Lexi strikes again!

Disclaimer: I own no cannon characters (sadly). Maybe I can bribe Hasbro with Jell-O…

Side note: For this fic, these mean the person's speaking in another language. Or at least, someone's hearing another language…

Lexi scowled. It wasn't fair. Ratchet had deserved everything he'd gotten, and Prime had still announced that it was Lexi's job to clean him up. So the mechanic had spent over a week carefully cleaning Ratchet's interior. And his engine. And his undercarriage. And his circuitry. And repairing all the techy stuff she'd disconnected or disabled.

Optimus Prime would have to pay for this, she decided. But how? She thought long and hard about the Autobot leader. He liked for things to go more or less the way he expected, but he adapted when they didn't. That meant he would be hard to prank.

He understood people.

And maybe that was how Lexi would get him. All she needed was a little software…

Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots, entered the main room in the Autobot base. Miko, Jack, and Raf waved absently to him and continued with a discussion he couldn't quite hear. He tried to listen in – not to eavesdrop, but in case they were discussing something he should know about, like planning to sneak along on a mission – and frowned as their words reached him.

"I got pictures of Ratchet when Lexi filled him with Jello!" said Miko. Optimus' frown grew. What language was that child speaking?

"Why?" Jack asked.

"For blackmail, of course!" Miko exclaimed. Suddenly, all three kids looked up at Optimus.

"Uh…you didn't hear that, did you?" Raf asked nervously. Miko gulped.

"I did not understand what you said. What language are you children speaking? It is not one I have software to translate," Optimus replied. The kids exchanged confused glances.

"I have no idea what you just said, but okay," Jack shrugged. Optimus shook his head and walked away.

Jack glanced at Miko and Raf.

"Did…did Optimus just speak in another language?" he asked.

"I think it was Japanese," Raf replied. Miko nodded, silent for once. What had gotten into Prime?

"Ratchet, I believe the children are up to something," Optimus said. His chief medical officer looked at him strangely.

"Optimus, are you all right? You're speaking Japanese," Ratchet said. Optimus looked at him strangely.

"Are you speaking another language, Ratchet?" he asked. Ratchet blinked.

"You're the one who's speaking another language, prime," he protested. Prime blinked. He couldn't understand a word Ratchet was saying! Then again, ratchet did have much more advaced human-language-translation software than Prime himself. Muffled laughter reached Prime's audios. The Autobot leader looked around and found Lexi Bruner with a hand over her mouth to stifle her mirth.

"Lexi, what did you do?" Ratchet demanded. Prime looked confused; he still hadn't understood what Ratchet was saying. But Lexi did. She shrugged.

"I adjusted his translation software," she answered. "He's hearing English as Italian – and I canceled out his Italian-to-Cybertronian translator." She smirked. "That's what happens when you make me clean up a mess someone else earned!" she crowed. Ratchet grimaced.

"You mean that's what happens when you get bored and want an excuse to prank someone," he grumbled. She grinned.

"Pretty much," she agreed cheerfully.