Once upon a time, there was Icebeam14's writing contest. I had to include 7 or more of the things on a certain list. I...had fun with it.
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The Beast Warriors Do America
by Lady Dementia
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It was a normal day in the Beast Wars. Oh, sure, a huge orange vortex had sucked the Beast Warriors up and destroyed Optimal Optimus Primal's body, but, hey, for the Beast Wars that's pretty normal.
At the moment the Predacons and Maximals didn't particularly care if it was normal or not. They were being whirled around inside the vortex, unable to see where they were or where they were going.
"Big bot!" Cheetor wailed as he saw the scrapped parts of Primal go by. Luckily, Rhinox managed to grab the Maximal leader's spark before it flew off. Unfortunately, Cheetor crashed into the rhino, throwing him through the wall of the vortex.
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A robot holding a glowing blue spark suddenly stumbled out of an orange hole in the middle of a crowded sidewalk in downtown Chicago. No one noticed.
Rhinox looked around desperately as the orange hole snapped closed behind him. He had to find something to place Primal's spark in! He eyed the vehicles careening by on the busy street next to him. One of them might work, but they were all moving past him.
A tie-dyed VW Beetle zipped up next to the Maximal and screeched to a halt. A teenager with multiple body piercings and a tee-shirt with 'Hal's Delivery Service' printed on it jumped out of the car and ran into a nearby building with a package in his arms.
Rhinox smiled at his luck and placed Optimus Primal's spark on the hood of the car. It somehow merged with the colorful car, and Rhinox leaned forward. "Optimus?" he whispered. "Can you hear me?"
"Hey, get outta the way!" the teen delivery boy demanded as he shoved past the Maximal and dove into his car. "I got deliveries to make!" He floored the car away from the curb.
Rhinox attempted to chase the Beetle, but he had to fight his way through the downtown crowd. He hopelessly turned a corner after he had lost the car and came face to hoof with a giant metal cow.
He immediately fell in love. "Hello," he breathed. The cow suddenly moved as the light turned green for the truck the bovine was on. "Wait!" Rhinox yelled, but the truck pulled away, taking the Maximal's new love away with it. As a last resort, Rhinox committed the name and address painted on the side of the cow to memory.
"I'll write you, Bessie!" he promised as he sadly watched the cow disappear around a corner. Then he turned away to go look for Optimus.
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Waspinator appeared in the middle of a religious meeting in Los Angeles at the same time the evangelist threw up his arms and screamed, "Let our god appear before us now!"
Needless to say, Waspinator was quite happy with his reception.
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At the same time, Rattrap and Tarantulas were flung out of the vortex and into San Francisco. They landed about a block apart.
Rattrap sat up with a moan. He was in front of a shop, and he read the sign in the window, " 'Laurie's Psychic Readings: Discover Yourself!' "
"You come in?" a woman dressed like a stereotypical Gypsy asked from the doorway. "You find things you not know!"
Rattrap shrugged. "Eh, I don't have any money."
She smiled at him. "You get one free reading!"
"Uh, sure," Rattrap agreed. He followed the Gypsy in and sat down in a chair in front of a table full of odds and ends. Lots of paper clips, for some reason. "So, um, tell me stuff."
She peered into a crystal ball. "Ooo, you have interesting life!"
He snorted. "Yeah, you could say dat. C'mon, tell me somethin' new!" He began hooking the paper clips together, forming a kind of sheet of interconnected office supplies.
She scowled at his impatience, but looked back into her ball. She gasped and looked back up at him.
Rattrap paused his linking. "What?"
She gaped at her crystal ball and then back at him.
"What?!"
She shook her head slowly. "You...you woman!"
Rattrap dropped his paperclips in shock. "WHAT?!"
The Gypsy smirked. "You discover something new every day!"
Rattrap stared in disbelief, but something clicked behind his eyes. It made sense now. How he had always felt just a little strange, why kissing Rhinox and calling him his 'hero' had seemed so right, and dozens of other things throughout his life now made sense. But now what?!
