Fun and Games
by Architeuthis
Author's Note: The author wishes to apologize for inflicting this disjointed, incoherent dreck on everybody. The author also wishes to assure her fans (all five of them) that she has NO intention of turning the aforementioned dreck into a series. She also wishes to assure people that she was NOT under the influence of Happy Pills, vodka, crack cocaine, or any other controlled substance while concocting this fiasco laughingly labeled a fanfic.
"We are the champions, my friends,
And we'll keep on fighting 'till the end.
We are the champions,
We are the champions,
No time for losing, because we are the champions
Of the world."
Inferno was driving everybody nuts with his singing. It wasn't that he couldn't sing; in fact he had a very good voice, especially for a Predacon. But for some reason, he'd begun singing almost constantly. Even worse, his taste in music was atrocious. Queen's "We Will Rock You/The Champions" was actually one of the BETTER songs he'd been singing. He'd also sung "Disco Inferno", "I Will Survive", "Staying Alive", and "Annie's Song".
"INFERNO!", Megatron bellowed. "Stop singing, NOW!"
"Yes, my Queen.", Inferno replied in an odd, sing-song voice. He was quiet for a few minutes--and then started singing "Feelings". At this, Megatron blasted his head off.
"TARANTULAS! Get up here and repair Inferno! Something's wrong with his programming!"
"But I am engaged in important research...", the spider protested.
"Get up here, NOW, Tarantulas!", Megatron ordered.
**********************
Zan and Jayna were besides themselves with laughter. The two young Vok were floating above the Predacon base and had been telepathically spying on the Predacons. They were the offspring of one of the Vok scientists assigned to the Nexus Zero project. Naturally, their parent had brought them along, and they were the only juveniles on the whole planet. Consequently, they were bored stiff. That changed, however, when they discovered the entertainment value of the shipwrecked Beast Warriors. They were such fun to play with, and so easy to manipulate! It had been simplicity itself to give the red warrior a case of compulsive singing, and it had been so much fun to watch his fellows' reactions.
"That was great! I love it when they get mad at each other. Let's do it again. Maybe we can make that blue Maximal with the eye lasers and sword sing some silly stuff.", said Zan.
"I've a better idea.", replied Jayna. "I found a couple of stasis pods about a day ago. So far, nothing's come out of them. Let's see if we can't make something really WIERD come out of the pods. All we have to do is put them near the right kind of animal."
********************
Cheetor and Rhinox had found a stasis pod in Sector Sasquatch. A flock of penguins was nearby.
"I believe we can guess what our new comrade's beast mode will be.", said Rhinox, as he was working on the scanning mechanism. Fortunately, the repairs were simple ones, and the scanning and replication process began. When the pod opened, an emperor penguin about the same size as Rattrap clumsily got out of the pod.
"Tuxedo, Maximize!", the penguin cried. In robot mode, the Transmetal was Rattrap's height, and he had blue optics and a black and white color scheme.
Zan and Jayna were watching from above the Maximals and they were disappointed. Tuxedo had a silly name, but the penguin-bot didn't look all that different from his peers, even if he did have a rather funny beast mode.
"Awww, he's not funny enough.", complained Jayna. "I wanted to make something really, really strange and ugly. Tuxedo's cute, but he's kind of boring."
"I know!", exclaimed Zan. "We'll make a Fuzor! They're the wierdest bots of all!"
"A Fuzor! That's a great idea! Race you to Sector Funicello!"
*********************
No sooner had Inferno been repaired, than Megatron had dispatched him to Sector Funicello to retrieve the pod there.
"Royalty, I have found the pod, but it doesn't seem to be working, and I do not know how to make it work."
Megatron groaned inwardly at this. Inferno was no engineer. On the other hand, at least he was talking normally now.
"Inferno. Listen closely. This is what you need to do.... " Megatron began telling Inferno how to repair a stasis pod. The job took a long time, and Inferno made several mistakes: pressing the wrong buttons, trying to insert the Predacon chip into the wrong slot, etc. Megatron began to have a very bad feeling about what was going to come out of that pod. But finally, Inferno got the pod working, and a hawksbill turtle with the talons and wings of an osprey crawled out.
"Gamera, Terrorize!", cried the turtle in a harsh but still recognizably female voice. In robot mode, Gamera was nearly as tall as Inferno. She had both a shell and wings on her back. Like Silverbolt and Airazor, she had bird-of-prey talons on her feet. A 20th century human who saw her might have described her as looking like a robotic, winged version of one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but with her red eyes and sharp beak, Gamera was a lot more vicious-looking.
The two Vok thought she looked hilarious and laughed hysterically at their creation's bizaare appearance.
