Lemme just say that I am *not* a morning person.

Well, it's more like an "I HATE being vertical before two pm" sort of thing.

Michelle usually has to yell at me to get me out of bed for chapel, and this morning was no exception. It's not that I don't *like* chapel- I really do like it- I'm just not a morning person. I'm pretty good about my 7:50 because it's a teacher class, but I get six chapel skips and some mornings my bed is just a lot more inviting…

I grunted as Michelle said my name again in a vain attempt to make me get out from under my comfy covers and get ready.

I grunted as my suitemates bade me a good morning.

I grunted as Michelle more or less dragged me outside, a protein bar in my mouth, hopping down the hall yanking on my shoes and trying to fall on my face.

I grunted when I actually fell on my face.

THAT woke me up.

However, I returned to my one-syllable vocabulary until I'd gotten a chance to scarf my protein bar and some energy was finally running to my brain. Michelle was already ahead of me; I have a hard enough time walking without tripping when I first wake up; walking and CHEWING without tripping requires a good deal of concentration. I walk VERY slowly as a result.

Michelle does not have this problem.

I loathe her for it some mornings.

Today was one of those days.

I absently shoved the protein bar wrapper into my pocket and heard a spluttered, angry retort as a result. Yanking my hand back out, I remembered that was the side Starscream was in. He'd begged to be let out of my backpack, so I shoved him in my pocket. He didn't like it much, but when I threatened to remove his legs, he acquiesced.

I heard footsteps behind me, but before I got a chance to turn, Liz attacked.

Liz really likes to come up behind me, stab me in the sides with her fingers, and shriek "eeee!" at the top of her lungs, as I always jump. Needless to say, I hate that.

She does it anyway.

She did it this morning and I about flipped her over my shoulder for it.

I remembered she's a nursing major and calculated that her backpack made her far too heavy to effectively flip, plus she'd probably break her spine landing on all of those books.

I spared her. For the time being, anyway.

The rest of the walk was rather uneventful. I only tripped over my feet a few times and nobody tried to run us over as we crossed the one road between the dorm-side of campus and the PAC (the performing arts center, where Chapel is held.) People go tearing across that road, even though there are signs everywhere declaring that students have the right of way and it's a student crossing. There's also an elementary school on the PAC side, and people don't seem to realize eight-year-olds could be crossing the road. We just figure that if someone runs us over, they'll be paying our tuition, which is not exactly pocket change. Some days it's almost tempting to hurl myself headlong in front of the cars. That's usually only when the bills come and I realize how in debt I already am…

Starscream was pretty quiet, which I took as a good sign. Maybe he was rethinking his lecherous ways with Arcee and was repenting.

Or maybe he was trying to figure out how to hit on her without being dismembered.

Either way, I took his silence as a blessing and entered Chapel.

My former roommate, Janie, about blew a gasket when I told her that my Transformers had arrived. Her brother is more obsessed than I, so she'd rather not see me corrupted by them.

"I am coming to your room and taking away all of your Transformers," she promised. Michelle grinned.

"She has one in her pocket right now." I pulled Starscream out and proudly showed him to Janie. Janie frowned heavily at me.

"GO. SIT. BE CONVICTED BY JESUS," she ordered, pointing. She was only half-joking. Michelle and I laughed and went to our usual place, where our friends were waiting. I showed Starscream off. Liz and Emily both held him a minute, trying to decide how to act over it, and Liz accidentally yanked the little 'mech's leg off. Starscream cringed and Liz about dropped him.

"Oh, yeah, by the way," I whispered, as Chapel had already started, "They're alive. Let me have him back before he starts shooting stuff." Liz gladly handed the little robot over, pale as a ghost. Emily was giving me a blank stare. She's too logical for her own good. I reattached Starscream's severed strut and settled the seething Seeker back in my pocket for the remainder of the time in Chapel, not wanting another incident.

Annoyed with being stabbed in the thigh all through Chapel, Starscream was relocated to the desk during Chemistry. I made him swear to be good and not move whatsoever, on pain of death at Arcee's hands. He reluctantly agreed and I set him on the desk as I pulled out my supplies for class.

Class itself was completely uneventful.

I almost felt as if I'd fallen into an alternate reality.

There was a 2 ½" sentient robot sitting on my desk for the entire class period, and nobody said a word. My professor didn't even seem to notice, and I sit in the front row. I think he's just used to my particular brand of strangeness, though.

The day progressed fairly smoothly, considering.

At least, until I returned to my dorm room.

That was when all slag had broken loose. I briefly wondered if I was witnessing the Apocalypse, but from my study of Revelation, the Last Days were NOT brought on by a herd of chibi toys.