The Gypsy was studying him, er, her. "You need more feminine clothes," she decided.
"I don't wear clothes," Rattrap protested, his mind still spinning.
The woman threw up her hands. "You need to be female LOOKING!" she cried. "You need to be proud of being female!"
"Um..." Rattrap blinked at her vehemence, but found him, uh, herself agreeing. She might as well flaunt who she was! But what could she do? It's not like she had a particularly feminine figure, and she didn't wear clothing like humans, so...
Rattrap looked down at her hands and grinned suddenly. "Got any more of these?" she asked the Gypsy, and held up the sheet of linked paperclips.
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Tarantulas stared up at the sculpture. He had landed right in front of it, and had been staring at it ever since. It was the simplest, most elegant, perfectly formed object he had ever seen. It was...beautiful!
"I think I'm in love," he murmured.
"Hey, you!" called a human. "How did you get in here?! This is a private yard!" The woman stomped towards the Transmetal spider, but he continued to gaze at the statue. "I'm talking to you!" she screamed in his face.
"Huh?" He slowly looked down at her. "Oh. What's that?" he asked, pointing at the sculpture.
She barely glanced at it. "It's my artwork. Now, get out!"
Tarantulas blinked. "Um, it certainly is a piece of art," he said wistfully.
Her eyes narrowed. "Are you mocking me?" she hissed.
"No,no,no!" Tarantulas chuckled. "I just--well, what is it?"
She sniffed. "It a paperclip, of course," she said indignantly. "What, you've never seen one?" Her eyes went wide in astonishment when he shook his head, but then they narrowed again. "Well, you can go buy a box, then! Out!"
Before he knew it, Tarantulas found himself outside the woman's yard. He sadly walked away, wondering where he could find more of those 'paperclips'. A faint jingling made him look up from his contemplation, and he gasped. Paperclips! Lots and lots of paperclips! A whole...dress...of paperclips!
Tarantulas started forward in delight, only to jerk himself to a stop as the short person wearing the paperclip dress turned around.
Was that Rattrap?!
"Tarantulas?!"
"Rattrap?!" Tarantulas's eye returned to staring at the paperclips.
The Maximal drew himself up. "I prefer to be called Rattriena, now," he said softly.
"Huh? Why?"
A faintly wicked smile settled onto the Maximal's face. "Oh, because I'm actually a femme, I thought I should have a more appropriate name."
"Oh." Tarantulas gulped. "You're...female."
"Yup."
Tarantulas looked at the paperclips, and then at the person wearing them. He'd heard of love at first sight, but this was ridiculous! "Um..."
Rattrap--er, Rattriena casually glanced around. "So, want to go to a bar, or something?" She shrugged at his startled look. "Hey, I'm female. I might as well enjoy it!"
"Works for me. Let's go!"
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Jessie opened the mailbox and sighed. "Hey, Moria!" she yelled. "That Rhinox guy sent Bessie another love letter!"
Moria looked up from polishing Bessie the Cow's hooves. "Well, throw it away. Geez, that guy's obsessed!" She turned back to polishing the giant metal cow's hooves. She had to get it ready for the Dairy Fair.
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Megatron sat up with Inferno's help. "Where are we, yess," he muttered as he looked around.
Inferno pointed towards a giant statue. "She is the true Queen!" He turned to Megatron. "False Queen!" He activated his jets and flew towards the Statue of Liberty.
Megatron blinked. "That's it," he mumbled to himself. "I'm joining the Maximals. At least THEY don't have any psychos like him." The more he thought about it, the better the idea seemed. "Maybe I'll finally get some peace and quiet..."
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Cheetor was a cat, therefore he landed on his feet. Quickstrike was a fuze of two animals, neither one even remotely resembling a cat. He landed with a splat on his back.
They both ended up covered with mud.
