Transmorphers, a transformers/beast wars fanfic

Transmorphers

Woo. This took me almost five months to write. I'll get to the next chap whenever. Since TFA was 52 episodes, and Animorphs was about 60 books long, this will be somewhere in between. my neopets username is evilzakominion. Neomail me with any and all requests and suggestions for this story. I do not answer PM thingies since I don't really feel like logging in TWICE in one visit. whose dumb idea was that, anyway?? Enjoy! (Oh, and grab yourself a soda-- this could take a while.)

It was night on the small planet of Cybertron. A large, dark figure crept silently across the grounds of a ruined city. Like everywhere else, the creature found itself surrounded by destruction, pieces and fragments of a long lost civilization. It was not of this world-it was an organic creature. Its jet black armor glistened in the reflected light of twin moons. It pushed itself forward on four, powerful clawed feet. Blades erupted from its elbows, knees, back, tail, and head. Two dragon-like wings sprouted from its back, wrapped protectively around its sides. Four silver eyes scanned the area defensively, prepared for anything the massive creature could take on.

But there was no danger here. Everything was silent, as it had been the past 25 years. The figure stood perfectly still behind a large structure, almost unrecognizable as a building, and began to change.

The wings sucked into its back with a sound like a wet rag being dragged across gravel. Blades disappeared from its joints. The tail was brought back into its body. All the while, the creature shrank. Its rock hard, jet black skin turned into a blue, cloth-like material. The four eyes became two, and turned a glassy blue shade. There was a crunching sound as the knees reversed direction and the creature stood on two legs. The soft, pink face was instantly masked behind a thin layer of glass and blue metal, just as short, brown hair sprouted from its head.

In the massive beasts spot now stood a fairly small, blue-clad human girl. She surveyed her scene carefully; making sure her transformation had not sent anyone into alarm. But no, there was still no one here, and there would be no one for miles.

The girl switched on her com-link, and spoke to the microphone in her helmet.

"I found us a spot. Track this message to the point and set the ship down here."

"Roger that, Lex. We're on our way."

Lex turned off her radio and stared into space. She could not yet see the tiny glimmer of her ship, but she knew she would soon. The ship itself was made with technology superior to that of the residents of this planet. So quickly, she thought, had the human race progressed technologically.

She turned a small part of her suit transparent, just her right shoulder, and looked at the mark on it.

It was a tattoo, a small, red symbol placed there years ago. It somewhat resembled a face, but with a slightly robotic look to it. She turned the patch of suit opaque again and gazed out towards where she knew was a distant city.

"Soon, my friends. Very, very soon."

The ship took several minutes to make a silent landing. It would not be detected by any radar, but visual cloaking devices were still in their infancy, and were not available on this particular ship.

Lex had designed it herself, and was rather proud of it. It was based on the design of a sort of Manta-like creature, thus giving it the name "Manta scouter." It was far smaller than The Epsilon Squadron's main ship, which was in orbit high above the planet.

Out of the exterior hatch strode four of her top ranking officers, who were also the only other humans on the planet who knew what she did.

Out first was her SIC, Rad. Behind him was his first officer and long time friend, Pez. Coming out behind those two were a pair that Lex was still shocked to see in the ranks of an army. Rick and Will were once not even a fraction of the men they were now. Rick was a large, broad-shouldered man who could bench press 200 easy. Will was now a highly skilled weapons specialist, and one of the greatest minds in this little band of renegade humans. They were all dressed in identical blue space suits.

Besides these five, there were three hundred and six other humans, twenty-three Andalites, and one-hundred sixteen Hork-Bajir aboard the ship. Sure, four hundred and fifty was a small number for a ship this huge, but the rations had to last the four month journey through Z-space.

"Been a long time, huh Lex?" Rick asked.

"Almost too long." She replied. "I almost hoped we would be spotted. I have no idea how we're supposed to approach him. 'Hi, commander, you don't remember us, but we'd like you to come to our planet and help us fight a war that may get us all killed'? Yeah, right."

"That could work." Pez commented. "It's a lot better than what I would have said."

Lex glared at him, then radioed an order back into the ship. "TO Darsalin, I'm leaving the ship in your command. Make sure Toby doesn't mess around with my files again. We're going to look into getting ourselves noticed."

Will do, Captain. And good luck to you. Came the thought-speak reply.

Lex then looked at her team. "Let's go." she said.

