Heading to Canada?

"That is the creepiest thing I have ever seen."

Such is Darth Vader's reaction when I pry my birthday present from Kevin out of its packaging. Once my brother found out Transformers had somehow joined my list of obsessions, he knew he had to get me one of the Star Wars Transformer toys. Needless to say, I was thrilled to open his present and discover the Darth Vader/TIE Advanced Fighter action figure inside. Vader... is less so.

"It's a plot," he insists. "A plot by Hasbro to wring as much profit from as many of its toy lines as possible."

"Who cares?" I reply, wrestling with one of the fighter's wings. "It's Star Wars and Transformers. I'm happy. How does this go again?"

Vader shakes his head in exasperation, then bends down and plucks the instruction sheet from the pile of packaging and hands it to me.

"Thanks." It takes a few minutes, but I finally get the figure into Vader mode. "What do you think?"

Grievous cocks his head to one side, puzzled. "That's supposed to be Vader?"

"Well, a mech Vader anyhow," I reply.

Jango takes one look at the figure and bursts into uncontrollable laughter. He keeps laughing even as Vader gives him a heated glower and Grievous whacks him upside the helmet with one of my other birthday presents, a slow-cooker cookbook from my mom.

"I fail to see any humor in this," Vader grumbles.

"He can laugh," I tell him. "He doesn't have a Transformer figure. Yet."

"At least it's a reasonable likeness," Megatron puts in from the doorway, where he's been watching the proceedings with some degree of amusement. "The same cannot be said of all my action figures."

"True," I reply.

"They should make a Transformer Kenya figure," quips Delta. "One that goes from Kenya mode to horse mode."

"Har, har." I return the toy to starfighter mode and set it aside. "Any reports from home yet?"

"Your mother will be leaving next Sunday for a special nursing class in Nevada," Vader replies. "She will be gone for two weeks. She requests that you either return home to watch over Brandon, or bring Brandon to Kentucky."

I nod. "I'll talk to Rose and Prime about that. Anything else?"

"There have been no sightings of our enemies... nor has there been any change in the enteched."

Delta wilts a little. "Crookwing's still out then, huh?"

"And Maul, and Jango, and the dragonriders, and the Cheat," I add, sighing. "There's got to be something we can do."

"Perhaps destroying Babylon Palace will release their souls?" theorizes Jango. "From all I've heard, the place is powered by their spirits..."

"Do you want to risk killing them if you're wrong?" demands Megatron.

I stand up. "I'm not going to sit here much longer. I'll go to Canada and talk to Keily and Snape myself. There has to be some way to save the rest of them. It's been too long already."

"If you go, I go with you," Vader insists.

"Me too," Delta adds. "Cyclonus is mine to defeat, slag it."

Jango and Grievous give each other long-suffering looks, then step forward. "Someone has to keep the three of you from hurting yourselves," Jango explains. "We'll go too."

I smile. "Thanks, guys. You don't know how much this means to me."

"Anything for our friends," Grievous insists.