8.Feb.09
Beast
Wars
Chapter One:
Oh crap!
Okay, the Beast Wars.
It was completely illogical, impossible...and terrifyingly real.
“Running, running, running!” Tallen chanted under her breath as she scramble as fast and as quietly as she could with her heavy back pack. She spared a look down and her eyes widened. The woman pushed off harder on her left foot in a desperate attempt to avoid stepping on and/or tripping over a remarkably large ant mound.
“Eeeeeee! No, no, no!” Tallen stumbled and franticly shook one leg and than the other. She grabbed the fabric and brushed it off, half hitting the fabric as she put space between her and the now aggravated fire ant nest.
The woman ran into something and quickly hoped up onto it so she could yank her pants up and inside out, flinging off a few more ants before they knew what was happening. She also pulled off her shoes and socks, checking them over just to be sure.
“That was close.” Tallen sighed as she pulled her foot ware back on again.
The something she was setting on suddenly moved under Tallen and that feeling of impending doom from before slammed back into her gut. Tallen looked down between her legs at the smooth, metallic edge of a pod.
Pod?
Oh, right this was supposedly the Beast Wars...
It was a stasis pod! It had to be there was nothing else that she could think it was…
…It was a stasis pod that was opening!
“Oh crap!”
Tallen jumped off, half shoved as the pod’s lid opened, her weight not seeming to hinder it. The woman stumbled and caught herself. She paused, blinked and froze at the unnatural shriek behind her as the pod opened and the occupant started crawling out.
Beast Wars plus pod, plus fire ant nest, equaled one red colored and flame throwing shock trooper.
Think fast girl, Tallen thought to herself as she slowly lifted her black sunglasses off from where they were folded, hanging, on her shirt and slipped them on. She turned around to meet a giant ‘face’ of an ant.
The woman smirked, shoving all other emissions and feelings down to the deepest part of her mind so she was only projecting calm confidence. Hopefully none of the fear she had felt showed up physically, ants were adept at smells weren’t they?
“Welcome to the world Inferno.” Tallen said, keeping her head tilted just so, she was hoping that with her style of shades it’d help the fire ant transformer (Predacon?) relate better to her. “I am the Ice Queen, and we have to go.”
Timing was when another explosion sounded, making the beast mode shock trooper turn around, startled.
“Inferno,” Tallen hissed as the ant turned back to her she pointed at the battle that sounded like it was getting closer, “The enemy of the colony, including spiders are coming!”
“Spiders!” Inferno rocked back and snapped his mandibles, “They dare invade the colony?! Inferno Terrorize!” The reformed Maximal to Predacon was…he lived up to his function of ‘shock trooping’ just from looks. Armored thickly all the way through the body as well as the impressive, twin flame throwers…he practically radiated that fact that he was a soldier. Not to mention that Tallen only came up to just above his knee...she wished she knew how big he really was to start with, his beast mode was misleading…as was the CGI cartoon.
“They did.” Tallen said feeling like she was risking everything, “The colony is moving, now.”
“The colony?” Inferno turned in confusion to look at his stasis pod, “But the colony-”
“Inferno,” Tallen said gently, the new tone drawing the ant’s attention again, “That’s just a pod, not the true colony. The Colony is where the Queen is…and I’m leaving. As the last soldier I would think that you would fallow.”
“I will,” Inferno came back to where the woman was and knelt down, putting his flamethrower away so he could lower himself at the same level as the human, “I will protect my colony and my queen.”
Tallen quirked an eyebrow up over her sunglasses.
“Can you pick your pod up? ......No! Not in robot form! Go to beast mode!”
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Rattrap cursed, he swore in a way he hadn’t done in a long time. Not since he had been a miner years ago. The shortest of the Maximals folded into himself as he transformed in to beast mode and limped away from the battle still going on behind him.
He hated this, running away, but he also knew that he was more of a liability than a helping hand. Rattrap still hated it.
The giant gray rat limped into the under brush, favoring both his left forepaw and right hind leg. At least a foot of his tail was missing as well, courtesy Megatron himself. Rattrap was sure that over sized lizard had enjoyed taking it a little too much.
Clicking.
Rattrap froze at the sound and slowly lowered himself a few inches. He had to trust his beast mode as well his coloration to help him blend in.
The sight that greeted him when Rattrap warily peered out of his hiding spot wasn’t remotely close to anything he’d expected to see. The Maximal stared for a long minute, watching as the odd group of two plus a stasis pod hurried past.
Rattrap blinked. Once, twice, three times before finally frowning. Did he just see what he thought he saw? Or should he be asking why seeing the gigantic red ant carrying its stasis pod wasn’t as strange as the being leading said ant?
“No way...” Rattrap muttered softly, waiting a few beats before he sniffed the air, logging in the scents of the two new players on top of checking if any of the Predacons were near.
The smallest of the transformers on the planted hesitated as a moment presented it’s self. Rattrap had the choice of scuttling to his left, skirting the battle that was still going on behind him and start heading back to the down exploratory ship that housed the blessed CR chambers.
Or he could turn his nose to the right, hope the Predacons don’t step on him as he tracked the possible new Predacon...
Rattrap sighed, “Kid, ya better be happy dat ya remind mah of Carter...” The grey rat muttered under his breath as he turned right and worked his beast mode self so he could fallow beside the scent trail, hidden in the underbrush.
If he had to admit one thing, was that these people could move without really running. Rattrap cursed again as he realized he couldn’t keep up with the pace. When it had been almost a full mega-cycle since the last time he caught a glimpse of red in the forest, he stopped.
Rattrap looked and sniffed around automatically before edging out of the relative protection of a cluster of ferns to go to the edge of a stream not far away. The Maximal’s large ears flicked and rotated around for any warning sounds as he drank some of the cold water to cool hot internal systems.
“Dis’ is gonna take a while.” Rattrap sighed as he dared to take the risk of activating some of his systems and scan the area around him. He got the barest of blips, almost out of his range.
“Got ya suger.” The Maximal smiled, even in beast mode as he limped off to the north. He ducked back down into cover away from the stream and shut down all systems he could to, as the saying goes: stay under the radar.
Rattrap spent much longer than he would have wanted fallowing the pair, on a good day or bad day. Like now. It was most definitely the latter of those as the Maximal let out a sigh and paused for yet another break.
His internal repair was sending so many messages for him to stop and enter a light recharge at the very least and it do some real work on him that it was giving Rattrap a ache in his processor. And could he shut the messages off? No, he couldn’t because he got hit just right by the slagging purple, over grown excuse of a Predacon slag heap...
Rattrap jerked up onto all fours as he looked at the sky through a small gap in the branches above. Black eyes narrowed. It was most decently dark than it had been last time he glanced up. Rattrap looked to his side out of reaction as he checked in internal chronometer.
This time Rattrap cursed out load and just as strong as when he was back in the minds, he cursed his own mechanical body for betraying him,
He did go into a light recharged after all.
Shaking his head to clear it of any left over static, Rattrap marched forward with stubborn, almost single minded purpose. It was somehow personal now to track down the new transformer...and the human Rattrap was positive he’d seen.