Authors Note:
This is a little story I wrote up (my first story), about three original Beast Wars characters; Pyrefly who's a saboteur, Gypsy the medic, and Centiablo. Two of these are actually concepts of my buddies. Anyways, this story is just the hilarity that ensues when you have a Predacon who takes a little too much pride in her work. I plan on writing the official introductions of Gypsy and Centiablo later, depending on what you would prefer to read first. So while I will heavily appreciate any criticism so that I can improve, I would also like to know which of these other characters you would like to see the story of for the next chapter, majority rules. Then I'll write the next for the other character afterwards. Don't worry I plan on them interacting more with the original characters of the series soon. Italics are for flashbacks.
Disclaimer: I do not own Beast Wars, Transfomers, or any characters associated with such. The only things I own in this story are Centiablo, Pyrefly, and Gypsy. The rest belong to their respective creators. I don't have any financial gain from this either.
Chapter 1:
Her optics slowly seemed to come on-line, at first dimly, then brighter as she let out a groan. "Wh...what happened..." She had sighed, before groaning in pain again. She shifted to her knees, trying to sit up before falling right back onto her aft. "Ow!" She'd cried out. She took quite the scrapping apparently. It was dark now...
"Hey Pyrefly, how about some light?" A voice shouted, distinctively male with a strange accent. As she tried to recover, she swore she could hear the ocean hitting the sand.
"I can't...I'll have to put my light on..." Pyrefly had unwittingly agreed, lids shutting over her optics before opening again, her big eyes now shooting two beams of light. "Wow..." Was all she could say. So things had gone worse than she'd thought. "Thanks alot Gypsy..." She'd said with a rather mean tone.
Meanwhile another had stirred, optics coming on line, and she let out a loud cough. And here she had hoped she would just get to stop and enjoy the sea air. She rarely got to get out this far. And then this...stupid...firefly...had to just come up and mess things up! Oh no! That was mean...it wasn't her fault. She was just being friendly.
Where had she gone wrong? She raised her arm, only to grimace and whine. Of course her delicate little hand was gone. It was gone! That was so wrong...on so many levels. Oh well, she was making a big deal out of nothing, so had soon set up a quick mending job. Just enough to keep her set until she reached the CR tank back in base. Bleh, she hated that thing...
The stasis pod had landed in a boggy area, half submerged in the muddy thick liquid, it being a strange color. The area around the pod was black, some of it still burning, the smell of smoke was in the air. The grass was a little tall. Soon, it began to scan for a life form to copy...but it looked as if there was nothing there. The pod was in danger, and so was the protoform within...a surge hit it, and the scanning seemed to cut itself off prematurely. But soon, there seemed to be embers slowly floating about the air. On closer inspection, it appeared to be actual insects. They were fireflies...just minor details that would play a much larger part soon. The lid of the stasis pod had slowly opened, whoever was inside was very weak. A thin leg had forced itself between the space; obviously this would be another insect...right?
It was getting dark, and the bug that had managed to get its body halfway out of the pod simply rolled out of it, landing gracelessly with a thud onto the normally wet but now burnt grass.
"Ow..." Was what she had said at first. She let out a high pitched scream as large bug eyes looked up, bright lights flashing as the bug rolled around, confused.
"Okay...so tell me again why you had to blow it up?" Gypsy had sighed in exasperation, still working on her hand. On close inspection, her metallic skin was scuffed and chipped now, singed even. Her wings were in shambles, her beautiful wings!
"Shh! Calm down!" The light voice had whispered to the shrieking firefly. The firefly had turned, and noticed that it was a large...butterfly? The flying bug had landed close, before taking a even closer look, causing the firefly to shrink back in fear.
"Where am I?" The firefly asked the butterfly.
"Your...well...that I don't rightly know...but you have friends here." She would respond, in a soft, friendly tone. The firefly thought it was sorta soothing.
"Who are you?" She would ask.
"Oh...me? I'm Gypsy..." The Butterfly would respond. "I am a medic...whats your name?"
"I...don't remember..."
"Oh dear..."
"What?" The firefly would ask, voice betraying the alarm she felt.
"You don't remember...at all?"
"Well...for some reason, I can't rightly remember my name...I know I did some energon mining...but other than that? Nothing." The Firefly explained. "I think the landing messed me up..."
"Hm...well...we'll have to fix that. Why don't you come with me...get you out of this wet gross area and into a CR tank..." Gypsy had used a wing to almost usher the firefly forward gently. The firefly complied, looking back at her pod before following.
