Beast Wars Anonymous:

Beast Wars Anonymous rated this fic: 1998 Readers' Choice Awards Winner
Most Surprising

Authors note: Much as I am loathe to use the 'and it was all a dream' ending, in this case, it was both telepgraphed and justified. You don't think I'd just end the Beast Wars in two pages, do you?

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.

Hero
by Lizard (lizard@dnai.com)

The sun shimmered through the water-laden air, casting light over a landscape of rock and water and vegetation. It was utterly, horribly, alien, but for most of a year, now, it had been home.

For the thousandth time, Waspinator hovered, then focused on a distant point. He closed his eyes, trying to catch the faint traces of the Pathways, trying, trying, and failing. When he opened his eyes, he was no closer to the distant mountain than he was when he started.

Wazzzpinator hatezzz this part the worst! he muttered to himself. He didn't much like the name Waspinator, either, or the strange buzz in his voice, or the crawling, fleshy parts that covered his body almost all the time he was outside the confines of the Darkside. But the thing he hated most was the loss of his power, of his special ability. There were almost no other teleporters on Cybertron, and his power was better than any of theirs! He didn't simply teleport, he could pass into a universe all his own and come out where he wanted. He could stay there, among the Pathways, as long as he wished. He had friends there.

...or did he? Waspinator shook his head. Some parts were so hard to remember. And since that little...problem a few weeks back, his memory was even worse than usual. He kept seeing things...the ancient Decepticon leader, Galvatron the Mad, firing a fusion cannon at him...other things, even harder to identify, coming in flickers and fluxes in his mind.

Energy bolts, missiles, rockets. For some reason, he felt a sudden sharp pain in his foot, as if it had been shot...but it was all dream and illusion, and the Pathways were lost, and...

...it wasn't a dream! Not all of it! Someone was shooting at him.

He spun around sharply, banking at a steep angle, using the airflow along his wings in a way he had never thought of before. The power had made him neglect his flying skills, but he'd had some good lessons recently, albeit without being aware of them. He looked down, switching his optics into targetting mode...and spotted a figure fairly burning in the IR. IFF algorithms analyzed the heat source, and in nanoseconds, it was identified. Cheetor ne Chaseplane, Maximal scout and general annoyance.

"Wazzzpinatorrrr....terrorrrizzze!" The flesh ripped away and hydraulics churned, revealing a gleaming green and yellow robot. "Wazzzpinator kill pesty kittycat!" he shouted as he brought his gun on-line and fired.

Cheetor dodged left, rolling and bringing his own gun into line. He fired a rapid volley of quasar bolts, but Waspinator wasn't there when the bolts arrived. He'd stopped his wings, dropping instantly, then supercharging his thrusters at the last second to avoid a painful splat. Cheetor had apparently lost track of him. Waspinator moved behind the confused Maximal, then tapped him on the shoulder.

Cheetor spun around to his left, just as Waspinator ducked to Cheetor's right. When Cheetor turned back to the right, he was confronted with the barrel of Waspinator's gun.

"Surprizzzze!"

He fired.

After making sure that Cheetor's spark was well and truly extinguished, Waspinator shifted back to beast mode. Maximals were herdbeasts...where there's one, there's likely to be more...

He took to the air again, moving cautiously. He was so intent on scanning the ground that he almost missed the falcon moving towards him at speeds no organic being could match. Airazor.

"You murderer! You killed Cheetor!" the falcon screamed as it rushed past, sharp talons gouging into the flesh covering on Waspinator's body. "I'll make sure you'll NEVER be reassembled! Airazor.... Maximize!" Feathers and flesh rippled and shifted, and the graceful brown and white form of the only Maximal flyer hovered a few feet away from him. "Have a missile, Predacon!"

She fired.

She missed. Waspinator shot sideways, then came in again at a sharp angle. She turned to track him, firing bolt after bolt, but his weaving and bobbing was simply too unpredicatable. He'd need to slow down to fire, she thought, then I'll...

Waspinator smashed into her at full velocity, the shockwave of air in front of him helping to protect him from the impact. As they both tumbled groundward, he managed to dig his hands into the cabling linking her wings to her body, and tore at the metal covering. The delicate circuitry inside could not take even a brief exposure to the deadly Energon surges, and sparks began to explode outwards.

Waspinator pulled backwards and shifted to beast mode as Airazor tumbled downwards, to vanish in a firey explosion. A quick aerial reconnaissance revealed a few scorched feathers and some shards of metal. Nothing else.

No other Maximals seemed to be about, either. Hmmm...Wazzpinator can report to base, or Wazzpinator can look for more Maximalzzz...he shrugged. Wazzpinatorrr hazzz been lucky so far!

