What to do when you meet Megatron

- Winner of Silly and Sweet and runner up for Best Comedy '04

Author’s note: This is a product of boredom; looking at LOTS of Megs pics, reading a book by Douglas Adams, and sugar (does that surprise you?). Special thanks to Segatron for helping me with one of the steps. As always, the Beast Wars and characters belong to Hasbro but I belong to myself, and someday I’ll get Megs too….

Imagine for a moment that you were whisked off to the Beast Wars, whether it is by a magical portal, enchanted picture, or an old piece of salami. Poof! Right in the middle of the Darkside, or the Axalon, or wherever you happen to end up. Hopefully not in the bottom of a lake or in Dinobot’s quarters. He probably wouldn’t like that. But for situational purposes you land at the Darkside. Maybe for some reason all you have is a notebook, a pencil, and a towel. Not exactly tools to defend yourself with, but hey, if things get bad, you could poke a ‘bot in the optic with the pencil if you needed to. And then you see him. Transmetal Megatron. First of all, stop drooling. Then follow these steps:

Hide. Preferably behind something large. Like a rock. A really big rock. Stay out of sight. Chances are he’s irritated, angry, plotting the Maximal’s demise, telling Inferno to stop calling him “Queen”, or all of the above. Probably all of the above. Don’t squeak or giggle or make any noise, you don’t want anybody to hear you. Stuff some paper in your mouth from the notebook if you have to.

Peek out from behind the rock. CAREFULLY!! You don’t want anyone to see you and get suspicious. They’ve never seen a human before, and as a wise friend once said, meeting a Megatron in a bad mood (or ANY mood, really) would not be a very pleasant thing. Inferno is loyally standing next to Megatron at sharp attention, listening to him giving orders that he will follow exactly to the letter. They aren’t very far away from you. Peek out again. Ain’t Megs cute?! Stuff more paper in your mouth, he almost heard you squeak.

He might have seen you duck down and heard paper crinkle as you ripped them out of your notebook to stuff in your mouth. It is then you decide that paper would taste better with some salt. Or ketchup. Or chocolate. Whatever your preference is. You also decide it is also rather unpleasant to have a lot of paper stuffed in your mouth. You decide again that you would like chocolate with your paper, but unfortunately you don’t have any. You’re stuck with plain-tasting paper stuffed in your mouth. But hold fast, it is for your safety! Anyway, because he might have seen/heard you, you need a distraction to get his mind off that. Pick up your pencil and throw it at Inferno.

Watch the pencil sail through the air. Watch it smack into Inferno’s head. Watch him panic and think the Predacons are being attacked and dutifully protect “the Queen”. Watch Inferno torch the place, starting fires everywhere. See Megatron try to calm him down. See Megatron punch Inferno in the face for calling him “Queen” again. Wait! You still need your pencil for something!! While Megatron yells at Inferno, quickly run behind them, grab your pencil and dart back behind the large rock.

You needed your pencil for writing down “What to do when you meet Megatron”. Technically you haven’t met him yet, but it’s been close enough so far. Start with Step One, Hide; Step Two, Peek from Rock, and so on. Use the paper in your notebook that you haven’t used to stuff in your mouth so you don’t squeak. Ignore the voice that’s coming from the other side of the rock that says it might have found something strange. You’re not something strange, so you don’t have to worry. You’re perfectly normal. Yep, about as normal as normal can be. Definitely not anything strange.

Ignore the low rumble that makes the ground shake a little bit and sounds like footsteps. It must be a small earthquake or something. The paper in your mouth is getting quite messy, and that is a more important thing to worry about. You still have no chocolate, just your notebook and pencil and towel and a mouthful of soggy paper. Go ahead and spit it out, then quickly replace the old paper with some new paper. Ignore the voice that says something about a fleshling, cuz you aren’t a fleshling, you’re a human. Duh.

Momentarily consider interesting things in life. It might be the chemicals in the paper getting to you, but you start to wonder, why don’t sheep shrink when it rains? And the fact that eagles may soar, but weasels don’t get sucked into jet engines. And the fact that for some reason, they don’t sell walls at Wal*Mart. Their name is misleading, then! But there is a wise saying that says something wise: don’t sweat the petty things… or pet the sweaty things. And is it possible, that if you put batteries in a flashlight backwards, would it suck in light? Would music get sucked out of your head if you put batteries in a CD player backwards? And when did you start floating above the ground all by yourself…? Wow!

