Bad Science (AU Body Swap thread)

[Deleted]

(Body swap AU thread brought to you by bad science and random Wheeljack explosion! Free for all. Whatever goes. No post order. If you don't want your charrie to be highjacked by another player, just let us know. It's a thread intended for shenanigans and highjinks only and in no way intends to be RP canon)

The first thing Wheeljack was aware of was that he wasn't dead. Second, that his comms was being flooded by angry voices. Third was the smoke.

The Wrecker sat up slowly, rubbing his head. Critically, he peered at the sad remains of the neutron engine in front of him. Welp. Good thing he'd insisted on all that shielding for his lab. Just in case, he'd told Fowler when the human had complained about the astronomical costs. He didn't plan to blow stuff up but. Well. These things happen. And it was for that reason the explosion hadn't taken out a chunk of his lab and compromised base infrastrcture. Instead, it had consumed every nearby item and burnt it all to a crisp before the resulting fireball had smacked into Wheeljack and thrown him to the ground. Everything had gone dark after that but Wheeljack figured that all the emergency fire containment safeguards had kicked in, given the foam and water on the floor and the lack of fire when he onlined again.

Ruefully, Wheeljack climbed to his pedes. He'd been long overdue for an explosion. His plating was scorched but otherwise fine. Blast armour. He'd been sparked with it, built for it. Meant to weather explosions specifically, it had taken little modification to get it Wrecker grade. His cohort had commissioned him like this after their experiences with the explosions his predecessor had caused, eventually being claimed by one of them.

::Relax:: Wheeljack pinged the rest of the base, because as disasters went...well, Wheeljack's sense of scale was extremely skewed. ::Just the spontaneous combustion of the last starship engine we dragged in. Nothing to worry about::

It wasn't a lie. He'd been standing nowhere near the thing nor had he been working on it. Hadn't touched it beyond transporting it into his lab. Wheeljack had scanned the thing and hadn't seen any leakages or anything else that could cause concern. But the model he was dealing with...random explosions were the one thing he knew they were notorious for. Whoever had ridden on in this sucker had lucked out.

::'m fine, by the way:: he added belatedly, when someone, Ratchet presumably, started screaming at him to get his aft down to the medbay. ::Seriously. Haven't even lost a limb or nothing. As explosions go, t'was pretty tame. First medic that comes through my door will get a sword thrown at their face. Actually, that's a warning to everyone. I will fix what's been broken so don't bother me::


(OOC: Wheeljack's body swap choice was brought to you by Zercon's randomized generator. It's all her fault and not my choice at all)

[Optimus Prime]

((I am sorry not sorry. I blame House.))


An explosion.

Optimus' optics snapped online sharply, the rupturing boom of the detonation sending him into a defensive state of mind right off the bat. He had been speaking to someone, he had been discussing plans to retrieve some Energon, but now they were gone? The individual nowhere in sight? That alone would be alarming, if it were not paired with the room changing entirely as well, which was another layer of confusion atop the pile. Add onto this the angle he was viewing the this new location? And he just locked up trying to churn through his thoughts.

Was he downed? Had he been knocked to the floor via the explosion?... He was in a different room now... did he get slammed THROUGH a wall? No... there wasn't any rubble, no smoke in the air... nothing to signal something so drastic and damaging. His frame also didn't hurt, he didn’t feel like he had been forcefully slammed through anything. There was also the fact that the room he had been in? Was on the complete other side of the base. Anything with enough power to throw him through that may walls? Would have killed him instantly the second it triggered.

His head twisted up a bit, looking up to see underneath a control panel in the main control room. What... how... He would have to be lying on his back to see under this area, if he even could get so far under with the width of his shoulders. It was then he peered down, looking at the ground, only to see two long posts of legs in front of him that ended in paws.

...what...

Instantly he lurched upright with a surge, back hitting the underside of the machinery, as a sort of a yelp that didn’t sound right in any way popped out. The sound was strangled, held back, only just barely flicking past the mental walls he threw up to keep such sounds of pain from surfacing. Nonetheless, He slid down, and lurched out into the open, before throwing his weight up.