Megatron somehow had gotten out of the Genericon jar, and he and Arcee were locked in epic battle.

Ultra Magnus figured out how to run the DVD player on Michelle's computer and was completely caught up in Blue Seed- he must've been watching them all day, as he was most of the way through the 13 hours of show. I really wasn't sure how he'd managed to swap DVDs, but maybe that was before Arcee and Megatron decided to duke it out on my desk.

Several holes in my wall, my furniture, and my accumulated "stuff" attested to Arcee's attempts to stop Megatron. Even trapped in the femme's body, Megatron had lost none of his blood lust nor his attitude. I dropped my backpack in horror and raced to stop the battle before someone lost an eye. Someone like me. I grabbed Megatron, screaming mad.

"What do you THINK you're DOING?!" I demanded, shaking him roughly. His glare only intensified. "There is to be no fighting in this room! Absolutely NONE! NADA! ZIP! Get it?!"

"Megatron takes orders from nobody," Megatron said coolly.

"Famous last words, Megs. You lost to Unicron and you're GONNA lose to me." I yanked his head off and set it aside, turning to Arcee. "I know you're getting attached to that body, Arcee, but I think that if I bought Hot Rod or Springer they wouldn't appreciate it." If toy robots could blush… Arcee willingly let me return her head to her proper body and I grudgingly gave Megatron back his. "I will be holding on to your fusion cannon until you can prove you can be good," I hissed, taking the whole arm and pocketing it. "If you pick a fight, I'm shipping you back to Hong Kong. If you shoot something, I'm shipping you back to Hong Kong. If you so much as make a face at me behind my back- back to Hong Kong you go!" Megatron didn't say a word, but I hoped I'd gotten the point through. Frustrating little critter or not, he was a part of my collection and I don't want to part with him. Don't tell him I said that, though.

"What the *heck* happened in *here?*" Michelle asked incredulously, entering a few minutes after I. She stared in a mix of wide-eyed amazement and horror at the mess Arcee and Megatron had caused.

"Megatron happened. And if this happens again, he *will* be going back to China," I growled, shooting the offending toy a dirty look. He radiated an air of nonchalance as he turned to explore the Decepticon shelf, ignoring me entirely. I fished Starscream out of my pocket and returned him to his 'base,' focusing my attention on the homework I had to do.

Several hours, one meal, and several more hours later…

"Y'know, Roommate, this is pathetic. It's Friday night and we're both doing homework." I glanced at the clock on my computer- eleven. I'd been doing homework for eight mind-numbing HOURS. Well, there was the occasional fanfic interspersed in there, but Michelle's withering stare when she came in and found me reading instead of working set me to rights *very* quickly.

"Do you have another idea?" Michelle asked idly from the floor. Her desk is too cluttered to possibly be a good workspace, and her ADD makes sitting at it impossible anyway. More often, she's on the floor, or up on her bunk, or sitting in the living room. She also watches movies while she works. While I don't argue too hard, I get distracted, so my dear Michelle is usually in the living room, plopped on her couch, watching a movie on Jenny, the TV. I don't know *why* it's named Jenny, but it is. Most things in our suite are named…

"Well… We could go to Wal-Mart," I suggested. Wal-Mart is about as exciting a place there is in our tiny college town. Being a super Wal-Mart, we spend a good deal of time and money shopping there. "But I'll have to take the chibis, or they'll make a mess." Michelle nodded.

"Do you think Janie wants to go?" Janie. The third leg of our "Roommate" triangle, Janie now lives in a townhouse on campus. (The bum.) Janie is just as, if not more, random as Michelle and I. When the three of us go someplace, people tend to hide. It's great fun. I tried to call her and IM her with no success.

"Looks like we'll just have to meander over there," I said cheerfully, grabbing a purse out of the closet and shoving my checkbook into it, then started gathering Transformers. Megatron wasn't happy about it, and Ultra Magnus was depressed when I dragged him away from Michelle's computer. Arcee didn't want to spend time anywhere near Starscream, but it couldn't be helped.

The outer door burst open, and Michelle and Amanda entered, both looking adorable. Each had a rose, and a grin to match.

"The boys from Scripture each got us roses!"

"They took us to a church and we had dinner-"

"-and played board games!" I chuckled softly. Michelle and Amanda were obviously excited about how their evening went, tripping over each other's sentences like a pair of puppies.

"Optimus was a perfect gentleman," Michelle assured me, pulling Optimus out of her purse and handing him to me. "And he warded off the dirty boys that weren't good for me, too." I grinned, though I was privately scared to find out whether she was simply 'playing along' or was serious.