The team then fell silent and spread farther apart. The changes began in Lex and Rad first, since they were the only human estreens on the team.

The first things Lex noticed were her arms growing rapidly longer and thicker. She fell forward onto all fours as her legs underwent the same change, her thighs growing shorter, her feet growing longer, and her toes growing long and pointed. The soft blue fabric of her space suit gave way to the metallic shine of the jet-black armor of the Sorophan. Two huge black wings sprouted menacingly from her back. The pupils of her eyes split into two, and then formed two separate irises, and then two separate eyes all together, like watching molecules split. The last change was the blades. They sprouted like a fast-forwarded movie, along her back like Godzilla spines, all the way down her tail. Then three more swept back across her forehead. Finally, the four on her back legs and three on her front legs.

She now stood almost twenty feet tall, claw to highest wing point; and well over sixty feet long. She looked through the creatures silver eyes and examined her team, who were just finishing their morphs. Rad was now a deep, midnight blue. Rick and Pez were the same shade of dark red, and Will was a poisonous violet. These were the only organic creatures known to be able to live in these conditions. They could withstand the heat of a blue star, gravity four hundred times that of earths and little or no atmosphere at all.

Man, I love this morph! Pez commented, stretching his wings and folding them back into place.

Well, I'm glad to hear that, because you'll be using it for quite a while. Lex said. The nearest city is about fifty miles from here. But with atmosphere this thin, our wings will be useless.

Yeah, Will started, But with this little resistance, shouldn't it be that much easier to run through?

Exactly what I was thinking. She replied. Let's go.

With that, five enormous, silent beasts sprinted off into the night.

The small sun of Cybertron was just thinking about peeking above the horizon. Its image was cast through a small window, mounted above the recharge bed of a large, yellow and red mech. An internal timer instantly woke him from recharge, as he sat up and stretched. Primus, how he hated getting up this early. There was truly no point to it. Every morning he would just wake up like this and stroll over to his hologram collection.

It was a small, metal structure, much like an earthen filing cabinet. In it were dozens of small, eight-sided translucent discs in a variety of colors. There was also something like a large, bloated disc on his wall. He took out a bright, turquoise disc and inserted it into the player. He then switched it on and watched the images flash silently before him. Images of impossibly large mountains, impressively high waterfalls, endless fields of grass, and one in particular.

There were seven other mechs in the picture, as well as several smaller ones, and five, tiny, odd creatures like few others on Cybertron had ever seen. The hologram had been recorded shortly before Starscream had joined the earth team. He stared at the hologram. Oh, how he missed earth so. He would give five ranks to be back there now, away from all this. But there was work to be done here.

Just then, a knock was heard on his door. "Sir! Commander Hotshot, sir!"

Hotshot jumped, startled. "Come in." he said to the eager mech. He ordered the hologram to turn off and he was instantly back in his dull, metal room.

Two seconds later a panting Sideswipe came bursting into the room. "Hey, man. You're not gonna believe what our guys in the field just found."

"Well, what is it?" Hotshot asked impatiently.

"That's just it. We have no idea. But whatever it is, it's huge! It's like a spaceship, just sitting there in orbit!"

"Ship? Any identification on its origin?"

"None, Hotshot. Not a clue. But this thing is a behemoth! At least twice the size of the Axalon, if not three times!" Hotshot's optics widened. "You should come take a look at it, sir."

The two mechs ran out of the room into the hallway, with Sideswipe in the lead. "Where is it?" Hotshot asked.

"It's directly above the ruins of Praxus, sir. A wide-range scan spotted it a few hours ago."

The mechs ran down a few corridors until they came to a large room with many screens and keypads. Data was reeling across many of these screens, but there was one in particular hotshot's attention was turned to. Off on the left side was a display panel that showed an extremely large, black ship settled neatly in its orbit, Cybertron visible just behind it. It was like no ship hotshot had ever seen. Two massive wings on either side, plus two smaller wings on the front, attached to what appeared to be the bridge. Unlike Cybertronian ships, which tended to have the bridge in top, this ships bridge was at the point in the very front. Two huge engine pods were on the belly of the ship, just aft of the wings. There were streaks of dark purple and silver running along both sides of the ship, as well as the top.

