The Legend of Elita

Chapter 5: Clean Getaway

In the wild parts of Northern Cybertron, the Decepticons had taken a brief pause from their pillaging and ransacking. In a large pine forest, Megatron sat at the top of one of the tallest trees. The Decepticon leader scanned the skies until he heard a shrill cry. He looked up to see Laserbeak returning with something small clutched in his claws. The cyberhawk flew over Megatron and dropped his bundle. Megatron snatched it in his servo and looked at it. It was a simple cloth doll, obviously a femme's toy. Megatron held it up close to his face and examined for a few cycles.

Then Megatron dropped down from the tree and approached his top mechs. He tossed the doll over to Lugnut and asked, "What do you make from this doll?"

Lugnut's large optic spotted small granules of black dust on the doll, vegetable matter and fragrant. "Black pine…from the high mountains," said Lugnut.

Shockwave took the doll before his long servos picked out a small piece of white metal. "White armor shard, Autotroopers," said Shockwave.

Blitzwing took the doll and sniffed it, "Energon fumes, from cannons."

"This doll came from a small village at the Tygun Pass," said Megatron, "The Imperial Army will be waiting for us there."

"We can avoid them easily," said Starscream.

"No," said Megatron, "The quickest way to the Emperor is through the Pass." He then had a nasty smirk on his face as he took the doll, "Besides, the little girl will be missing her doll." He squeezed his fist around the toy. "We should return it to her."

The training had a less than stellar start. The inexperienced recruits found the training assignments to be very hard to accomplish. As a matter of fact, more than a few of them were getting ready to quit. But then Blagarak managed to figure out how to climb the pole to get to the spike. Using the weights like a lumberjack's sling, he managed to climb all the way up and get the spike. After that, moral picked up significantly in the camp and motivated the soldiers to perform better. Of course, all that training was succeeded through sweat and hard work, which left a bit of an aroma on them.

Draco was pacing back and forth with nervousness at the pond's edge, which served as the unofficial swimming hole/public bath for the troops. "Man, oh man, this is a bad idea," he said, "What if somebody sees you?"

Elita, who was currently undressing behind some tall grass, said to Draco, "Just because I look like a mech doesn't mean I have to smell like one."

Draco covered his eyes as Elita stepped towards the water. "So some of the guys don't change their socks, picky, picky, picky," he said, "Actually, I kinda like the smell of accumulated oil." He heard a splash and reopened his eyes. Elita's surfaced from the pond and she sighed with relief. "Ok, ok, you're clean now," said Draco, holding up a towel for her, "Now get out before you get rusty and stuff."

"Draco, if you're so worried, go stand watch," said Elita.

Draco grumbled as he walked back to Chip. "Yeah, yeah," he muttered before saying in a feminine voice, 'Stand watch, Draco, while I blow our secrets with my stupid girly habits.'" Draco snorted and grumbled to Chip, "Hygiene."

Then Chip looked over his shoulder and said, "Uh, Draco."

"What? What's going-" stared Draco before three shapes rushed by with gleeful whoops and a pair of underwear fell onto him. Draco pulled the underwear off his head and saw three mechs stripping and jumping into the pond. "Oh no," said Draco, "There are a couple of things I know they're bound to notice!" He quickly ran after them, tossing the underwear over his shoulder and onto Chip.

"Ugh, aah!" groaned Chip from under the underwear, "Oh, the stench. Why? This doesn't even make sense. Robots don't wear underwear. Ooooooohh…bleh." Chip apparently passed out from the disgust.

Elita was getting some grime out of her arm joints when she heard the mechs coming. She quickly ducked most of her head under the water. The first two made plenty of splashes when they came in, but then the third shouted, "Cannonball!" and jumped in, creating a small tidal wave. Elita groaned. 'Of all the times for those three to take a bath,' she thought to her face behind a lily pad.

But unfortunately, Brawn spotted her. "Hey, Blagarak!" he called.

"Oh, hi guys," said Elita in her best mech's voice, "I didn't know you were here. I was just washing but now I'm clean and now I'm gonna go. Bye-bye."

"Hey, wait a minute," said Bumblebee, swimming over, "I know we were jerks to you before. But what with you did with the pole, I think we should start over. Hi, I'm Bumblebee."He reached over and shook her servo.

