It was Cassandra Evans birthday; she was finally turning six. Her first-grade class sang happy birthday to her twice; once in the morning after the announcements and once more when they ate the chocolate cupcakes her teacher had made. As the tradition was in Mrs. Keen's class, she also got a little pink ribbon that was pinned to her birthday dress saying that she was six years old. A little silver birthday cake decorated the bottom. It was the only birthday present she was able to receive, for before she could go home to her birthday party, the Decepticons fired the Hydra Cannon.
10 Days Later
Starscream tipped his chair back so the front two legs were off of the ground. The metal whined pitifully against his weight. He scoffed and looked back to the table. Cyclonus and Demolisher were sitting on one side while Wheeljack and Thrust sat on the other. Megatron sat at the head, opposite of the red and white seeker. His fingers were drumming the table close to his Minicons seat.
"Alright, Mighty Megatron, what do you want?" He sneered, orange-gold optics narrowing in distaste. On his shoulder, Swindle mimicked his partner's moves.
"Impatient, Starscream?" The Decepticon leader asked, a slight hint of annoyance in his optics at being rushed. The seeker glared back defiantly. "Very well, since you are so eager to learn what this meeting is about," he hit a button on the underside of the table. A circle in the middle split in half and a cage with energon-charged bars rose into sight. Five humans, all of different ages, were huddled in the middle, as far from the bars as possible. Cyclonus, Demolisher and Wheeljack all leaned forward anxiously, peering at them through the bars.
"Wow! Can I have a squishy, Megatron?" The helicopter-bot asked eagerly, tapping on the metal disk that created the top of the cage. The humans winced at the sound and huddled closer together, covering their ears to block out the offending noise.
"Patience, Cyclonus." The Decepticon leader chided as he relaxed in his seat. "Now, as you all know, the Autobots have been destroyed," he looked around the table where his troops waited eagerly for him to continue, "and that means that Earth is in our hands."
"Yeah, so what are we gonna do with it, sir?" Cyclonus interrupted. "Can we blow it up? Pleeeeease? I've always wanted to blow up a planet!"
"Cyclonus! Do not ruin my good mood!" Megatron snapped, surprising the psycho into silence. Clearing his throat, the tyrant returned to his earlier speech. "We have searched high and low for any of the surviving Autobots. The Hydra Cannon hit their base; there is no possible way they could have survived the blast. All of the Autobots up on Cybertron have been taken and placed in jail or exterminated." A slight smile crossed his face. "We are the victors of this war!"
Despite the knowledge of this earlier in the week, and the celebration that had lasted into late into the night, a cheer went up from the bots. All except for Starscream, that is. He was examining the humans in the cage. Three were male and two were female, all of different ages. The oldest male was extremely small and hunched over, wisps of white hair clinging pitifully to his head. Beside him was a taller male with black hair and sharp eyes and a stronger build. He and the last male, a boy between adolescence and adulthood, had their arms wrapped protectively around the two females. The first female was the same age as the youngest boy. In between all four of them was the last human. She was tiny, barely visible between the others arms, with long red hair and large green eyes that were looking around with a look of fear.
With a snort, Starscream tipped his chair farther back. "Yes, yes, we all know that. Now what of those pitiful examples of life you have sitting here in front of us?"
Megatron gave him a coy smile. "Just wait, Starscream." He tapped a button on the arm of his chair. Above the caged humans, a holo-screen popped up, displaying a 3D model of the earth. The only thing that made this map different from the ones they had viewed earlier was that the entire west coast of the United States was gone, replaced by ocean and scared patches of land. "As you can see, the Autobots, and their base, are gone." Megatron zoomed in on the destroyed land. Several satellites popped into view. They were running up and down the ruined states, scanning the area for any sign of Autobots.
"We know this already!" Starscream shouted, slamming his hand down on the table. A small dent was left in his wake. The humans stared at it, wide-eyed.
"There is no harm in repeating the facts." Megatron stated, taking the seekers impatience in stride. "Now, as I was saying," He returned the Earth to its original scale. "The only things left inhabiting this planet are the Earthlings and their animals." Large blobs of red appeared on the map. "I have had a force of Decepticlones gather them up." The Earth spun as the blobs began to congregate and move over to the large landmass formed by Asia, Africa and Europe. "There were some, ahem, accidents along the way." Nearly half of the red blob disappeared. "The older humans, I'm afraid, did not make it across the ocean." The Earth morphed into several Decepticon carriers crossing the Atlantic before they all either blew up or plowed into the sea.
