Karma Reject, part 1

Beast Wars Anonymous

Beast Wars and all related belong to Hasbro. The story, its original contents and ideas, and any original characters belong to the author and cannot be used or reprinted without the author's permission.

Author’s Note: Okay, this is a far cry from my last BWTF fanfic. I came up with the idea while mourning the recently departed duo, Depth Charge and Rampage, and they are the focus of this story. It may seem confusing, but this is just the beginning of a longer saga, which I am currently still plotting. If you want to have some idea of what their future holds, then go to http://members.spree.com/SIP1/mlih/dyciex.gif. This is just the beast form, and only a rough sketch at that, but oh well. Anyway, this is just the start, as I mentioned before, and I'll try and get more up as soon as humanly possible. Legal kwap: Beasties/BWTF is a copyright of Mainframe Productions. Warning Kwap: this story contains some profanity, but not nearly as much as my last fic'... 8b (which, if you're bored enough to read, is at: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Bistro/7957/beastie.txt although I'll warn you, it's a very rude, satirical, randy story, and definitely not for kids.)

Karma Reject, pt. 1
by K. “Microtron” Gavlas (aojiro@yahoo.com)

The circumstances of his arrival in this strange, lurid void were now unclear. No, not his, _their_. Suddenly infantile in their loss of memory, they clung together and drifted, desperate for some enlightenment. But, for a long time, none came.

One was a whole, the other was a half. But each one seemed bound to his other by something he could not determine... something which had passed.

Then, as quickly as they had found themselves in the empty silence of the so-called "waiting area", they were gone.

It was, if comparable to any tangible linear field, a huge, brightly-lit room. There were many observers in the wings, ones who had come and gone from this place before, and were curious to see what judgement was passed on the latest candidates. It was a double-header this time, two from the lower universe who had gone out together and were, as the judge said, to be tried together.

Rampage and Depth Charge were on trial. As the "jury" assembled, they gaped at what they saw, awed beyond belief.

"Wh- what in the name of the pit is THIS?!" Depth Charge gasped, feeling very lost and confused. He could just barely remember his life now, but it seemed to sum itself up inside of himself as a scar. There was something about the other transformer with him on the stand which made his circuits smoke, but the maximal could simply not recall who exactly he was, or why he aroused this venomous feeling.

Rampage squinted into the brightness, and could _just_ make out faces around him. "I don't know... unless it's... the matrix? Are we dead?" He looked at Depth Charge and at himself, then continued, muttering, "Well, if we're dead, then why do we have bodies? Who are we?"

A voice spoke up from one of the even-lighter areas. =THE FORMS WE HAVE GIVEN YOU, THEY ARE SIMPLY ILLSIONARY, AND WILL HELP YOU COPE WITH THE CHANGES YOU HAVE UNDERGONE... A SOURCE OF FAMILIARITY. YOU ARE VERY RATTLED BY THE ASCENSION TO THIS PLANE, AND WE WANT YOU TO FEEL MORE COMFORTABLE. LATER, WHEN YOU NO LONGER NEED THEM, YOU WILL SHED YOUR BODIES.

=NOW, WHO ARE YOU? YOU ARE THE CANDIDATES AND THE DEFENDANTS. YOU HAVE BEEN CALLED TO TRIAL FOR YOUR CRIMES, AND SO THAT WE CAN DETERMINE YOUR FATES. =

"What crimes?!" the maximal yelled, sounding defiant. He'd never done anything morally wrong. Some laws would call his actions wrong, but _reason_ knew better. Reason was the one behind his whole existence, the woman who looked over his shoulder and kindly instructed him on what his next move should be. White rook to black bishop. "I've done nothing wrong!"

=YOUR CRIMES, DEPTHCHARGE, AS A LIVING ENTITY.=

He was horrified and angered at the same time. "Who are you to judge me?! Who are you to say what is right or wrong?!"

