- Runner-up for "Funniest Comedy" 2005

Don't Call Me Queen!

By: Lynx Traveller

Disclaimer: I don’t own Beast wars.

A/N’s are at the end this time, just ‘coz I don’t want to give any of the laughs away prematurely.

Alright everyone, lets give a big hand to Albedo for letting me borrow Menace, I’ll explain why I needed her at the end. 

“DON’T CALL ME QUEEN!”

Rampage paused by Megatron's quarters, the sounds of the argument spilling out through the door.

“Yes my Queen!”
There was the sound of a plasma weapon discharging against the door, and Inferno stumbled out, saluted back into the room and closed the door behind him.

“Drone! Why aren’t you working?”

Rampage paused, in truth the reason why he was at Megatron's quarters was that he was bored to slag and had nothing better to do than try and get his spark back, not that he would let the ant know that.

“I am working.”

Inferno paused to digest this, before saluting the air and heading off.

Suddenly a flash of inspiration hit the killer crab. Who knew, it might even relieve the boredom.

“Inferno.”
”What is it drone?”
”Do you want to know the real reason why Megatron hates being called Queen?”

“You are not to use the Royalties name worker.”

“Right right, the royalty, but do you know?”

Inferno paused, his tiny bundle of neural circuits trying to figure it out.

“Very well drone, tell me what you know.”
”The real reason,” Rampage paused, savouring the moment, “is that Megatron is male, not female.”
Inferno looked like he was about to collapse from thinking so hard trying to digest this, Rampage continued.

“Tell me Inferno, what is the males purpose in a colony?”

Inferno brightened, this one he knew.

“Males exist solely to propagate new colonies.”
”Other than that they serve no purpose to the colony right?”
”Propagating new colonies is enough.”

“Sure, but my point is that as far as productivity goes, they’re useless, right?”

Inferno paused.

“Think about it, when was the last time Megatron actually did anything himself? He always gets you or I to handle it. He also can fly, which definitely makes him male.” The killer crab paused, hoping that Inferno wouldn’t realise that he also could fly.

”Males cannot be queen.”
”You got it.”

“This traitorous usurper must be stopped immediately!”

Rampage smiled, his initial goal was to simply confuse the ant, this was a thousand fold more fun.

“I’ll help, just make sure he doesn’t use the spark box.”
Inferno nodded, before saluting and pulling out his flamethrowers.

Rampage joined him in a duet of insane laughter that echoed around the base.

………

Megatron was in his hot tub relaxing, squeaky floating lazily by.

Suddenly the door was blown off its hinges.

Megatron quickly reached for the spark box, only one Pred in the base had that sort of firepower.

 Which is why he paused uncertainly when Inferno entered.

“Inferno! I thought I told you to go on patrol!”

The ant ignored him, continuing to march toward Megs with the methodical purpose that all ants have.

Megatron was just about to raise his gun when Rampage strolled into the room and shot it from his grasp.

Megatron reached again for the spark box, but Inferno grabbed it from him, tossing it to the crab.

Normally Rampage would have simply seen what colours he could get mixing Megatron's mech with the ants now that he was free, but the thought of Megatron being destroyed by his own minion was more than enough to stay his hand. Rampage loved irony as much as the next mech. Besides, he was dimly aware that death by ants was usually beheading, and he could always use the trophy.

Megatron was hefted from the tank, squeaky angrily protesting, not that anyone took any notice of the rubber duck.

“Male! Do your purpose!”
With that Rampage paused, Infernos train of thought clearly visible.

He shrugged and headed off to plot; if Megatron was to be exiled from the base then he had ample opportunity; the patient wait to catch Megatron alone in the wastelands without his weapons would definitely help him savour the experience.

………

The immediate objective passed, Inferno was worried; the thought only just hitting him that they were now without a queen.

Fortunately just then Menace was walking through the base and noticed Inferno standing around unproductively.

“Drone! Why are you not working?”
”We are currently without a queen. Until a new queen is found, I have no orders.”
Menace buzzed angrily, “What happened to the queen?”
”He was male.”

“Ah. In that case we need a new queen.”

“Yes! A new queen.”

“Hmm. With bees, a new queen is formed by feeding a young one royal jelly.”

“Good! Start immediately.”

Menace glared at the ant, annoyed that her colony-mate could be so stupid.

“Fool! I’m a fully-grown soldier. We need a nymph to make a queen.”

Both bots paused, both knew that that meant a protoform, and they were both pretty sure that they currently didn’t have any in stock.

Just then they heard a buzzing noise and a freshly repaired Waspinator extracted himself from the R-tank.

Both drones stared at him, before each grabbing an arm and leading him off.

Rampage was nearly in hysterics, finally the laughter that would have given away his hiding place in the shadows couldn’t be held back any longer.

“So it really is true; with enough idiots you can make anything work.”
………

Menace and Inferno had hit another wall in their plans; not only were they out of protoforms (Megatron must’ve been male they realised, since there was a distinct lack of ‘eggs’) but they were also very low on royal jelly, and only Menace had the ability to make it.