"Nice to meet you," said Elita, pulling her servo out of Bumblebee's. She moved away but backed into Bulkhead.

"And I'm Bulkhead," said Bulkhead.

"Hello, Bulkhead," said Elita nervously.

Then Elita heard Brawn climbing up on a rock sticking out of the pond and looked away. "And I am Brawn, king of the rock. And there's nothing you girls can do about it."

"Oh yeah?" said Bumblebee, "I think Blagarak and I can take you."

"I really don't want to take him anywhere," said Eltia, keeping her optics away from the rock.

"Blagarak, we have to fight!" said Bumblebee.

"Uh, no we don't," said Elita, "We could just…close our eyes and swim around."

Bumblebee started dragging her back, Elita struggling to remain mostly underwater. "C'mon," said Bumblebee, "Don't be such a- AH! Something bit me!"

Draco surfaced nearby and spat. "Bleh, what a nasty flavor," he said.

Bumblebee saw him, but fortunately didn't notice his horns, ears, or arms. "SNAKE!" he yelled before heading for the rock. The other two mechs quickly panicked and started climbing up the rock. Elita took advantage of the moment and whistled loudly. Snarl, who was grazing nearby, quickly ran over to her and provided cover as she got out of the pond.

The trio had finally calmed down and were now all sitting on the rock. "Some king of the rock," said Bumblebee. Brawn just punched him. "Ow!" said Bumblebee before falling into water.

"Phew," said Elita as she wrapped a towel around herself, "That was too close."

Draco, however, was brushing his mouth out. He spat and said, "No, that was vile! You owe me big!" He squeezed more toothpaste into his mouth and kept brushing.

"I never want to see a naked mech again," said Elita. Just then, what looked like every soldier in camp came charging past towards the pond, all naked as jaybirds. Elita just stared with shock while Snarl snorted with disgust.

Draco glared at Elita and said, "Hey, don't look at me. I ain't biting no more butts."

After getting dressed up in her light armor again, Elita decided she need a walk around the camp to take her mind off her near-disaster at the pond. She was passing by Perceptor's cabin when she heard voices inside.

"You think that your men are ready for battle?" said Perceptor's voice, "Preposterous. They would not last 1 cycle against the Decepticons."

"They completed their training," countered Optimus, "They've passed every challenge I placed against them."

"Only after solar cycles of miserable failures," said Perceptor.

"You can't expect them to be perfect from the beginning," said Optimus.

"Those boys are no more fit to be soldiers than you are to be captain," said Perceptor, "Once the general reads my report, your troops will never see battle."

Draco growled as he listened in. "Oh no you don't," he growled, "I worked too hard to get Elita into this war." He turned to Chip and said, "This guy's messing with my master plan."

Chip nodded and said, "Jerk."

Inside, Optimus put his servo on Perceptor's shoulder and said, "We're not finished here."

Perceptor removed Optimus's servo from his shoulder and said, "Be careful, Optimus Prime. Ultra Magnus may be your father, but I am the Emperor's consul. Incidentally, I earned that position on my own. You are dismissed."

Optimus stormed angrily out of the cabin. As he passed by Elita, she said, "Hey, I'll hold him and you punch. Heh, heh, or not…" Optimus barely even looked at Elita as he walked by. "For what it's worth," said Elita, "I think you're a great captain." That did make Optimus pause and Elita could have sworn she saw a smile on his face. But then he continued on.

"I saw that."

Elita looked down at Draco and asked, "What?"

"You like him, don't you?" said Draco.

"Well, I did just say he's a good captain…" said Elita.

"No, not just 'like him', but 'like him, like him'," said Draco.

Elita's face immediately blushed, "What? No! I just-"

"Yeah, right, sure, go to your cabin!" snapped Draco. Elita turned to go, but she couldn't help but smile when she thought of Optimus. Maybe Draco was right, not like she'll ever admit it.

Draco turned to Chip and said, "I think it's time we took this war into our own hands." He chuckled sinisterly to himself as Chip looked at him with confusion.

"Sometimes, I wonder if I should have taken this job," muttered Chip.

The two of them waited until Perceptor left his cabin. By the looks of it, he was preparing to go to the pond as well for a bath. Then the two of them snuck inside. "Ok, Chip, we need a message from the general, telling that he needs backup and wants us to head up to the Tygan Pass," said Draco.