=WE ARE GOD. WE ARE THE JUST. YOU ARE NEITHER RIGHT NOR WRONG, GOOD NOR BAD. YOU ARE NOT A CRIMINAL IN THE SENSE WHICH YOU WOULD THINK OF, DEPTHCHARGE. YOU ARE MORE OF AN ACOLYTE WHO NEEDS MORE TRAINING.=

"Then what makes them crimes? What did I do? I always did what was right, didn't I?! And... (here his mind slipped for a while, he felt flashes of his lifetime run over his thoughts, and struggled to recover them, to no avail) ... when, whenever I did what some could call wrong, well... it ended up being for the better anyway!"

=YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND THE PROFUNDITY OF OUR WORDS, DEAREST MAXIMAL... WHEN WE ARE FINISHED HERE, YOU WILL UNDERSTAND HOW EVERYTHING YOU KNOW WAS AND WASN'T WRONG.=

Defeated, almost _punished_ feeling, Depth Charge gave up and squatted on the "floor" of the room, staring at his feet in frustration. Rampage looked down to him, then at the "judge". A steady wave of clarity was passing over him, and he felt more calm, more in control than he ever had before.

He finally implored, "Who are we, g- god(?)... what have we done to get here?"

=YOU FINISHED WHAT YOU HAD BEGUN, RAMPAGE. YOU GOT WHAT WAS COMING TO YOU, OR SO TO SPEAK... WHEN WE REVIEW THE EVIDENCE AND SUCH, YOU WILL KNOW WHO YOU REALLY ARE, AND WHAT YOU HAVE DONE.=

Rampage sighed and sank down beside Depth Charge. He glanced over to the maximal, still glaring morosely at the floor, and sighed. Looking at Depth Charge, various emotions rose in his half-spark. He felt anger and envy, sick, indescribable glee, and, strangely, a twisted form of fraternity. =If I hate him,= Rampage thought to himself, =I still like his company.=

There was a pattering noise, like angel's footsteps, and the liberated sparks of those who had passed before and stayed in the matrix communicated with one-and-other.

Depthcharge trembled with anger. "YOU!" he screamed, furious. "You were the one! It's your fault I'm stuck here!"

Rampage smirked, his own memories refreshed by the ones of the matrix. "I could say the same about you, Depthstick. If you hadn't been so delightfully vindictive, then you wouldn't have chased me all the-"

=SILENCE!= the judge's voice boomed, quieting the two. =YOU BOTH ARE TO BLAME FOR YOUR ARRIVAL IN THE MATRIX. HOWEVER, YOU SHOULD TRY AND UNDERSTAND YOUR CURRENT SITUATION A LITTLE MORE THOROUGHLY. WHY ARE YOU ACTING AS IF THIS IS A PRISON?=

"Because it is! I'm not going anywhere here, damnit! I'm dead! I have a life to live-"

=YES, BUT IT WILL NOT BE THE ONE THAT ENDED FOR YOU WITH RAMPAGE.=

"It's his fault! If he hadn't- arrrgh..." Depth Charge growled and clawed at his forehead, fuming with rage. "If that son of a bitch hadn't leveled Omicron colony, then I would have never had to put him to justice! It's his fault that I had to kill him because no one else would! If those stupid-assed elders hadn't made him in the first place, then I wouldn't be here right now, see? I'd be back home, on Omicron, just doing my job! But you, you disgusting little shit, you had to ruin everything that mattered to me, didn't you!?! Why did you do it?! Why did you have to blow away everyone I cared about?!"

The Predacon put on a horrible grin, knowing he had Depth Charge right where he wanted him.

"I did that," he said, casually picking a rusty spot from one of his claws, "Because you weren't doing your job in the first place. You failed all of your dearly departed, maximal, you should have been able to stop me. Hm-hm-hm..." Rampage suddenly recovered another memory, and turned to Depth Charge. "Actually," he said, "You should thank me for sparing you. I could have done you too, you know... I can recall seeing your broken little body in the wreckage, and wondering, Should I waste any ammo on this poor bastard? But since you were unconscious, I decided it wouldn't be funny enough to bother with."

Unable to control his fury any longer, Depth Charge pulled out his cybershark-gun and aimed it at Rampage's head. This was utterly futile, of course... the ones of the matrix had not given them working weapons, and even so, the entire "court" was an illusion created to add a touch of linear familiarity to the matrix for the two transformers. He attempted to fire, and realized that the gun was a prop, a fake. Defeated again, Depth Charge howled in rage, then dropped the weapon and slumped over against the side of his stand. Rampage snickered, leering at his nemesis.