"Glad to hear you two had fun," I said out loud. Amanda handed me the alt-mode Optimus and I settled them both in my purse, intending to ask some questions once the two freshmen took their leave. Michelle laughed behind me, as amused at the situation as I was. "Roommate and I are going to Wal-Mart, see you ladies later," I told them while yanking on my shoes. Michelle locked the door and we headed out into the evening to find Janie.

There was, come to find out, a distinct reason why we couldn't get a hold of Janie- she was ready for bed and officially not answering anything. She invited us into her townhouse, though, and we sat around and talked.

Of course, Starscream's curiosity HAD to get the better of him at that point.

He peeked out of my purse, poking me in the hand with a null ray.

"What's going on?" he asked, looking around the unfamiliar room with wide optics. I blinked in shock and shoved him back down into the purse, muffling his protest with a finger over his mouth.

"Roommate… What was that?" Janie asked, recognizing Starscream's voice with the small corner of her mind that knows her Transformers. I tried to look innocent. Michelle's hysterical laughter to my left wasn't helping much. "What's in your purse?" I fished the chibis out, offering them to Janie like some sort of weird plastic sacrifice.

"My Transformers," I said sheepishly. Janie snatched them away.

"Goodness, Roommate, you're nineteen years old! You don't need toys!"

"But these toys are-" Janie was evading my attempts to grab them back, grinning. "C'mon, Janie, give them back!"

"First you have to beg." I hastily fell to my knees and did so, laughing all the while. Though our bantering might seem rude and narrow-minded to some, we're the best of friends and Janie was honestly kidding.

"I promise I'll never, ever bring them to your house again, or have them out when you're around, just please give them back!" I knew I wasn't going to live this down from Megatron. I fervently prayed that he wasn't paying attention. Janie laughed that I was actually on hands and knees begging her, and dumped the lot of them into my hands. The group was quickly stowed in my purse and I hoped beyond hope that Starscream wouldn't get another of his bright ideas.

"Alright, you two, shoo, Wal-Mart is waiting," Janie laughed, ushering us out of her house. It was already 11:30, after all, and Janie was already in her cow-pattered pajamas. She really likes cows. For the Spotted Cow festival, a school-sponsored music festival in the spring, she *was* the Spotted Cow. No kidding. The funniest thing I've ever seen, to this day, was when Janie first put on that cow costume. I nearly wet myself three times over, I was laughing so hard.

The trip to Wal-Mart was blessedly uneventful.

Well, aside from Starscream crawling out of my purse and nearly getting sucked out of the open window. Other than *that,* it was blessedly uneventful.

Well… There was the whole "Insecticon-on-the-hood," thing, too, but other than *THAT,* it was blessedly uneventful.

Our Wal-Mart is a behemoth of a building, squatting and spreading out like some sort of demented cancer almost literally in the middle of nowhere. There is no rhyme or reason to the parking lot, so parking (and subsequently walking to the building) takes a certain degree of suicidal tendencies. Michelle and I braved the lot and were soon traipsing through the gigantic building, which was bustling, as always. I swear they hire people to mill about aimlessly in the middle of the night or something- that place is *always* full.

I grabbed a cart and set my purse down in the child's seat.

"Alright, guys, here's the deal- you're not to touch anything, or leave this cart, understand?" I hissed to the little heads popping out from the folds of my Becca bag. Most nodded. Megatron was swiftly relocated to my right pocket, his cannon safe in my left. I wasn't even going to try with him. The others piled out of my bag, exploring the confines of the shopping cart. Michelle made it a point to disown me (that is a routine occurrence in Wal-Mart, in all honesty) before we started collecting the items on our lists.

"Hey, look! Is that supposed to be *me*?" Starscream called, pointing. I glanced up from my contemplation of a Beast figurine to see what he was looking at. An Armada Starscream.

"Well, according to someone's demented plot, I think so." I picked up the box and gave it a critical once-over. "At least it looks like you. Some of the others weren't so fortunate." I picked up the Armada Megatron and sighed. "I really don't know what they were thinking with this one." Starscream just stared before breaking into hysterical giggles.

"A tank? They made him a TANK?" I nodded serenely.

"He looks like Shrapnel with those pincers on his head in robot mode, too." I could hear Megatron growling under his breath in my pocket.

"Roommate, you're not buying toys tonight, you can't afford them, remember?" Michelle called from the end of the aisle. I sheepishly put the boxes away and chased after her as she led to another part of the store.

"Miss Poptarts, we seem to have left Ultra Magnus behind." Optimus' quiet observation made my blood freeze.

"Where? What aisle?"