The thing that interested the commander most was the stunning array of weapons. On the longest part of the ship which connected the bridge to the wings and engine pods, there were three large lasers; one on top and two on either side. All four of the wings also looked razor sharp, capable of cutting through anything. There were four more lasers atop the wings, and one on either side of the bridge. The ship was obviously designed for both atmospheric and space travel, and must be able to reach incredible speeds to be able to use the blades on the wings.

It was a magnificent craft. Not beautiful by Cybertronian standards, but definitely a sight to behold. One thing was for certain, the ship was nothing like anything any Transformer had ever seen. The question was whether it was hostile or not, and what it was doing there.

Wheeljack was sitting in front of the monitor that displayed the ship, seeming to be in the same trance as everyone else. Hotshot walked over to him, snapping him out of it.

Wheeljack turned around. "A magnificent craft, isn't it?"

"That's not really the point here, Wheeljack. We need to find out where it came from, and why it's here. Have we been able to make radio contact with it?"

"That's just it, sir. Our radar never detected this thing until it turned its shields off. We can't find out how to communicate with it on any frequency. It's like its not even there. For all we know it could've been there for months."

"Send a scout team out immediately. I want to know exactly what this thing is and where it came from."

"Yes, sir. I'll send out a team immediately."

Dawn was slowly approaching. The sun was slowly creeping up the side of the planet. Its light settled upon the glistening armor of five large four-legged beasts. The black one in the lead slowed down from its sprint, reducing its speed to a canter. What's up, Lex? the blue one asked.

The black one looked at him. I look out there, towards the horizon. A little to the left, just beyond that large structure.

The five creatures gazed out to where the leader instructed. Hey, are those Transformers? Pez asked.

I think so. Will said. Out on the horizon were a dozen or so swift moving vehicles, seven on the ground and five in the air.

Is it just me, or does that helicopter look familiar?

They focused on the rotary winged vehicle in the group. Two seconds later, the blue creature slumped. Aw, heck no.

I don't recognize any of the others, but that's definitely him. Pez said.

Well, we should go say hi, don't you think? Lex said, and bounded off towards the oncoming group of Transformers.

The others followed close behind her. Rad raised an interesting question. Have you decided how exactly we're gonna approach these guys yet?

Yeah, walk right up and say "Take me to your leader."

Must you always be this sarcastic, Rick? the leader asked. They continued running, the TFs were about a mile away. Surely the bots must have spotted them by now, but they were not showing any signs that they noticed them. Until, of course, the five got into hearing range.

"The heck are those things!?" The helicopter shrieked.

"I don't have a clue, Cy. I've never seen anything like them." The reply came from a large, red and yellow, tank-like bot. Of course, they were both speaking Cybertronian, so none of the creatures could understand them.

By this time the bots had slowed down quite considerably. Apparently, no one felt like approaching the strange creatures, which had also slowed to a sort of trot.

The two teams stood still for a while, neither daring to approach the other. Finally, several of the bots transformed, including the copter bot and his tank friend.

The copter bot slowly approached the black creature, assuming it was friendly. The creature likewise went up to the large robot, looking up at him.

The bot looked at the creature, thinking about how to best communicate with it. Thankfully, the creature addressed the robot first.

Do not be alarmed. We don't mean you any harm.

All the Transformers just stared. "Okay, tell me I'm not the only one who heard that." The tank said.

It was the strangest thing. It spoke to him, but made no sound. It didn't even speak their language, yet they understood it perfectly.

The ebony beast turned to its teammates and spoke to them in private thought-speak. Is it just me, or did they just not speak English? She asked them.

Well, I kind of expected they wouldn't. I assume they have built-in translator chips or something, but they have to hear our language to translate it. The violet one suggested.

But thought-speak works on an international communication. They can understand us no matter what. The blue one said.

This was a problem. It was almost funny: one side could understand the other perfectly, while the other had no idea what was going on.

I'm going to try something. Lex said, and began demorphing.

What are you doing!? Rad yelled.

"Hey, what the-!?" The tank bot noticed, too. He drew a large laser from its holster...

Don't shoot! Lex said. Then, too her teammates Don't worry, guys. I know what I'm doing. She spoke to the frightened bot. I know it seems strange, but don't worry. I'm not going to harm you.

The unnerved bot nodded, but didn't remove his gun from its aim towards the creature. Several of the other bots had also taken aim, including Cyclonus.

