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. Words or phrases surrounded by asterisks (*) indicate thoughts.

Click here to read the author's note on this story.

Altered Beast
by M Sipher

The Autobot shuttle rocked violently as another series of laserbolts ripped through it. "We've lost all shields in aft section, port shields are buckling!" Breakneck yelled, not looking up from her terminal.

Another jolt. "Port shields are gone..."

Razorbeast fell out of the gunner's chair as the ship rocked again. "Can't get a bead on the Deceps... bastards keep gettin' in the guns' blind spots!!"

Vamp hung from the roof above his chair, his steel talons digging into the metal bar. He hadn't said a word for minutes, quietly taking in the battle.

Savage let out a fuel-curdling wail as he finally scored a hit on the Decepticon shuttle. "Take THAT!!!! YEEEEEHAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!"

Vamp continued to stare ahead in silence.

*This is going to be a meal to savor,* Deathgrip thought. "Steer them towards that planet," he commanded. Sandtrap fired another bolt, throwing the Autobot shuttle towards the slowly approaching planet.

Deathgrip smiled. Crash the Autobots into the planet, and then hunt them down as individuals... if they were destroyed in their shuttle's explosion, there'd be nothing left for him to savor. If he could hunt them himself, he could sink his teeth into their steel skin, taste their fuel as fear in the face of death made the energon run even higher... to him, the moments of mind-numbing fear before death was when a being tasted their best.

His gustatory sensors within his alligator form's maw readied themselves for the upcoming meal.

The last blast tore the bar Vamp hung from away from the ceiling, sending the robotic bat crashing to the floor.

"Dammit, Vamp, SAY something!" Rattrap gasped. "We're getting slaughtered here, and you just take a friggin' NAP!"

Vamp transformed to robot mode, and picked himself off the floor. "Steer towards the planet, Breakneck," he said evenly.

"WHAT?!?!" everybody else rather calmly replied.

"Controlled dive. They want us alive and kicking."

Barbearian slowly pulled himself out of his chair. "You're kidding, right?"

"If they wanted us dead, we wouldn't be talking about this right now. They obviously want to take us on mech to mech..."

"So we oblige them," Breakneck muttered. "All right... let's hope I can land this thing without smearing us across the landscape."

Vamp hung upside-down from one of the sturdier branches of one of the hundreds of immense trees that surrounded them for miles on every side... save the three-mile long stretch where they had to either blast the trees or have them go through the ship.

All in all, Breakneck had done a rather good parking job... not that she was really looking forward to trying it again anytime soon.

She crouched low in her feline form, multijointed tail moving slowly from side to side. Her optics scanned the trees in front of her, looking for the slightest movement beyond the leaves moving in the wind.

Olfactory senses took in everything... the smell of the burned woods behind her, the almost syrupy smell of crushed plants, the out-of-place metallic scent of her companions.

Through scent alone, she could tell Vamp was just above her and to her left... Razorbeast, with his mildly annoying tendency to put off maintenance checkups and cleanings, about fifty yards to her right... Savage, already beginning to drool lubricant from his dinosaur form's maw, about twenty-five feet behind... Barbearian's scent was prominent both on the ground and in the trees above, which meant he was still in robot form to her left, while his minuscule bat partner Nightpitch was slightly ahead of them all... and Rattrap was... where was Rattrap?

Breakneck picked up her head, risking a peek above the brush. She could tell where Rattrap had been... but he was way beyond them now, his trail leading beyond her olfactory sensors' range. She listened, but only heard the various noises of forest life and the endless rustle of leaves in the breeze.

Vamp hung overhead, motionless save for the occasional twitch of his oversized ears. She looked at him... he could hear further than she could smell, maybe he knew where their spy had run off to...

Vamp's optics narrowed suddenly. She could see him tense up, almost unnoticeably... what had he just--

One of the larger trees in front of them exploded, throwing splinters everywhere. The tree groaned and finally came crashing down.

Rattrap scurried towards them, running as fast as his four legs would carry him. "I-- I think I found them!!!" he called over inter-Autobot radio.

Breakneck looked up from behind the fallen tree. Rattrap was gone, and where were the Dece--

A metallic stinger-tipped tail whipped overhead. Breakneck only barely got her head out of the way before it planted itself in the tree where she was half a second ago. Toxin's scorpion form emerged over the trunk, swinging his immense claws in every direction. "Prepare for a slow, painful dea-- huh?"

The Autobot he had tried to puncture was nowhere within sight...

With a roar, Breakneck leapt from behind him, and sunk her fangs into Toxin's tail. She batted at it with her claws as Toxin flailed about, trying to dislodge her.