"Well...I wanted to blow it up because I knew it was gonna be great! I mean, blowing up a Maximal communications tower? Come on! I spent megacycles setting up the explosives for that..." Pyrefly explained, as she looked a bit better off than her company. Pyrefly was the physically stronger of the two, not to mention she was more resistant to higher temperatures.
"You and your explosions...did you even think that you should warn someone before you start blowing things up? We never even made it out of blast range." Gypsy had scolded, finishing her hand, before whining at just how scuffed and burnt she looked. She was supposed to be the pretty one! The pretty, one! She wasn't supposed to be the one who got blown up all the time! She was supposed to be the one who put them all back together! But with Pyrefly she seemed to get blown to bits far too often now, often because Pyrefly just had to blow something up.
"Yea well...I forgot..." Pyrefly shrugged sheepishly.
"Wait..what? How could you forget that you set up explosives when we were in the area?"
The two hadn't gotten far, before they felt the land quake in their immediate area. The firefly began to tremble, and tried to crawl back. Gypsy just had gone rigid, before sighing in defeat.
"Oh no..."
The dirt flew in every direction, as a worm like creature shot from the earth, letting out a loud mechanical roar, before falling forward and landing on its legs...many many legs. Its pincers were large, and were a dark red color, its body was orange and segmented. Its many legs were also red, and its eyes were the same color, except with black pupils. "Well...howdy!"
"Oh...oh no..." Gypsy sighed again.
"Aggghhhhh!" The firefly had shriek, her voice seemed to just echo all the way to the mountains. This would be a difficult day...
"Centiablo, go away!" Gypsy said.
"No!" Centiablo had said, voice more like hurt whining than defiance. "I hear you found a new Pred..."
"Huh?" The firefly asked, wings twitching as one antennae perked.
"He means 'Predacon'..."
"Oh...I'm a Predacon?"
"Now you are, yes..."
"Oh..." Pyrefly seemed to accept this term...didn't sound right...but it made sense she supposed. "Why's your voice sound so stupid?" She asked the giant metallic colored centipede, who seemed a bit taken aback.
"Well uh...well...well...howdy!"
"Oh..." Gypsy had begun, hanging her head and shaking it in embarrassment at the stupidity of this 'thing' they called a centipede. Why he chose that form was beyond her. It was ugly, it was long...ew...so not like her beautiful butterfly she had chosen. She viewed herself as the most 'beautiful' Predacon, and she knew others felt the same. Well...she knew that...whether the others actually agreed or not, she didn't know.
"Howdy!" the Firefly had responded cheerfully. The Centipede seemed rather pleased by this. Gypsy let out an annoyed whine. Not her too...Gypsy was just surrounded by stupid bots wasn't she? The firefly had seemed to get over her fear of Centiablo, just a small little detail that Gypsy had noted. She wondered if this one also got over other fears quickly, she wondered just how well she would adjust here.
"Why'd you choose a worm?" The firefly would ask the centipede. It made the equivalent of a shrug.
"Got it wrong there; its not a worm, itts called a 'Centipede'. Its like the Predacon version of a useless worm, I think. It was the only thing out there, heh, not the prettiest thing though. But it can climb almost anything faster than you can blink, can walk on ceilings and can tunnel pretty deep. These legs let me move pretty fast. Pretty fun when you get to hunt those Maxies...an eat 'em..."
"What!?" Gypsy had replied shocked. That was so horrible!
"Oh...I mean...never mind." Centiablo had corrected himself.
"Oh, I've had enough of this...Centiablo, why don't you go find Quickstrike and play or something?" Gypsy asked.
"Okay..." Centiablo replied in a defeated tone, before tunneling again quickly and scurrying away. Gypsy then had turned to the firefly and said in a almost desperately apologetic voice.
"I am so sorry..."
"Heh, looks like we got it bad this time." Centiablo had noted, still lying in a strange position in his beast mode, just not moving except for the occasional twitch of a leg. "Guess those bangs can get me even underground. Quickstrike'll never let me live this down...but its pretty slaggin' funny..." He talked about Quickstrike alot. The two had alot in common and took to each other rather quickly, due to the annoyance of everyone around them. Both were loud, both were bugs...er..for the most part, both shot first and asked questions later. Stunningly, they made a pretty effective team, to the surprise of the other Predacons. The Maximals who were unlucky enough to be there when Centiablo came out of his pod were quite stunned when the two of them had managed to get as far as they did. Also, Centiablo honestly felt alot more comfortable with the fuzor, due to the fact that the beast mode he chose was rather strange and ugly looking, which didn't seem to bother the fuzor much at all. But that was a story for a different day. Right now he was upside down, his head and half of his body was still in a whole, while the rest of him was on its back flat on the earth.