His luck continued. It was easy to use the lumbering Rhinox's mass against him, forcing him onto an unstable cliff face and then blasting the supports out. Tigatron's mystical insights proved useless when a Waspinator-created sonic boom trapped him in a deadly avalanche. The maximal spy, Rattrap, was perhaps the toughest of all, but ultimately, size and speed defeated cunning and trickery. The traitorous Dinobot he left crippled in robot form, so that he could die a slow, agonizing death from Energon poisoning.

Then, and only then, did he call for the rest. There was one left, the leader, holed up deep in the Axalon behind the deadly Sentinal system. The full force of the Predacons assembled for the assault.

Skorponok unleashed a fleet of CyberBees to draw Sentinals' fire. As each hidden gun port was revealed, Tarantulus engulfed it in a stasis web while Megatron and Terrorsaur concentrated their fire on the weakest part of the hull. Black Arachnia took advantage of the blind spots in Sentinal's sensors to plant mines on the Axalons' sensor arrays. It was tough, dangerous work, but they managed to finally bring the system (and the backup system, and the secondary backup system-- Rhinox and Rattrap did their work well, for all the good it had done them) down.

Then all that remained was the hunt.

Even with Sentinel down, the inside of the ship was likely to be a death zone. They moved cautiously, scanning the walls for suspiscious 'hot spots', checking the floors for loose plates, the ceilings for potential traps. More than once, they narrowly avoided setting off a trap, but with the combined technical skills of Terrorsaur and Black Arachnia, they managed to render the ship harmless one meter at a time.

When they found Primal, he wasn't cowering -- there was that to say for him. He was ready to go down fighting. Each hand held a massive chaingun, probably from Rhinox' armory. His shoulders carried missile launchers, and an optical laser covered one eye. He smiled when he saw the seven Predacons approach him in the engine room.

"You've found me.but only in time to die! I've rigged the engines to explode, taking us all out. I will not permit the Predacons to use this planets energy to further their evil..."

Waspinator fired.

Twin missiles shot out, smashing directly into Primal's chest. For the briefest instant, his face held a confused expression, as if to say, 'But I wasn't finished talking yet!' Then he exploded. It rained Primal for quite a while.

"Quickly! We must leave here before the engines explode, yes!"

"Wazzpinator not worried. Silly Apetimus forgot to pull lever!"

"Why...you're right. Yes. Waspinator, you've...you've won the Beast Wars!"

"Yeah! Way to go, pal!" Terrorsaur chimed in.

"Hey! I think HE should be the leader!"

Black Arachnia nodded. "You're correct, Skorponok -- for once."

Megatron looked around. With even Skorponok against him, he knew he had little hope. Even he couldn't take them all on, and, if he could, who would be left to obey him?

"Yes. Waspinator has earned the title of leader. I will not object, no."

Waspinator smiled. "Yezzzz! Wazzzpinator is leader! Wazzzpinator izzz hero!"

...hero...

"...hero. Wazzpinator..hero..."

Black Arachnia looked down at Waspinator's head, currently being held, with reasonable care, by Terrorsaur. "What's he saying?"

"Something about being a hero. Hard to understand him when he's like this, but I've gotten kind of used to it by now."

"Huh. Well, whatever. I've got his legs. Where do you want them?"

Terrorsaur sighed, a habit that came with being partially organic, and looked around. The meadow was quiet now, the small fires from the recent combat slowly dying out. Skorponok was leaning against a large rock, looking like he was trying to think, but nothing seemed to be happening. A small pile of Waspinator parts rested nearby.

"Put them with the rest of the parts over by Scorponok. I think we've got all the large pieces now."

"...leader...Wazzpinatorrr endzzz the Beast Warzzzz..."

Megatron stormed up. "Hero? No! Idiot, yes! That fool has used up more of our recycling power than the rest of you put together! I am more than tempted to simply leave him to rot, yes!"

Terrorsaur spun around, eyes blazing as he locked optics with Megatron. Megatron took a step back...he was used to being challenged by Terrorsaur, but there was something different about it this time.

"Listen, 'Leader'! If Waspy hadn't been blasted by Rhinox, Cheetor, AND Tigatron simultaneously, we would have walked right into that ambush and been reduced to scrap metal! Thanks to him, this was a fair fight, not a slaughter! He *is* a hero -- even if it was more bad luck than planning!"

Megatron was silent for a moment. Then he waved dismissively, a slightly ridiculous gesture with his diminutive beast-mode arms. "Very well. Take him back and have him rebuilt. It's not worth having to scrap *you* over as well, no." Then he walked away.

Terrorsaur looked down at Waspinator, who had finally stopped talking. Capacitors probably drained, he thought. "Yeah, you are a hero, in your own way. Hmf. Next time, I'll let you win at Mechbattle." He sighed, then carried Waspinators's head over to the rest of his parts and placed it gently on top of the pile. As he walked away, he thought he could still hear a faint echo saying "...hero..." ...or maybe this time it was just the wind.