"We sure do," said Chip, "But I'm not sure if we can afford to wait for one."

"Chip, we're going to forge a letter," said Draco.

"Uh, isn't forgery a federal offense?" asked Chip.

"Yeah, so is impersonating a soldier," said Draco, "No Bot's gonna expect us. Just do your hacking magic and start typing. There's blank datapads over there."

Chip shrugged and said, "Might as well start doing my part." He went over and started working on a letter.

Meanwhile, Draco was studying a picture of Perceptor with Emperor Alpha Trion. "Hmm… wonder how he got the Emperor to pose for that pic," he muttered to himself.

"Finished!" called Chip.

"Ok, let's see what you've got," said Draco, taking the datapad and reading it, "'From Ultra Magnus. Dear son, we are waiting for the Cons at the pass. It would mean a lot if you come and back us up.' Hmm… that's great, except you forgot 'And since we're out of energon goodies, maybe you should bring us up some.'?"

"Oh, good idea," said Chip, "Nothing quite spoils your mood when you're working hard and you just find out that there's no-"

"HELLO?" snapped Draco, "This is the army! During a war! Generals don't just send for backup on a whim!" He blanked the datapad and said, "Make it sound more urgent, please. You know what I'm talking about?"

"Oh, right," said Chip before taking the datapad and writing, 'From Ultra Magnus, the Decepticons are rapidly approaching the Tygun Pass. Their numbers may be greater than we anticipated. We need as many Bots as we can for this battle. Send reinforcements as soon as possible.'

Draco looked at the datapad and said, "That's better, much better. Let's go." Chip followed Draco out of the cabin, not noticing that the picture of Perceptor now had goofy-looking facial hair on it.

Snarl was refilling his coolant tanks at the coolant troth when he felt something on his back. He looked back and saw Draco and Chip standing on it. "Snarl, my man, hey, we need a ride," said Draco. Snarl just snorted and shot a blast of flame that knocked Draco off his back.

Snarl then looked at Chip who said, "Uh, I'll just be going now." He hopped off of Snarl and went over to a slightly crispy Draco. "You ok, Draco?" he asked.

Draco coughed and said, "I think we need to enlist some outside assistance."

Perceptor walked away from the pond, holding a ruined slipper and looking rather disgruntled. "Insolent ruffians," he grumbled. He turned back and yelled, "You mech owe me a new pair of slippers! And I do not 'squeal like a girl'."

Just then, a flexible tongue reached out and grabbed the slipper and popped it back into a waiting mouth. Perceptor let off a rather high-pitched cry of surprise at that. "Urgent news from the general," said a voice. Perceptor looked up to see a soldier holding a datapad out. What he didn't know was that the 'soldier' was actually a puppet made from various pieces of armor put together, with the optic and mouthplate being worked by Chip and Draco controlling the arms and providing the voice. Perceptor gave an odd look at the mount, a space slug which was currently eating the rest of his slipper. "What's the matter? Never seen a slimer before?" asked the 'soldier'.

Perceptor took the datapad and then asked, "Who are you?"

"Excuse me?" snapped the 'soldier', "I think the question should be 'who are you'? We're in a war, man! There's no time for stupid questions." The 'soldier' slapped Perceptor in the face before the space slug decided to move on. Draco quickly swiveled the torso around and continued, "I should have your hat for that! Snatch that right off your head! But I'm feeling gracious today so carry on before I report you." The space slug crawled over a nearby wall and out of sight. Perceptor read the datapad and then looked around for the 'soldier', but he had already gone.

Perceptor headed to Optimus Prime's cabin and barged inside. "Captain, urgent news from the general," he said, "We are needed at the front!"

Draco, who had been listening on that, turned to Chip and said, "Back your bags, Chip, we're moving out."

There's another chapter. Another relatively short one, but one that does provide some humor. I probably could have found a more Cybertronian way of doing the pond, but that would have taken out so many funny things from the movie. I also expanded Draco and Chip's dialogue for this chapter, adding in some more funny remarks. In case you're wondering, space slugs were introduced in War for Cybertron. Not sure if they exist in Transformers Animated, but I thought it was a good idea. Anyhow, a lot of action's going to happen in the next chapter, which should be up by Wednesday latest. Keep alert for that and please review.