"Jumpin' gyros, how did I end up here?!" Cheetor moaned, looking out over the Louisiana bayou. Muddy swamp met his gaze from all sides except from one, where the lights of a city lit up the sky.
"I don't know, but ya'll ain't gonna live ta git outta here!" Quickstrike shouted as he trudged towards the TM2 cheetah. Both of them attempted to shoot the other, but the mud had clogged their weapons. Cheetor shrugged and tackled Quickstrike while the fuzor was still puzzling over why his cobra head wouldn't fire.
"I'm gonna kick your keister!" Quickstrike yelled. He tried to bodyslam Cheetor, but the more agile cat twisted out of the way and punched him in the head.
"You talk big, but you--ack!" Cheetor choked on a mouthful of mud. He slung a fistful of mud at Quickstrike in retaliation, then jumped on him again while he wiped the dirt out of his eyes. They wrestled for a while longer, but Cheetor got another lucky hit in that knocked the feisty fuzor out for the count.
"Finally!" Cheetor dragged himself away from the churned up area of the fight and came across a sign farther towards the city.
'Welcome to New Orleans!'
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Rhinox put another letter in the mail for his love, Bessie. She hadn't sent anything back, but that was okay. He was going to look for her, anyway.
The Maximal turned back to the tie-dyed VW Beetle patiently waiting at the curb. "Let's go."
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Blackarachnia, Silverbolt, and TM2 Dinobot ended up in Miami, Florida. Dinobot sneak attacked the couple, sending Blackarachnia flying.
"Beloved!" Silverbolt cried. He growled at Dinobot and charged him. They fought up close and personal, rolling over the ground and eventually stopping in the middle of a major road into the city, where they separated and started using lasers and missiles.
A crowd of old people and tourists formed, snapping pictures and whining about how fights were SO much better in 'The Old Days', what with nuclear weapons and all. Why, these young whippersnappers probably couldn't take a nuke to the chest without DYING, but back in...
Dinobot was fast, and his Transmetal 2 body could take more of a beating, but Silverbolt was filled with righteous fury. Still, righteous fury wasn't much compared to superior weaponry, and Silverbolt was getting the stuffing beat out of him. In fact, Dinobot probably would have ended up killing the winged dog if Fate hadn't decided to intervene with the subtlety of a sledgehammer between the eyes.
It intervened in the form of a speeding bus full of screaming Cuban refugees, more old people, yet more tourists, and a box of turtles. The whole thing smacked right into Dinobot as he staggered into its lane from the force of a missile-blast.
The turtles' box went through the windshield, demonstrating that turtles CAN fly. Dinobot demonstrated that he shouldn't. When he landed, he didn't move. The turtles attempted to escape the scene.
Blackarachnia finally arrived, still woozy from Dinobot's ambush. She staggered over to the fallen Predacon. After a moment of staring, she turned towards Silverbolt slowly. "He's dead."
The tourist swarmed the shocked Maximals, taking pictures and asking for autographs. The old people querulously demanded to be told what was going on, and the Cuban refugees ran around chasing down the turtles. Two of the tourists pushed forward to talk to the couple.
"Hi!" an energetic woman said to Blackarachnia. "I'm a spokesperson for Fashion People, and I'd like to hire you to be a model for our series, 'Metal and Mace'!"
"Huh?" Blackarachnia asked puzzledly.
The woman smiled brightly. "The series is for the...more dominant woman of the times!" Blackarachnia started to say 'No, thank you', but the woman kept on chattering. "Of course, the salary starts out large and gets larger, so you won't be tempted into going to another fashion chain..."
The widow changed her mind. "Salary? Tell me more," she purred.
The woman's smile widened, and she eyed Blackarachnia professionally. "Your color scheme will have to go because those shades went out of style last year, but..."
At the same time, the spokeswoman's partner had approached Silverbolt with an offer.
Silverbolt blinked at him. "You want to make..? What?"
