"What?"
"I've never seen Red Alert drunk. What happens when he is?"
"I… have no idea. Does he even touch high-grade?"
"Not that I know of."
The twins fell silent, considering their options. "It's a little sad that we don't even know what Red Alert acts like when he's drunk. We should get him drunk."
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
Red Alert stared at the energon in front of him. "Twins, this is high-grade, isn't it?"
"Of course! C'mon Red, loosen up some!"
"Or are you too weak to hold you're high-grade?" Sunstreaker challenged.
Red Alert knew he was going to regret the decision, even as he made it. But he wasn't going to let something like that pass unchallenged. He sat down at the table, much to the surprise of the base. "Alright, pass it over." He said sighing. "What's it being judged by?"
"How much you can drink. Everyone has the same level of energy, so it's even all around."
The Ark came running as it was spread that Red Alert was going to be in the contest. Money as being counted, and already several were betting on whether Red Alert would be able to outdrink the twins."
0o0o0o0o0o0o
Sunstreaker looked at the energon, feeling as if his stomach would heave up everything if he took one more sip. Red Alert sat calmly on his seat, drinking the entire cube in a gulp. "Give up?" Red Alert said, his voice unslurred and clear. Too clear to the already hazed out Sunstreaker, who could only nod, shocked into silence that he and Sideswipe could get drunken under the table. Red Alert stood up, and made a motion. "Alright! Everyone out!"
Muttering in surprise, mechs filed out of the room, dragging along Sideswipe and Sunstreaker. Red Alert glanced around, optics glinting in amusement as he searched for the glue that the twins had hidden in the room. He found it, and looked around at the cafeteria, mentally making some judgments, and at last he nodded. It would do.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Ratchet muttered unsympathetically as Red Alert came in, glitching and having a huge CPU ache from the high-grade. "I'm surprised you didn't drink yourself under the table."
"I forget what happened after the second cube. What did happen?"
"You won."
Red Alert sighed, relaxing at that. Ratchet finished hooking up Red Alerts CPU to the computer, letting it unscramble Red Alerts data. Ratchet was about to leave, when Red Alert suddenly asked, "Their isn't anything unusual, is there? Like any loud explosions, or-"
"No, don't worry Red Alert. Everything on the Ark is just fine."
"Good, worried for a moment." Red Alert murmured, even as he slipped into a recharge that would help the computer unscramble his data faster.
Ratchet shook his head and headed towards the cafeteria. While he had a personal dispenser, he felt he need to be up and about. The cafeteria door slid open to a completely empty room.
Completely empty. There were no tables, no chairs, not even a speck of energon on the floor, which looked more like a ceiling. Ratchet stared ahead, wondering what had happened. Jazzs cheery, happy voice said, "Hey Ratchet, how's Red Alert doing?"
"Better. Jazz, what happened to the cafeteria?"
"Oh well, we haven't had a chance to clean…it…up…yet…" Jazzs vocalizer trailed off as he stared at the completely empty cafeteria. "What happened?"
"That's what I want to know. Who was on guard duty last night?"
"Inferno."
"I see, call him and ask him."
"Hey, Inferno?"
"Yeah Jazz?"
"Have you seen what happened to the cafeteria?"
'No, Red Alert took the camera out of there after s many complained about it, remember?"
"No, I don't actually. I thought the camera was still in there."
"Nah, he took it out several vorns ago. What's the matter?"
"The cafeteria, its empty."
"What's the matter with that? Red Alert refuses usually to go to the cafeteria unless its empty."
"No! Not that sort of empty! I mean in 'There's not even a speck of dust' empty."
Ratchet considered walking in, but held himself back, wary. He hadn't lived through the twins for nothing. Infernos surprised voice said, "I'm sorry Jazz, but I don't know anything. Red Alert ordered everyone out, he himself left a while later, went to the meeting room where we'll be having the twins creation day party, and was in there for a awhile, and then went to Ratchets."
"Really, what did he do in the meeting room?"
"I don't know. He told me to flick the cameras off in that section because he was leaving a surprise for the twins, that would be revealed once we start the party. And Jazz, don't even think about finding out what it is."
"Red Alert leaving a surprise, huh? Never would have guessed he would."
"We're talking about a drunken Red Alert Jazz. Anything's possible." Ratchet snapped, and groaned as he heard Grimlock storming up the hallway.
Grimlock was hungry, that much was immediately obvious, but Ratchet vainly tried to stop the dinobot as he protested, "Wait Grimlock!"
Grimlock tried pausing in mid-step, but overbalanced, sending both Ratchet and himself tumbling into the room. Ratchet groaned as he shoved at the heavy Grimlock, wishing that he hadn't made the mech so big. "Why tables on ceiling?" Grimlock demanded.
Ratchet barely registered the words, too busy trying to shove the dinobot leader off of him. Grimlock didn't notice as he demanded, "You Ratchet tell me Grimlock why tables on ceiling!"
Ratchet snarled, looking up, "I don't see…" His vocalizer shut down with a muted squeak as he realized something.
The tables were on the ceiling. As well as energon cubes, even a couple of splatters of spilled energon were on the ceiling, and in the exact position they'd be in if they were on the ground.
