Ditto Fountain I

[narnianerd]

The Aftermath
"True" Matt stated "Still those guys upstairs will dive through any loop hole they can find, trust me I've dealt with them before" true they were trying to arest him for killing a man to protect Ellie but anyways...

[Bookwyrm]

A Funny Thing Happened

Drake raised an eyebrow and looked curious.

"We could go to my bookstore, The Realms. It's closed today, so it's fairly private," Drake suggested.

I had to suppress an excited grin. The Realms was the ultimate bookstore, with books from all over the multiverse. It was a bibliophile's dream. I wondered if there was any chance of me having time to browse.

A (Slightly) Less Normal Life

Aaron toppled over when Grump attacked him with the mop and fell through the wall again. Matthias cringed and lost his concentration on the rebuilding process. A few beams clattered back to the ground. Matthias raised the back into the air and pushed them back into place. He was distracted again by an odd tickling feeling coming from the back of the store, in the tacked-on pocket universe that held the parts of the store too big to fit inside the exterior of the store. It felt almost as if something were trying to get through the dimensional barrier, into the real universe.

Meanwhile, back at Death By Pastry, Moira deactivated the time lock and the three bakers gratefully collapsed into chairs. They'd been working for hours, relatively, and were exhausted.

Miss Lucinda smiled down at Katie and replied,"My name is Miss Lucinda Evangeline, but all my friends call me Miss Lucinda. Well, they call me that to my face. I shan't repeat the things they say when they think I'm not listening. It's not the sort of thing young ears should hear."

[greenleaf23]

The Aftermath
Ellie knew what Matt was talking about and looked down as she replied angrily, "That seems to be their only strength, and yet they use it against the kingdom, not for it. The only reason they're going after you is because you're high ranking, and the king is fond of you. If you're out of the picture, it makes it more easy for one of them to become king."

[narnianerd]

The Aftermath
Mathew smiled "Well yeah that and I'd be third in line for the throne if the royal family ever 'tragically was attacked by rebellious forces' he grimaced at the thought
---
Alan drew his sword and held it parrel to the ground he and his opponet began circling each other waiting for the other to strike first. Alan did with a yell and an over head swinging hit, the man apposing him blocked the hit then parried with a stab which Alan dodged spun around and caught his sword on the mans sheild. Pulling it out he blocked a swing from hid opponet, The continued like this for quite some time before "Enough!" yelled the herald. Alan turned to his his fellow soldier and said "Good sword work Baldwin" Baldwin replied "Not so bad yourself"

[greenleaf23]

The Aftermath
"I have a feeling that if the Royal family were ever 'tragically attacked by rebellious forces', they'd be behind it." she said grimly. "The Council has far to much power for their own good, let alone the good of others." She pulled one leg up under the other on the chair and began to pick some little pieces of mud off the top of her boot. "So how are the new recruits coming along?" she asked, looking up with a sly smile. New recruits were always a handful.

[Rising_Star]

A Funny Thing Happened

"Sounds excellent," I said quickly, gesturing to the others at the table. "Mind if they come along?" I asked, hoping it would not be a problem. I'm sure we all looked more than a little lost so I hoped my explanation of "we're from out of town" would be a sufficient cover-up.

A (Slightly) Less Normal Life

Grump screamed with rage as the mess surrounding him became even more substantial. These people were keeping him from doing his job! In fact, he should be doing his job right now, but was simply standing there, hopping in anger. Realizing this was disobeying his own law of "work comes before dances of rage," he grabbed a piece of wood and began slamming it hard against his forehead.

----

"Tha's a purty name," Katie said with a grin. "It's long an' flowy-like. I'd like a flowy name." She sighed wistfully and then bounced slightly.

"Do I get to see your 'ouse now?" she asked with interest.

P.S."Brooklyn!"

[Bookwyrm]

A (Slightly) Less Normal Life

Cordelia dissolved her shield and rose to her feet. Sylvia spotted the look on Cordelia's face and quickly feigned a weak spell, collapsing onto the ground behind the counter. Sylvia rather hoped Cordelia didn't find a reason to turn her anger on her.

