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It’s Only One Week, Cheetor . . . Okay, Maybe a Little More Than That . . .
By: Sinead

Author’s note: I apologize to Lady Dementia, for using her idea of Tarantulus’ obsession with Solitaire. I apologize to Mainframe, mostly to the writers, for my cruel remarks. Mainly, though the ones for Beast Machines. I’m sorry, but the lines in Beast Wars were twice as good as they were in Beast Machines.

Cheetor was ticked off. He had just come in, and he only had five minutes until he had to start working.


“Hey, Kiddo!”


Cheetor turned, around, and replied, “Huh? Oh, hi Rattrap.”


“Yo, wassup? Ya lookin’ kinda blue,” the Transmetal rat said.


“Didn’t sleep well. Where is everybody?”


“Memorizin’ da script. Ya’ll nevuh guess who’s comin’ back!”


“Terrorsaur?” Cheetor groaned. That stupid pterodactyl had tried (uneventfully) to steal his girlfriend.


“Nope.”


“Scorpinok?”


“Nope.”


“So it has to be a Maximal. Airazor?” he asked hopefully.


“Wrong again, but I heard dat Stripes is comin’ back latuh dis season. He made one slaggin’ big fuss bout gettin’ killed.”


“I was really hoping that it would be Airazor. Seriously!”


A low growling voice, with a chuckle in it, said behind him, “Why? So you two would sneak off the set to make out in a closet? That just so happened to be the reason that our first director quit!”


There was only one bot who dared to say things like that to people, and who sounded like that when he knew that he would get in trouble when he said it.


“Dinobot!” the Maximal yelled, turning around, and slapping a high-five with his old friend. “Slag, what happened to you?”


“The writers and artists call it a Transmetal II form,” Dinobot said, turning in a full circle, so that Cheetor would get a better view. “You’re getting one too, if you’ve read the script for Feral Scream, part two.”


The trio saw Silverbolt and Blackarachnia walking toward them, arguing as usual.


“Well then, Mister I’ll-Do-Anything-For-Blackarachnia, why don’t you just buzz off, and leave me alone!”


“The writers are fools, I agree, but I still lo-oh. Hello Dinobot.”


“My hero,” the spider said, and walked over to Cheetor.


“Hey, sis,” Cheetor said. “What happened now?”


“I just found out that later on this season, I get a TII form like Dinobot, and I hafta kiss Bowser a lot.”


Silverbolt frowned at her remark.


“Other than that, life’s fine! You wouldn’t have any mouthwash, by any chance?”


“One of those scenes? Ewwyuch! In the back of my locker, on the second shelf. I’m just glad that I’m not to one to kiss ya!” He called after her. “You’re a Black Widow, and my sister! Either way, you’d kill me!”


Blackarachnia laughed, and continued walking down the hall .


“Man, Bird-Dog, I’m feelin’ really badly for ya, and ya sappy script lines,” Rattrap said.


“Shut up, mouse,” Silverbolt retorted, and stalked into the rec room, to blow his anger off on a punching bag.


“Will all who are in the Cloning Scene in Feral Scream 1, please report to sound stage 11.” the announcer said.


“See ya, Spots!” Rattrap called, and smiled evilly, as he tip-toed into the rec room after Silverbolt.


“You have it so lucky, Dinobot,” Cheetor said.


“What do you mean?” Dinobot asked.


“You got a vacation out of this dump, and you were still paid full wage.”


Their conversation was interrupted by a high-pitched moaning. They turned around, and saw Rattrap kneeling on the floor in pure, manly agony.


Silverbolt was retreating back into the rec room. Cheetor crossed his legs, and bit his lip.


“Ooooh,” Dinobot remarked, and started walking again to the sound stage. Depth Charge soon joined up with them. He was smiling as best he could in his form.


“I was just reminded of how the mouse hits those high screams in his script. Silverbolt again?”


The ’Raptor nodded, and glanced at Cheetor, who was still biting his lip. At least his color returned back to normal.


“Ouch.”


“Hey, bro! Thanks for the mouthwash!” Blackarachnia said, and caught up with them. “Where’s Tarantulus? He found my laptop, and most likely screwed it up again with playing Solitaire one too many times in a row.”


“Where else?” Cheetor replied, over his pity for Rattrap. “Kissing his reflection in the Men’s Bathroom!”


The bots laughed, and heard Tarantulus’ far-off voice say, “I heard that!”


By then, they had reached the sound stage.


The director ran up to them. “You’re LATE! I can’t STAND it when I call you, and you’re LATE! I’ll have the writers KILL you off in such a BRUTAL way, that your GREAT-GRANDCHILDREN will even be too afraid to put ONE FOOT on a preforming stage! Now GET to your SPOTS, NOW!!!!!”


