Subject: [FANFIC 7/10] Lord of the Flies Starring the Transformers Date: Fri, 23 May 1997 00:00:00 GMT From: David Filip Organization: University of Washington Newsgroups: alt.toys.transformers Lord of the Flies Starring the Transformers By David Filip Part 7: Signs and Portents (or "Remember Tomorrow") "Check this out!" Brawn held the special device above his head. "I found this EnerFruit tree stick while we were walking." He pushed an open Swiss Army Matrix onto the edge. "It's only too bad the knife isn't stable on the edge. If we could melt down some metal we could some sharp spears as long range weapons!" First Aid raised his hand to speak, forgetting that his leader didn't have the megaphone. When Starscream nodded to the robot, he spoke. "That looks great, and I'm sure it's good for hunting, but how are we going to make it?" The lead chorister smiled. "This is why we took Wheelie's energon. We'll use it to power up the heat ray, which will melt down some of the metallic trees. Then we'll start an assembly line, and soon all the Quintessons on this island will tremble! We'll all have spears!" The kids in the crowd muttered encouraging statements to each other. "Cool, we'll be able to smash the beastie!" "Nothing's gonna stand in our way!" "Not tonight!" "SPORK! SPAM! SPOON!" Starscream waved his hands to silence the boys. "Now we must prepare to stalk the one true threat on this island...the beastie!" The youths cheered again. "All of the flying Transformers will soon go out on patrol so we can find the beast again. When we see it, we'll try to zap it with the heat ray. Then it will go on the run in a panic. That's when it will make mistakes." "But how are we going to kill it?" Dirge asked. "Yeah," Thrust said, pointing to the metal pole at his hip, "It had a huge rifle that blew away my whole leg. What can our knives do to stop it?" Beachcomber stepped forward to answer this question. "The beast won't see us coming because we'll be camouflaged. Take a look at those plants." The boys followed his pointed blue finger to a series of brightly colored jungle stalks. "These are derivatives of the Jhenera-Shuntoo trees. All we have to do is spatter the sap on ourselves, and we'll blend in with the environment." Skywarp winced at the suggestion. "I don't think I'll try that tactic. The Jhenera-Shuntoo colors look so gaudy..." He observed the terrible mess as Brawl and Ramjet started breaking open the purple Jhenera-Shuntoo stalks and hurled the luminous violet sap at one another. "I'll just go without it." Beachcomber fell onto an orange and green Jhenera-Shuntoo patch in an attempt to avoid Brawl and Ramjet's playful game. After looking at his situation, he laughed. "Well, I guess that's your loss." Afterburner tried to bring the conversation back on track. "Starscream, I checked the heat ray. There's only enough Laconia inside the starter box for one more activation cycle. Unless we don't plan to shut it off, we'll need Bumblebee's cooperation in the future." "Oh, we'll have his...cooperation," Starscream chuckled, "but our new priority is to make a few spears. Start melting raw materials down immediately." Afterburner nodded and stepped to the heat ray as Thrust limped forward. "I can't fly too well in the atmosphere now that the engine in my leg isn't here any more so--" "Don't worry. You can help the others make more spears. The important thing for us to do now is to find the beastie. Get Powerglide and the others to go on patrol at once." "Yes sir." Thrust was apprehensive about asking the next question. "What about Thundercracker. Why didn't we take him with us?" Starscream sighed and placed his hand on Thrust's shoulder. "You know about the telepathy that takes place in a band when we all play and sing in synch. Everyone knows what everyone else is going to do, it's more than just timing. Sometimes it's possible for a really great band to play well on stage, but to have disagreements off stage, and to ignore that bond. I didn't even Thundercracker to join us because I knew he wouldn't come. He'd just go whining to Windcharger about the fact that we're out doing something that wasn't authorized. Thundercracker's a nice guy, but he can't keep our rhythm anymore. He's as useless as a littlun." At seeing the look on Thrust's face, Starscream tried and failed to turn a negative into a positive. "At least you'll be the lead guitarist from now on, right?" The one legged Decepticon shook his head. "I'm not a good soloist, and I never even wanted to be. I just like playing power chords in the background. I'll miss Thundercracker's playing--" "Don't worry about it! I already have a very good guitarist in mind to take his place." Starscream finally succeeded in slightly raising Thrust's spirits. "The band will sound as good as it ever did." "Okay Starscream, you're right," Thrust said with mildly reduced droning. He looked off to the side and noticed that Skywarp and Dirge dragged their instruments along to Starscream's new staging area. "Can we have a jam session once we kill the beast?" "We have to kill it first." "No problem!" Thrust smiled and hobbled off to help Afterburner melt the appropriate metals while the airborne boys left on their scouting mission. * * * "Bah!" Scourge punched another Quintesson angrily. "Can't you fools do anything right? You let the Cybertronians escape." "Unah lemalema doolus." "I guess I'll have to head back to the mainland for an interpreter on the island and contact Unicron for more Sweeps. I can't understand a word you're saying." "Deioh gracia ah ahh," the Quintessons chanted in reply. Suddenly, as Scourge walked away from the crowd of confused