Chapter 3: More Than Meets the Eye

In another world beyond the Realms, a game court was being used. It was a basketball court made for giants. Right now, said giants were playing the game. The giants were metal and had various vehicle parts attached to them. Right now, a red and blue robot with antennae on his helmet and smokestacks on a backpack was dribbling the ball to the other team’s hoop. “He shoots, he scores, what a star!” boasted the robot. He then passed the ball to a shorter robot with a car’s front for a chest unit. The shorted robot dribbled the ball.

“You watch, Prime!” called the shorter bot. “I’m about to do a lay-off!”

“It’s called a lay-up, Jazz!” corrected the red and blue bot, the Autobot Leader, Optimus Prime. “And watch out for Sky Runner!” A female robot with jet wings then popped up in front of the shorter bot, Jazz, and tried to prevent a shot.

“Yo! Megs!” called Jazz. He passed the ball to a male robot with alien jet parts, the former Decepticon Lord, Megatron. Megatron dribbled the ball a bit as his son, another bot with jet parts, Galvatron, tried to block his shot. Megatron then saw an opening for one of his teammates. He and Optimus locked optics and Optimus grinned. Megatron quickly passed the ball and Optimus leapt up to the basket, twisted in the air, and dunked the ball behind his back!

“GAME!” called a woman’s voice. A black-armored robot woman, Optimus’ wife, Blackarachnia, came running up. “And that’s 27 for the older generation and 26 for the young’uns!”

“Slaggit!” swore Galvatron.

“Language!” rebuked Megatron.

“I have to admit,” panted Optimus, “I almost lost that one!”

“It was rather hectic, I must admit, us going against our own kids,” mused Megatron.

“Sorry,” interjected the jet woman, Sky Runner, one of Optimus and Blackarachnia’s daughters, “are we gonna gloss over the fact that Uncle Megatron said ‘language’?”

“I know, I know,” grunted Megatron.

“Well, I don’t know about you bots,” called Jazz, “but I’m eager to see that Moboball in action.”

“What IS that, anyways?” asked Galvatron.

“You heard of Calvinball?” quizzed Blackarachnia.

“Yeah, I have all the Calvin and Hobbes collections.” Galvatron then made a connection. “Ah, it’s Mobian Calvinball.”

“It’s Mobian Calvinball,” confirmed Blackarachnia.

“Then let’s go see it,” declared Optimus. “Oh, and everyone, we want clean language here! Can’t hurt Megatron’s audio receptors too badly!”

“You know, Prime, it’s talk like that that makes me want to shoot you again!” growled Megatron.

“Careful, Dad, that’s almost a cuss!” chuckled Galvatron. Megatron cycled air through his olfactory sensors.

“That’s not going away any time soon, is it?” he grunted to himself.

---

A silver hedgehog with five quills sprouting from his forehead, Silver, poked his head around a tree and eyed a flag. He then got out a tennis racket and a badminton birdie. He hit the birdie and it hit the flag. “That’s three points!” he called.

“All right then,” called his pink brother, Daniel. “The score is six for me, ten for Shade, eight for Sandy, and four for you!”

“I already HAD four!” protested Silver. A red hedgehog girl, Shade, then breezed past in a potato sack with a human woman, Sandy, in hot pursuit. Silver saw a chance. “Hold it, Shade!” he called. “You just ran into the No-eyes Sector! You’re gonna have to cover your eyes!”

“No-eyes Sector?” muttered Shade as she and Sandy stopped. “I never heard of that. Where is it?”

“You can’t see it,” replied Daniel. “It’s unseen.” Shade covered her eyes.

“How do I know I went in it then?”

“You can’t see anything, right?” asked Silver.

“So…how do I get out?”

“Someone bonks you and the boys on the head with the Moboball!” called Sandy as she bounced a ball on their heads. “I get two points each!” Shade, Silver, and Daniel then chased Sandy all around the field.

“That was a rotten rule!” shouted Shade.

“I wasn’t even gonna add that!” growled Silver. “I decree no more headbonks!”

“I’ll show you!” called Daniel. “You just ran into a dizzy spot! You have to spin around for a minute and then try to walk a straight line!”

“Sorry,” called Sandy, “but this dizzy spot is in an elder zone, so the eldest of us has to spin. Start spinning, Shade.”

“Oh no, you don’t!” argued Shade as she pulled out a card with a rose on it. “I invoke my Return to Sender card! The person who tried to deflect the punishment is unable to avoid it! So spin!”