=IT HAS BEEN CONSIDERED, AND WE HAVE CONCEIVED A FITTING SENTENCE FOR YOU BOTH.=

Depthcharge had been sitting on the floor, sullenly mute, for the past few linear microcycles. At this announcement, he suddenly leapt to his feet, and implored (in a voice of desperation), "But what is the verdict?! I still don't understand anything that is going on here!"

The judge was silent, then said, =YOU HAVE BEEN TRIED AND EXAMINED, DEPTHCHARGE, AND YOUR SPARK HAS BEEN EVALUATED. WE FIND YOU POSESSING AN UNSTABLE SPARK WHICH WE CANNOT ACCEPT IN HERE, YET. SO, WE-=

"What?! What do you mean by "unstable"?!" He groaned, worn-down and frustrated by the whole ordeal which had, it seemed to him, been going on for hectacycles. "Rampage is the unstable one!"

=YOU HAVE HAD AN UNFULFILLED LIFE. YOUR SPARK IS STILL CONSUMED WITH PASSION AND RAGE, AND IS NOT BALANCED ENOUGH IN THE ELEMENTS TO EXIST HERE. SO WE ARE SENDING YOUR UNSTABLE SPARK, _AND_ RAMPAGE'S UNSTABLE SPARK, BACK TO YOUR UNIVERSE. YOU ARE BOTH SCENTENCED TO REBIRTH.=

Rampage was now confused as Depth Charge. "But, why? And... (he added this with something which could _almost_ be seen as remorse) ...why wasn't I simply sent to the pits?"

=BECAUSE YOU AND DEPTHCHARGE ARE SOUL- BROTHERS NOW. WHEN YOUR SPARK WAS NEARLY EXTINGUISHED BY HIM, AND BOTH OF YOU WERE KILLED, YOUR SPARK ADHERED TO HIS. YOU HAVE A POWERFUL, AN ALMOST INDEFATIGABLE ESSENCE, RAMPAGE, AND IT REFUSED TO DIE EVEN UNDER THOSE CONDITIONS WHICH NEARLY DESTROYED IT. AND SINCE YOU HITCHED A RIDE ON HIS MATRIX-BOUND SPARK, YOU TWO ARE NOW ONE.=

Neither could believe this. "How in the screaming hell could I be any sort of "brother" to this... this _monster_?!" Depth Charge raged. "We're not connected!"

=NOT HERE, NO. YOU STILL HAVE INDEPENDANT CONSCIENCES. BUT WHEN YOU ARE RETURNED TO YOUR PLANE OF EXISTANCE, YOUR TWO SPARKS WILL BE INSEPERABLY BOUND TO EACH OTHER.

=WE ARE GIVING YOU BOTH A SECOND CHANCE TO LIVE BETTER LIVES. IF YOU LIVE AND DIE A MORE FRUITFUL CREATURE, THEN YOU BOTH WILL GAIN A PLACE HERE, WITH ALL OTHERS WHO HAVE PASSED THE TEST. BUT, FOR NOW, YOUR BAD KARMA RESTRICTS YOU FROM EXISTING IN THIS PLACE AS WE ALL DO.=

"So, what happens?" Rampage asked. "Do we just go back and, er, (he and Depth Charge traded venomous looks) try to get along with each other?"

=YES. BUT FIRST, YOU WILL BOTH DRINK OF THE LOTUS, AND ABOLISH YOUR PASTS FROM YOUR FUTURE.=

Two chalices were presented to the candidates. They looked and considered. "So when I drink this, I'll forget about my whole life?" Depth Charge knitted his brow a little.

=yessss...= The judge's voice was already fading, and it was growing dark. They were already being sent back. =you will be free from everything that has happened.=

Something in the Maximal’s throat tightened. "I don't want to abandon all those memories, though! I am not going to just throw the past away! It's not right!"

