Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers, just the story.

Chapter 5: Things Get Worse

Laserbeak swooped on silent wings to the Ark. Frenzy, Rumble, and Ravage were taking too long in seeing the fate of kitty-made Starscream and Megatron had sent him to check on them. Now, as he approached the Ark, he heard a loud racket going on inside. Sensing that no one would notice him as long as he was quiet, he landed in the entrance of the Ark on top of a rock. The scene inside was a curious one.

Chromia was sitting on top of T-Rex-formed Grimlock, punching him over and over again. Moonracer and Firestar stood behind her with wide optics as Firestar held a wide-eyes, horse-sized kitty Starscream to her chest. Sunstreaker was with the girls, but he looked too terrified to try and stop Chromia for repaying Grimlock's torture to kitty Starscream; she really liked that cat.

Closer to the entrance feline Wheeljack was leaning against his box-like invention as Ironhide and Prowl hovered over him, apparently threatening him to fix the organic problem now.

Further in the back, Sideswipe and Jazz wrestled with robot Ravage as the tiny kitten, Bumblebee, dangled from his mouth. Cat-formed Ratchet, fox-formed Optimus Prime and Elita One, and dog-formed Hound tried prying Ravage's jaws off of the tiny kitten who looked close to bawling his enormous eyes out.

Rumble and Frenzy were sitting the closest to Laserbeak at the entrance with an unconscious Frenzy sitting down and leaning back against the wall as Rumble looked for a way to revive him.

An idea hit Rumble and he drew one hand back. With a loud, hard whack, Rumble hit Frenzy upside the head as hard as he could. A loud clank sounded out from Frenzy and he jerked back to wakefulness, looking around in startled confusion.

"You crashed when you heard a bunch of random sounds connected in one big word," Rumble explained. "Now come on; we gotta get Ravage and get out of here."

"He's not leaving without his kitten," Frenzy commented, staring over at the robot cat.

Sure enough, Jazz was sitting on Ravage's back, facing in the opposite direction of the Decepticon, and pulling a back leg up and towards him self. Sideswipe was on his hands and knees by them, smacking the floor as he counted down to declare a pin. Ratchet was clawing at Ravage's muzzle and Hound was chewing on his ear. Optimus and Elita One were chewing on Ravage's shoulders.

Ratchet finally threw his paws up, screaming in rage, and yanked a tiny wrench from somewhere on his furry self and started whacking Ravage repeatedly on the muzzle with it, screeching like a demon. His eyes started glowing red. This scared everyone off of Jazz and thus freed, Ravage yipped in fear as he scrambled to his feet and bounded out of the Ark with Bumblebee still in his mouth. Jazz picked up Hound and transformed, chasing after Ravage. Sideswipe did the same with Ratchet, but was noticeably more fearful about man handling the red and white kitten medic. Optimus was left behind to be scolded by Elita One for letting go of Ravage; she was really moody for some reason. Eh, guess getting turned into a vixen does that to a girl.

Laserbeak fluttered out of their way as they charged out of the Ark, but closer to Wheeljack's party.

"Laserbeak!" Ironhide exclaimed, pointing. He drew his gun. "Con in the base--!"

"Target practice!" Wheeljack cheered, turning his invention on Laserbeak and smacking a button.

A burst of light his Laserbeak and the scene flashed. When it faded, Laserbeak looked down at himself and saw that he was a… chicken?

Rumble, Frenzy, Ironhide, Prowl, Optimus Prime and Elita One, the ones who noticed, all had their eyes go wide before they had their array of actions. Prowl and Elita One covered their mouths, trying to hold back snickers. Rumble's shoulders slumped in a dumb "huh??" gesture as Frenzy openly giggled behind him. Ironhide just shook his head, smiling, and Optimus looked to the ceiling, rubbing the back of his furry neck nervously.

Laserbeak clucked in surprise and began running around in panicked circles, clucking in shock and surprise. Chromia paused in her beating of Grimlock and all the femmes, Starscream, Grimlock, and Sunstreaker looked over to him then began laughing. Optimus and Elita One got a strange look in their eyes before they suddenly bounded forward.

