A Funny Thing Happened

"Um," I started the same as Sweeet. "That's a little hard to explain," I said finally. I glanced around the room. "Is there someplace we can talk, you know, more privately?"

The last thing I wanted was for us to be overheard by someone who would make a big deal out of this whole situation.

A (Slightly) Less Normal Life

Grump stopped pulling on his ears when he saw that Sylvia was okay. However that did not stop him from grabbing a mop and proceeding to slap Aaron with the wet side, his ugly face twisted in disgust.

"You're. Making. A. Mess!" he screeched, accenting each word with a wallop of his mop.

P.S."Brooklyn!"

Hamelin
Caden looked puzzled "Were else would I go besides this, I got my name posted on every sheriffs office and wanted poster for miles around. All because I killed a dear for my family to eat" he said the last part quietly. He shook his head, looked down and kicked the dirt. Looking up he said "But that doesn't matter now the piper has the children and we got go!' he whistled loudly and they heard horse hoofs galloping towards the three humans.
(Slightly)
Matthew force gripped the mop and took it out of grump's hand "Okay now grump thats enough" he turned to walk out the door but he couldn't resist having the last word so he turned "Now if your antics are over for the day Aaron I'll be leaving, please watch out for buildings next time you dicided to going flying" He said in his best speeking to idiots voice.

Shono began flying towards where the Autobots had landed, did a 3-60 around the area and said "Permission to land?" over the comlink.

The Aftermath
Ellie waited until after the man left to reply. "I haven't been able to talk to John much lately." she said once he left. "I kind of miss our conversations." she added with a quiet sigh. They used to talk often, about stories and current events and other things that interested them both. Then John's father, the King, began to get older and John had to take on more responsibilities, and Ellie always had her duties.

A (Slightly) Less Normal Life
"Permission granted, Shono," Silverbolt replied. Space Case and the others had already begun to set down in the crash area. A few minutes later, several Autobots with emergency vehicle forms pulled into the area and started to put out the fires that had been started by the crash. The area quickly became very crowded with nearly two dozen of the large robots, and the Air Team formed a cordon to keep ample space around the crashed stasis pods.

"I'm telling you, this is going to be big," Skydive said eagerly to Space Case as they waited by the edge of the cordon.

"Yeah?" Space Case said, clearly not impressed. "Then how come nothing's happened yet? Those pods are just sitting there."

"Maybe they're waiting for the top dog to get here?" Skydive guessed, his tone scornful.

"Yeah, well, the 'Top Dawg' is here," Warpath said as he suddenly pulled in behind the young robot, clearly not impressed with his little quip. Skydive couldn't suppress a slight jolt of surprise, and he slunk a few paces away from the burly Autobot leader.

"Awlright Silverbolt, what've we got?" Warpath drawled as he approached the Air Team commander.

"Nothing new to report, sir," Silverbolt replied. "They're just sitting there."

"Any signs of life?"

"Affirmative. We've detected a spark inside each pod, but they appear to be in stasis mode."

"Well, I reckon that's why they call 'em 'stasis pods'," Warpath said with a chuckle. He started to walk towards the nearest pod with the intent of examining it closer, but halted abruptly as a long antenna extended upwards from each pod. Towering above the heads of even the tallest of the gathered Autobots, each antenna had a round node on the top. Suddenly, two semi-transparent fans of orange light beamed out from opposite ends of the nodes and began to rotate. The Autobots tensed as the beams passed over them, but they were left unharmed.

As unexpectedly as they appeared, the lights suddenly snapped off, and each pod began to vibrate as something stirred within. After a few moments, the vibrations ceased, and each pod began to hiss open.

-------

"Well!" Chip said with a happy sigh as all the commotion finally died down. "That was exciting! What shall we do now?"

"How about we find a translator for the manuscript?" Nessie asked, very impatient to get back to their original mission.

"Oh! Right! I nearly forgot!" Chip said, quite surprised at himself as he held the manuscript in his hand as if noticing it for the first time.

"Nearly?" Nessie muttered skeptically. Thankfully he didn't hear her.

"Well, since we didn't find anyone in the Cup & Platter that could translate this for us, we'll need to search elsewhere." Chip said thoughtfully.

"Where can we go?" Nessie asked. "Do you know anyone that could help us?"

"Hmm... let me see now..." Chip ran his fingers through his tousled hair absently as he wracked his brain for anyone he might know that could aid them.

"We need to find someone with connections to Ditto Metru," he finally said.

"Okay..." Nessie replied expectantly.

"Well, I know Cordelia has been there..." he paused and listened to the commotion going on in the Realms. "...but I don't think she's available at the moment. The only other person I know of would be Jedi Sanchez. But I have no idea how to contact her."

"I can help you," a voice spoke from behind them. Chip whirled around in surprise and looked up at the red Autobot towering over them.

"I'm Solarflare. I can get you to Ditto Metru."

(Slightly)
The dimutive Autobot suddenly felt small around all these huge robots... This was why he preferred organics to his own species; he didn't like feeling small. It mad him feel insecure and helpless even though he knew he could hold his own with the best of e'm. Now when the stasis pods began to open he lifted his hand blaster... Just in case.
The Aftermath
"I think John will make a great king when his father dies, don't you?" asked Matthew, he had nothing to do ti'll about the time Ellie did so he was trying to keep the conversation going as long as time permited it.

The Aftermath
Ellie took the hint and sat down into the chair across from Matt's desk. "Definitely.", she agree. "He has all a king needs and more." She fiddled with the button on the cuff of her sleeve. "But I don't think he's quite ready yet. It's a good thing he still has time to learn all he needs know." she said. "Although I'm not really one to talk." she added with a quiet chuckle. She was younger than John, but had experienced much more than he had. She thought he would naturally make a good king, but there were still things he needed to learn to make a great king.

The Aftermath
"Aiy, I know what you mean" replied Mathew "And if the council has anything to do about it his rising to the throne might be thwarted if the King did not express his approval of his son before he died. That blithering bunch of old men may have been usful at one point but now all the do is sit around and argue" as you can see Matt clasified council members with paperwork.

The Aftermath
"That's how it always is." Ellie said in frustration, "All they want is more power for themselves. Even though John would do ten times better then they could ever do." She sighed. "Why does it always have to be that way? If they actually cared about someone other than themselves I'd give them a chance, but they just don't care." She released her clenched fist before she went on. "Although it shouldn't be much of a problem." she added, "No one doubts the King's favor of John. After all, he's the king's only son."

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...

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."

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."

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"

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.

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!"

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.