There was a distant gasp. Depth Charge and Rampage looked at each other again, their bodies fading. =you must drink, before it is too late! you are both on your way to your new life, and you can not live with yourself if you-=

The voice was cut off by the distance, and only a faint whisper was heard. Each still gazing strongly at his "brother", an unspoken pledge was made. They both dropped the forgetful poison, neither willing to clean off their minds. Darkness enveloped them, and their corporeal forms dissolved. Now simply two adjoined sparks, they waited stolidly for what would come.

Author’s Notes: Legal kwap: Beasties/BWTF is a copyright of Mainframe Productions. Warning Kwap: this story contains some profanity, but not nearly as much as my last fic'... (which, if you're bored enough to read, is at www.geocities.com/SoHo/Bistro/7957/beastie.txt, although I'll warn you, it's a very rude, satirical, randy story, and definitely not for kids.)

Karma Reject, pt. 2
The Rebirth
by K. “Microtron” Gavlas (aojiro@yahoo.com)

Krakken was a tall, powerful-looking transformer with a samurai- esque appearance. He was also a renegade technologist, who had been "hiding out" on the neutral world Gamma Reticulus for the past fifteen- odd years, away from any Maximal or Predacon contact. That is, of course, apart from that of his young assistant Night-Howl. She was Krakken's goddaughter, who he had stolen away with him when he was running from the Cybertronian police, and she had been with the older 'bot ever since, helping him with his work. The technology which was used in the creation of transformers had been a secret kept by both Maximals and Predacons, but Krakken was stealing and selling bits of it out of the back-door to other species, and when he was uncovered, he headed for the hills... or so to speak. Gamma Reticulus granted asylum to any criminals, as long as they didn't break any Reticulan laws, so that was where Krakken remained to this very day.

He was, of course, a maximal himself... his beast mode was that of a Reticulan creature similar to an octopus, and he had performed several upgrades on himself over the duration of his stay on the alien planet, using a technology that he himself had developed; he now had something akin to the transmetal forms which Optimus Primal and his lot had aquired. The only changes Night-Howl had undergone (apart from aquiring the beast mode of an alien creature) were hormonal; when she had left Cybertron with her godfather, she had already reached her full size, but was not a fully mature Maximal. Now, however, Krakken was finding it harder and harder to ignore her femininity. Tall, slim, and very beautiful, even biological males turned their heads when they saw her.

On Gamma Reticulus, Krakken had made a name for himself as a robotics specialist. When he and Night-Howl weren't repairing other mechanical aliens and cyborgs, or constructing incredible prosthetics the likes of which no other species had developed, they were working on Krakken's back-room project: Tri-protos.

This was, the maximal hoped, his ticket back to Cybertron. It was the prototype for a new generation of protoform, capable of spontaneously choosing a "mould" from its DNA databanks, and of utlilizing not only a beast form and an anthro-form, but also an alternative transit-form. This was something which the other scientists on Cybertron hadn't been able to come up with yet, and what developments they had made were extracted from the Main Cybertronian Datatracks by Krakken before his departure. With the aid of Night-Howl, he had slowly but surely been programming and constructing the new protoform. With any luck, Tri-protos could be used as a bargaining tool to buy Krakken a safe place back on Cybertron.

They sat in a restaurant of sorts, one which catered mainly to robotic species, and after ordering their lunch, sat down in a booth to discuss matters regarding Tri-protos.

"So, how do you plan on getting a spark for this protoform, papa?" Night-Howl asked, still showing some of her childhood tendancies. When she was taken away with him, she didn't consider it kidnapping, and even today, she was perfectly happy to have been brought along to Gamma Reticulus by her godfather.

"That," said Krakken, "Will be the tricky part. I am still only vaguely aware of how the elders do it, so it may take a few tries before we can get it right."

She raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean to do?"

"I believe the process of creating a spark involves the uniting of various geological components under special circumstances... say, a bolt of lightning. Energon is a key element. I have put much time into studying the... _structural_ nature of my spark, and, of course, what I could find about the subject from the Cybertronian Datatracks..." He chuckled a little, more at himself than anything else. "As you can see, this may take a few tries... but, unfortunately, it is imperative that we have a spark before the protoform can take shape. Simply creating an AI-system wouldn't work."

