- Runner up for Funniest Comedy '03 and runner-up for Most Loved Character (Starath's chibis) '04

By: Varyn

Story #1: Friday: Robots in bad disguises…

It was the sort of dream one has after they spend about 11 hours straight on Friday night watching Beast Wars videos and eating the strangest types of pizza imaginable (Mediterranean chicken? Whazzuh?)…

A large, whirling void that slowly dissolves into a baboon that has a better grasp trigonometry than you do, and a mad-scientist type with a tie-died lab coat who is desperately trying to teach a squid to ride a tricycle.

And you are sure the crux of the matter is that you have absolutely *no* idea what the word ‘trigonometry’ actually means.

And somewhere in the mix, Varyn herself appears, standing on the crystal-clear blue floors and gazing up at the immaculately polished tiles in the sky. Not being quite sure whether she is lying on the floor or falling on the sky, she sits up cautiously. She tries asking the baboon for directions, but he has digressed into hooting and screeching about algorithms. How mature.

And it just so happens that the mad scientist only speaks Estonian.

However, with a little persuasion and a mention of her taste for sushi, Varyn finds that the squid is perfectly coherent. In a slight Yorkshire accent, he tells her to go past the chess-playing budgies and veer left at the tomato tree that only grows coconuts. Poor Varyn nearly managed all this before realizing that tomatoes don’t grow on trees, and that coconuts don’t wear sweaters.

That’s when the escalator opened up under her, propelling her down into a large vortex generously bedecked with a neon sign saying: Get Help, before it gets you.

Then even the escalator got bored of its type-cast role, called its agent, and promptly vanished like so many loyal TF fans in the wake of Beast Machines.

Luckily, as far as dreams of falling go, this one did not end badly. In but a moment our intrepid dreamer found herself standing outside the entrance of a bar called ‘The Portal’. It had large, friendly letters on the door loudly proclaiming: "Good Friends Come and Go, but Drinks Accumulate."

Seeing as this was about the only thing thus far that made any real sense, Varyn happily bounded through the door and into another world entirely.

Once inside, she was greeted by Rattrap, Dinobot, Cheetor, and Optimus; all of whom were dressed up to resemble used car salesmen. Not surprisingly, this garb seemed to suit Rattrap somehow. Dinobot, however, looked supremely miffed.

"Hey" Varyn advised "It could have been worse. You could have come here dressed as the Village People."

"Yeah, and gotten the slag beat right outta us!" Rattrap commented with his usual cheery take on the situation.

The others were by now ripping off their cheap suits, fake moustaches, and general air of sleaziness.

"So, um, what the heck are you ‘bots doing here? For that matter, what am I doing here?" Varyn asked, sounding slightly like she did not want to know the answer. "I mean, shouldn’t you all be trying to blow each other up, or at least be making a corny speech or two?"

"My speeches are NOT corny, they are filled with eloquent leader-like wisdom!" Chimed in Optimus.

" ‘Den how’d ya know she was referrin’ ta you, big ape?" the Rat inquired.

Optimus merely fidgeted, and before he could say any thing in his defense, Rattrap piped up again:

"Ya see, miss V, we was getting’ bored sittin’ around blastin’ the Preds—yeah, I nevva thought I’d get bored a’ dat, but here we are!—So we decided ta take one of those ‘weekend’ things you love so much. It’s a good ting ya dream about bars—gee, dat sounds funny—cuz it let us use The Portal space-time bar ta cross from our dimension ta yours. And hey lookee, we even went and made ya inta one of US!"

With that Rattrap opened up his arm-compartment and pulled out a mirror (with Cheetor snickering in the background "Gee, does he keep a makeup case in there too?" The other Maximals shudder. Rattrap just pretends they don’t exist)

With a feeling of impending doom, Varyn checks out her reflection to find out she is indeed like them, a tallish black and green ‘bot with a raptor beast mode.