"Chicken!!!" they cheered.

Laserbeak-chicken squawked in horror and took off running with the foxes chasing after him.

"Um, right," Wheeljack muttered, tapping at his invention, let's fix that…"

Optimus and Elita One successfully tackled Laserbeak, but just before they were about to eat the poor unlucky sap, they were hit by Wheeljack's invention. A flash later revealed three humans in their place; a brawny, well built man in blue jeans, work boots, a red shirt with two silver squares on the front, and a blue cap with a white handkerchief on his face. The second was an attractive woman with long blond hair dressed in a pink tank top, jeans, and high heels, and between them was a slim, smallish man in red, black, and white robes with fluffed, feathery, black hair. They all broke away and looked down at each other in confusion. The red and blue man looked at the pink woman.

"You look hot," he told her, making her blush.

"Mech, Wheeljack, mech!!" everyone yelled at the cat.

"I'm on it, I'm on it!" Wheeljack exclaimed, frantically tapping at his invention's buttons.

At that moment, Sideswipe and Jazz streaked back into the Ark, chasing after Ravage. They got between the laser shot that was meant for the trio of humanized-mechs and with loud pops, a silver-furred kitten floated in the air beside Hound and a slim red cat floated in the air beside Ratchet before they both tumbled to the floor.

"Oh, boy," Wheeljack squeaked.

"Lemme see that," Ironhide snarled, picking up the device from beneath Wheeljack and messing with it.

"Wait, Ironhide!" Wheeljack exclaimed. "You're facing it—"

A flash appeared and Ironhide was suddenly a red and grey tabby cat. The invention hit the floor on its button side and bounced, shooting Sunstreaker. A long-furred golden cat with a black mane flopped down on the floor beside Ironhide and the invention.

"The wrong way," Wheeljack squeaked. Closing his eyes, he smacked a paw over his forehead and shook his head in frustration.

"Well," Hound said, looking around at the mix of animal, human and mech Transformers. "This is getting ridiculous."

"I'll say," Ratchet growled, shoving the cat-made Jazz off of himself.

The silver kitten with a visor over its eyes rolled off of Ratchet. He thumped up against the slim-limbed red cat as he looked himself over. Kitty Sideswipe was an attractive feline, slim and well muscled with short, soft red fur and a white underside that stretched up through his throat and his chin and muzzle. He looked at himself then looked at Jazz as he eagerly began rolling around and try catching his tail. His small round ears drooped as Jazz's mouth snapped down on the end of his own tail and he began purring happily.

"We have so got to get your CPU checked out some time, Jazz," Sideswipe informed.

"Okay, okay," Sunstreaker said, sitting on his haunches and holding his front paws up. "We can get through this. We can get through this."

"You're hyperventilating," Ironhide pointed out.

"Of course I'm hyperventilating, it's because I'm a hideous hair ball!!" Sunstreaker screamed into the red and grey-streaked tabby cat's face.

Ironhide's triangular ears twitched then he swatted Sunstreaker in the face, knocking him onto his face and into Sideswipe as the two began to wrestle playfully, Ironhide turned to Wheeljack.

"Wheeljack," he said. "Just use that thing to turn us back, will you?"

"Sure, Ironhide, sure," Wheeljack said. He sat, staring at the invention as if he suddenly didn't know how to use it.

"Wheeljack?" Ironhide growled.

"It's out of juice," Wheeljack replied.

Ironhide slammed his head into the ground.

"So of this party," Prowl said, listing everything on his fingers, "Ratchet, Bumblebee, Jazz, Sideswipe, Sunstreaker, Wheeljack, Starscream and Ironhide are all cats. Optimus Prime, Elita One, and Laserbeak are all human. Hound is, well, a hound. The femmes, Firestar, Chromia, Moonracer, Ravage, Grimlock, Frenzy, Rumble, and my self are all mechs. If we can get the Cassetticons to find the device that initially turned Bumblebee, Ratchet, Hound, and Starscream into cats, then that might turn us back into mechs!"

"Try getting them to listen to you," Ironhide snorted.