Quintessons, something caught his eye. It seemed to be a white fighter jet with large red wings, spattered erratically with purple sap. "They're after me!" In a matter of seconds, Scourge transformed into a space hovercraft and raised up to the same altitude as this fighter jet. "Okay Cybertronian, prepare to die. I don't have much time for this." The Cybertronian fighter jet did not run as Scourge had anticipated, but instead rammed directly into him while generating a steady "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHH!" through the whole impact. After the collision, he heard the same deep voice yell "I bet you didn't expect that, beastie!" Scourge checked his diagnostic computer and noticed that his undercarriage-mounted antigravity generators were struck in this collision. Apparently the Cybertronian vehicle had a specially constructed nose cone to pierce through armor. Scourge transformed into a robot and activated the thrusters on his wings and back to control his fall. He fired his rifle several times at the Cybertronian jet, but each shot was dodged by the expert pilot. "What's wrong, beast? You can't put up a fight with a real contender? I don't really have time for this either, but I have to make sure you don't leave the island so we can nail you good!" Even another swift volley from Scourge's rifle couldn't keep the Cybertronian from another collision. Falling through the cover of the treetops, he let the enemy pilot go in circles, and then to fly off in another direction. "Although I am a master hunter," Scourge thought to himself, "It seems I am now the hunted one." After returning to his hovercraft mode, he realized that his flight systems had been damaged beyond field repair. "I will have to remain a low-flying hovercraft for the time being. Even if they attempt to trap me, I'm sure there's nothing they can do to stop me before I leave. Unless they have the Matrix..." * * * Laserbeak returned to the shelters, where Rumble, Frenzy, Windcharger, Bumblebee and Thundercracker all sat glumly. The Micromasters all but ignored him and continued playing their meaningless games while the robotic condor dropped his familiar cargo. Bumblebee scrambled to his feet as he saw the robot that Laserbeak dropped. "It's Wheelie. He's been hurt." He noticed that either his friends didn't care or were too depressed by past events. "How did this happen, Laserbeak?" Laserbeak clucked for a brief moment. "You mean you just found him? And you say the others drained him of his energy? That's just awful. My Auntie always said that we should--" "Sucks to your Auntie!" Windcharger finally stepped forward, and tried to return to a state of good humor. "I like Wheelie better this way!" Thundercracker didn't catch on. "Are you serious? We can't just leave him like that--" "I guess you're right. Okay guys, let's give his system some EnerFruit. We have to find out what Starscream's bunch is up to." After a moment of processing the EnerFruit through Wheelie's internal systems, the small orange robot sat up. "Oh no! Oh no! After the beastie they go!" Windcharger grabbed Wheelie by the shoulders, handed him the megapohone and shook him. "Wheelie. Wheelie! Where did they go with the P-beam? It's very important!" "The fight draws near, I'm filled with fear--" Rumble and Frenzy leaned forward. "Do you think you could stop rhyming?" "They drained me of energy and took me away, then they'll use the ray gun, kill the beastie and play." Clearly traumatized by the experience, Wheelie couldn't bring himself to add more and handed the megaphone to Windcharger. The other boys quietly considered the information before Windcharger looked about. "Without the ray gun, we won't have a way of signaling anyone. We're definitely stuck here!" Bumblebee thought about the mountain and took the megaphone. "Well the beast is up...up there...so we'll have to do something else. Maybe we'll set a signal fire with the beer we found in storage?" Only Bumblebee possessed the intellectual daring to avoid a confrontation so carefully. Windcharger nodded, paused, and spoke. "If Starscream goes after the beastie, one of two things will happen, both bad. If he doesn't kill the beast, I'm sure the beast will smash the crap out of his followers -- didn't they see what happened to Thrust's leg? And if he--" "What if he does win?" The blue twin interrupted, forgetting the megaphone. "Won't that be, like, a good thing?" "Yeah," the red twin agreed, "that'd be cool. He'd smash the beastie real good." Bumblebee sighed sadly and Windcharger handed the megaphone over. "If Starscream finally gets some credibility, everyone will follow him. No one will listen to Windy, we'll all just run around and hunt the Quints without getting home." Irritated by the thought, Laserbeak clucked. "You're right Laserbeak," Windcharger nodded gravely. "We'll have to confront Starscream. You littluns will have to stay here." The remaining children sat dumbly while the biguns left. * * * "That's it," Afterburner apologized. "We only had the chance to make three spears Starscream. Three and your special spear, that is." "It will be enough. Don't worry about it," the leader smiled, "We'll have a Laconia starter piece here sooner than you think. Besides, it's perfectly sharp and--" Starscream cut himself short when he looked at a transparent molten puddle. "What is that?" First Aid, lifted the flat mass, showing it now to be perfectly solid. "These are the canisters that housed the Quick Burn brand welding fuel. We had to take all of them from Windy's shelters if we wanted our project to get anywhere. I guess some of the plastic containers melted down while the heat ray