"You think you got it bad, how can I fly when my beautiful wings are scrap!?" Gypsy had cried melodramatically. Her wings were like her pride and joy to her. They were large, they were colorful and they were quite pretty. They also provided decent shielding from the back, probably why she wasn't as banged up as she should have been after that big of an explosion. But right now they looked almost shredded, pieces of it burned, and there were holes where debris had blown through it.
"Wow, the two of you are pretty bad off..." Pyrefly had acknowledged, looking down at her own body. "Guess I shouldn't have moved that unstable energon around the tower for added affect during the explosion..." She didn't even see Gypsy's horrified expression as the revelation came that she had pretty much done this on purpose, yet still managed to almost destroy all three of them completely by accident. Pyrefly had seemed so shy at first, but when it came to explosives, she had been able to jump out of her metaphorical shell. She had a major sense of camaraderie that had been able to let her fit in with the other Predacons, she even adapted to their ideals so much easier than Gypsy had. Her love of organized destruction should have appealed to the rest of them, but Pyrefly's almost completely nonexistent logic would always set back any sort of effective thing she did.
"Don't even tell me you did that..." Gypsy had demanded. Pyrefly had smiled and nodded, proud of herself. "Why are you happy about that!? You nearly blew us all to scrap, and now you tell me you actually moved energon there to make the explosion larger!?"
"Yep. I think it turned out pretty good!"
"Oh for the love of..."
Pyrefly had become a bit of a little daredevil as well, not only enjoying a free fall before stopping her fall with her flight, but also liked to be as close to her explosions as possible. It was almost as if her logic circuits had been fried after her first explosion, or worse after her arrival to this planet. Or maybe it was because of her beast mode. All that Gypsy had figured out was that Pyrefly was almost bi-polar. One minute she was quiet, the next she was cackling as she threw explosives all around her, and delighting in the explosions that followed. Sometimes she was calm, the next she was cheery and smiling. She was unhealthily attracted to bright lights, especially fire. She would just sit there, or float there, staring at it as if it was the most entertaining thing in the world. Pyrefly was a rather strange addition to the Predacons...
The next thought on Gypsy's mind, was just how they were going to take hearing this story. Would they congratulate Pyrefly? Or would she be the laughing stock of the Predacons...Well they would know soon enough...
"Okay, now when you transform, you have to say your name, and then 'terrorize'." Gypsy had explained slowly. Pyrefly had nodded unsure of exactly what she was doing. "Like this...Gypsy, terrorize." Almost immediately after, the butterfly had completely transformed. She had large almond shaped 'heavily lidded' optics, with large glowing 'pupils'. She had a soft kind expression on her face. She had two thin curled antennae which came from the top of her helm. Her frame was very lean, and the most striking features were the large wings which sprouted from her back. She was a beautiful one, but she was not strong.
"Wow...will I look like that?" The firefly had asked.
"Oh dear no...you didn't chose this beast mode..." Gypsy had responded, with an assuring smile. "So we agree your name is Pyrefly?" She asked. The firefly had nodded, they'd had enough time to discuss possible names, and after a bit of time they'd found this name the most likely. They had tried the other names, but nothing really came of it.
"Okay..here goes nothing; Pyrefly...terrorize!" And just like that, the firefly had transformed. She was shorter than Gypsy, her colors red, orange and a pale silver. Her face was silver, and small dots sat on her cheeks, making her look rather young. Her eyes were red and big. Her body was small and she had thin insect wings. "I did it!" She shouted excitedly, jumping up and down with glee.
"Nicely done!" Gypsy had congratulated her. "Now...since you can fly...why don't we head to base? I think its time you meet your fellow Predacons."
"Okay! Um...will they like me?"
"..." Gypsy's response was delayed. Did they really ever 'like' anyone? She didn't want to scare the femme away, but they didn't even know what Pyrefly could do yet, and neither did Gypsy...but if going by her name and past occupation, she should at least be useful in sabotage..."Y-yes I'm sure they will just love you." She lied...
"Your very nice! If I knew Predacons were really like this..."