"Aaron," Cordelia said coldly and the inept inventor snapped to attention. "What were you thinking? How many times have you caused disaster by using your inventions without properly testing them?"

Aaron began visibly counting on his fingers until he realized Cordelia was glaring at him. He looked as hurt as someone wearing a mechanized suit of armor can.

"I have to do proper field testing. There's only so much I can do in the lab. And those things that just fell out of the sky needed investigating."

"Yes, because the Autobots are so incompetent they couldn't handle it," Cordelia commented sarcastically. "You could have killed Matthias if you'd done enough damage to the Realms. As it is, you smashed a huge hole in the building and destroyed an entire bookshelf full of books. Next time, test somewhere outside of town."

Cordelia stomped off into the back rooms, leaving Aaron looking chastened.

"I'll just be going now," Aaron said and clomped off.

"And turn off that idiotic voice changer thing!" Sylvia yelled, emerging now that her boss was gone.

A teenaged girl wandered up to the front door of The Realms and stared through the hole in the building, holding a magnifying glass like some sort of weapon.

[narnianerd]

The Aftermath
Mathew grinned a wide smile "They are being trained by Alexander and boy are they in for a ride, I pity anyone being trained by him" remembering how hard the man had pushed him and his peers, still he had allot to thank the old weapons master for. "But I imagine they are coming along nicely"
(Slightly)
As Matthew walked out the broken door he sighed and said "Every time I think this town can't get crazier someone throws us a shovel" Scrappy rolled past them then did a double take and came back beeping "What are you two waiting for?" Matthew sighed again and Kale looked at him and said "I see what you mean"; Scrappy had a footprint on his dome.
A Funny Thing
I just shrugged, looked at Hummy and said "Come on, our best bett for survivul is with these guys" I said pointing at the mostly older crowd "By the way I'm twelve" I added while making sure my revolver had enough bullets in it... Some silver ones he had gotten at a gift shop while visiting the set of the lone ranger in his amo belt might just come in handy.

[Arwenel]

Hamelin

"It's Caden," Olivia said to Annika by way of explanation. "They've been after him over that deer for -- " She stopped at the sound of horse hoofs. "Quick, into the brush." She had no idea who it could be, but after that morning, she was not inclined to trust anyone.

[narnianerd]

Hamelin
"wait, its just my horse" Caden said as a beutiful gray war horse trotted up to them. He picked up his sword and and his broken bow "Darn, that piper broke my string, do you know how long that took?" he muttered shaking his head. Then reffering to his horse "No I didn't steal him, he came to me"

[greenleaf23]

The Aftermath
"Well, I bet they're in for quite a ride." Ellie said with a chuckle. She hadn't had full blown training with Alexander, but he'd helped her to fine tune her swordsmanship so she could join the guard. She gave him all the credit for her skill with a sword, he had pushed her far beyond her limits in training so she got better than she ever thought she could be. "Although they're all bound to be very good swordsmen then. I think Alexander could make a swordsman out of almost anyone. After all, he trained you, right?" she said, quite seriously. Only the sparkle in her eyes betrayed the fact that she was joking, Matthew was one of the best, if not the best, swordsmen in the Kingdom.

[sweeetlilgurlie]

A Funny Thing Happened

I nodded. "Sounds good to me."

At that moment Kari came out of the kitchen balancing our orders on a tray. She noticed us getting up and making as if to leave. "You guys heading out?" She asked, seeming a bit disappointed- probably because we had ordered and were now leaving before even getting the said order.

[humdedum]

A Funny Thing Happened

"Eleven," I told nerd softly, because that meant I WAS the youngest. Which made me fell a little awkward. I got up, scraping my chair on the floor, ad hit my toe.

"OW!" I squeaked, grabbing my sock. And that was when I, like Ryan, had no shoes.

Hamelin

"He did?" Annika sounded a bit skeptical, but she didn't push the subject. She wanted to know what his name was, but another question was more important, pressing her to ask it.