The canine form of the Cassette launched himself onto his hind legs, trying to take on a humanoid posture that it really was not built to do. The back legs squatted slightly, threatening to fold, before pushing straight, which was a huge mistake. The frame's torso was large, and it had the welded on harness on its shoulders, which when put upright? Pulled the center of balance completely off. With a clanking clatter, Optimus landed upon his back, the slender legs and forearms spiraling out with paw pads flared.

Why!? How!? This didn’t even make sense! He had no frame of reference on how this was even possible, feeling lost and confused. Processor swaps were no small thing, and required a lot of recovery, nothing so... instant... feeling as this. Same with any kind of override. He froze up then, forelegs curling back towards his torso in a resting position, as he tried to access the Matrix to seek knowledge on what could have happened. Any bit of information... any fleck of intelligence to try to illuminate the situation. But no... no... of course... it wasn't there, which just sent that much more alarm through him. He was meant to protect the Matrix, and somehow, against his will, he abandoned it?

The explosion...

What had happened must have been associated with that, and as such? He rolled over and threw himself onto his feet again. Pushing off, he tried to go back upright, tried to get onto his hind legs once more to walk in a purposeful stride. However? He only made it a few paces before dropping with a clunk back onto all fours. He may have not been an extremely prideful person, humble all things considered, but there still was a certain amount of pride that had to be uncomfortably swallowed to start to trot forward on all fours in this awkward frame.

Optimus started down the hallway towards Wheeljack's lab, the stride clunky and uncoordinated causing him to stumble occasionally. While his features could show no expression? One could almost feel the frustrated glare radiating out from the cassettes' frame intertwined in its tiny field. It did not take him long all things considered to get to the lab, pushing his way in to the room of smoke and scattered debris.

Frowning... or more...internally frowning... his flat yellow optics locked down onto the Wrecker, his maw opening to speak, trying to talk, only for some... abomination of a sound to whine out? It was whirring, mixed with a dogs attempted bark, and a few garbled sounds as if the animal was trying to eat the air, which... really created a weird series of noises. Optimus' form lurched back, as if startled by what he had just spoken, before he planted his feet down decisively with a clunk and tried again. He was raising his voice at Wheeljack with one long drawn out bark to try to demand answers.

Perhaps a bit out of character for him to lose his calm... but really... how much can one mech be expected to handle? And being thrown into a dogs frame was definitely one of the last straws to pull out the frustrated distress he currently was feeling. He was not... raging... or anything truly out of the norm... but he definitely wanted some explanation. As such, his legs were post straight, head held high, trying to look regal still, but just looking like an animal that had poor balance control.

[Carbine]

Rest...

Recharge...

Yeah... that wasn't happening any longer.

Carbine's eyes snapped open sharply at the sound of an explosion, his helm reeling back along with his body. He had been in recharge; he had been sleeping, only to now find himself upright on his feet in a room he definitely didn’t fall asleep in. This would be disorienting all on its own, but was made that much worse with his helm surging with electricity like his taser was backfiring against him. He reeled because of this, stumbling wildly with a pained stagger, there being the sound of someone yelling ripping into the air he definitely did not recognize... no... he did recognize it somewhat... it kind of sounded like Red Alert was yelling? But not?...

His frame lurched violently, throwing his head back before his spine collided with a wall with a bang. What was happening!? What was going on!? The electricity wasn't stopping and it burned and seared into his mind like rows and rows of needles grinding into his inner circuitry. There was that yell again, was that coming from him?... It was hard to try to calculate it's source. It was then his hands reeled up to clutch at his head, a blind hope that pressure would release some of the pain, only to feel posts and a squared off shape? A shape that should NOT be there?

Blunt fingertips ground down into the sparking sensory horns, which served to only confuse him more. Did he get injured?! Was that chunks of his helm pulled apart creating the spikes and hard edges? No... it was too smooth, it was too symmetrical... did someone attach something to his head?... no... no... there was that yell again... but... no one was around?... where...

Gradually, fighting against the fading twitches of electricity and his horror, he looked down towards his hands which slid off of his head. His jaws clenched and released rhythmically in stress, trying to process what was going on through the huge slew of data that was assaulting his processor. He simply ended up staring at his palms, the light grey metal, white, red, flecked with lines and patches of yellow bio lights that jolted up the forearm.