The waiter, an unusually large reticulan male, came with their food. He eyed Night-Howl casually as he unloaded the tray, then quietly left.

"A strange lot, these Reticulans..." Krakken said thoughtfully. "To think they all come from the same mother..."

"Or grandmother," the girl noted. "I hear they allow them to sire their own young, although that's as far as it goes. But no great-grand- kids. What does the Queen look like, anyways?"

"She's huge, as huge as Optimus Prime. The Bhudda of insects."

"Bhudda?"

Krakken waved a tentacle around. "Just an obscure Human- reference. One of their religious figureheads had gigantic statues made of him, and his name was Bhudda. They are, to the normal-sized Humans, as the Reticulan Queen is to her children."

"Oh, ah."

A slightly akward silence fell over the two as they ate. The octopus-bot mentioned, off-handedly, "I hear she's planning on holding a little bloodsport tournament... hm."

Night-Howl looked up at him. "What do you mean, bloodsport? Like, prizefighting?"

"Well, you realize that spending one's whole adult life giving birth must be uncomfortable. Word has it that the Queen wants some sort of... nepenthe. I'm not sure how far in the future this will be held, though..."

She considered this, and ate.

Night fell, and the two Cybertronians had returned to the warehouse where they lived and worked. Upstairs, Krakken peeked through the keyhole of Night-Howl's room door. She was in bed, asleep.

"Hm... good." He stood up sharply, and descended the lift to the basement. He was an incredible perfectionist, and could barely stand to witness his faliures, let alone have someone else see them as well. He would make as many attempts to create a spark on his own as possible. With any luck, one would work.

Krakken unlocked the back room and slipped in, shutting and locking the door behind him. The locks were simply a precaution; he wanted to keep the entire project under-wraps until it was ready. He turned-on the main computer and set to his work immediatly, activating the containment field for all the elements he believed were necessary to create a spark.

Unthinking, unspeaking, unfeeling, the Depthcharge/Rampage spark drifted towards its destination.

The small hours of the morning had come and gone as Krakken worked indefatigably in his lab. Faliure after faliure had occured, but he had time for one last try before it was time to close up and get ready for the day ahead.

"If this works," he muttered to himself, "I am going to drop all the work I had scheduled for today and declare a personal holiday."

Once more, he primed the animation chamber. This time he added just a bit more energon to the mix, and increased the frequency of the UV rays. Slowly, the power built-up behind the force-field Krakken had activated for his own protection. The machine whirred and hummed, sending pulses of bright green light across the room. Krakken's nine arms swept over the controls, his eyes flickered back and forth across the gauges. "Just a little more..." he hissed to himself. A drop of coolant ran down his domed head.

Now it was make-or-break for the spark's development. The chamber glowed brighter and brighter, and Krakken's oil-pressure rose. His primary coolant pump was thudding audibly. Then, with a tinny scream, the spark came together-

And died out. Another dud.

"Aurggch... dammit!" Krakken growled in frustration and whipped the side of the animation chamber with his right tentacles. Admitting defeat for now, he sighed and turned to switch-off his apparatus. Suddenly, he noticed a bit of a glow in the heart of the chamber. The maximal put his hand against the plexiglass and thoughtfully stroked his chin with a tentacle.

It was the spark. Just a little one, but a spark nonetheless. A brighter expression grew on his face, and he quickly activated the containment field.

Night-Howl woke up, and, on a whim, descended to the lab. Quietly slipping into the room, she saw her godfather ecstatically tapping away at the keypad of his sparking machine.

"It worked?" she gasped.

Krakken turned to her for a second, and exclaimed gleefully, "Yes, yes! I'm now preparing it for insertion into the protoform!"

She watched as he gracefully ran his many arms over the switches and dials, humming to himself, his eyes flicking back and forth; from gauge to readout to screen, and to the spark and protoform themselves. The gelatinous shape quivered and undulated, hungrily swallowing the spark.

"That spark looks strange..." Night-Howl said, examining it through the protective fields which had been set-up around it and its new host.

"It probably has to do with the conditions of its birth, m'dear... I thought I'd lost it at first, but it seems to have hung on..." He punched in a few commands, and paused to study his work.