Vamp hit the ground in robot form, laser scimitars in his hands. He swung behind him without even looking... and half of Needlewing's front insect legs landed in the underbrush. He ducked and the immense insectoid machine rocketed overhead, and ran smack into a tree.

He heard the next one coming, but couldn't turn in time to stop it.

Deathgrip slammed into him full force, knocking him on his back, crushing one of his wings underneath him. His swords fell from his hands, and his legs were pinned under Deathgrip's heavy tail. He opened his optics, only to see Deathgrip's immense tooth-lined maw barely inches from his face.

In pure reflex, he raised his left arm to push Deathgrip back. He realized what an incredible mistake that was half a second later when a dozen razor-sharp teeth perforated his forearm.

Just outside the range of battle, several sets of eyes watched intently. Covered by the noises of metal and laser fire, one creature called out to the others, and the ring closed slightly around the fighting machines.

Rattrap shifted to robot mode and clutched his blaster tightly. He spun around to fire at the pursuing Decepticon... and had his legs fall out from under him. He looked down to see a thin wire wrapped around them, the source of the wire coming from the underbrush.

Tarantulas popped his head out from the brush, and his optics narrowed in mild disgust. "Feh," he muttered. "I don't imagine you'd be worth much to the boss... only a coupla astroliters...." He folded up into his spider form. "Might as well just kill you here..." He began to reel Rattrap in.

Rattrap scrambled madly, arms trying desperately to find purchase... or at the very least the damned blaster. By sheer luck, he found it... and turned and fired without even thinking about aiming.

He opened his optics... and saw Savage and Barbearian pick themselves up from ducking his shots. Tarantulas lay underneath them, unconscious.

Savage glared at Rattrap, one of Tarantulas' spider legs clenched between his jaws. The legs snapped in two places, the edges falling to the ground. He spat out the last price of leg and stepped towards Rattrap.

"Whoa, now, waitaminitthere..."

Savage howled, and Rattrap scrambled backwards.

"STOP THAT!!!" Barbearian, in grizzly mode, lunged at Savage, knocking him down. "It was a simple mistake, get over it!"

Savage growled quietly. Barbearian was one of the VERY few Autobots who could talk him down from one of his "tantrums". Mostly because he knew that Barbearian was the few Autobots who could out-tantrum him... he knew that from personal experience.

There was a load shriek, and the sound of something big and heavy crashing through the trees overhead. Terrorsaur fell in front of them, landing hard in pterosaur mode. He stayed where he lay, optics wide, twitching slightly.

Rattrap looked closer, and saw a metallic spear sticking out of his neck. It crackled lightly, and hummed with energy.

"What the..." were the only words Rattrap got out before they were upon them.

Razorbeast clutched the smoking hole in his right shoulder. He looked up at Sandtrap, who limped forward, his sandblaster cannon in hand. He nearly stumbled, but managed to regain his balance and aim before Razorbeast could take action.

He smiled wearily as he leveled the cannon at Razorbeast's head.

One second later, they were both swamped in a mass of bodies.

Deathgrip lunged without moving his jaws. He watched Vamp struggle underneath him. *Time for the fun...*

Deathgrip's teeth began to move back and forth. They cut through Vamp's skin effortlessly. However, he realized something was wrong....

Vamp wasn't crying out in pain. There was no panic, no desperate scrambling. No prayer to a higher power or pleas for mercy.

This troubled him to no end. This was the sort of thing that could ruin the taste of a meal...

He looked down at Vamp. The Autobot stared back at him evenly, his face devoid of any expression.

And then it felt like his snout was on fire.

He screamed in pain but refused to let go. He looked up to see one of Vamp's laser scimitars embedded in the side of his snout. Energy coursed through it, frying circuits and melting steel skin. But he refused to let go. He increased the vibration of his teeth, cutting further into Vamp's arm.

Both refused to let up.

Both were feeling more pain than either had experienced before.

And then their pain doubled when several spears punched though their armor, and sent paralyzing bolts of energy through their entire bodies.

Deathgrip tensed, snapping Vamp's arm clean off. He slowly leaned to one side and fell over, unconscious.

Vamp was barely clinging to functioning status. His vision blurred and fractured, white noise filled his audio receptors. He couldn't control his twitching.

He managed to turn his head away from where Deathgrip lay. He suddenly realized he was not alone. Standing to his side was a humanoid creature, covered in places with blue robotic armor.

He looked up... it was a white lion. A patch covered its right eye.

The lion looked at him for a second, and then brought up its right arm. Clutched in its paw was a sword. The last thing Vamp saw was the hilt of the sword coming at his head very fast.