"W-where's the Piper now?"

[narnianerd]

Hamelin
"As far as I know he kept on going up the trail, it seems that way from the tracks. Come let go" Caden then mounted the horse; Traveller.
(A Funny Thing)
I sighed; what was it with girls and taking off their shoes? Then I said "I have a pair of sneakers in my backpack if you want them, then I looked at her feet my shoes would be huge on her feet "They would be to big though"
The Aftermath
Matthew saw the twinkle in her eye and smiled "Well at that point I was a spoiled royal bratt" he said jokingly, even though it had a grain of truth in it he found it funny.

[zlcva]

A (Slightly) Less Normal Life
Chip gaped up at Solarflare in amazement. He had never actually spoken with an Autobot before, much less have one towering over him and not shouting at him to watch where he was going if he didn't want to be flattened.

"Sorry. I couldn't help overhearing you," Solarflare said with an apologetic smile and tapped the side of his head. "I've got super-sensitive audio receptors. Anyway, I've been to Ditto Metru before and I know the Lord Overseer. I could get you in there if you like."

"Th-that'd be great!" Chip said, very pleasantly surprised. "But -- forgive me for asking, but why do you want to help us?"

"Like I said, I overheard what you were talking about and it sounds pretty interesting. And I'm actually going to Metru myself, so it wouldn't be out of my way."

"But I thought no one could go to Ditto Metru?" Nessie asked. Solarflare smiled knowingly.

"Let's just say I was invited there once. So, what do you say?"

"Why, we'd be delighted!" Chip exclaimed, nearly leaping for joy, he was so excited. "We just need to get some supplies from my place and we can be ready to go in ten minutes!"

"Great," Solarflare grinned. "I'll meet you by the Fountain."

"What luck!" Chip chortled to Nessie as they ran back to his apartment hand in hand. "This is the break we need to make what could be the biggest historical breakthrough in history!"

Nessie was too excited to make any smart remarks about her uncles repetitive use of terms and giggled with delight.

------

The lids of the stasis pods opened completely. Their angle from the Autobots prevented them from seeing what was inside at first. But they didn't have to wait long to find out, as the inhabitants of each pod emerged.

From the leftmost pod, a large black jaguar crept cautiously out, sniffing the air. The rightmost pod spewed an even larger boar that rolled unceremoniously out and sat, flustered, on its haunches.

The occupant of the center pod preceded his entrance with a guttural roar. A positively enormous black bear, nearly five feet tall at the shoulder, strode purposefully out, its massive paws leaving deep indents in the soft dirt around the crash site.

"What's this?" Warpath asked incredulously. "Some kinda Noah's Ark thing? Does Cybertron think we don't got enough animals here or something?"

"On the contrary," the black bear suddenly spoke, looking straight at Warpath. Its voice was deep, but not at all gruff, rather calm and noble. "We're here as heralds from Autobot High Command."

Warpath blinked his optics dumbfounded, and surprised exclamations and mutterings rippled through the crowd of Autobots.

"Well then," Warpath said with uncertainty. "Who are y'all?"

"Sound off!" the bear roared to its companions.

"Jetjagar, maximize!" the jaguar purred. He reared onto his hind legs and transformed into a sleek robot form.

"Truffler, maximize!" the boar grunted and followed suit, transforming into a short and stocky bot.

"Bursa, MAXIMIZE!" the bear roared and transformed into a powerful robot form.

"We are the Maximals," Bursa declared. "And we are your future."

[greenleaf23]

The Aftermath
"Well, I'm glad you grew out of that." she said thankfully, still half joking. "I should probably go spar with Alexander again sometime soon though. I haven't gotten to practice stuff like that in a while." she added regretfully. She'd been pretty busy lately, and really missed regular training sessions. She went down to the practice range for archery every once in a while, but she always seemed to have to do something else whenever she got the chance to spar. "I wonder how much time I have before I have to go..." she asked our loud, mostly to herself.