Luckily Waspinator knew of a field of flowers not far away. After a day of watching the bees work Inferno had ideas of how productive a colony should be and Menace had discovered a cache of beehives.

………

Rampage didn’t really like being told to work by the two idiots, but the thought of seeing Waspinator being their leader was enough incentive enough to make him work; the hilarity of it all was more than enough motivation.

Waspinator was also very happy with the current changes to power; he got to sit around the base all day and eat the honey that the other ‘drones’ bought him. He didn’t really like the taste of the jelly, but with the honey and the fact that he hadn’t been slagged in weeks he was prepared to forgo complaining.

And despite the work Rampage was actually happy; it was soon discovered that his method of extracting the honey was far too destructive and spread the honey over the area too thinly to be harvested.

And so he was given the task of dealing with the bees, made even more fun when they realised that bees hated fire.

“Man I gotta get me one of these!”
The stream of incendiary fluid from the flamethrower currently on loan from inferno covered the tree, igniting it and anything inside. It didn’t necessarily have any bees in it, but he was being destructive, what more could he want?
Primal's head on a platter made of Megatron's carapace maybe. Nah, too much to ask for.

………

Rattrap paused mid patrol; he was sure he could hear swearing, and he was pretty sure that it wasn’t his.

Some of the words were enough to make even him blush.

He quietly crept forward, peering through the bushes.

He stood there for almost ten cycles, not knowing whether to burst out laughing or to run for help.

Finally he settled for comming the Maximal base and calling them all to his location.

………

Megatron paused, the combined laughter from the bushes loud enough to cut into even his tirade of language.

He really was a site to behold; a transmetal dinosaur missing his tail was not a thing to laugh at. For one thing he was covered head to foot in dents and scratches and he was weary from hunger.

He’d found an ants nest at one stage, and although minorly nourishing he’d finally moved on, thoroughly sick of ants.

What was worse, he couldn’t think of any more things to call his former second, nor any more things to do to the crab.

So when he heard laughing he knew that the last of his pride was lost.

………

Optimus stepped out of the bushes accompanied by the rest of the fleet, Megatron paused for just a nano to realise that a) the Maximal base was currently unguarded, and b) he was currently unable to attack.

Optimus finally stopped laughing long enough to ask the tyrant what his story was.

Beaten, Megatron explained all about the usurping ant and the lunatic crab and how he was tailless because he was chased out of the base without his weapon and how an unbalanced bipedal Dinosaur was quite literally useless when it came to hunting.

Rattrap stepped forward, weapon in hand.

“Let me end ya problems Grape-face.”
Optimus put a hand on his weapon, lowering, before entering a two hour lecture on why Maximals must never harm an unarmed opponent and how they should dedicate their lives to helping everyone, even a Predacon when they needed it.

By the end, Cheetor was wearing a plastic primal mask and waving a small pennant with ‘I have seen the light and have been converted to Optimus-ism’ on it. Rattrap was asleep in the grass. Megatron was hitting himself with a large branch and Rhinox was playing on a game-bot since he was currently away from his computers. Silverbolt and Blackarachnia were long gone, no one wanted to know where to.

………

Despite the amount of jelly he’d eaten, Waspinator hadn’t changed much, except to grow very fat from the food and lack of exercise. Only Rampage and the more intelligent bots realised this, but the two workers were happy; they had a queen who was well fed and fat enough to start producing a decent colony.

The fact that he was also male, a robot, and not even a bee had never crossed their minds.

Rampage had finally tired of burning small animals and had gone out to do what he usually did when he wasn’t working, plotting or fighting; sit under a tree and write poetry under an assumed name while picnicking with the birds and bunnies.

………

“Do I really have to do this?”
Rattrap was rolling on the floor laughing so heard he could hardly breath. Rhinox was just about to join him as he looked over their work of art.

“Do you want your troops back, or do you want to see the light like Blackarachnia and join us?”
Megatron made a face at the monkey, the thought of him and Silverbolt was repulsive. Primal had tried to convert him every day since his arrival; there hadn’t been any Pred attacks in weeks.

“Very well then.”

“Then hold still, one more ribbon ought to do it.”
………

Quickstrike was the closest and so was the one nominated to open the door when the visitor knocked.

“Wheee-doggy, You’re purdy. What’s yer name Sugar-bot?”
Megatron instinctively leveled his gun hand at the Pred, only to sigh in dismay and shake his head at not having a weapon to slag him with.

The best he could do was clench his fists in a choking motion and mentally add the fuzors name to the list of bots that he wanted to scrap when this was all over.

Still, Quickstrike had a point; the Maximals had made him beautiful. From the ribbons in his curly golden hair to the rosy red cheeks, he looked just like the Shirley Temple movie that Rattrap had used for the model.