The other Predacons looked on with puzzled curiosity as Megatron picked up a human girl by the back of her shirt. She must have been the source of the noise he had heard earlier; and possibly the cause behind Inferno’s spazz attack a few minutes ago. Now the ant was napping quietly off-line on the floor beside Megatron’s command chair, where Megatron had punched him in the face for calling him “Queen” for the forty millionth time since Inferno’s existence began. The girl didn’t seem to notice Megatron or the other Predacons, because she was frantically scribbling away in a notebook about some new discovery of levitation. He grew impatient quickly and decided to get her attention.

“A-hem!” He said.

That startled her, making her spit out a large wad of paper in his face. She continued scribbling away:

He’s seen you. DO NOT PANIC. Grab your towel. Hide.

Promptly she reached down, grabbed her fuzzy yellow towel, and put it over her head. Underneath the towel she continued writing:

You are perfectly camouflaged now; he’ll never see you. Remain calm. Since you’re still floating, you can just float away and he’ll never know.

Growling, Megatron wiped the gooey paper off his face and flung it at Quickstrike, who was laughing hysterically. When his vision cleared, he blinked at the yellow towel over the girl’s head. He took it off her and growled again.

“What are you doing here, human?”

She glanced at him and wrote some more notes:

Somehow he saw through your camouflage. Keep calm, don’t panic. There is no need to float away. You’re finally meeting Megatron! Give him a hug. Squeal as much as you like.

With that she dropped her notebook and pencil and wrapped her arms around Megatron’s neck.

“Heeheehee you’re so cute!! I can’t believe I’m finally meeting you!!” she squeaked in delight.

He nearly dropped her as he let go of her shirt in shock, but the grip she had around his neck stayed firm and she hung there like a giant leech, hugging him tightly. The Predacons around them drew their weapons quickly, ready to defend their leader from this strange menace. Megatron threw up his hands and shouted, "No, you fools, don’t shoot, you’ll hit ME!”

Rampage cocked his missile launcher. “So?”

Before the tyrant could reply, the girl squeaked again. “Aw Megs, you’re so cool! I could hug you forever!”

“Uh…” On second thought…. he thought, I can barely breathe! He was being smothered by the sweetness radiating from the human girl who still hadn’t let go off him. Megatron started to feel sick.

“Let go of me!”

“No! I’m gunna stay with you forever! Yeeee!” She squealed.

“LET GO!” He tried pulling her off, but her admiration-induced grip would not break. Panic began to set in.

“Predacons!” He cried, running around in circles, “Get her off get her off get her off get her off getheroffgetheroffGETHEROFF!!!!!”

All the while the girl cried, “Whheeeeeeeeeeee!”

After two and a half hours of tearing around the base screaming at the top of his metal lungs while the girl hung on, fell off, chased him, caught him, hugged him again, fell off again; Megatron sat in his quarters, hiding as best as he could in his private bathtub, steaming with humiliation, churning with nausea and twitching nervously, free from the girl. Just barely. When she fell off the second time, Waspinator managed to distract her with something shiny and lured her into a cage above the lava pits in the prison hold. The other Predacons were laughing too hard to do anything useful. Megatron sneaked away quickly and took off to his quarters, incredibly shaken and gasping for breath. What an attack! Without a second thought he had jumped into his private bathtub. Bubbles broke the surface of the silvery liquid as he exhaled, his optics peeking out above the liquid to check if it was still safe. There was no human girl in sight. Thank Primus, he thought, then disappeared beneath the liquid again.

Starath leaned against the bars of the cage, tapping her pencil on her foot as she thought of what to write in her notebook.

10. Don’t be surprised if he gets really excited about meeting a fan. It probably doesn’t happen very often. If you’re lucky he’ll give you a whole tour of the Darkside, but he may be hard to understand due to screaming. Something must be bothering him, which can be expected since he’s the Predacon leader. He’s probably very stressed out all the time. You might make friends with the others too, like Waspinator. He gave me this shiny piece of metal to look at. It’s pretty. And if you play things right, you may get an overnight accommodation as well, in a nice warm room with a cage. You can use your towel as a pillow since they don't seem to have any.

Thus concludes my instructions on “What to do when you meet Megatron”. I hope you’ll find them useful when you get the chance to meet him too. Tomorrow I may start writing “What to do after you’ve met Megatron”, but for now, good night and good luck!

--Starath