Turning around, Prowl saw that all the mentioned mechs, cats, humans, and dog, Bumblebee included (having somehow managed to escape Ravage) were surrounding the Cassetticons, running them up against the wall. With so many laid-back ears and dark eyes of evil staring at them, the Cassetticons looked terrified. They exchanged looks. Frenzy gulped and Rumble smiled nervously to them as he lifted a finger in show.

"Um," he said nervously. "Road trip, anyone?"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Starscream," Chromia stated coldly. "I officially hate you again."

"Oh come on!" Starscream objected.

"You vomited all over my insides. How can I love you any more?"

"That was totally Ironhide! He's the one that's car sick!"

"I blame you."

"But-but you let me on your chest plate!"

"Just something I should remember next time we are in battle and I need something to make me shoot better."

"Ironhide was the one that barfed!"

"Liar!" Ironhide's statement was refuted with a small burp.

"Hey! I think I got the device working again!" Wheeljack said happily from his sole seat with in Prowl.

"Wheeljack, no wait--!" Prowl began to object.

Just as they pulled up to a smooth flat area in the bottom of the canyon there was a flash and Wheeljack fell onto the ground hard on his back end with the invention in front of him. Beside him, a large, scruffy German shepherd as black as night with a silver police badge symbol on his chest fur fell on his belly in the sand behind him. Prowl breathed deeply through his nose as Wheeljack looked at him and his fur stood on end and his ears defied gravity to do like wise.

"Tikes, Prowl, you're huge!" he gasped.

"Yes, 'Jack, yes I am," Prowl sighed, sitting up. "And you're lucky I'm not obeying my feelings to chase you up something right now."

Wheeljack gulped as the femmes let their organic cargo out and transformed. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker began wrestling with each other again. Ravage began inching closer to Bumblebee and he inched away. Jazz slunk over to Prowl and pounced onto his back, scrambling up onto the bored-looking dog's head. Hound ran by Prowl, barking for him to play and Prowl reluctantly obeyed. Ratchet began fighting Ironhide and Laserbeak, mean while, was trying to take the teasing Frenzy and Rumble were giving him about being human. He hadn't spoken a single word in the entire ordeal.

Optimus and Elita, mean while, went behind a rock and began to experiment human love.

"Hey, you two!" Starscream snarled over to the last couple. "Get back over here and knock that off! Megatron will be arriving any moment now!"

"Shut up, Starscream," Elita called back.

"No wonder why humans like this," Optimus replied before he and Elita started kissing again.

"Did you know that they don't pass out when the sex is good, so they can just keep going and going?" Elita giggled.

Everyone froze in what they were doing and turned to the couple's rock, objecting loudly about having that much information given.

The roar of jets sounded out and Optimus and Elita One reluctantly came out of their hiding place, straightening their clothes slightly, as Skywarp, Megatron, Thundercracker, and Soundwave landed in the clearing. Thundercracker, though, took one look at the assembled Autobots and blasted right back to the sky, his scream fading out as he disappeared into the vast blue sky. Megatron watched Thundercracker disappear then grunted in acceptance as he looked down at the Autobots.

"According to the message," Megatron said. "You want me to return you to your proper forms in which you may attack me? Tell me, what ensures that you are not going to attack me upon becoming mechs again? Or why should I even do this, for you?"

"Him," the opposing party said, looking at Megatron as they all pointed to Starscream simultaneously.

Starscream looked around, fur bristling in shock as he exclaimed, "What!?"

"You gotta admit, sir," Frenzy said with a shrug and a grin. "It is pretty funny to see him like this."

"Says the Hippopotomonstros—"Sideswipe began with a snicker.

Frenzy clasped his hands to the side of his head and shook it at Sideswipe, yelling, "Geagh! Noises! Stop with the noises!!!"

Megatron raised an eye brow in questioning as Skywarp and Soundwave exchanged looks and shrugged. Megatron smirked and crossed his arms across his chest.

"Fine," the Decepticon Lord said. "So I get to see you in your most embarrassing point in your entire miserable lives. But before we change you back and resume shooting one another…"

He snapped his fingers and Skyfire drew the deep blue and purplish grey blaster from somewhere on his person and aimed it at Frenzy and Rumble.

