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.

By the Matrix (PG)
by Darzonique (Lrdjhiaxus@aol.com)

Rhinox was in a panic, the stasis pods had began to fall. He knew that the alien heat ray had destabilized their orbits, but he thought he had had more time to prepare for them. When the energon fields had been severely reduced by the heat ray, he had checked out their conditions. While he couldn't actually communicate with the stasis pods, he could scan to see if the computer systems were functional. Most had been severely damaged by the titanic energon surge from the device. Only a handful of them were actually functional, as far as the pod systems go. The protoforms inside were another matter entirely. With most of the systems damaged, what would happen to them? Maybe the Ark had some answers... At any rate they needed to retrieve as many stasis pods as possible.

"Foxfire! Get up there and get some of those pods!" He barked at Foxfire, who was slumped in the corner. He shot up through the Axalon's hull, leaving a hole in it.

Foxfire burst through the clouds. He looked around for a stasis pod. He found one when it hit him in the head. He fell a long ways, then caught himself and got the pod. He rushed over and tried to get another one, but it slipped, and fell. He caught another one, then landed at the Axalon. Then he sat down and started whistling.

{{What are you doing?}} The phoenix was telling him.

\\Go and get more of them.\\ Firefox was saying.

"GET OUT OF MY HEAD!" He screamed.

~FINE. If it shuts you TWO UP!!~ He thought. Obviously ticked, he burned into the sky. He scanned the skies for a stasis pod, but he saw none.

~You two made me come up here for NOTHING!~ Foxfire thought. He saw a stasis pod in the distance, he couldn't get there in time. So he stood there in the clouds and sulked. Suddenly, he caught something strange in his hands.

The pod plummeted down to earth, driven by gravity. Inferno zoomed up and caught it.

"The royalty will be pleased." he said to himself. He zoomed back to the Predacon ship.

The lab was filled with all sorts of uncomfortable looking pointy things. On a table was the stasis pod. Megatron was hunched over it looking at the protoform inside. Inferno was standing at attention in the doorway.

"Very good Inferno. This one seems to be mostly undamaged. You may leave now." Megatron started programming in the commands into the pod's systems. He placed the Predacon Identity chip in the place of the Maximal one. Everything looked normal and fine, the computer scanned the area. A beast form had been selected.

"Hmm, this is strange. Yes." Megatron examined the screen. Something strange had happened. A weird conglomeration of a lizard, Tyrannosaurus Rex, and a Archaeopteryx was shown on the screen.

"A dragon? That alien device had more of an impact than I thought." The beast emerged from it's stasis pod.

"Scalebane, TERRORIZE!!" the dragon roared. He saw Megatron and pointed his serrated sword at him. "Are you friend or foe? Declare yourself NOW beast."

"Dearest Scalebane, not only am I your friend, I am also your leader." Megatron told Scalebane in a voice as smooth as silk. Scalebane kneeled before Megatron.

"I pledge my life to you, m' lord." Scalebane said. Megatron sighed. Not another Inferno, he thought.

Foxfire was fascinated at the blue object he had caught. He had landed when he caught it. It was a head with a metal mouth plate, and two antennae where its ears should be. Foxfire was shocked when the mouth plate opened up, revealing a blue mouth. The eyes lit up with a red glow. He was mortified when the head spoke.

"Will you put me down?" it said. Foxfire dropped it and slowly backed away from it in abject horror.

"Yo..you talked!"

"What do you expect me to do when I've only got one body part on the ground?"

"Umm, stay lifeless and dead?" Foxfire said.

"There's just no pleasing some people." It said, "Look, the rest of my body is up floating around. So cut me some slack rookie."

"I have a NAME, you talking HEAD!"

"So do I. I'm Optimus Primal. And you are?" At this question, Foxfire's CPU locked up because Firefox was trying to get his name out at the same time as Foxfire.

"Fox*bzt*" Foxfire blurted out.

"What was that?" At this point Firefox had finally gained control of what had been his body.

"Firefox."

"Well, ..Firefox. Could you wipe off some of this dirt off of me?"