"See, I told you!", crowed Zan. "I told you a Fuzor would be cool to make. She's SO funny-looking! I hope the other Predacons tease her, because then she'll get mad and fight somebody."
"And she's so big. I bet she could beat a lot of them up! I hope she does. It's funny when they hurt each other. And it's so cool when they use those funny chambers to make themselves all better, too. "
"Yeah, but now what do we do? Look for more pods and make more Fuzors?"
"I guess...", said Jayna. "I wonder what Parry and the others are doing? You know they've got two of the Cybertrons and they're doing something to them."
"Yeah? What?"
"I think I heard something about making them into a kind of living weapon or something. I'm not really sure, though."
"Cool! I wish we could do something like that!", exclaimed Zan.
"Maybe we can.", said Jayna thoughtfully. "There are two dead Cybertrons buried in the lava somewhere near the Predacon base. We get them out and we can make them into whatever we like."
The two young Vok then flew to the Predacon base. Along the way, they decided they would make a vampire. They also decided that they would need only one of the dead Cybertrons for this project, and that they would leave the other one in the lava for later.
"I think we should use Terrorsaur, cause he's got the cooler beast mode.", said Zan.
"But a vampire is supposed to have fangs, and Terrorsaur doesn't have fangs in robot mode. Scorponok does. I think we should use Scorponok.", said Jayna.
"Terrorsaur has fangs in beast mode."
"But he can't suck blood with his beak!"
"It's called mech fluid, you dork."
"Huh?"
"Cybertron blood is called mech fluid. Anyway, let's flip a coin. Heads, I win, tails, you win."
The Vok flipped a coin which came up tails. Scorponok would be the Predacon used in the young Vok's project.
***********************
Scorponok was confused and a little scared. He'd woken up in a cave and had no clue how he'd gotten there. The last thing he could remember clearly was falling into the lava during the backlash or whatever it was from the quantum surge. Then he'd woken up in this cave completely repaired. He guessed (wrongly) that he'd been in the C.R. chamber and then sent out on a mission, but he had no idea what that mission might be.
He also noticed some very odd changes and disturbing changes in himself. He discovered the first one right off, when he tried to leave the cave: an extremely painful burning sensation that forced him back in the cave. He also found that sunlight hurt his eyes a LOT. Granted, his beast mode was that of a nocturnal animal, but he'd never had problems with sunlight before.
Fine. Great. He would just wait until nightfall, then, and hope that Megatron didn't get mad at him for coming in late.
While he waited for the sun to go down, Scorponok discovered more changes within himself. First off, he was somewhat bigger than he'd been before his fall into the lava. He was also a shiny black and had two red optics in place of his original yellow visor. His fangs were also more prominent and elongated than they'd been before. His beast mode was also black and looked metallic. But the biggest change was that he now had a vehicle mode: a low-slung contraption with wheels. A human would have called it a dragster, but Scorponok didn't know much about Earth culture. The vehicle mode would be great for traveling in flat plains, but it wasn't a whole lot of use in the mountains.
He was also thirsty. There was a pool of water in the back of the cave and Scorponok had drunk from it--only to find it did not slake his thirst at all. Some instinct told him that what he craved was mech fluid...
Around sun down, he heard a voice right outside his cave: "Bigbot, I'm getting a really wierd energy signature. I think it's Predacon, but it's really strange, I can't describe it."
The Maximal kitten, Scorponok realized. He'd have plenty of mech fluid to slake his strange thirst.
"I'll just take a quick look, Bigbot; the signal's coming from in this cave."
Scorponok stepped to one side, so he'd be out of the Maximal's immediate line of sight. When the cat stepped into the cave, Scorponok charged, grabbing the Maximal with his pincers. The cat struggled to break his grip, but couldn't.
"Bigbot, I'm being attacked! Send hel..."
"Shut up!"
To Scorponok's amazement, the cat shut up--and got an odd, blank look on his face, almost as if he'd been hit on the head or something. He continued struggling, but his movements seemed strangely sluggish. Scorponok decided to try something.
"Stop fighting me. Let me suck your mech fluid.", he ordered.
The cat obeyed. He stopped fighting, and let Scorponok bite him in the neck and suck his mech fluid. Scorponok drank enough of the feline's mech fluid to slake his thirst, but not enough to kill the youth.
He decided to bring him back to the Predacon base; Megatron would be pleased to have a Maximal prisoner.
But his reception at the Predacon base thoroughly confused him. For when he got there, Inferno tried to shoot him.
"Stop shooting at me, you psycho! It's me, Scorponok!"
"SCORPONOK?! But you're dead! You were destroyed in the lava pit."
"YOU almost destroyed me just now, you moron! As for the lava pit, I'm guessing that someone got me out and fixed me."
"They didn't. The Queen gave no such orders, for she assumed that you were lost."