"B-Boss?" Rumble asked as he and Frenzy stepping back fearfully.

"This entire mess is your fault" Megatron snapped. "So I think it's high time you taste your own medicine!"

"Hey, you can't do that, the Autobots are too good of goody two-shows to protect us!" Frenzy said confidently.

To disagree with him, all the Autobots, Ravage, and Laserbeak began to cheer Skywarp on. Rumble and Frenzy's faced both fell in an annoyed "you gotta be kidding me" look.

"Shoot! Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!" the small crowd began to cheer.

"Thanks a lot, Jinx," Rumble hissed to Frenzy.

"Let's see what you look like with fur!" Skywarp laughed, pulling the trigger.

There was a flash and in Rumble's place was a remarkably tiny lavender kitten and in Frenzy's place was a black kitten with red paws and ears. Both were, if you could believe it, actually tinier than Bumblebee.

"Wow!" Bumblebee giggled from where he was dangling in Ravage's jaws once more. "They're tinier than me!"

"Mr. Megatron?" Wheeljack asked, tapping his box device. "My device here was created to reverse the animal effects. May I see if it works by testing it on Rumble and Frenzy?"

"One moment," Megatron replied. He still grinned down at the tiny kittens as he held a hand out to Soundwave. "Soundwave, did you bring Reflector?"

"Yes, My Lord," Soundwave replied, opening his chest compartment and pulling out a camera made of three mechs that turned into the camera.

"Oh, this is so juicy," the camera snickered as Megatron held it in front of his face. "Starscream, you will be an old, old mech and this will haunt you."

"I'll rip all three of you apart before that happens," Starscream promised.

"Ladies, will you please kneel?" Megatron asked. "Now squeeze in, great! We're all in here! Oh, Starscream, stop being a sour puss and get in there! Oh, Jazz stay where you are on that dog, that's perfect!"

"My name is Prowl," Prowl growled as Jazz sat on his head, waving at the camera.

"Suitable organic form for you."

"Thank you."

"What's Laserbeak trying to do?" Skywarp asked.

"I think he's trying to perch on my knee," Firestar said with a grimace.

"Help him; that'll be great for the picture," Megatron said.

"Can we take a silly picture?" Sideswipe asked, pinning Sunstreaker to the ground. "You know, make faces, and all that?"

"No, no, can't have us making a bonding moment, now, can we?" Megaton asked, shrugging. "Everybody say 'energon!'"

"Energon!" the picture people said, grinning at the camera.

The camera flashed and everyone broke apart quickly. Firestar actually finger flicked human Laserbeak off of her knee. Sunstreaker burst up and rolled around in the dirt with Sideswipe while Megatron nodded to Wheeljack.

"Alright, Wheeljack; I've heard of your inventions," he said. "Let's see how this one goes."

"Alright, let's see…" Wheeljack muttered, turning the box device to aim at the tiny kittens of Rumble and Frenzy.

Now was when Frenzy and Rumble clung to each other, loudly objecting and begging for mercy against being Wheeljack's test subjects. The inventor's inventions always blew up, after all, and if it didn't, what ever it was aimed at did. Wheeljack flashed an evil grin at them and tapped a button, shooting the unfortunate mechs with his invention.

"Have you ever considered working for me, Wheeljack?" Megatron asked, noticing the evil grin.

"Nah," Wheeljack said, waving a paw dismissively at Megatron. "Not enough health benefits."

"Hey, what the--!?" Jazz exclaimed, pointing.

The reason for Jazz's surprise was that Rumble and Frenzy had become two…rabbits. Two enormous, tall-as-a-ten-year-old-human rabbits. Rumble kept his lavender-colored fur, and Frenzy was black with red feet, of course.

Unfortunately, it looked like they had the mentality of rabbits, too.

Frenzy and Rumble looked around. Frenzy spoke first.