"But its core looks... split, or something... could this pose a problem?"

Krakken shook his head. "In all liklihood, no. All the records I have suggest that more than one core won't last very long inside a single spark... the weaker one will die out, or fuse with its mate."

"Hmm..." Night-Howl mused to herself on the nature of a double- spark, then turned back to the new protoform, Tri-protos. "Is there anything I can do for now? There's about two cycles until we have to open up shop... we might want to hurry this as much as we can."

"Well..." Krakken initialized the DNA-selection sequence, then said, "There's not too much more to do here. Can you get me today's schedule? If possible, I'd like to cancel today's work and see how much progress I can make with... Tri-protos."

Night-Howl rushed away to see what she could do. Krakken watched his work unfold in front of him, and shook a little with excitement as the new transformer took on its final shape...

With a fierce growl, Rampage sprang to life for the second time in his spark's existence. There were bright lights all around him, and he gave out an animalistic yell of panic as he tried to break out of his prison. "Aarrrrgh!!!" he snarled, and followed this with his trademark babbling and rabid screams. His dozen legs and claws beat against the impenetrable field, his tail whipped the walls, and he rolled his bulging eyes, continuing the unearthly howls.

Krakken drew back from the containment field, spooked by the noise. He primed his venom-gun, then said, "Silence! Calm yourself!"

Rampage was blind in the light, but he squinted and tried to determine the source of the command. "Who are YOU to dictate my actions?!"

The older transformer put on a bit of an ironic expression, and said, "I am your creator, Tri-protos. Now, calm down, and I will release you."

The beast-robot growled, "T..Tri-protos?! I am not called "Tri- protos", fool! My name is-!"

Krakken watched, deeply concerned, as his creation suddenly screamed in pain and curled up into a ball in its prison. Then, it relaxed, flapping its tail a little.

Depthcharge panted, aching, exhausted, and sightlessly glanced about him. "Where am I?"

"You are in a containment field I constructed to protect my lab equipment, and myself. Now, Tri-protos, will you come out without a struggle? I can understand your... confusion, but I will explain all."

"Okay... just let me out of here."

Krakken de-activated the containment field, and led his blind baby out of the lab and up into the scrap-field behind the warehouse. Tri-protos' beast-mode appeared to be a mixture of two creatures he had on file rather than one; the mangrove swamp-dwelling land-crab of Earth, and the mobulid* shark of Riza's oceans. The spindly crab- legs were barely strong enough to keep the gigantic diamond-shaped body above the ground. "Now," Krakken said once they reached the center of the field, "Say "Tri-protos, OPTIMIZE"!"

"Depthcharge -"

"- Terrorize!"

Krakken raised an eyebrow. "What in the name of Primus was the meaning of that?" he asked his pet.

"I... I don't know!" Depthcharge/Rampage stuttered, desperately trying to work out his datatracks. He decided to try again.

"Tri-protos... OPTIMIZE!"

The confused fuzor did a somersault and transformed into his anthropomorphic state. He was now taller than Krakken, with a rather human-looking face and antennae protruding from his forehead. The spindley legs had re-massed and were now better-poised to support the weight that was put on them; indeed, they gave him a rather grand, almost centaur-like appearance. His claws had re-positioned themselves as missile-launchers on the shoulders, and the beast "face" was now the muzzle of a third launcher, hand-held.

He blinked in the light, finally able to see. "Tri-protos..." he muttered. Krakken looked up to him, and he turned to see his creator.

Something in the back of Depthcharge's consciousness lit- up when he saw the smaller transformer's face. "I recognize that guy..." he thought. "He's the one who wanted to sell Cybertron out to-" but nothing more could be remembered.

"Where is this place?" he asked.

"We are on the planet Gamma Reticulus... come, I think we should go inside so I can explain everything to you..."

T.B.C. (See, I save space by using cute little bits of shorthand like that; it also saves you time since you have less to read than the entire phrase, "To Be Continued". Pretty slick, huh? *J/K*)

Well, I'm gonna do my best to get part three up-and-functional as soon as I can; it's my last year of High School and I have a few other priorities, but with any luck...!