"Well, SOMEONE fixed me! Look, Inferno, can I see the Queen? I need to talk to her--and I've brought her a little present." Scorponok knew that Megatron was male, of course, but try explaining that to Inferno!
"The Maximal cheetah! She will be pleased. She is on the bridge, in her command chair."
Relieved, Scorponok went to the bridge--only to see Megatron's jaw draw open at his arrival. The other Predacons on the bridge, including some he didn't recognize, also seemed shocked by his arrival.
"Scorponok! This is a surprise, yesss. I'd assumed you were lost for good. And you come bearing a gift. Excellent."
"I'm glad to be of service, Megatron--but you don't know who got me out of the pit? Can you tell me anything at all about why I've changed?"
"No, I don't know how you got out of the lava pit. But as for your metamorphasis: you've become a Transmetal, like myself and Tarantulas--and that bothersome feline you captured. Transmetals hava a robotic-looking beast mode and a vehicle mode that is derived from the beast mode. They also tend to be larger than standard Beast Warriors."
"Thank you, Megatron.", Scorponok said, feeling relieved and grateful. Just as he'd thought, Megatron had the answers, or at least most of them. "But why do Transmetals need to suck mech fluid, and why does sunlight hurt them?"
"What are you talking about ?! We aren't like that!" Megatron abruptly realized something. "Are YOU like that?"
"Yes, Megatron. I sucked the Maximal's mech fluid, because I had this wierd thirst."
"Great, another psycho.", muttered one of the strangers, a winged turtle. "The ant thinks he's really an ant--and this guy thinks he's Dracula!"
Megatron overheard the comment. "Gamera, do YOU know anything about Scorponok's....problem?"
"Sure. He's a vampire--or more likely a nutcase who thinks he is."
"What's a vampire?", asked Scorponok.
"A creature from Earth folklore. They're humans that died, and somehow came back from the dead. They attack other humans in order to drink their blood. Sunlight hurts them, so they only go out at night. Unlike normal humans, they have beast modes, usually a bat. They also sometimes have a hypnotic stare. They're said to be almost immortal, for they don't age and can only be killed by a stake through the heart."
"Interesting.", Megatron commented, sounding thoughtful. "Scorponok, I want you to go down to Tarantulas' lab and have him examine you. It will be edifying to learn how much the reality of vampirism matches the folklore. Yesss."
****************************
Zan and Jayna were bored again. There had been a big fight a couple of days ago between the Maximals and the Predacons and that had been fun to watch. Their new vampire, Scorponok, had bitten the Maximal Fuzor, which had been entertaining. The Maximals had won in the end, and freed their cat, Cheetor.
After that, things had gotten quiet--in other words, boring.
Today, the most exciting thing they'd seen was a fight between Rattrap and Dinobot. They had started off by calling each other all sorts of horrible names. Zan and Jayna always liked these insult matches and sometimes called each other by the same names. Unfortunately, insults like "Scale-belly" and "Vermin" do not work all that well for a pair of floating skulls. But this fight proved even more entertaining than most such encounters because the rat and the raptor started trying to hit each other, and eventually wound up wrestling one another in a large mud puddle. They'd gotten SO dirty. The two Vok had giggled while watching them.
But after that, things had gotten boring again--until they remembered that Terrorsaur was still buried in the lava. They decided to bring him back to life, after they'd made a few changes, of course.
**************************
Terrorsaur was flying back to the Predacon base, trying to puzzle out what had happened to him. He couldn't remember anything after his fall into the lava, and like Scorponok, had wrongly concluded that he'd simply been retrieved and repaired. That didn't explain why he'd woken up in a cave, though. He guessed that he'd been on a mission, knocked into stasis lock by a Maximal enemy, and brought to safety, probably by Waspinator, his best friend. Yeah, that made sense. He just wished he could remember what he'd been doing.
He arrived at the Predacon base without incident. Unlike the vampire Scorponok, Terrorsaur still had a normal energy signature, while Scorponok's reflected his undead nature. So his arrival didn't trigger any alarms. He shifted to robot mode and entered the base.
"Why howdy, Sugar-bot! Ain't you a sight for these optics! I'm called Quickstrike."
"'Sugar-bot?!' The name's Terrorsaur, thank you!", said the pterodactyl indignantly. He was about to say something else to Quickstrike, when he realized that his voice sounded funny. It was higher and less screechy than it had been and it sounded....feminine.
"You O.K., Sugar-bot? You don't look too good all of a sudden. Do you need to sit down or somethin'?"
"Will you quit calling me that?! I..I think I'd better go to my quarters."
"I'll walk you there. You're really purty, you know that? All that red and silver.."
Terrorsaur was about to tell Quickstrike to stop hitting on him or else, when Waspinator came down the hall toward them.