All the while, the black creature was changing. It shrank and shrank, until it came just about to the knees of the transformers. Then, its skin changed color, from jet black to light blue. Then it softened, changing from its rough metallic structure to a softer, more cloth-like substance. There was a snapping sound as the knees reversed direction, the front legs shrank, and she stood on just two legs. Her four eyes became only two, turning blue. Finally, in the creatures place stood a small, two-legged creature clad in a light blue suit.

"Whoa, um, did it just transform!?" the copter bot asked, his jaw dropped open.

Demolishor, meanwhile, just stared at the small creature before him. "No." he said.

"Recognize me, Demolishor?" the girl asked, smirking.

The other bot looked at Demolishor questioningly. "You... know this creature? What is it?" he asked.

"Cyclonus..." Demolishor said. Then, in perfect English, "I know exactly what that is."

Hotshot was standing impatiently in the main room of his complex. "Where are they? It's been almost an hour since we sent them out." He was mostly worried that some of the newer soldiers might have gotten hurt. There were a few rookies on that team he sent out.

"Don't worry, sir." Sideswipe reassured. "We have some experienced soldiers out there. I'm sure they'll be fine." The Earth team, has they had come to be known, often used the human language called "English" between them.

Hotshot sighed. Suddenly, Wheeljack jumped in his seat, pressing the earpiece closer to him. "Say again?"

"What's up, Wheeljack?" Hotshot asked.

Wheeljack held up one index finger to Hotshot, intently interested in his earpiece. After a few nods, he said "Roger that, I'll tell him."

"Tell who what?"

Wheeljack took off the headset and turned to his leader. "Do you recall those five humans whom you made allies with back on earth?"

"Yes....... But, what has that got to do with anything?"

"Our boys in the field just found out who was in that spaceship."

Hotshot's arms fell slowly unfolded. His mouth dropped open. "No. Way."

Wheeljack grinned at his leader's reaction. "Way."

"What?" Sideswipe asked. "What's no way? What's goin' on?"

"You really are dense, aren't you?" a new voice asked.

The trio turned around. Cyclonus and Demolishor entered the room, followed by the five large Sorophans from before.

"YAAHHHH!!" Sideswipe yelled. He immediately jumped up and pulled out a weapon.

Jeez, Sideswipe! Put that thing away! What is it with you people and whipping out a gun every time something weird happens?

All three bots looked questioningly at the duo in the door. "Nope, yer head isn't playin' any tricks on ya." Demolishor said.

The trio looked back at the deep blue creature who had "spoken." "Does his voice sound familiar to you?" Hotshot asked.

"Just a little." Sideswipe sarcastically admitted, still not lowering his weapon.

Okay, I don't have a clue what you guys are saying. Lex said. I know you can understand me, so listen. What you are about to see may freak you out, but just DON'T SHOOT ANYONE. Got it?

Hotshot and Wheeljack both nodded.

Tell him to put his weapon away. Lex added, looking at sideswipe.

Hotshot turned around. "Sideswipe, put the gun down." Sideswipe put it away immediately.

Thank you. Guys? Demorph.

"Demorph? What does..."

"Just watch." Demolishor said, staring at the five creatures.

Now all five bots in the room gasped as the creatures were shifting, changing shape. They all watched as the Sorophans shrank and shrank. The wings "SHLOOPED" into their backs. Blades went "shwipp, shwipp, shwipp" into their joints. Their four eyes became only two, each of them changing color. The skin softened and turned light blue, black at the hands and feet.

Finally, the creatures stood on two legs, slightly shorter than the Transformers' knees.

Lex looked up at Hotshot. "Recognize me now?"

"That language..." Hotshot started, then, in English, "You- you're humans?"

Lex rolled her eyes. "Oh, for the love of-- It's me!! Alexis!"

"Alexis?" Sideswipe gasped. "And... Rad? Carlos? All of you?"

"It's actually just Pez now."

"And people just call me Lex."

"This is too weird. What are you guys doing here?" Wheeljack asked.

Rick shot a sideways glance at him. "So, you're really an Autobot now?"

"Shut up, Rick." Will said. If Rick didn't have his helmet on, Will would've smacked him in the head.

"Yeah, kids. I'm really an Autobot now." Wheeljack said.

"Excuse me, kids?" Pez asked. "Did you just call us kids??"

"Pez has a point." Rad added. "I mean, we're all adults now. Heck, two more years and I'll be forty."