Dinobot scurried over to Megatron, and Cheetor whispered to Blackarachnia, “Yeah, right. After ‘Code of Hero,’ and ‘Transmutate,’ we had to put all the writers on Happy Pills. I’m just wondering what the Director’s on.”


Blackarachnia coughed, to cover a laugh. The director glared at Cheetor, so he clambered over to the bottom of a “cliff,” and saw that Dinobot and Megatron had reached the five-story-tall hunk of metal that the writers and artists called a cloning machine. They heard the director screaming his left lung out again, and Waspinator came up meekly beside Cheetor.


“Do you believe it?” he asked in his deep, well-bred voice. One must wonder how he hid it when he was in character.


“Believe what?”


“Optimus is threatening to leave! Ah, oops. More later. Guess-Who is glaring at me.”
Waspinator went off, starting up his buzzing. The lights went off, and the electric storm effects turned on. A shaft of light cut through the darkness, and two more people came in, to watch the performance. Cheetor clambered up to the top of the cliff that he might be flying off of.


“ACTION!” the director shouted.


“And the tempest rages!” Megatron bellowed, then ordered, “Turn on the Transmetal Two device, yesss.”


“Yezz, Mazzter,” Waspinator said, playing off of Igor.

As soon as his hand touched the console, PHHHFFFFBBBBIIITTTT! Then, CRASH!


“CUT!!!”


Cheetor flew off the cliff, saying, “Whoa, wasn’t me this time, I swear!”


They looked at the metal tower, and saw that the “Stasis Pod” on front had fallen outward, resting on the ramp. Dinobot was on the inside, in a little cavity in the tower, grinning foolishly, holding his nose with one hand, and reaching forward with the other to pull the pod back onto the front. “Heh-heh, er . . . ah, sorry.”


The whole day was like that, full of mistakes and lines being messed up. Some of them were intentional, just to get the director peeved with them.


Finally, when it was over, Cheetor limped to the spa room, to put his foot up, and get all the make-up off. He had twisted his ankle severely, during the last take of the episode, when he fell in front of Rhinox and Optimus.


When he got out of the Jacuzzi, and after sipping a strong cup of tea with Rhinox, he saw Optimus.


“Hey, yo, the Bot who’s Big! Wait up!” he called, and ran to catch up with him. “Have you seen the concept art for the new show? It’s called ‘Beast Machines,’ or something like that.”


“Yeah, and?”


“Hey, Dad, what’s up with you? You’ve been moping around for the past month!”


Optimus sighed, and said, “This is our last season; there is no fourth season, like our first director promised.”


“Ya knew that he was on Happy Pills, rahght?” Quickstrike said, joining up with the two bots along with Rattrap, who had apparently recovered from his encounter with Silverbolt.


“Well, I hadn’t counting on it kicking the bucket after only the third season. They’re ending this show, and starting up the other one, ‘Beast Machines.’ That’s why I threatened to leave.”


“C’mon, Banana Boy, ya just can’t walk out on us!”


“The rat’s riahght. Yah ’d be a yeller-bellied fool, tah say, ‘Adiós’!”


Optimus sighed, and Megatron ran up to them. “Matrix, is it true?”


Optimus nodded.


“You idiot! Uh, er, forget that remark. On the set, you just might be my nemesis, but off, you’re my brother! You pulled everyone together! Uhm, with the exception of Blackarachnia and Silverbolt, of course. If you leave, everything will fall apart! I’m disappointed in you,” Megatron said, and in his eyes was burning a raging wildfire.


“Megatron, I only threatened to quit.”


“You . . . what?”


“I’m not really leaving! I just want to director and his human gang to get all worried. Remember what Dinobot did? Sure he got killed off, but he got a wonderful vacation to Vancouver, British Columbia. Not to mention an upgrade.”


“All right! You’re getting us all vacations!” Cheetor said exuberantly.


“Yes, and hopefully, it’ll be a company trip, maybe to give a few performances on the way. I really can’t promise any of you anything, though.”


“Suh-WEET!” Cheetor yelled.


Megatron turned to Quickstrike and Rattrap, then said, “Go tell the others, but tell them not to tell any of the humans.”


The two small bots nodded, each grinning, (well, ya know what I’m trying to say) then Rattrap transformed, and the Fuzor jumped onto his back, just for effect, yelling, “Yee-HAW!!!”


Cheetor said good-bye to Megatron and Optimus, then went out to his car. Blackarachnia was waiting patiently for him. “Is Dad for real? Do you think he’ll pull it off?”