"Oooohhh. Who is Two-head's new friend? Waspinator want to meet pretty new dactyl-bot!"
"Is that supposed to be a joke, Waspinator?! We've known each other for decacycles!", exclaimed Terrorsaur.
"His memory ain't too good, Terror. Bug-eyes, this here's Terrorsaur. She knows you from somewhere, it seems."
"SHE?!?!"
"Ain't that what a femme's usually called, Terror?"
"I'm NOT a femme!"
"Well, Terror, I reckon you better go to Tarantulas and have him check your programming, because you sure do LOOK like a femme to me."
"I'm going to my quarters!", cried Terrorsaur, and ran down the hall to his/her quarters. No-one else had moved in, and they were dusty as the Pit. S/he didn't notice, for s/he was staring at his/her reflection in the mirror. Quickstrike and Waspinator had NOT been playing a cruel joke after all; he was really now a she! The figure in the mirror looked like a cross between her old form and Black Arachnia. She had the color scheme that Quickstrike had admired so much, but she was shinier than before, and the white parts were now silver. But the biggest change was her physique: she was a femme, and a very pretty, well-built femme at that. In fact, she was a babe!
"What's happened to me?!"
Above the Predacon base, Zan and Jayna were howling with laughter. They were laughing so hard, that if they had had corporeal bodies, they would have probably wet themselves.
**********************************
Zan and Jayna decided that they had played with the Predacons enough and decided to pester the Maximals instead. Some of their pranks had disappointing results, however. For instance, they dyed Silverbolt a bright kelly green. He woke up, saw that he had turned green, and then calmly walked to the bridge, much to the Vok's disappointment. No yelling, no freaking out, nothing.
They did get a chuckle when Rattrap saw the green Fuzor walk in, for Rattrap's jaw practically hit the floor. "What the slag happened to you? Forget it , I am SO sure that I DON'T want to know."
"I can not explain this either, my friend, but a session in the C.R. chamber should set things right." So saying, Silverbolt calmly got into the C.R chamber. The two Vok agreed that that prank had been a bust.
Dinobot proved more entertaining. The Vok telepathically compelled him to fall in love with a box of paperclips. Deciding that he was honor-bound to protect and guard his new love, Dinobot carried the box with him everywhere. He even wrote poetry and loveletters to the box, which he had christened "Ophelia", after the character in Hamlet.
Then Rhinox fixed Dinobot's programming, and Dinobot was no longer infatuated with "Ophelia". Zan and Jayna were sorry to see the prank come to an end, but they comforted themselves with the knowledge that Rattrap would not let him live down the "Ophelia" business for a VERY long time.
The Vok's most elaborate prank involved Optimus Primal. They found a stasis pod with a blank protoform and a skunk. They then transferred Primal's spark from his old body to the new one. When Optimus Primal got out of the stasis pod, he found that he was now a black and white Transmetal. To the Vok's delight, his color scheme made him look a bit like Tuxedo's big brother. Even better, he now had the ability to produce and secrete a synthetic musk--which meant he now STANK like a skunk.
"Ehhh, Tuxedo, you been taking steroids or somethin'? And did you fall in the waste disposal unit? I can smell you from here.", said Rattrap, who was sitting in his usual seat by the console.
"It's me, Rattrap, and if you really must know, I've somehow been put in this body which has a SKUNK for a beast mode."
"The Mystery Prankster strikes again.", muttered Cheetor.
"Yes, but this isn't funny. The pranks are more annoying than anything, but the power required to pull them off...Whoever or whatever is doing this is powerful enough to be extremely dangerous.", said Optimus Primal.
"Awwww, did we scare you?", jeered Jayna. "Poor widdle robot, it's so sad !"
"Yeah, let's have a pity party. One, two, three!"
"Awwww!", both Vok chorused, after Zan had counted to three.
"I've got another idea for a really cool trick, one that we can play on the Predacons.", said Jayna.
"What?"
"How about we give Megatron amnesia and make him try to join the Maximals? What do you say?"
"I say you two have done enough damage already!" The speaker was an adult Vok. In fact it was their parent.
"Parry!", the youngsters cried.
"What do you think you are doing? You know the project has already been contaminated by these 'Beast Warriors'. You also know that the Elders are worried that they might try to alter the time stream for their own benefit. You have also been told that the Beast Warriors are off-limits and that you are to have NO interaction with them!"
"We just wanted to have some fun, Parry...", began Jayna.