"Enough." Lex said. "Hotshot, we have something we need to talk to you about. All of 'you'. The whole team from earth. Can you arrange a meeting?"

"Absolutely." Hotshot said. "Can you give me a few days?"

"You've got three." Lex said flatly.

"Uh, yeah. Sure. Three days is fine." Hotshot was slightly shocked at her sudden change of tone. "Do you need someplace to stay?"

"You saw the ship?" Rad asked. "That's our ship. We've lived in that thing the past year or so."

"Wow." Cyclonus commented.

"Yeah. Wow. It's only got provisions for another six months. It takes four months for our ship to go from here to earth."

"Four months!?" Sideswipe shrieked. "It only took us two weeks!"

"Yeah, well that was twenty five years ago." Will said. "The universe doesn't stay put, you know. Galaxies are constantly moving and shifting. What was three light years away back then is nearly twelve light years away now. Same thing with Z-space. It's also constantly shifting. A Z-space rift could open up, throwing us another three months from our destination."

"Wow." Cyclonus said.

"ANYWAY......" Lex said. "We'll be in that ship. We'll open up communications so you can talk to us. Let us know when you have everyone together."

"Got it, Lex." Hotshot confirmed.

"Thank you. Let's go."

With that, the five humans began morphing back into Sorophans. Scales, blades, eyes, wings. Within minutes the creatures stood waist high to the robots. Four of them bounded out the door, leaving only the black one behind.

Lex turned around. Oh, and, Hotshot?

"Yes?"

Call me "Captain."

"What??"

But she was already out of the building and running through the brisk dawn light.

The five creatures arrived at the small manta scouter they had used to reach the planet. They each demorphed and climbed inside. Will fired up the engines and everyone took their posts. In a matter of seconds, the tiny ship was in the air. Rick pushed a few buttons and the cloaking device came on.

"Do you think it was such a good idea to ask them for help?" Pez asked.

"We don't have much of a choice. The way things are going now, we won't last another five years in this war." Lex answered.

"Let's just hope they'll be stronger allies than the Andalites." Rick said.

"Amen" Will confirmed.

The tiny scouter approached the battleship and docked.

Hotshot would need every minute of those three days to get everyone together. Sideswipe and Wheeljack were the only Autobots in the complex. Cyclonus and Demolishor really couldn't care less about anything that went on. (They only volunteered for the previous mission because they were bored.)

The rest of the Autobots were scattered all across various parts of an area about the size of Asia. Finding them was a difficult enough task, finding the Minicons would be next to impossible. After the war, all the Minicon villages had been rebuilt. The Autobots had bid farewell to their friends, and all the Minicons had left to their new homes.

Three days later, Hotshot had finally gathered together every Autobot from the mission on planet earth. Blurr and Jetfire were hardest to get hold of, themselves being high-ranking officers in their own provinces.

But, eventually, all eight of them were in the main control room of Hotshot's complex.

"Been a long time, hasn't it?" Blurr said. "You seem to have changed somewhat, Sideswipe."

Sideswipe shrugged. "Hey, I grew up. Would you rather I be following you everywhere like I used to?"

"So, why are we here, anyway?" Scavenger asked. "What was so important that we all had to fly out here ASAP?"

"There's a few people I want you to meet." Hotshot told them.

Before anyone could ask, the five humans appeared from behind Hotshot. "Miss us?" Rad said.

"Who the...." Hoist started, then his optics widened. "Oh my Primus, Rad? Are those the kids?"

"Okay, you people really need to stop with the 'kids' thing." Pez shot.

"Holy scrap, it is you!" Hoist said.

"Dear Primus, what happened to you guys?" Jetfire asked.

"We got older." Lex stated simply. "It's been over twenty five years since we saw you guys. We're each almost middle-aged."

"He's right." Rick added. "In fact, speaking in terms of maturity, we're older than half you guys. Probably about Red Alert's age."

"No. Way." Red Alert gasped. "I knew humans grew faster than Transformers, but that's ridiculous!!"

"Believe it, Red. We've each got another twenty or so years left—if we're lucky." Will said flatly.

"Oh, man." Blurr gasped.

"Well, whether you're kids or not," Jetfire said, "It sure is good to see you again."

"Ditto." Lex agreed. "But we really don't have time to chat. We really should get down to business."

"Business?" Scavenger tilted his head. "What do you mean?"