The spokesman repeated his offer to make Silverbolt's 'loincloth' into the newest fashion in men's underwear. "You'll get a large fee to model it for--" he continued.
Blackarachnia cut him off. "He'll do it!" The woman who had been talking to her gave the man a thumbs-up, and they walked back towards where they had parked their car. The widow hooked her arm through Silverbolt's and strolled after them.
"So, Rover," she asked idly. "What would you think of me in...green?"
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A multi-colored car pulled into a dairy farm's driveway, passing a sign reading 'Bessie -- The World's Largest Cow -- Lives Here!'. Rhinox smiled.
Later, he was scowling. "What do you MEAN she's gone!?" he yelled at the farmhand. "I told her to wait for me!"
The farmer gave him a funny look and edged away. "Um, they took her to a Dairy Fair down South. Maybe you could catch up with them..."
Rhinox nodded. "Yes! Give me the address!"
The farmhand waited until the tie-dyed VW Beetle and it's occupant drove away before running for the phone.
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Depth Charge and Rampage both appeared in Cleveland in the same general area. In fact, they were within 100 feet of each other.
Horizontally, that is.
Depth Charge, appropriately enough, appeared in Sea World's manta ray Petting Zoo. Rampage appeared over 6000 feet high in the air.
Depth Charge looked around in bewilderment at his new surroundings. "Depth Charge, Maximize!" he yelled. Tourists oohed and aahed as the ray transformed. He ignored that and climbed out of the tank.
"*beep!* Protoform X--*ftz!*" Depth Charge's computer died from the strain, leaving the ray-bot to wander into Sea World looking for Rampage. If he had bothered to look up, he might have seen the tiny, screaming black dot that was the crab high in the sky.
But he didn't look up, so eventually he ended up by the penguin area with a 'I Saw Shamoo!' tee-shirt, a soda, and a pretzel that some REALLY aggressive vendors had pestered him into buying.
"Great, I'm turning into a tourist," he muttered. He threw the pretzels to the penguins and gave the tee-shirt and soda to a passing group of Japanese tourists who took his picture in gratitude. "Now what?" he sighed.
A Sea World employee came up to him. "You shouldn't feed the penguins," he scolded. Depth Charge scowled, and the man hastened to add, "Please come with me. My boss wants to see you."
Depth Charge grumbled, but since he didn't have anything better to do besides watch the penguins fight over the pretzel he walked after the Sea World employee. The man took him to a large room where a fat man wearing a polyester suit smiled in greeting.
"Hello, hello, hello!" the fat man said jovially. "So, you must be the manta ray who escaped the Petting Zoo!"
Depth Charge shrugged. "Yeah."
The joviality died, and the fat man leaned forward menacingly. "Well, you can just get right back IN the Petting Zoo, you hear me? Sea World fought long and hard to get that Petting Zoo approved by the animal rights people, and we are NOT going to have some uppity ANIMAL ruin all that hard work and effort!"
The ray-bot gaped at him. "But I'm not--"
An unpleasant smile crossed the fat man's face. "Yes you are," he said softly, and whirled to press 'Play' on a TV nearby. The screen then proceeded to show Depth Charge's beast mode swimming around in the Petting Zoo, and then transforming and getting out. "You sure look like an animal to me," the fat man continued. "And as an animal, you're PROPERTY."
Depth Charge's mind was reeling as he weakly protested, "I'm a transformer!"
"Uh-huh, sure you are," the man commented. "Who's the court going to believe, you or me?" He shook his head. "Just get back in the tank."
"This isn't over," the ray-bot growled, but he turned to go.
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Rampage hopelessly curled into a ball in mid-air as the ground rushed up at him. His motion spun him around so that his head was pointed down.
"Oh, slag! This is gonna hurt!" he moaned.
