Shrouded

That is strange, Waverod thought. Most unusual electromagnetic radiation. Gamma waves, undoubtedly. But what would cause this particular spectrum? The waves he detected seemed to resonate. They were high energy, and short wavelength, but weak otherwise. They were on several frequencies, but not the randomness of white noise. The longest wavelength was twice as strong as the others, which were otherwise identical. Most oddly, if you took the longest wavelength as 1, the other wavelengths were fractions of it: 1/2, 1/3, 1/5, 1/8, and so on. The reciprocal Pedmas sequence, named for the ancient mathematician and scientist who investigated the sequence. Legend had it that he was one of Perceptor's teachers. A mystery, but it will have to wait. I have an appointment to keep.

Waverod entered into Alpha Trion's study for the second study session. She was looking forward to what the old archivist had to show her in the Covenant. Alpha Trion punched up the passage they were to examine today, and had it at the ready, when suddenly another Cybertronian joined them. An odd figure, Waverod had never seen anyone like this mysterious visitor before: colored brass, iron, and purple, with various gear motifs.

"Vector Prime, my brother, what has brought you here from your exile?" Alpha Trion asked.

"I'm not sure. Often I show up where I am needed, but I'm not always told why. However, I have an idea. Remember the Shrouding?"

"Indeed. A most strange event, I felt like I was splintering. I cannot recall why Nexus did that."

"Nor in much detail can I, but in guarding space and time I monitor the Shroud. Something seems to have happened to it."

"I wonder if it has something to do with the odd gamma radiation I detected on my way here?" Waverod interjected. He then described to the two primes what he had detected.

"Hmm. Your sensors are undoubtedly better than mine, Waverod. This radiation is what I would expect if something had set the Shroud to vibrate. Alpha Trion, do you mind if I remain here for a bit and ponder what could have caused this?"

"Not at all. Will it disturb you if we carry on with our planned study? We plan to look into an incident in Alchemist's life."

"Go ahead, it won't be a problem."

Alpha Trion activated the Covenant at the intended passage. Instead of an ancient Cybertronian, however, the screen displayed a human: bald, with a reddish brown beard and glasses, wearing a red and blue plaid shirt over a black one. In an English accent he spoke: "Lookin' good, gang. Let's do this!"

Confusion reigned in the study. The three missed much of what the human was saying, but caught odd references to Cybertron, and finally, as Alpha Trion paused the readout, a small figure of Optimus Prime himself! Or at least the human claimed; there were some differences between this figure's appearance and the Optimus Waverod knew.

"Most peculiar! And yet, when I look at the selection finder, it reads the passage I intended, not whatever this is." Trion turned to his brother. "Vector, any ideas?"

"Something has disturbed the Shroud, allowing portions of other realities to leak into ours. But how random a thing is this? It should only allow analogous realities to leak. Unless...."

"Unless what?" Waverod's curiosity was definitely piqued by these unusual events, though she had no idea what could cause them.

Vector Prime didn't immediately finish the thought. "This pattern in the radiation means that something has caused the Shroud to vibrate. But that could only happen if something major happened to the multiverse. If it were too dangerous, too destructive, the Shroud would be damaged and I'd be able to detect what it was. Since I cannot, it must not be dangerous. But the only thing that has enough power to do this, and not be dangerous, would be...." Here he trailed off into thought, then finished "a new universal cluster! Pity we may never know much of it.

"Would what we're seeing be coming from it?" Alpha Trion asked.

"Not likely. What universal stream we're getting this from would be determined randomly. Still, there is something oddly familiar about this." He thought for a second. "Of course! It's from a Quadwal stream. That explains it. But why this? The analogues of Cybertronians in Quadwal realities are small, plastic and metal objects which are not alive and cannot act on their own."

Alpha Trion considered this. "That may be true of most Cybertronians. But as the Thirteen, before the Shrouding, were we not multiversal singularities? Surely such objects could not be part of us. Our analogues would have to be thinking creatures of some sort."

"I have no memory of contact with a Vector Prime from a Quadwal reality. No sense of having been there."

"But I have, and you have told me that you have, a memory of a kind of low volume buzzing that disappeared with the Shrouding. I have studied these humans some, and it is clear that while their sparks are akin to ours, their biology is completely different. If our Quadwal analogues are human, they would not have the capability of joining their selves and experiences with ours even before the Shrouding. Any connection would only allow us to experience them, and that experience would be so different, it would be incomprehensible."

Waverod pondered this. "Vector Prime, you said the vibrating Shroud should only allow analogous things to leak. What if that is what happened? What if this is somehow analogous to the passage we were going to study?"

Vector Prime thought for a second before answering. "Then, presumably, this human would be a Quadwal analogue of someone from that passage. He would be... yes, it must be, he looks like a human version of him. That human is a Quadwal Alchemist Prime." Alpha Trion pulled up the metadata associated with the Quadwal transmission. "I've saved it. It will take a while to analyze this. I can't guarantee that the leakage will last long enough."

It didn't. The screen now showed the Covenant of Primus. "Lugnuts. This is after the passage we were to study. Waverod, you shall have to return again. For now, my brother and I must examine this event."

A few weeks later, Alpha Trion had finally decoded the metadata. What in Cybertron is a toygrind?