Lex sighed. "Oh, gosh. I don't know where to start. Okay, first thing you should know: earth no longer exists."

"Say wha!? Come again?" Sideswipe shrieked.

"You heard right." She sighed. "It happened about nine years ago. As you may have already gathered, we humans have come really far in terms of spacecraft and interplanetary flight. We discovered z-space travel, built powerful ships, developed energy beam weapons. It was only a matter of time before we came into contact with another sentient species."

"Three guesses as to who it was." Pez scowled. "And the first two don't count."

"Who?" Hotshot asked.

Lex made a face. The word she hissed was barely audible, like the most heinous swear word. "Yeerks."

If they were humans, the color from every Transformer's face would have gone. The humans, however, all had a dangerous look on their faces, a contempt not even seen between Optimus and Megatron.

"Oh, no." Whispered Sideswipe.

The Yeerks were well known among almost every species in the galaxy, Cybertronians not bearing an exception.

Rad's reaction was most noticeable. His face turned red, his eyes narrowed to slits, revealing his heavy brow. His fists were clenched tight, trembling. He looked as if he might explode at any minute.

Lex put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "It's alright, man. Don't worry about it."

"What's wrong?" Blurr asked.

Lex looked up at him. "We've all been prisoners of those filthy worms at one time or another. Rad's been enslaved longer than any of us."

"The whole time..." Rad looked as if he might lose it. "The whole time I knew you... that wasn't me."

"What do you mean?" Jetfire asked, almost in a whisper.

"I mean it was that friggin slug, Jetfire!!" Rad practically shrieked. "Every mission, every time, none of it was me. It was all that filthy worm!! I couldn't do anything! I never said anything to you. You never talked to me. It was that stupid Yeerk the whole time!!"

"Rad! RAD!! Calm down, man!" Pez ran over and grabbed him by the shoulders. "Get a hold of yourself."

Rad was shivering. For a minute, it looked as if he might start crying. Eventually, he regained his composure, sort of.

"You have no idea what it's like. You can't do anything on your own. It moves your eyes, makes you talk, you can't even breathe without the Yeerk's say-so. The truth is, you don't know me at all you don't know squat about Bradley White. You just know Sesstrin five-four-seven-twelve." Rad's fists clenched tighter at the mention of that name, as if his fingers might puncture his palms.

Will turned towards the group of stunned Autobots. "Rad was infested for nearly fifteen years, ever since he was a kid. He was infested the entire time you were on earth."

"But how is that possible?" Scavenger asked. "Yeerks have to feed every three days. You were in space with us for over a month, nowhere near a Kandrona source."

"Portable Kandrona generator. Lasts for a year. Fits right into his pocket." Pez explained.

Rad finally got it together. His breathing returned to normal and he relaxed his shoulders and fists. "I'm fine."

"This has really torn you up, hasn't it?" Blurr said. Rad nodded solemnly.

Lex looked up and continued. "As you can see, this has taken a heavy toll on us all."

"But what did you say about earth not existing anymore?" Hotshot asked.

"It's still there, buts its not the way it used to be." Lex started. "Whenever the Yeerks take complete control of a planet, they remodel it. Remake it. Shape it into the image of their likeness. For our planet, they decided to get rid of most of the animals. Anything predatory and bigger than a dog was wiped out using quantum viruses. This also included most plants. Eventually, the planet became desolate. It was impossible to live there anymore. The Yeerks' foreign plants and species didn't survive long on earth. There was no choice but to evacuate the planet.

"But they didn't stop with earth. They're not stupid. They learned how to convert soil into something that could sustain the types of plants they have. They used Mars. It was far smaller than earth, nearly the size of its core, but it worked, at least. Mars is now a perfectly habitable planet, and earth is a barren, atmosphere-drained wasteland."

"So you've been hiding out all this time?" Hoist asked.

"No. We left. Humans became a nomadic, space-dwelling race. We manage to return to mars every few months to try and rescue some more humans and Hork-Bajir. Sometimes we even manage to rescue a captured Andalite."

"WHAT!?" several of the bots had screamed the remark at once, causing a sudden and uncomfortable silence.

Blurr was the first one to break that silence. "What do you mean, 'captured Andalites'?"

"The only Yeerk to capture an Andalite host body was sub-visser seven, wasn't it?" Scavenger asked.

The humans just stared for awhile. "Wow." Will said. "You really don't get out much, do you?"

"What do you mean?"

