing?"

"I found a flaw in your defense grid", he explained.

"Oh really." I put my hands on my hips. "If you must know, Rhinox and I desighed the grid. Translation--there are no flaws."

"Oh yeah?" He chuckled. "Come over here."

I cautiously approached and glared at the monitor. I could see nothing wrong with the code section he was pointing at.

"So?" I asked impatiently.

"Look over--here. This--" he motioned to a line "--prevents the external heat sensors from getting the maximum amount of power possible. Instead, the power is diverted to the secondary survey system, which is of no importance as long as the primary one holds. And this--" he motioned to another one "--is the cause of your repeated generator failures. You see, most of the solar energy is wasted because--"

"STOP!" I half-yelled. Gosh! If my IQ was of 1200. and still I didn't notice ANY of the bugs he was showing me, how smart was this guy?

He gave me a puzzled look. "What is it?"

"Let me take a look at that", I said.

The code was one complicated thing. Let's see now... okay... no problem... fine... ok... drat.

One bug found. He was right about the sensors.

"So now you see I was right", he said. I waved my hand absently. Okay now, this code section... I remembered it took me bloody ages to get it right... wait... great. Here's another bug. And a big one over there. Drat.

"Ooookay. I see your point."

He beamed. "Told you", he said, with an 'I'm-way-better-than-you' expression on his face. I resisted the urge to hit him. After all, he was way stonger than me, and, according to Thaliana, he had something from Quickstrike's personality. Translation - don't piss him off.

"So that's what you were doing, huh? Correcting the errors?"

"Yup. And I'm almost done. All I have to do is--"

"Warning. Self-destruct sequence activated. Base will terminate in T minus one minute."

Dinobot's optics widened. "It wasn't me!"

"Well, unless you're a computer telepath, you're right", I said, rushing to the console and instantly overriding the sequence.

"Whoa, you're good!"

"Was that supposed to be a compliment?" I teased him, although my heart was still in my throat. He seemed a bit troubled, but then he grinned.

"Just a fact".

"Oh."

I activated my comm. "Okay, who's the wise guy?" I half-shouted.

"Um... sorry. I didn't mean to! I just tried to shut down the main generator!"

Do I have to say that was Thaliana?

"You can't do that unless you have the authorisation code required", I supplied. It was the fifth time this was happening.

"Did you find Chopperface?"

There was a snarl... no, two snarls in the background. Dinobot activated his comm.

"She found me alright. Is that you, mommy?"

Wild laughter came through the link, and I wasn't far behind.

"Mommy?" I gasped, panting for breath. "Did I hear right? MOMMY?!"

He grinned. "I was just kidding. After all, I had to get back at her for making me look like that."

I tried to calm down, and I grinned back. Blue, tan, flame red and yellow--now that was one colorful armor. Not like Dinobot's style.

Suddenly, he turned to the entrance. "Someone's coming", he said; the next second, Rattrap walked in. When he saw us, he grinned widely.

"Whoa. Ya're even uglier than I immagined, Dinobutt."

"Shut up Rattrap", we both said together.

Dinobot smirked. "High-five."

"Ya're on."

Rattrap's jaw dropped, then he beamed.suddenly.

"Hehe, I know! Dua an' Chopperface, sittin' in a tree, k-i-s-s--"

I didn't give him a chance to finish the sentence, and neither did Dinobot. A few seconds--and Rattrap was well and totally in stasis lock. Dinobot and I exchanged another high-five.

All in all, this guy wasn't that bad. Right?

~

I bet you all wonder how all this ended. It's like this: after a brief council, the Beast Warriors voted (ARGH!) that this new Dinobot can stay. And since he needed a new name (Dinobot was already double-taken), he decided he'll call himself DB. And then, we all went to play another round of Paintball.