"Oh thank you..." Gypsy had replied again hesitantly, feeling a bit guilty now. None of the Predacons were as agreeable as she was. That was because Gypsy wasn't even originally a Predacon. She was formerly a Maximal protoform, but she was re programed. Still her constant good mood, naivety and love of flowers carried over, making her alot closer to her beast form than the others might have been, well except for Inferno and maybe Waspinator. In fact, she had gotten to be a necessary annoyance for the rest of them, as she had the habit of healing Maximals too, even to the point where she would fly them back to their base if they were too hurt to get back herself. Her oath as a medic overrode any notion of alliance. Not surprisingly, that didn't really help her be taken seriously. So honestly, despite having to lie to Pyrefly, she felt a bit of pride seeing how well this one took to her, especially since she did everything that Gypsy told her to.
All he could do was twitch momentarily, optics glued to the scene before him. It had been destroyed. Not just the tower mind you...but the area of land it stood on. The destruction was grandiose, almost to the point of it being excessive. They were all stunned, the explosives were remarkably well placed, the damage to the area, despite being of grand proportion, was concentrated to that area. But he demanded to know just who was stupid enough to do this. It couldn't have been Inferno; his most loyal soldier had of course been by his side, standing there waiting for orders when the message had come through. If it weren't for that, he would've thought it was him, despite being unquestionable in his dedication, the ant had a habit of leaving a path of destruction in his wake. He hadn't believed it when he heard it. How could he have three of his ranks out of commission, as well as the very tower he had sent Inferno and Waspinator to put up not too long ago be completely destroyed? He questioned the validity of it when he had remembered that Rampage normally didn't make it a habit to willingly communicate with him, let alone sound that excited over something. Rampage was waiting for him when he'd arrived with Inferno and Waspinator, who had brought Quickstrike. He had honestly thought that the Maximals had massed some sort of secret special weapon or something, and had scrapped them, therefore he had come quickly and brought enough Predacons to gain control of this 'weapon'.
That was until he had realized that there was nothing there...just scorched and totally obliterated earth and metal spewed all over the ground. No Maximals, no 'secret weapons' capable of destroying three Predacons at once, no anything...it all made sense now...
Those thoughts were interrupted when he came upon the scene in question. His three newest additions were sprawled out, one of them in pieces, over the dirt and sand. Pyrefly had looked up to the shadow now looming over her, and she smiled, standing to attention but falling back miserably into the dirt. Gypsy gulped silently...he was not pleased by any means. She couldnt' see why not...Pyrefly had destroyed a Maximal tower right?
"Hey boss!" Centiablo's muffled voice was heard, head still in the ground. Quickstrike had prodded the still centipede with his snake arm a few times. Then another time for good measure. He then made a move to pull the centipede the rest of the way out of the ground, the first pull did nothing...it took five pulls to wrench him free, and the two flew a few feet before crashing into the ground.
"Tell me who did this!" He would respond, ignoring the greeting of the indisposed centipede. His voice was just brimming with quiet frustration, it was obvious that wasn't a request, it was a demand. Gypsy was trembling now, before going completely still with fear.
"The Royalty commands you to speak!" Inferno would reiterate, stepping forward causing Gypsy to jump. Pyrefly stood again, smiling and waving quickly.
"Me! Isn't it great! I destroyed it all! I took care of that Maximal tower!" She would chirp excitedly. Gypsy stared wide eyed, looking back and forth between the two of them, repeatedly, then desperately as she began to back away a few feet. The rest of them looked rather stunned by the revelation as one by one they realized what actually happened. And after seeing the look on Megatron's face, only Rampage seemed to be enjoying this.
"You did it? Oh, I should have seen this coming...yes..." Megatron had began. Pyrefly's smile had faded to a look of confusion. "Fool, there was no Maximal tower! That was our tower! You weren't even sent out here to destroy anything, I sent you for energon!" Pyrefly had shrunk back, laughing nervously a bit but other than that she began to tremble. So that was why she knew where it was...uh oh..."But this day can be salvaged despite of your moronic devices...yes, where is the energon cache you were instructed to gather?" He was not reassured by Pyrefly's next words.
"Oh I got rid of that." She'd replied, voice again cheerful.
"...Why?!"
"Duh...To make the explosion bigger." Pyrefly would explain, her tone almost as if he should've known why.
There was silence...except for the loud echoing laughter of Rampage in the distance.
"This...is humiliating...yes..."
So thats the end of chapter one! Thanks for reading. Next up, we'll either see a day through Gypsy's eyes, or get into Centiablo's head. Again criticism is appreciated, constructive preferred.