"Your 'fun' has jeopardized the project! Didn't it occur to either of you that the last thing the Elders want are MORE Beast Warriors?! So you ressurect two and introduce two more to the project, thereby contaminating it further! Consider yourselves GROUNDED FOR THE NEXT MILLENIUM!"
by Architeuthis
Author's Note: The author wishes to apologize for inflicting this disjointed, incoherent dreck on everybody. The author also wishes to assure her fans (all five of them) that she has NO intention of turning the aforementioned dreck into a series. She also wishes to assure people that she was NOT under the influence of Happy Pills, vodka, crack cocaine, or any other controlled substance while concocting this fiasco laughingly labeled a fanfic.
"We are the champions, my friends,
And we'll keep on fighting 'till the end.
We are the champions,
We are the champions,
No time for losing, because we are the champions
Of the world."
Inferno was driving everybody nuts with his singing. It wasn't that he couldn't sing; in fact he had a very good voice, especially for a Predacon. But for some reason, he'd begun singing almost constantly. Even worse, his taste in music was atrocious. Queen's "We Will Rock You/The Champions" was actually one of the BETTER songs he'd been singing. He'd also sung "Disco Inferno", "I Will Survive", "Staying Alive", and "Annie's Song".
"INFERNO!", Megatron bellowed. "Stop singing, NOW!"
"Yes, my Queen.", Inferno replied in an odd, sing-song voice. He was quiet for a few minutes--and then started singing "Feelings". At this, Megatron blasted his head off.
"TARANTULAS! Get up here and repair Inferno! Something's wrong with his programming!"
"But I am engaged in important research...", the spider protested.
"Get up here, NOW, Tarantulas!", Megatron ordered.
**********************
Zan and Jayna were besides themselves with laughter. The two young Vok were floating above the Predacon base and had been telepathically spying on the Predacons. They were the offspring of one of the Vok scientists assigned to the Nexus Zero project. Naturally, their parent had brought them along, and they were the only juveniles on the whole planet. Consequently, they were bored stiff. That changed, however, when they discovered the entertainment value of the shipwrecked Beast Warriors. They were such fun to play with, and so easy to manipulate! It had been simplicity itself to give the red warrior a case of compulsive singing, and it had been so much fun to watch his fellows' reactions.
"That was great! I love it when they get mad at each other. Let's do it again. Maybe we can make that blue Maximal with the eye lasers and sword sing some silly stuff.", said Zan.
"I've a better idea.", replied Jayna. "I found a couple of stasis pods about a day ago. So far, nothing's come out of them. Let's see if we can't make something really WIERD come out of the pods. All we have to do is put them near the right kind of animal."
********************
Cheetor and Rhinox had found a stasis pod in Sector Sasquatch. A flock of penguins was nearby.
"I believe we can guess what our new comrade's beast mode will be.", said Rhinox, as he was working on the scanning mechanism. Fortunately, the repairs were simple ones, and the scanning and replication process began. When the pod opened, an emperor penguin about the same size as Rattrap clumsily got out of the pod.
"Tuxedo, Maximize!", the penguin cried. In robot mode, the Transmetal was Rattrap's height, and he had blue optics and a black and white color scheme.
Zan and Jayna were watching from above the Maximals and they were disappointed. Tuxedo had a silly name, but the penguin-bot didn't look all that different from his peers, even if he did have a rather funny beast mode.
"Awww, he's not funny enough.", complained Jayna. "I wanted to make something really, really strange and ugly. Tuxedo's cute, but he's kind of boring."
"I know!", exclaimed Zan. "We'll make a Fuzor! They're the wierdest bots of all!"
"A Fuzor! That's a great idea! Race you to Sector Funicello!"
*********************
No sooner had Inferno been repaired, than Megatron had dispatched him to Sector Funicello to retrieve the pod there.
"Royalty, I have found the pod, but it doesn't seem to be working, and I do not know how to make it work."
Megatron groaned inwardly at this. Inferno was no engineer. On the other hand, at least he was talking normally now.
"Inferno. Listen closely. This is what you need to do.... " Megatron began telling Inferno how to repair a stasis pod. The job took a long time, and Inferno made several mistakes: pressing the wrong buttons, trying to insert the Predacon chip into the wrong slot, etc. Megatron began to have a very bad feeling about what was going to come out of that pod. But finally, Inferno got the pod working, and a hawksbill turtle with the talons and wings of an osprey crawled out.
"Gamera, Terrorize!", cried the turtle in a harsh but still recognizably female voice. In robot mode, Gamera was nearly as tall as Inferno. She had both a shell and wings on her back. Like Silverbolt and Airazor, she had bird-of-prey talons on her feet. A 20th century human who saw her might have described her as looking like a robotic, winged version of one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but with her red eyes and sharp beak, Gamera was a lot more vicious-looking.
The two Vok thought she looked hilarious and laughed hysterically at their creation's bizaare appearance.
