By: Lynx Traveller

Disclaimer: until I buy Hasbro out, I don’t own Beast wars.

They all mocked me, every last one of them.

I sighed, I knew better than anyone that I wasn’t my namesake; I’d spent my whole existence trying to live up to him.

Megatron only ever had one treacherous follower, I had six of them. Six Starscreams. That’s a joke.

At least none of them were as smart as the seeker had been. Except maybe Rampage, but I had him on a pretty short leash.

Not that that would stop him;  knew that so long as his spark was still functional that he’d dog me until he saw the ship decorated with my mech.

Treachery. It hadn’t always been that way. When the Predacons first spoke of equality with the Maximals, they spoke of a new race of warriors, led by truth, honour, and justice.

But who wants to follow that? The only one that I’d ever known who really believed it was Dinobot.

Ah, Dinobot. He was probably my only loyal troop other than Inferno. I’d often thought about the Irony of it; Dinobot defected to the Maximals because his honour code was stronger than his allegiance, and now he was as keen to scrap his comrades as Rampage was. My namesake had always loved irony, even at the expense of victory. I guess there was always the risk that one day Rampage would win Dinobot over, but I was gambling on the fact that this war would be one by then.

At least I could always count on Inferno, even if his personality did little to help with my perpetual bad mood. He never realises it, but the way that he calls me Queen all the time is a perfect way to breed contempt in the rest of them.

Again it’s ironic; the spiders were clearly trying to turn Inferno’s protoform into another one of them, yet instead of treachery, I got undying loyalty.

At least Waspinator and Quickstrike are probably too dumb to try anything, but I’d been around long enough to know when a bot wanted my head; if I didn’t, then I wouldn’t have lasted this long.

Waspinator. I’d only ever enlisted his help in stealing the golden disks because I felt he was too stupid to try and doublecross me, but I knew him well enough now to know that if the opportunity arose, he’d take it.

As for Quickstrike, sometimes I just wanted to scrap him myself; his voice is almost as annoying as Wheelie’s. I’d often wondered why he stayed, he had no programmed allegiance; he was neither Maximal nor Predacon. I guess that the alternatives are joining the Maximals, or going freelance. I felt for sure that he was going to side with the rest of the arachnids when he first arrived, but I think that he realised that a life of skulking about in the shadows plotting without action would have driven him as insane as everyone thought I was.

And then there’s Tarantulas. I’d always wondered about if I should have chosen him to help me, but with his credentials he was hard to pass up. I’d always wondered about how he just happened to be in the right place when I was looking for minions. It was almost as if someone had sent him… but that was just being paranoid.

In any case, I never saw him much since the transwarp explosion; he was always there when I’d needed him, but the time that he spent in his lair was worrying. But, I hadn’t seen him for so long that surely if he was still out to take control from me that he would have done it by now. No point on being complacent though

Pity I didn’t still have Scorponok around to deal with him; he was as much of a bootlicker as Inferno. At least I could trust him to keep the spiders in check. I needed that loyalty at the time, but I hadn’t realised how much I’d miss it until he was dead.

How come the Maximals hadn’t lost any of their crew, yet I’d already lost two. I suppose that the bird and the cat sort of counted as lost crew, but who knew what the Vok were doing with them? My intuition told me that I hadn’t seen the last of them yet.
Ah Terrorsaur, he was to be my supplier of the equipment I needed to break into Iacon. Typical street trash; even as he procured me the access codes to the Darkside he was planning on raising the stakes by demanding that I bring him with me, or he’d alert the security forces.

In a way I was glad he was dead; I had enough troops to remind me of Starscream without him around. At least the spiders put some thought into their plans to take control, they didn’t just bust in and point a gun at me. As if that would work.

And then there was the Maximals; our plan would have worked perfectly if Waspinator hadn’t dropped that fusion cutter onto the security system during our escape. Who would have thought that an exploration ship like the Axalon would have had the speed or firepower to bring a patrol-boat like the Darkside down?

Stupid Primal, maybe his caution and reluctance to try anything was why he still had all his crew. His justice and need to do what was right was sickening, but at least he was kind enough to bring along so many of his crew as protoforms; thirty-six Maximals against my original five?

At least I’d scored replacements for Terrorsaur and Scorponok with them. Again there’s irony in that; using his own troops to defeat him.

As for Rhinox, it would have been handy to have him on our side. If only the reprogramming had gone better; a bot with his skills would have been useful.

As for Cheetor, I honestly don’t know how Primal ever chose that child as crew. Same with Rattrap; sure I’d heard all the rumours and stories about him that spread through the underground back home, but after actually meeting him, I’d rather six stupid preds than a bot who would deliberately modulate his voice to have a Brooklyn accent. Stupid humans, it seemed like such a good idea when I tried to destroy them, it’s a pity that I’d let Dinobot live so long.

As for Silverbolt, I’m glad that I got rid of that one; I don’t think I could have taken his ‘white knight’ attitude for much longer. I guess that I’m not the only one in this war to get all the irony; if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have lost the she-spider.

Not that Blackarachnia was much better than Tarantulas, but again it’s a numbers game.

Note to self; the next bot that tries to defect, be sure to scrap them where they stand.

And then there’s Depth Charge. I hadn’t seen that much of him, but from what I’d found, I felt like I liked his style; to be that driven by vengeance and hatred as to chase Rampage across the Galaxy, he would have made a good Pred. It’s a pity though that he’s always tying the crab up when I need him the most though, but maybe after he’s dealt with Rampage he’d consider becoming a Predacon.

“My Queen. I have completed my patrol.”

“Inferno, go shoot yourself would you?”
”Yes my queen.”

“And afterwards, drag yourself to the R tank. Maybe then you’ll learn then to STOP CALLING ME QUEEN.”

“Yes my Queen!”

I wonder if I could somehow use Soundwaves personality chip in Inferno. Anything would be better than this.

“Alert. Multiple Maximal signatures heading this way.”

Typical. Trust Primal to ruin a perfectly good day

“Inferno. Change of plans. Destroy the Maximals.”

“Yes my Queen.”

Maybe it wasn’t such a good day after all. It never was with such idiots to work with.