"You monster!" The younger male had stood and was glaring at Megatron between the bars of the cage. "How could you even think to murder countless people who could not defend themselves?" He shouted, waving his arms around for emphasis.
"Ah, so it has come to this." Megatron sighed and stood from his seat. Walking calmly around the table, he bent down between Demolisher and Cyclonus and simply flicked the lid off the cage. Daintily, as though afraid he might contract some deadly disease from touching him, picked the human up by the back of his black Guns and Roses t-shirt. He hauled him swiftly up through the air until he was hanging right in front of the tyrants face. With a small smile (mostly to show off his fangs), Megatron began to turn the human this way and that, examining him. "You're strong," he commented, "and healthy." He lowered his hand half-way towards the cage and dropped him back in. He landed on the middle-aged human, who went sprawling. The Decepticon soldiers (with the exception of Starscream) laughed as the two struggled to get up. Megatron wore a triumphant smirk as he glared down at the five humans. The two females were hugging each other tightly, while the older man looked back evenly. This action nearly made Megatron draw back in surprise; a human, a mere fleshling, was standing up to him?
"We must remedy this," the tyrant purred to himself as he reached down and grabbed the old man in his fist. He looked at his captive thoughtfully. "You know, I have always wondered if humans could survive out in space."
"But Megatron, sir, they need oxygen, and there isn't any—" Demolisher started to say, but Cyclonus elbowed him in the side, motioning for him to be silent.
"I guess now is a good time to find out." Megatron turned and marched out of the room without another word. The door slammed shut behind him. The room fell into silence. The four remaining humans were once more huddled tightly in the center of the cage, heads down. After a few minutes had passed, the door slid open, and Megatron returned, empty handed.
"Now that he," the Decepticon spit out the word like poison, "is taken care of, we can move onto other matters." He sat back down in his chair and returned his attention to the map. His soldiers did the same. "Now, as you can see, we have a large congregation of humans here on the eastern hemisphere of Earth. The question is what to do with them."
He had barely finished speaking when Cyclonus threw out the first suggestion. "Pets!" The psychotic copter declared.
"Slaves." Thrust soon countered.
"Experimental subjects." Wheeljack suggested.
"Target practice." Starscream muttered beneath his breath.
Megatron sat back in his seat. "The only problem is that humans don't last forever, and they need a steady stream of resources to live."
"We could breed them!" Cyclonus declared. "And some of them could make food for the ones that are pets."
"And slaves," Thrust added. Megatron spun his chair around slowly, scratching his chin in a thoughtful manner.
"Interesting...interesting..." He muttered beneath his breath. "It would make life easier if we could have them do simple chores while we did more important work." He turned and looked at Cyclonus and Thrust. "Alright, fine. Pets and slaves they will be. But it is up to you two to develop a system that will keep them alive long enough to serve their purpose."
"Yes sir!" The two saluted.
"What of these humans?" Starscream asked as his processor turned over the recent conversation in his mind.
"Divide them amongst yourselves." Megatron shrugged. "I personally do not care what you do with these four." He stood, turned, and quickly left the room, off to develop their next move.
So the fall of the human race began.
Within two short months, Cyclonus and Thrust had developed a plan that meet Megatron's ideals. Asia and Europe would be cleared for farming and raising cattle and other animals that they found humans enjoyed eating. Africa, Australia and the America's would be left to the other Decepticons for building and manufacturing and such. Certain bots (mostly scientists) who knew of the organics way of life would breed and raise humans to be suitable pets, slaves, and entertainers. With the Autobots gone, the Decepticons way of life was perfect.
At least, the first few years of it was.
Yes, a rewrite. I read my first try over and found that I did not like it in the least! As for my Raven saga, I'm not going to work on that for a little while (too much at one time XP Blech!). And I'm going to a camp for the next week! Girls camp! No makeup, no cabins, to hair dryers! Just us, tents, and hopefully a WORKING swimming pool! I'm going on the big THREE DAY HIKE! (Yeah, yeah, to some of you its not a lot!) So, wish me luck! I'll be back on Saturday (and I'll be thinking about my fanfics the whole way!)
Please review! I want to know if this version is better than my last one! Thank you!