"See, I told you!", crowed Zan. "I told you a Fuzor would be cool to make. She's SO funny-looking! I hope the other Predacons tease her, because then she'll get mad and fight somebody."
"And she's so big. I bet she could beat a lot of them up! I hope she does. It's funny when they hurt each other. And it's so cool when they use those funny chambers to make themselves all better, too. "
"Yeah, but now what do we do? Look for more pods and make more Fuzors?"
"I guess...", said Jayna. "I wonder what Parry and the others are doing? You know they've got two of the Cybertrons and they're doing something to them."
"Yeah? What?"
"I think I heard something about making them into a kind of living weapon or something. I'm not really sure, though."
"Cool! I wish we could do something like that!", exclaimed Zan.
"Maybe we can.", said Jayna thoughtfully. "There are two dead Cybertrons buried in the lava somewhere near the Predacon base. We get them out and we can make them into whatever we like."
The two young Vok then flew to the Predacon base. Along the way, they decided they would make a vampire. They also decided that they would need only one of the dead Cybertrons for this project, and that they would leave the other one in the lava for later.
"I think we should use Terrorsaur, cause he's got the cooler beast mode.", said Zan.
"But a vampire is supposed to have fangs, and Terrorsaur doesn't have fangs in robot mode. Scorponok does. I think we should use Scorponok.", said Jayna.
"Terrorsaur has fangs in beast mode."
"But he can't suck blood with his beak!"
"It's called mech fluid, you dork."
"Huh?"
"Cybertron blood is called mech fluid. Anyway, let's flip a coin. Heads, I win, tails, you win."
The Vok flipped a coin which came up tails. Scorponok would be the Predacon used in the young Vok's project.
***********************
Scorponok was confused and a little scared. He'd woken up in a cave and had no clue how he'd gotten there. The last thing he could remember clearly was falling into the lava during the backlash or whatever it was from the quantum surge. Then he'd woken up in this cave completely repaired. He guessed (wrongly) that he'd been in the C.R. chamber and then sent out on a mission, but he had no idea what that mission might be.
He also noticed some very odd changes and disturbing changes in himself. He discovered the first one right off, when he tried to leave the cave: an extremely painful burning sensation that forced him back in the cave. He also found that sunlight hurt his eyes a LOT. Granted, his beast mode was that of a nocturnal animal, but he'd never had problems with sunlight before.
Fine. Great. He would just wait until nightfall, then, and hope that Megatron didn't get mad at him for coming in late.
While he waited for the sun to go down, Scorponok discovered more changes within himself. First off, he was somewhat bigger than he'd been before his fall into the lava. He was also a shiny black and had two red optics in place of his original yellow visor. His fangs were also more prominent and elongated than they'd been before. His beast mode was also black and looked metallic. But the biggest change was that he now had a vehicle mode: a low-slung contraption with wheels. A human would have called it a dragster, but Scorponok didn't know much about Earth culture. The vehicle mode would be great for traveling in flat plains, but it wasn't a whole lot of use in the mountains.
He was also thirsty. There was a pool of water in the back of the cave and Scorponok had drunk from it--only to find it did not slake his thirst at all. Some instinct told him that what he craved was mech fluid...
Around sun down, he heard a voice right outside his cave: "Bigbot, I'm getting a really wierd energy signature. I think it's Predacon, but it's really strange, I can't describe it."
The Maximal kitten, Scorponok realized. He'd have plenty of mech fluid to slake his strange thirst.
"I'll just take a quick look, Bigbot; the signal's coming from in this cave."
Scorponok stepped to one side, so he'd be out of the Maximal's immediate line of sight. When the cat stepped into the cave, Scorponok charged, grabbing the Maximal with his pincers. The cat struggled to break his grip, but couldn't.
"Bigbot, I'm being attacked! Send hel..."
"Shut up!"
To Scorponok's amazement, the cat shut up--and got an odd, blank look on his face, almost as if he'd been hit on the head or something. He continued struggling, but his movements seemed strangely sluggish. Scorponok decided to try something.
"Stop fighting me. Let me suck your mech fluid.", he ordered.
The cat obeyed. He stopped fighting, and let Scorponok bite him in the neck and suck his mech fluid. Scorponok drank enough of the feline's mech fluid to slake his thirst, but not enough to kill the youth.
He decided to bring him back to the Predacon base; Megatron would be pleased to have a Maximal prisoner.
But his reception at the Predacon base thoroughly confused him. For when he got there, Inferno tried to shoot him.
"Stop shooting at me, you psycho! It's me, Scorponok!"
"SCORPONOK?! But you're dead! You were destroyed in the lava pit."
"YOU almost destroyed me just now, you moron! As for the lava pit, I'm guessing that someone got me out and fixed me."
"They didn't. The Queen gave no such orders, for she assumed that you were lost."
