One Hundred Different Plans

Deep in the lava-lit darkness of the Predacon base, Quickstrike dreamed of glory. He dreamed of dozens of enemies, throwing himself into a score of battles, and winning every one. He dreamed of the Maximals gory in defeat, and himself riding high in victory. In the depths of sleep, the fuzor came up with plans for the war and plans for Blackarachnia, plans for Tarantulas and Megatron and Optimus Primal. Parades of irrational thought connected and reconnected, bending the laws of the universe so that he always came out on top. Victory and violence were the ultimate goals of every plan, and it didn't matter how the dreams started--they always turned into a plan.

As he drowsed through unrealistic plans, pincers clattering and slang-accented mutters filling his quarters, it opened eyes of pinkish-red and made real plans. Plans that worked. Plans that would stand up against the waking world.

The king cobra arched over his back, hissing under its breath and studying the body it attached to. Scorpions didn't have snakes for tails, and snakes didn't typically have scorpions to think for them. Yet here they were, scorpion and snake, fuzed at the ends like the freak of nature they were. The snake writhed, testing its length as it climbed up the wall behind them and dipped down to coil on the floor. It didn't really have the length to rest like that; restless, it glided over its fellow freak's pinchers and turned back on itself. It hung there, uncomfortable by nature but comfortable by unnatural build. It watched the sleeping scorpion and plotted.

For every dim, victorious dream Quickstrike imagined, it constructed the last plan that would actually work. It noted rocks to shelter behind and places to run. It found safety in the midst of battle and angles to shoot from. It tempered the scorpion's anger with caution and the scurrying with arrogance. Quickstrike wondered sometimes about where his arrogance and violence came, but the snake knew. Scorpions were aggressive but essentially lurk-and-strike predators. The cobra had more dignity. In fact, the cobra possessed a king's pride along with his ferocity when he went to war--or, in this cobra's case, on the hunt.

Scorpions hunted weaker things, insects and tiny animals. They relied on poison and its strength.

The king cobra hunted other snakes.

Poison, yes, and strength, but the cobra hissed plans of strategy and exploration into Quickstrike's audios late at night. New paths through the underbrush instead of a desert burrow, and it tasted the scent of prey on the ground and air as it searched for whom to chase down. Coils crushed the life out of its next meal, but also held it helpless until the poison kicked in. Scorpions ran at the signs of overwhelming danger, but the cobra stayed its ground. Other snakes would pursue the weak.

The cobra understood the Beast Wars. Warfare equaled the hunt to it. The Maximals, even some of the other Predacons, were weaker snakes. Some of them were stronger, but kings knew no fear. This hunt was to kill or be killed. A pity that the snake remained the less-connected instinct in the fuzor, subjected to the scorpion's impulses and confusion in the midst of playing the part of a warrior king. Quickstrike's mind, such as it was, had a better connection to the larger body. They could communicate, after a sort, but the best time to reach the mechanical brain was when the barrier's fell and reality drifted away into subconscious desires.

So while the scorpion dreamed of vague campaigns that brushed over warfare with scurrying and hiding, the king cobra carefully plotted out the final version for survival and domination.

And hissed into Quickstrike's thoughts one hundred different plans.

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Have I mentioned that I like Quickstrike as a muse? His snake-hand assaulted me at about 4 AM, insisting that I write about it RIGHT NOW. I didn't. But that doesn't mean I wasn't seriously intimidated by its attitude. Do not piss off The King.

...I had dreams of a cobra in an Elvis outfit that night. It wasn't pretty.

Anyway, another ficlet continuing with Quickstrike's violence. Also, I don't think I've ever seen a fanfic done about Quickstrike's snake half. I mean, Megatron talks to HIS head-hand, but it seems like Quickstrike actually communicates with his. Remember the episode where it was detached and went looking for him?