Cheetor nodded, then smirked, saying in a sing-song, “I know who you li-ike, na na na, na na naah!”

“Oh really?” the spider asked. “And who would that be, my dearest little brother?”


“Rattrap.”


Blackarachnia grinned, and climbed into the passenger seat of his beat-up Corvette convertible.
Rattrap ran out, just as Cheetor was backing out of his parking spot, and leaped into the back seat. “Show-off,” Cheetor grumbled good-naturedly, as Blackarachnia scrambled over her seat, and sat next to him.


“Where to, Madame and Misuer?” Cheetor asked in a phony French accent.


“Boardwalk,” the Black Widow said. Rattrap added, “Pick us up at 9:30 sharp.”


“I’ve got a date with Airazor, so did you want to double up?”


“Sure!” the two backseat bots chorused.


Cheetor smiled, and dropped his sister and her unofficial boyfriend at the boardwalk, then sped to his apartment, to get ready for his date . . .




“Hey, Tarantulus?” a voice asked sweetly.


“Yes?” Tarantulus’ nasally voice answered cautiously.


“Your fly’s down.”


“Huh?” The spider looked down, when a snicker made him look back up. Cheetor was standing there, leaning against the wall confidently.


“You know that bots don’t wear pants, Eight Eyes. So why do you even bother looking? Got somethin’ ya wanna tell us?” Cheetor’s laugh was contagious, and soon, Tarantulus allowed a chuckle out, nothing as extravagant as he was depicted on the screen.


The duo walked down the halls, swapping friendly insults, when the loudspeaker said, “Tarantulus, report to the director’s office, IMMEDIATELY!”


“Good luck!” Cheetor called after the retreating spider, then went to find someone to talk to. He ran into Blackarachnia and Rattrap.


In the spa room.


Kissing.


“Woah! Little eyes that don’t need to see their sister kissing! Little eyes!” Cheetor said laughingly, backing his Transmetal II form out of the room.


Laughter from inside caused him to poke his head in, and grin goofily.


“You always have to ruin my *sniff* perfect moments,” Blackarachnia said dramatically.


“Aww, c’mon sis. Chill out. We only have seven more weeks left until the series ends. I have to have at least a little fun before then!” Cheetor replied.


Fine, fine, kiddo! You have your fun, an’ we’ll have ours. How’s ’bout dat?” Rattrap said, grinning evilly at Cheetor.


“Alright, but you should know that I happen to know who’s in the next series!”


“No way!” the Black Widow yelled.


“Yup.”


“Tellustellustellus!” Rattrap said in the “manly” version of a squeal.


“Nope.”


“Aww, pleeeezzze?”


“I’ll say it in Spanish: no.”


Rattrap got on his hands and knees, and panted like a dog.


Cheetor laughed, and said, “Only if . . .”


“If? If what?”


“If you two help me with a prank on someone.”


“Oh? Who?” Blackarachnia asked curiously.


“Just someone who’s gonna be walking in the front door any minute.”


“Dat means Tiguhhawk,” Rattrap said, looking thoughtful. He remembered well the time that Airazor had a date . . . or three . . . with Tigatron, while Cheetor was panting every time she walked by.


“Uh-huh.”


“We’ll do it!” the two lovers chorused, rubbing their hands together . . .




That very moment, Airazor was just parking her car outside the general office, for Beast Wars.

“Can I PLEASE come in?!” she asked for the umpteenth time, glaring into the security camera.


Finally, though, she heard a voice over the intercom. “Oh, sorry!”


The buzzer sounded, and Airazor opened the door. About five buckets of water splashed over her, and laughter was heard, then, “GREAT! We got Tiger . . . hawk . . . Oh, crap.”


“Cheetor,” Airazor said, flinging her soaked arms in his direction. “You . . . you’d better be as fast as you say you are!”


Airazor chased him around the building, much to everybody’s delight and enjoyment. When both were winded and exhausted, they flopped down in a love-seat. The others joined them shortly, each telling about what they saw happen. They all stopped talking, as soon as they saw the two.


“Hey, Cheets, what was that about ‘little eyes’?” Blackarachnia said, crossing her arms over her chest. Cheetor opened his eyes, and the two broke their kiss off short. He grinned, and Blackarachnia said, “At least Dad isn’t here. He’d start lecturing you so badly!”


Cheetor grinned, and Rhinox bustled into the room. “You have something that you wanted to tell us?”


Cheetor grinned hopelessly. “Uh . . . ’bout what?”


Rhinox leaned in closer to the group, and whispered, “You know. Beast Machines.”