"I'm not sure… This place is so big," Optimus admitted softly.

"Stay in the cart. Michelle, I lost one," I called to my partner-in-crime, who rolled her eyes in response. "Keep an eye on the munchkins until I get back. Starscream, don't torment her." I jogged back through the aisles we'd already visited, searching for the little guy. I was mentally kicking myself for not paying attention; a two-and-a-half inch toy could get himself into a lot of trouble in a store the size of this one!

I passed the huge new media section and stopped a few paces beyond it. Magnus *was* a cartoon freak, after all… Following my hunch, I spun around to start searching for him.

"Ultra Magnus?" I called, ignoring the strange looks the other customers were giving me. It wasn't exactly an unusual occurrence by any means. No response. Drat. Even if he *was* there, he was probably so glued he'd never hear me…

"Ha! Eat that, Negaverse!" A familiar voice crowed from a row over. I nearly vaulted it, but walked around like a good civilized being, and suppressed a giggle when I found him.

Ultra Magnus was, once again, glued to a TV, watching cartoons.

This time, it was Sailor Moon.

"C'mon, I've got this stuff at home," I told him, scooping him up. Magnus blinked and looked up at me.

"…Poptarts? I didn't see you there."

"Uh-huh. What did I tell you about staying in the cart?" Magnus looked ashamed and I smiled a little, satisfied. "You're grounded from TV for the next two days, and I certainly hope you intend to be good the rest of the trip." Magnus nodded a little. He sat down in the palm of my hand, looking deflated. Poor guy. I'd let him watch my Sailor Moon tapes once he was ungrounded. I returned to the cart and frowned. Michelle was nowhere in sight.

Neither was Starscream or Arcee.

Time to panic.

"Michelle? Starscream? Arcee?" When all else fails, frantically screaming people's names in a store *works,* darnit. I found Michelle before long. Thankfully, Arcee was with her and not tearing Starscream to little pieces somewhere else in the store. Thank goodness for small favors. Most of the crew recollected, I wondered where Screamer could've possibly gotten off to. "Okay, if I were a chibi-sized homicidal robot, where would *I* be?" I mused out loud, searching the store over again for any sign of Starscream.

"Toys?" Michelle suggested.

Duh.

Why didn't *I* think of that?

I pulled the cart into a quick U-turn and headed for the toy section. Namely, the Transformers toys. He'd been shocked and probably appalled by his Armada successor, after all…

"Starscream!!" The little toy looked up at me, blinking in surprise. The barrels of his tiny guns were smoking. Half-melted Armada Starscream bits littered the floor and shelves below, and Starscream tried the innocent ploy.

"Some Autobot was doing this, and I was able to stop them!"

"You are SO grounded, young man!" I shrieked, before thinking about what I was saying.

Dude.

I'm starting to sound like a mom.

It worked, weird as it sounds. Starscream ducked behind the row of Thundercracker toys as I lunged for him, nearly taking the shelving with me. I managed to grab his wriggling frame and scoop him up, despite his quite verbal protests. Other customers were staring at me, obviously wondering what the SLAG I was doing.

"I'm going to have to pay for this, and it's all your fault!" I hissed.

"Poptarts, you're making a scene," Michelle called from behind me. I sighed and nodded, relaxing. I'd deal with the Screamer later. Right now, I had to find all the pieces of the Armada Starscream and take care of that mess.

Twenty dollars of my hard-earned cash later…

"Starscream, you're grounded for a week. Ultra Magnus, two days. Megatron… just don't cross me and I'll let you live." I paced the length of my room, the chibis all looking at me, some with innocent looks, others looking crestfallen. Megatron favored me with a look of total superiority and returned to… well, whatever it is he does up there on his shelf. I'm sure it has to do with taking over the world, starting with my dorm room. "The rest of you… I'm tired and I want to go to bed." I sighed. I confiscated weaponry and turned in for the night, making it to bed at a fairly early and respectable two am. Michelle was surprised. Friday nights I'm usually up until dawn, just because I'm strange like that.

Pseudo-parenthood seems to have changed that.

I lay there in the dark, listening to the chibis' soft voices as they carried on their various discussions on the other end of the room. It wasn't so bad, really. So I had six sentient chibi robots with more or less free reign of my dorm room. The rest of my toys could be the same way. Were that the case, I think Michelle would run screaming for her life, vowing to never associate with me again. Frankly, I think I'd do the same thing.

My friend Millie would be coming up from Mississippi the next Friday, and we'd attend C-Kon together. Both of our first anime conventions, only a few hours from my college. I was looking forward to it.

I wonder how much Michelle would demand in payment if I asked her to babysit…