Oh Primus.

Carbine barked out a horrendous scream, the surges of electricity coming back full tilt, causing the yell to get cut off with a strain and his teeth clenching together with a few chattered pops. To try to find stability, he pushed against the wall again, hands clapping back to plant flat on its surface, trying to ride out the electricity that assaulted his processor in ways that would be a damn war crime.

What was going on!? What had happened!? He was definitely in Red Alert's frame, which made no sense whatsoever. How do you try to make sense of such absurdity? Whatever it was, he ended up like this, and he was one hundred percent not ok with it, trying to flick through the slew of text that was scrolling through his HUD ((Oh hey he could read, bonus!)). All the alerts, all the words, all the warnings, screeches, some video feeds from security cameras of others freaking out, the sounds from every corner of the base pummeling into his mind in a constant barrage. His optics were even picking up every little fraction of a detail in the room he was in, which made him feel like he was high, able to see past 'realty' or something with the level of detail in play. Throw on top of all this his insane sense of smell pummeling him? And he was darn right losing it.

A soft whine started to whirr out, a drawn out whimper that started to contort and whirl up in volume until he was yelling in frustrated rage, kicking off of the wall to start in a full charge down the hallways. There was too much information, too much assaulting his mind. He couldn't handle it. He could handle Bolo... he could juggle personalities, he was... had been... a Carrier able to deal with cassettes easily, but this? This was an entirely different ball game of technical data and information that slammed into his HUD so violently the input was trying to fight and spar with one another for attention.

Mentally clawing, he ripped at the HUD displays, trying to tear them out of the way, trying to rip them down, trying to just activate anything they wanted to get them sated enough to vanish. This only caused panic filled pings to lash out at random occupants of the base, the contents filled with jumbled nonsense of letters with panic and pain glyphs accenting them all. An alarm started to blare in the base, somewhat sounding like a bomb warning? Whatever it was it was way the pit too loud. Slapped atop all this chaos? The sprinkler systems activated in half of the base, instantly triggering as if a major fire was going on. It was through his charge and the multiple security triggers being activated, he ended up stumbling, his feet far too large and clunky compared to what he was used to, which just caused him to go airborne for a moment.

Whelp... this is how I die...

This was the only thought Carbine had before he slammed his chest and face onto the ground. This would be bad alone, but with his momentum he had geared up before stumbling? And he ended up scraping a good distance down the hallway, sheering off red and white paint onto the grey floor with a horrendous squeal of metal on the worlds worst slip and slide. It is here Carbine remained; face down, twitching, small sparks flicking across the sensory horns in tandem with each lurch, water raining down atop him from the ceiling.

[Deleted]

Wheeljack had honestly been expecting Ratchet or Red Alert or Optimus Prime to be the first person through his door.

He was not expecting Bolo to stumble in like the cassette was nursing a bad processor ache. One optic ridge raised high, Wheeljack ignored Bolo when he started barking at him. The Wrecker started poking away at the sad remains of the neutron engine, wondering what had caused the fault. Eventually though, the barking got annoying and Wheeljack decided enough was enough.

::Carbine. Get Bolo out of here:: he commed. ::Better do it fast or the next time you see your beloved cassette, I'll have installed turrets in its aft::

---

Either the world had gotten a lot smaller or he was a lot taller.

Zoom-Zoom raised one servo to check if it was his imagination or not that the monitors had gotten a lot shorter and caught sight of a blue and white paintjob that he didn't recall getting installed into his stealth suite. Then he wondered what the slag he was doing in the security office anyway, the minibot wasn't scheduled for monitor duty this cycle.

Then he glanced down and checked again and no, the world didn't make anymore sense since he'd first suddenly materialised here and caught sight of Mirage's frame instead of his own.

Sure was something strange in the energon today.

--

Smokescreen was flabbergasted. He glanced down to check not once nor twice but eight times to make sure he wasn't hallucinating and even then he still wasn't sure if he was still in recharge.

"I am Optimus Prime," he whispered in disbelief. The voice that spilled out though startled him, he flinched at its deepness. "Why am I Optimus Prime?"