Cheetor grinned, and Optimus opened the door. Rather, the garage door. He looked to Cheetor, and the rest of the Beast Wars gang walked in. Cheetor found himself the center of attention. “Well . . . first off . . . Hey! DB! Take care of the cameras! Rattrap, the bugs.”


Dinobot grinned, and went to the four corners of the room, destroying the security (yeah, right) cameras. Rattrap crawled through the cabinets, taking care of the sound bugs that would have listened to the conversation. Finally, both bots came back, looking proud of themselves. Tigerhawk walked into the room, and leaned against the wall. “Well?”


Cheetor shrugged. “Well what? I know the people who are going on to Beast Machines, and who’s dying. So? What’ll you do for me?”


Dinobot picked Cheetor up by his shoulders playfully, and raised him to eye-level. “We won’t hurt you, if you tell us!”


Cheetor grinned, and said, “Right. Okay. I’ll tell. Can ’ya put me down now?”


Dinobot nodded, and patted Cheetor’s head after setting him down. Cheetor stuck his tongue out at the taller bot’s back, and muttered, “Some people have no sense of humor. Humph. Anyways, First off, Dad, you and Megatron are in on this, as the leaders again. We haven’t received the scripts for the final two episodes yet, but I’ve seen some of the first drafts. BA? You’re in on the Maximals’ team. Rattrap? You too. Don’t – aw, man. Okay, that’s enough. STOP KISSING! Better! Right, then. I’m there, also. We have a new kid, who’s gonna be named Nightscream. Silverbolt, you’re gonna be named Jetstorm, a jet, obviously, but you’ll become yourself again, after my dearest sister ‘rescues’ you. Good luck. Okay. Rhinox? You’re Tankor, a tank, but you’re a bad guy for the whole time . . . I think. Waspinator is Thrust, a motorcycle. Everyone else? You die, or are killed.”


Rampage looked up. “I get killed? That’s not fair.”


Cheetor shrugged. “Well, Depth Charge? You end up killing yourself in the process. DB? You turn back to your first self, not the clone, for a little over half of the last episode. You get killed again.”


Dinobot rolled his good eye. “Good. I can go back to the first season’s look. This body is annoying the slag outta me.”


Inferno looked to Quickstrike. “Well, what about us?”


“You guys get killed, too. Megs mis-fires, and you two get blasted instead of the early humans.”


Inferno laughed. “Wonderful, old chap! Absoballylutely top-hole!”


Cheetor shook his head. “Ooookaaaayyyyyy . . . Any other questions?”


Airazor tapped his arm. “What about me?”


He sighed. “I dunno.”


She grinned, and shrugged. “Well, I guess I can still hang around here, right?”


At that very moment, the Director barged in, and pointed to a few of the bots. Namely, the trouble-makers. “You, you, you, you, and you. We’re going to have a little chat.”


“You don’t chat,” Megatron pointed out, ticking off what he was saying on his fingers. “You scream, you yell, you snarl, you throw a hissy fit, and you basically make our lives a living hell. You couldn’t ‘chat’ if your life depended on it.”


The director glared death at the Predacon. Dinobot grinned. “What say, you give us free time instead of ‘chatting’ with you, and we’ll forget what Cheetor and I saw . . . say . . . last night.” He held his hand up before the Director could say anything more. “And, you don’t scream at us for the last seven weeks. Otherwise, we, per say, drop some information here or there. Do we have a deal?”


The Director nodded hurriedly, and walked out of the room. The rest of the bots broke out into helpless laughter and giggles at the sight of the Director’s face. Silverbolt frowned, and asked, “What did you two see?”


Cheetor waved his hand blandly. “Who, us? Oh, only nothing.”


Dinobot chuckled evilly. “Then again, we might have seen something . . .”


Megatron and Optimus each took one to the two conspirators up, glaring at them. Dinobot grinned. “Rattrap, brother, HELP!!!!”


Rattrap laughed. “An’ why should I do dat?”


“Because I’ll make your life a living hell!”


“Why don’t ’ya just tell us?”


He sighed, and looked at Cheetor, who was being suspended in mid-air by his uncle. “Yeah, I’ll tell ’em. He was playing Barbie Detective on one of the main computers.”


“WHAT?!?!?!” exploded the room.


Dinobot and Cheetor were lowered to the ground, while even more laughter broke out. They grinned to each other, and Cheetor was tackled by Rattrap, who was wanting reassurance upon that fact. Dinobot laughed, and picked his younger brother up off of the ground, and told him the whole story.


Needless to say, the rest of the seven weeks of filming for Beast Wars went perfectly fine and dandy for the band of transforming actors and actresses . . .