"First of all, sub-visser seven lost that title decades ago. He's risen to the highest position on the Council of Thirteen."

"That dude's the emperor, man." Pez confirmed.

"Second, the Andalites' home world was taken over a while ago. Nearly six years, I think."

It seemed to take a long time for this information to sink in. But who could blame them? They had just heard the impossible: the Andalites had lost the war with the Yeerks. Any species capable of space travel would tell you this was never to happen.

"Thirdly," Lex continued, "We found ourselves a new home. It's a large moon orbiting a planet slightly bigger than yours. Not as oxygen-rich or as teeming with minerals as we need, but we get all those from the planet it orbits. It's made entirely of pure elements. Mostly metals."

"What planet?" Hotshot asked.

"There was no record of it, so we just decided to name it 'Element.' Not the most creative name, but oh well. The moon the human race resides on has been named 'Terra Beta.' Again, not so creative."

"And there is enough space on this moon to fit that many humans and Hork-Bajir and whatnot?" Sideswipe asked. "I mean, there are over six billion of you now, right?"

"You would be right, about twenty years ago." Lex said. "When this whole mess started, there were almost six billion humans."

"And now?"

"Alive? About nine billion. Alive and not infested," she paused. "You really want to hear this?"

"Go ahead." Hotshot said. "I think we can handle it."

"Thirteen thousand, sixty-four."

That just about stopped everything and everyone dead in the room. There was an extremely long, uncomfortable silence. Several mouths dropped open. Those who had their arms crossed let them fall to their sides. Hotshot, who had been standing, now slumped very unleader-like into his chair.

Sideswipe was the first one to speak. The only words he managed were a whispered, "W... Wha.... What?"

Lex just nodded gravely. "You heard right. And we're the most numerous species in the resistance. You don't even want to know what's left of the Hork-Bajir, and especially not the Andalites."

Hotshot let out a long sigh. "Primus. You guys are in pretty deep slag, huh?"

"Yeah. We're just a pathetic little band of renegades that are no more than a thorn in the side of the mighty Yeerk Empire."

"Okay," Hotshot said before sighing again. "Okay. So you need our help. You know darn well everyone in this room would do everything they could to help you, but..."

Lex finished for him. "But it'll take a while to convince other people to join, right?"

"Yeah."

"Because the Transformer race is interested in nothing but their own stupid civil wars, and now that they're over they could care even less about some far distant war where people are being enslaved by the second."

The TFs flinched. "Ouch." Smokescreen said. "Okay, we deserved that one."

"Darn right you did." Rad muttered under his breath.

Lex sighed. "Look, we don't have a lot of time left. Bottom line: How much time will it take for you people to rally together some troops?"

Hotshot considered for a moment. "A month, at least. Maybe two."

"Well, if that's the fastest you can get people together, then alright." She and the others began to morph. We have to go back to Terra Beta for the time being. We'll be back in EXACTLY 70 days. Old earth time. Be ready by then.

"We will."

They finished their morphs. Those bots that had not seen them before gasped and jumped, but relaxed, seeing the cool face of their leader.

With that, the five creatures sprinted out of the building, into the early night sky.

Watching them leave, the bots all turned to their leader.

"What should we do now, Hotshot?" Scavenger asked.

Hotshot turned to him. "Get into the public communications department. We've got a lot of work to do."

"Yes sir."

High above the planet, a small, silver ship docked with the monstrous black behemoth from which it had come. Five humans exited the small craft. Several Hork-Bajir, Andalites, and humans saluted them as they came aboard.

"Welcome aboard, Captain." Came the chorused reply.

"At ease, men." Lex said. She approached the bridge. "TO Darsalin, Take us home."

Yes, Ma'am.

With that, the Epsilon Squadron's main battleship took off, disappearing into the blank nothingness of Zero space.

demona: woo. well, this was a waste of eight pages of a word document. hope you had as much fun reading it as i did writing it!!

brooklyn: next chappie: -title missing-. its about -plot missing- and -summary missing-. its really going to be -adjective missing-. Don't miss it!!

Demona: GGAAAHHHHH!!! X he's driving me insane!!! zakos, ATTACK!!!

zakos: zakozakozakozakozakozakozako!!!!

brooklyn: noooooooooo!!!! is chased away by zakos reveeeeeeeeeenge!!!

demona: BAI BAI!!!! bcnu!