"Well, SOMEONE fixed me! Look, Inferno, can I see the Queen? I need to talk to her--and I've brought her a little present." Scorponok knew that Megatron was male, of course, but try explaining that to Inferno!
"The Maximal cheetah! She will be pleased. She is on the bridge, in her command chair."
Relieved, Scorponok went to the bridge--only to see Megatron's jaw draw open at his arrival. The other Predacons on the bridge, including some he didn't recognize, also seemed shocked by his arrival.
"Scorponok! This is a surprise, yesss. I'd assumed you were lost for good. And you come bearing a gift. Excellent."
"I'm glad to be of service, Megatron--but you don't know who got me out of the pit? Can you tell me anything at all about why I've changed?"
"No, I don't know how you got out of the lava pit. But as for your metamorphasis: you've become a Transmetal, like myself and Tarantulas--and that bothersome feline you captured. Transmetals hava a robotic-looking beast mode and a vehicle mode that is derived from the beast mode. They also tend to be larger than standard Beast Warriors."
"Thank you, Megatron.", Scorponok said, feeling relieved and grateful. Just as he'd thought, Megatron had the answers, or at least most of them. "But why do Transmetals need to suck mech fluid, and why does sunlight hurt them?"
"What are you talking about ?! We aren't like that!" Megatron abruptly realized something. "Are YOU like that?"
"Yes, Megatron. I sucked the Maximal's mech fluid, because I had this wierd thirst."
"Great, another psycho.", muttered one of the strangers, a winged turtle. "The ant thinks he's really an ant--and this guy thinks he's Dracula!"
Megatron overheard the comment. "Gamera, do YOU know anything about Scorponok's....problem?"
"Sure. He's a vampire--or more likely a nutcase who thinks he is."
"What's a vampire?", asked Scorponok.
"A creature from Earth folklore. They're humans that died, and somehow came back from the dead. They attack other humans in order to drink their blood. Sunlight hurts them, so they only go out at night. Unlike normal humans, they have beast modes, usually a bat. They also sometimes have a hypnotic stare. They're said to be almost immortal, for they don't age and can only be killed by a stake through the heart."
"Interesting.", Megatron commented, sounding thoughtful. "Scorponok, I want you to go down to Tarantulas' lab and have him examine you. It will be edifying to learn how much the reality of vampirism matches the folklore. Yesss."
****************************
Zan and Jayna were bored again. There had been a big fight a couple of days ago between the Maximals and the Predacons and that had been fun to watch. Their new vampire, Scorponok, had bitten the Maximal Fuzor, which had been entertaining. The Maximals had won in the end, and freed their cat, Cheetor.
After that, things had gotten quiet--in other words, boring.
Today, the most exciting thing they'd seen was a fight between Rattrap and Dinobot. They had started off by calling each other all sorts of horrible names. Zan and Jayna always liked these insult matches and sometimes called each other by the same names. Unfortunately, insults like "Scale-belly" and "Vermin" do not work all that well for a pair of floating skulls. But this fight proved even more entertaining than most such encounters because the rat and the raptor started trying to hit each other, and eventually wound up wrestling one another in a large mud puddle. They'd gotten SO dirty. The two Vok had giggled while watching them.
But after that, things had gotten boring again--until they remembered that Terrorsaur was still buried in the lava. They decided to bring him back to life, after they'd made a few changes, of course.
**************************
Terrorsaur was flying back to the Predacon base, trying to puzzle out what had happened to him. He couldn't remember anything after his fall into the lava, and like Scorponok, had wrongly concluded that he'd simply been retrieved and repaired. That didn't explain why he'd woken up in a cave, though. He guessed that he'd been on a mission, knocked into stasis lock by a Maximal enemy, and brought to safety, probably by Waspinator, his best friend. Yeah, that made sense. He just wished he could remember what he'd been doing.
He arrived at the Predacon base without incident. Unlike the vampire Scorponok, Terrorsaur still had a normal energy signature, while Scorponok's reflected his undead nature. So his arrival didn't trigger any alarms. He shifted to robot mode and entered the base.
"Why howdy, Sugar-bot! Ain't you a sight for these optics! I'm called Quickstrike."
"'Sugar-bot?!' The name's Terrorsaur, thank you!", said the pterodactyl indignantly. He was about to say something else to Quickstrike, when he realized that his voice sounded funny. It was higher and less screechy than it had been and it sounded....feminine.
"You O.K., Sugar-bot? You don't look too good all of a sudden. Do you need to sit down or somethin'?"
"Will you quit calling me that?! I..I think I'd better go to my quarters."
"I'll walk you there. You're really purty, you know that? All that red and silver.."
Terrorsaur was about to tell Quickstrike to stop hitting on him or else, when Waspinator came down the hall toward them.