Ratchets spark crawled as he looked up at the tables, and he spoke to Grimlock, "Grimlock, I don't know why the tables are on the ceiling. But before they FALL OFF—MOVE!"
Grimlock finally got off of Ratchet, and peered closely at the tables, which were within reach for him. Casually he reached up and ripped one right off the ceiling. It came off easily, and Grimlock set it down, looking at the energon cube glued to the table. "Is energon edible?" He mused out loud.
"NO!" Ratchet said hastily. "Jazz, the tables are on the ceiling."
Jazz turned to Ratchet, with a puzzled look. "What do you mean?"
Ratchet pointed up, and Jazzs head tilted back. Ratchet wished he could see the spies optics as Jazz stood stock still for a moment. Then, Jazz calmly reached for his comm. link and contacted Prowl. "Prowler, get Prime. I think he might want to see this. Tell them to bring a recorder as well. We are so totally going to want to record this."
Prowl cranky voice snarled back, "Is it another one of the twins tricks?"
"No… It's not the twins. It's a prank style I've never seen before." Jazz whispered, looking at the ceiling. "Trust me, get the recorder."
0o0o0o0o0o0
Prime looked helplessly up at the glued down tables, wondering how they had gotten up their. "You're certain that we have no evidence at all on who did this?"
"Red Alert might be able to go through the vids and find something we missed, but other then that-" Inferno shrugged helplessly. "I didn't pay that much attention, and only he has the code to unlocking the memory of those things."
Prime groaned, wondering what else as going to go wrong this day. Red Alert getting drunk, the tables being glued to the ceiling, an unknown prankster on the loose… "I think the day cannot get any worse."
Jazz shrugged. "We can get the tables back down in another couple of breems. We still have the meeting room cleared out and waiting for the party however." Jazz grinned at the thought.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Thankfully the day passed uneventfully for the rest of the day. That is, until it got to the party.
In a way, it was everyone's fault for not noticing. They were so caught up in wondering what the twins had planned for the party; no one saw the floor sink underneath every footstep. Not even the twins.
So, when the twins flicked on the machine to play music for the night, there were sudden, confused screams as the ground beneath them exploded into brilliant fireworks.
Jazz staggered back s a small firework zipped past his visor, nearly damaging it. Bumblebee yelped in pain as he nearly got trampled, and Jazz moved fast to save the mini-bot from getting trampled, and the twins looked at each other stunned, trying to keep their balance.
0o0o0o0o0
Prowl stalked towards the room, wondering what had possessed his mate to call him now. Jazz knew he had too much to do to simply party out the night and- Prowl stopped dead as the door hissed open. Most of the Arks crew lay in a crumpled heap, black from soot, and Jazz and Bumblebee were wedged in one small corner, both breathing fast and blasters in hands. "What happened?"
"Fireworks. Somebody put down a fake floor, and put fireworks beneath it, setting them off exactly when the twins started the music." Jazz explained.
"Anyone hurt?"
"No, a few are a little scared, and I know I for one will not be able to enter into a room without testing the floor for awhile, but nobodies hurt."
Bumblebee shook his head, stepping out from the corner, looking around. "Who could've done this?"
Prowl muttered, "Probably the same person who did the whole gluing on of the tables onto the ceiling in the cafeteria."
Silence fell for a few moments as the three mechs considered the options. "I'll go tell Prime that he might not be able to call Elita-one tonight." Prowl said glumly as he trudged away.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Red Alert onlined to find nearly all of the Ark in the medbay. "Ratchet!" He screeched, afraid that he had slept through an attack.
Ratchet was instantly beside him, saying, "Don't worry Red Alert. Their just offlined from shock."
"Oh." Red Alert calmed down slightly, until he tensed up again as a question occurred to him. "How?"
"Someone set fireworks off beneath their feet, and-" Ratchet shrugged. "Most of them are still trying to recover from the shock of having something whistle past their optics only mere centimeters away."
Red Alert had a mental image of the Ark in panic as fireworks exploded beneath their feet- and snickered. Ratchets optic ridge rose, and Red Alert controlled himself. "I see. Any idea on who did it?"
"No, nobody was there. We're not even sure when they set it up." Ratchet grumbled.
Red Alert paused, and realized something. No, no. It couldn't be… "You certain that I wasn't in that room?" He asked, vocalizer slightly strangled.
Ratchet gave Red Alert an odd look, as Prime and Prowl appeared in response to First Aids paging. "Yes, you were in there for a time. Why?"
"Then it was probably me who set it up. When I get drunk I tend to –" Red Alert hesitated, and then shrugged. "I tend to become more like the twins. I like to prank people."
Prowl crashed as his logic circuits overloaded. Prime looked about ready to crash himself as he stared in shock at Red Alert.
Red Alert turned to look at them, and shrugged. "That's why I don't drink. I'll get it cleaned up sir."
"No need. We already have others cleaning it up. But Red Alert… from now on you are to never, ever touch high-grade again. As a direct order from the commander of the army, and a private plea." Prime said, before turning to stagger out of the room.
Primus, and I thought the Twins were bad. Prime thought.
SsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSs
I have no idea where this came from. All I remember was thinking of a story description I once saw, and I wondered what would happen if Red Alert got drunk… and my deranged little mind took care of the rest.