“That’s not fair!” wailed Sandy.

“You know the Moboball rules,” chuckled Daniel, thankful for the save.

“Yeah, yeah,” grunted Sandy. “Anything we make up goes. Well, you’ll pay for this.” Sandy started spinning and getting dizzy. “This game lends itself to certain abuses.” Shade then looked at her discarded potato sack and grinned.

“Guess how you get out of the spot!” she chuckled. She then shoved the sack over Sandy’s head.

“HEY!” Sandy abruptly fell to the ground as Optimus and his family headed up to them.

“Hey guys!” he called. “Who’s winning?”

“Wait, where are Sonic and Amy?” asked Blackarachnia. “I thought they were playing with you.”

“They were serving a penalty,” explained Silver. “Unnecessary flag-swiping.”

“So, where are they now?” asked Optimus. Sonic and Amy then came up to Megatron carrying a big bucket of water.

“…Your Majesties, wha-?” Sonic and Amy cut off Megatron’s question.

“This is a poem, please do as you’re told,” began Sonic.

“And here is a bucket of water, ice cold.”

“Take this water,” grumbled Amy, “and dump it on we.

Don’t hesitate, do it a.s.a.p.” Megatron arched an eyebrow, then grinned. He then dumped the contents of the bucket all over Sonic and Amy.

“I’ve been waiting years to do something like that!” he cackled.

“You kids just wait until YOU get a peril poem penalty!” Sonic called out to his sons and their friends. “You’ll be sorry then!”

“Well, until then, you two better make up for all those points you lost!” taunted Silver. As Sonic and Amy ran off after their kids, Optimus chuckled.

“Sweet Gaia,” he said, “it’s nice to see them like this.”

“Hey, Megatron!” called Jazz. “He said a bad language word!”

“Let it go, already!” snapped Megatron. “Sweet Chaos, you always-!” Megatron stopped as Amy was replaced by someone else in his optics. He rubbed them and saw Amy again. “…Royana?”

“Megatron?” asked Optimus, concerned for his brother.

“Sorry, I thought Amy was that kitsune friend you made.”

“You mean Arsha?” asked Optimus.

“Who’s Arsha?” asked Sky Runner.

“A princess from another universe I made friends with,” explained Optimus. “Her world, ours, and another world briefly merged with ours during an event called the Convergence.”

“This was when I led the Decepticons down a darker path,” supplied Megatron. “I made an alliance with Arsha’s enemy and a man named Hiro Adachi, leader of Shocker Rift. Without question, that event was an unmitigated disaster! I met with Daleks, Kamen Riders, cyborg fairies, and this whole thing was just after Nemesis Prime’s bid for power!”

“So, you had enough of alternate universes after that,” guessed Galvatron.

“MORE than enough, dear boy. Take my advice, stick to matters in THIS universe. Other universes are not your concern.”

“Come on, I’m sure it wasn’t all that bad,” remarked Optimus.

“Optimus, I don’t know if you remember, but Hiro planted a torture device in my head and Dr. Borg wanted to dissect the Decepticons!” Just then Sonic, his family, Sandy, and Shade came up to them.

“Hey guys!” called Sonic, now looking dryer. “What’s up?”

“Just chatting,” explained Optimus. “Telling our kids about the Convergence.”

“Ah, the Convergence,” sighed Amy happily. “And the 3V2R! Remember when you and Arsha forgot your fight terms?”

“Fight terms?” asked Galvatron. “3V2R?”

“Yeah!” answered Sonic. “Optimus got third place in a fighting tournament!”

“It’s called the 3V2R, hosted by a race called the Chizarans,” explained Optimus. “I fought in a second one after the second war and got first place prize.”

“Oh, then you can’t fight in it anymore?” asked Amy.

“‘Fraid not.” Optimus then got a faraway look. “You know, given the war, I’d bet that they tried to contact us only to get nothing.”

“We WERE focused on something else at the time,” replied Megatron. “Primacron and Starscream leap readily to mind.”

“…Yeah. I guess I miss them.”

“Well, now’s a good time to try and call them up,” suggested Sonic.

“Do you have a means of calling them?” asked Sky Runner. Jazz winced.

“We did, at the old base,” he said.

“Scrap!” muttered Blackarachnia. “Unicron probably destroyed it when he smashed the old base.”

“Perhaps he saved that data,” mused Megatron.

“I’d be very surprised if he did in the chaos of transferring out of there,” remarked Optimus.