"I wanna femme and wanna a lot of Sparklings," he began. "Then I can call them Joe, Jim, James, Jack, George…"

"Femme? Femme? Femme? Femme femme? Femme, femme, femme?" Rumble asked, looking around eagerly at the mention of femmes.

"…Bill, Billy, Bob, Ben, Benjamin, Billy Bob, Billy Bob Billy…" Frenzy went on.

"Femme! Femme! Femmefemmefemmefemme!" Rumble exclaimed, bouncing around.

"…Jim, Jimmy Jim Jim Jim Jim, Joey Jim, Jacky Jim…"

"Oh fe-em-mey oh fe-em-mey, oh femmah femma fe-em-mey," Rumble sang to the tune of "O Christmas Tree".

"…Lucy, Stacy, Diana, Darcy. Mari, Mary, Maria, Sarah, Susan, Samantha…"

"Who let the femmes out? Who? Who? Who who?" Rumble sang.

"…Opal, Ruby, Diamond, Amethyst, Sapphire, Autumn, Daisy…"

By now, everyone had slowly begun backing away from the two as quietly as they could. Reflector hopped out of Megatron's arms and began to somehow inch backwards, in spite of still being in camera form; sentient inanimate objects rock. Soundwave looked very close to just bolting after Thundercracker into the sky, but then his chest compartment fell open. He looked down at it as an aging human man, dressed in a white coat and partially made of machine parts, crawled out and looked around. He looked down at Frenzy and Rumble, then rolled his eyes and shook his head. Jumping up onto Soundwave's shoulder, his bionic legs launched him through the air to land on Skywarp's shoulder. Skywarp watched the man go then looked away in annoyance.

"Note to self," he said quietly. "Clean out chest compartment of all stowaways before next mission."

The man, who was none other than Decepticon-aligned human Dr. Arkeville, walked down Skywarp's arm and snatched the (for him) bazooka-sized ray gun from the Seeker's hand. He tapped at its side and a tiny keyboard appeared in the side of the gun. He typed some commands in, and then closed his organic eye as his mechanical eye remained open and he aimed the gun at the other party. He pulled the trigger and the entire scene lit up brightly for a few moments. When it faded it out, everyone was as they were supposed to be; giant transforming alien robots.

"There," Dr. Arkeville snarled. "Now stay out of my room!"

Thus speaking, Dr. Arkeville took a phone-looking device from his lab coat pocket, pressing a button and disappearing into thin air with a small rip of air.

Frenzy and Rumble were sitting on the ground, but exchanged looks and stood up, brushing themselves off nervously. Everyone exchanged looks before looking away, coughing nervously. Wheeljack oh-so calmly picked up his box, walked over to the side, and put it down on the ground.

"Wheeljack?" Optimus asked. "What are you--?"

With a wild whoop, Wheeljack jumped down and stomped onto his invention, stomping again and again and again until it had been turned into a pile of plastic, metal, and wires. Soundwave knelt and picked Reflector up before pressing a button on his shoulder. Laserbeak, Rumble, Ravage, and Frenzy obediently returned to his compartment, transforming into cassettes as they went.

Everyone stared at each other for a long moment.

"We never speak of this again," Optimus stated.

"Agreed," Megatron agreed.

And with that, everyone went their separate ways.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A week later, Bumblebee was patrolling on the edge of Autobot territory in the desert when he slowed, hearing a song playing in the near by hills. Curious, he transformed and climbed over the large rocks of the parched land, following the song. As he approached its source, he finally recognized what it was.

It was Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley.

We're no strangers to love.

You know the game, and so do I (So do I).

Never gonna give you up,

Never gonna let you down

Never gonna run around

And hurt you…

Nice song; very catchy and lovable.

But just as Bumblebee was about to join in the chorus, he felt something hit him in the head and a flash blinded him for a moment. He fell through the air, but twisted around and managed to land on his feet… all four furry, yellow paws of them. Something whooshed through the air behind him and a shadow fell over him as two large black metal paws landed on either side of him and a metal tongue began to eagerly bathe him.

Ravage began to purr, even as Bumblebee's horn-like kitten ears laid back in annoyance.

"Oh come on!" Bumblebee yelled.

The End