And it did. Rampage smashed headfirst into the pavement of Sea World's parking lot, creating a deep crater. Knocked silly, he pried himself loose from the ground and stumbled over to a light pole. He leaned against it, wondering where in the Pit he was.
He frowned. What was the Pit? For that matter, how had he gotten here? And who was he?! He transformed to his beast mode instinctively and looked himself over, not remembering why he was a crab.
Rampage's contemplation stopped as a young girl ran up to him. "Ooh," she squealed. "A crab!" She poked him.
"Stop that!" he said. He tried to push her away with his pincers, but she easily evaded him. After a moment he stopped trying to get rid of her as a thought hit him. "Um, do I know you?" he asked tentatively.
She giggled. "No!" she said cheerfully. "Why, are you lost?"
Rampage looked around. He was in a strange world, surrounded by strange people, and he didn't have a clue as to what was going on. "Yeah, I'm lost," he said finally.
The little girl smiled. "Maybe my mommy will let me take you home!"
He followed behind her as she skipped up to a matronly lady loading six screaming kids into a minivan. "Moooooommy!" the girl whined.
"Sue, I'm busy," the lady said without looking up.
"But Mommy!" Sue whimpered. "I found a pet crab!"
"What?" The lady glanced up and saw Rampage as Sue skipped back over to him. "Oh, my," she whispered. "That's the biggest crab I've ever seen!"
"Can I keep him?! Pleeeeeeeease?!" Sue patted Rampage on the back. "He's cute!"
Cute? Rampage wanted to object, but he wasn't sure he would be able to find someone else willing to help him.
"I don't know..." Sue's mother muttered. "He's awful big..."
Sue's eyes welled with tears. "I'll take care of him! Honest, Mommy!" The other six kids noticed the potential pet right about then, and their wails of 'Moooooooommy! We WANT him!' swayed their mother.
Still, Rampage could see that she wasn't quite convinced. "Please, ma'am?" he asked pleadingly. "I won't be any trouble!"
She gave him a shocked look as he spoke, but she was the mother of seven children. She was used to seeing shocking things. "All right," she sighed to a chorus of cheers. "You can keep him."
All the children jumped out of the car again to swarm all over the crab, who stood there looking disconcerted. After an appropriate period of wearing off their hyperness, their mother started loading them all back in. Rampage rode in the trunk.
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In the end, Rampage stayed in the family as a hereditary pet since he was immortal. He never got his memory back, and generations of children grew to love him.
Depth Charge eventually took his case to court, and won the Transformers' Rights Bill after the Sea World versus Depth Charge case went to the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, Depth Charge was killed by a sniper one day when he went to the beach. The possibility of a link between the sniper and Sea World is being investigated.
Tarantulas and Rattriena were happily married in San Francisco last fall. Waspinator, who was proclaimed a god by his devoted followers, presided over the wedding. It was a joyous occasion. That is to say, no one got seriously hurt.
Rhinox was admitted to a mental hospital after he arrived at the Dairy Farm, where the police were waiting for him. He plasters his room with love letters to Bessie the Cow and continually sings 'I Will Survive'. His release is not expected any time soon.
Inferno...well, the Statue of Liberty has never had such a devoted custodian.
Megatron and VW Bug Primal found each other to be good traveling buddies. They're wanted in thirteen states for speeding.
Quickstrike is presumed dead, eaten by an crocodile or just sucked down into the Louisiana bayou. Cheetor, on the other hand, became a blues singer ("Those Rusty Metal Blues") and is known all over New Orleans for his shrimp gumbo.
Blackarachnia was last seen to be dyed pure green, the latest fashion, and modeling for the best designers. She's about to hit supermodel status, and is famous for walking her dog down the catwalk. She had Silverbolt's name legally changed to 'Fiffi', and has his fur done in French poodle style. The loincloth underwear style for men was a hit.
Dinobot's dead body was brought to a junkyard by the Cuban refugees, earning them enough money to feed their turtles.
The Beast Wars were officially over.
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END