"Oooohhh. Who is Two-head's new friend? Waspinator want to meet pretty new dactyl-bot!"
"Is that supposed to be a joke, Waspinator?! We've known each other for decacycles!", exclaimed Terrorsaur.
"His memory ain't too good, Terror. Bug-eyes, this here's Terrorsaur. She knows you from somewhere, it seems."
"SHE?!?!"
"Ain't that what a femme's usually called, Terror?"
"I'm NOT a femme!"
"Well, Terror, I reckon you better go to Tarantulas and have him check your programming, because you sure do LOOK like a femme to me."
"I'm going to my quarters!", cried Terrorsaur, and ran down the hall to his/her quarters. No-one else had moved in, and they were dusty as the Pit. S/he didn't notice, for s/he was staring at his/her reflection in the mirror. Quickstrike and Waspinator had NOT been playing a cruel joke after all; he was really now a she! The figure in the mirror looked like a cross between her old form and Black Arachnia. She had the color scheme that Quickstrike had admired so much, but she was shinier than before, and the white parts were now silver. But the biggest change was her physique: she was a femme, and a very pretty, well-built femme at that. In fact, she was a babe!
"What's happened to me?!"
Above the Predacon base, Zan and Jayna were howling with laughter. They were laughing so hard, that if they had had corporeal bodies, they would have probably wet themselves.
**********************************
Zan and Jayna decided that they had played with the Predacons enough and decided to pester the Maximals instead. Some of their pranks had disappointing results, however. For instance, they dyed Silverbolt a bright kelly green. He woke up, saw that he had turned green, and then calmly walked to the bridge, much to the Vok's disappointment. No yelling, no freaking out, nothing.
They did get a chuckle when Rattrap saw the green Fuzor walk in, for Rattrap's jaw practically hit the floor. "What the slag happened to you? Forget it , I am SO sure that I DON'T want to know."
"I can not explain this either, my friend, but a session in the C.R. chamber should set things right." So saying, Silverbolt calmly got into the C.R chamber. The two Vok agreed that that prank had been a bust.
Dinobot proved more entertaining. The Vok telepathically compelled him to fall in love with a box of paperclips. Deciding that he was honor-bound to protect and guard his new love, Dinobot carried the box with him everywhere. He even wrote poetry and loveletters to the box, which he had christened "Ophelia", after the character in Hamlet.
Then Rhinox fixed Dinobot's programming, and Dinobot was no longer infatuated with "Ophelia". Zan and Jayna were sorry to see the prank come to an end, but they comforted themselves with the knowledge that Rattrap would not let him live down the "Ophelia" business for a VERY long time.
The Vok's most elaborate prank involved Optimus Primal. They found a stasis pod with a blank protoform and a skunk. They then transferred Primal's spark from his old body to the new one. When Optimus Primal got out of the stasis pod, he found that he was now a black and white Transmetal. To the Vok's delight, his color scheme made him look a bit like Tuxedo's big brother. Even better, he now had the ability to produce and secrete a synthetic musk--which meant he now STANK like a skunk.
"Ehhh, Tuxedo, you been taking steroids or somethin'? And did you fall in the waste disposal unit? I can smell you from here.", said Rattrap, who was sitting in his usual seat by the console.
"It's me, Rattrap, and if you really must know, I've somehow been put in this body which has a SKUNK for a beast mode."
"The Mystery Prankster strikes again.", muttered Cheetor.
"Yes, but this isn't funny. The pranks are more annoying than anything, but the power required to pull them off...Whoever or whatever is doing this is powerful enough to be extremely dangerous.", said Optimus Primal.
"Awwww, did we scare you?", jeered Jayna. "Poor widdle robot, it's so sad !"
"Yeah, let's have a pity party. One, two, three!"
"Awwww!", both Vok chorused, after Zan had counted to three.
"I've got another idea for a really cool trick, one that we can play on the Predacons.", said Jayna.
"What?"
"How about we give Megatron amnesia and make him try to join the Maximals? What do you say?"
"I say you two have done enough damage already!" The speaker was an adult Vok. In fact it was their parent.
"Parry!", the youngsters cried.
"What do you think you are doing? You know the project has already been contaminated by these 'Beast Warriors'. You also know that the Elders are worried that they might try to alter the time stream for their own benefit. You have also been told that the Beast Warriors are off-limits and that you are to have NO interaction with them!"
"We just wanted to have some fun, Parry...", began Jayna.
"Your 'fun' has jeopardized the project! Didn't it occur to either of you that the last thing the Elders want are MORE Beast Warriors?! So you ressurect two and introduce two more to the project, thereby contaminating it further! Consider yourselves GROUNDED FOR THE NEXT MILLENIUM!"