“Where’s, ahem. Where’s Inferno?” the shrill voice was enough to make even Starscream jealous.

“I’ll just fetch him for yer.”

Megatron turned back to the Maximals behind him, they’d insisted on coming along to witness this; seeing Megatron in drag beat twelve shades of slag out of his subordinates in an attempt to prove he really was a queen was something that even Primal had to see.

Inferno stopped dead in his tracks, undecided about what to do. On one hand, there was a foreign queen on his doorstep and the trespasser to their territory had to be dealt with. On the other hand he dimly recognised this female as part of the colony.

“I’ve come to retake my colony.”

Most of the Pred fleet had gathered by now to watch, Rampage burst out laughing.

Menace was leaning against the wall, “You can’t.”
”WHY NOT?”
”We have a new queen now.”

Megatron looked desperate; after all this there was a chance he’d still have to become a Maximal?

“You’ll have to fight for leadership now. The old queen will have experience, but the new queen has everything to fight for. It will be a battle to the death.”
Megatron gulped and took a quick inventory of those present. Waspy wasn’t amongst them

“Your new queen is Waspinator?”
”Don’t mention the royalties name.”

Megatron grinned, this would be easy.

Suddenly there was a thunderous rumbling as the ‘queen’ approached.

Megatron stood gaping up at the massive wasp.

“Waspinator, get out of my way.”

“NO! Wazzzpinator queen now. Not been zzzlagged in months. Get all the food Wazzzpinator can eat. Bezzzides, Wazzzpinator feel pretty.”

Megatron glared at the wasp, he had nearly as many ribbons on as he himself had.

Megatron didn’t bother answering, simply walking into the base and retrieving his weapon.

As he exited, he saw that an arena had been set up with all the Maximals lined up down one side, Preds on the other. Cheetor was walking around handing out bags of peanuts.

Megatron entered the ring where the obese wasp was waiting.

Suddenly there was a sting of flashes, Megatron glared angrily up to where Rattrap had a pile of cameras and was eagerly taking pictures of the memorable scene.

“Now, lets have a good, clean fight.”

Rattrap wolf-whistled, “Cat fight!”

Inferno and Menace looked quizzically at the rat, before turning their puzzled gaze on Cheetor.

The adolescent fled before the two could reach the obvious conclusion.

The bell dinged, Waspy caught Megatron off guard by bitch-slapping him right across the cheek.

Megatron looked bored, sighed and simply blasted the Wasp.

Pieces of bloated wasp flew everywhere, completely covering the crowd with gunk.

Megatron looked over himself disgustedly, “Now my dress is ruined!” at a quizzical look from the nearest bots he coughed lightly before tearing off the clothes and transforming to dino mode.

“You missed a ribbon.”

The tyrant glared angrily at the rat before removing the final ribbon that he’d semi-intentionally left there.

Pride totally destroyed, he left to clean the wasp-muck off in a nice warm tub.

After everyone left, a green hand inched slowly across the field toward the base, riding on it was a head.

“Why Univerzzze hatezzz Wazzzpinator?”

………

It had been weeks since the ordeal and Megatron was finally beginning to recover. He had Rampages spark box after Inferno had retrieved it. The killer crab was currently repainting the Darkside, starting from the underside.

Waspinator was still in the CR tank; he refused to come out, knowing that he’d simply be slagged again.

Inferno was meanwhile acting as Megatron's footrest and personal foot-scraper; Megatron had made him bring in a whole bucket of mud before taking up his position under his feet while Megatron periodically replenished to the mud on his boots.

Quickstrike was elsewhere in the base dressed in a black and white maid uniform, dusting the air vents.

And as for Menace? The tonnes of honey that was currently in the hold wouldn’t be put to waste. Menace would be very busy for a while, especially since the spoon the bee was using had the head snapped off and was just the handle.

Suddenly Megatron heard peels of laughter coming from the hallway. He rushed outside and stared fixedly at the notice board, where there were several pictures posted. The discarded envelope on the ground reading ‘from the Maximals with love.’

The tyrant sighed resignedly before heading back to his quarters, replacing the mud on his boots and adding another layer of the brown muck to Inferno.

This was going to be a long war.

Ok, what’d you think?? Please R&R so I can find out.

Now to the A/N.

I’ve been kicking this idea around for a few months now; of Inferno realising that Megatron couldn’t possibly be a queen because he was male and making one of the other ‘drones’ take his place. However, for Inferno to know about royal jelly, I’d need a bee.

Hence the reason that I needed Menace; I had no characters that could suffice.

I ran this idea past Albedo several times, but it was only the other day (about 4am) when I finally got the ending; the scene of the doorbell ringing and Meggy all dressed up to prove his femininity. I nearly rolled off my chair at the vision.

I ran the idea past Albedo one final time, but I’ve been hit with the cursed writers block again, and so I decided to go ahead and do it myself, rather than letting Albe use it.

Anyway, tell me what you think, I’d love to hear.