"I, am, umm, flattered but…I can’t walk around looking like this in my dimension!! Wouldn’t it have made more sense for YOU to become like ME??? As in HUMANS like the other 6 BILLION people on my planet?!?!"

"Meh…We tried dat, but it didn’t work out…Choppuhface looked like a lumberjack and Spots, well, he had spots no amount ’a Oxy could evva cure…"

Just then Dinobot piped up:

"And we will not deign to mention that Rattrap had buck teeth, carrot-red hair, and HUGE glasses…"

"HEY HEY HEY!! YOU was the one wearin’ PLAID and OVERALLS!! I wouldn’t judge dere, you over-grown, under-evolved budgie!!!"

"It wasn’t MY fault, I didn’t get to CHOOSE what I wore, and if you call me overgrown one more time just because you yourself neglected to reach an appropriate height I’ll take your misshapen little head and shove it where--"

*CLLLAAAAAA AAAAAA AAAAAANG*

With a sudden jolt Varyn was awakened, safely back in her own dimension, lying on the couch she had fallen asleep on while watching BW tapes.

Not being the sort who knows what’s good for herself, Varyn had jumped at the chance offered to her by Starath (fellow BW fan, Pred to be reckoned with, and the best sort of friend you could ever hope to have) to babysit Chibi Rampage. After all, it was a calm spring weekend, the rest of her family was gone, out to her uncle’s cottage…What could possibly go wrong? Perfect situation to spend some quality chibi-time, right?

Riiiiiggggghhhhhht….

Since then he had eaten everything that even looked like a cracker (And several things that hadn’t); and had caused Varyn to guard the freezer relentlessly just in case there was chicken in there (The chibi loves chickens…Alive. Eating them is a biiiiigggg no-no!).

Varyn rushed upstairs to find that the chibi had fallen off a chair near the fridge, which had knocked over the large flower-vase on top of the fridge, and now there was a chibi with a vase on his head racing around, waving his arms, and trailing flowers everywhere. Furthermore, the kitchen door was open, and mud and snow had been tracked all over the floor. The rabbit, an albino named Flopsy, was nowhere to be seen and the door to his cage was wide open.

"What have you DONE?" Varyn asked, almost more to the mess than to the chibi.

"Mmmmrrrrmmfff mrrrm ffffrrr frrr mmmmmfffff."

Ah yes, the vase.

When the it was safely removed, the chibi was slightly more coherent. Slightly.

"Well, the vase sort of fell on my head while I was building something I had to build…"

"Build? That’s odd, I don’t see anything that’s been built."

"Oh, well, it had to be built in the freezer ‘cuz it’s made of snow."

"Snow??? Why snow?"

"That’s what igloos are made of!"

A slow sense of doom was tingling at the back of Varyn’s neck.

"Ummm…Yes, they are, but—"

"What?"

"Why on earth would you be building an igloo?!"

"Oh because arctic bunnies need something like that too live in, and all the snow outside is melting, so I thought I had better make one in a place that would keep it safe."

"That’s logical, I suppose, but we’re too far south to even be near any arctic bun—Oh you didn’t--"

Varyn dashed off to the freezer and tore open the door…Sure enough, there was Flopsy, shivering inside an igloo. She pulled him out and wrapped him in a nice warm towel, saying:

"Rampage! This is NOT an arctic rabbit!"

"Of course he is! He’s white to blend in with the snow!"

"He’s an albino!!!"

"He’s all by what now?"

"Just trust me, he is not an arctic rabbit! Now, go start cleaning up this mess while I warm him up."

Luckily, he seemed to be ok. As Varyn carried him back to his cage, she wondered why she still did not feel entirely relieved. That strange dream from last night was still tugging at the edges of her mind. There was something weird, something not quite right, going on here--something even weirder, that is, than being visited by a chibi and having to rescue your pet rabbit from the freezer…But Varyn couldn’t quite place what it was…

As she lowered her bunny back into his cage, she caught her rather odd face being reflected back to her by her two shiny metal arms.

Something was not quite right at all…