was used on the metal spears." Starscream reached out to hold the large plastic chunk but Afterburner quickly pushed Starscream's hand away. "You don't what to hold it on the edges!" "Why not?" "This is a really tough plastic material and it melted pretty flat. It will cut you just as fast as any of our knives could--" Starscream smiled evilly but spoke distantly. "Excellent. This will give me the advantage I need..." First Aid and Afterburner looked at each other curiously. "Against the beastie, you mean, right?" "Yes," Starscream answered cryptically. Other thoughts were clearly on his mind. "Just melt these down into darts for Warpath's turret." "Cybertronian kids aren't allowed to carry live ammunition so they couldn't be used as explosive shells," First Aid recalled. "What good will a sharp plastic object do that our knives can't?" "They can have many purposes. Just obey. I'll tell you about it after we get the Laconia and can get the heat ray running again." Starscream maintained his cryptic smile even when Ramjet returned. "Hey! I found the beastie and hit him a couple times! If we run we can catch him!" Skids shot up from his seat. "Tonight we shall drink not wine, not oil, but only EnerBlood!" "Let's get the beast!" Dirge enthused. "Gorjia! Mothra! Rodan!" Warpath shouted excitedly. "We'll smash him faster than Omega smashed the Gobots in the Gobotronian War!" "Yes!" Starscream shouted to his excited masses. "We will first grab our weapons, then destroy the beastie once and for all!" Starscream handed his spear to Dirge, gave two of the new metal spears to Skywarp and Thrust, and kept the one sharpened at both ends for himself. Some of the littluns ran into the forest without weapons or even knowing which direction they could find the beast, some took knives off the pile and waited for Starscream, and others spattered themselves with the Jhenera-Shuntoo paint for camouflage. "I carry a special weapon," Starscream told them, "a spear sharpened at both ends. It will determine the beastie's fate forever! Are you ready to rock!?!" "Yeah!" The kids replied in unison. Louder, Starscream shouted again. "Come on, Quintesson Beach ...SCREAM FOR ME!" "YEAH!" "And which way did you find the beastie?" "He went that-a-way!" Ramjet shouted and pointed in reply. "Then I will lead you that way...TO VICTORY!" Starscream's yell set the excitement to a fever pitch as he dashed to the side. The rest ran in tow. "We're finally going to do it," Beachcomber laughed, "to kill!" "Yeah," Brawn agreed, "I never knew we could have this kind of fun before. This beats a journalism class any day of the week!" The crowd ran off in a trail of dust. Thirty seconds later, Brawl walked to the empty camp. "Hi guys. I just went out for some EnerFruit and...uh...guys..?" * * * "We can not find them, that we clearly see. Why do you use that mean face to look at me?" Wheelie asked as the boys trudged through the jungle. "I'm sorry," Windcharger admitted, "I'm not in the mood for your rhymes today. It's just annoying as hell." Wheelie frowned and attempted another poem. "As I sit, broken hearted--" "Really, it's enough. No one wants to hear your rhymes." "So says you," Wheelie replied, "but what else am I to do?" "Just let me think for a while without hearing a rhyme--" Thundercracker tried to ease the tension between a puff of his sickly sweet EnerWeed. "Maybe if you only tried to rhyme certain words like--" Frenzy suggested "Orange." Rumble added "Silver." "Or try rhyming barnacle," Bumblebee joined in. "Just make sure you use a proper rhyme scheme. We'll have none of those near-rhymes." "Sure, I'm painted orange but I....I..." Wheelie stammered uncontrollably and closed his mouth for the remainder of the hike. "Thanks guys," Windcharger told his friends, "I'll have to remember to use that kind of trick in the next time Wheelie gets really annoying. I guess it's just as well that--" "Hey! Windy! 'Beak! Thundercracker!" A voice yelled at them from the forest and came stumbling through the trees to greet the kids. "Brawl!" Bumblebee shouted in recognition and astonishment. "We all thought you joined Starscream's bunch." The green tank robot scratched his gray head. "Uh...yeah, so I did. I guess I'm missing out on the fun again, right?" Windcharger stepped forward and placed both hands on Brawl's shoulders. "This is deadly serious stuff. Where is Starscream right now. It's very important that you tell me." Not accustomed to such importance Brawl stuttered before answering. "They...ur...uh...kind of left. I was just...uh...peeling some EnerFruit at the time, but the skin was really thick. When I, uh, got back...everyone was gone." "All of them?" Bumblebee stepped forward. "Well...yeah. I saw some littluns running around, but they all seemed to be going in different directions. All the spears and stuff they made with the heat ray was stolen too." Windcharger was livid. "They made SPEARS?" "The spears are cool!" Brawl defended his friends. "Afterburner and First Aid got the heat ray and welding gear going so we melted some metal and we're making our own hunting weapons. They're ever so sharp--" "This is bad. This is very bad," Thundercracker muttered to himself while the pink smoke from the EnerWeed filtered through his lips. "There may still be some time to stop Starscream." This time Windcharger gripped Brawl's head with both hands. "Think. Did you see anything unusual before you returned to the heat ray?" "I did!" Brawl seemed happy to help. "I saw Ramjet coming back from his patrol, and he was yelling something. He was too far away to hear, but he seemed pretty thrilled." Laserbeak lowered his head and whined. "I know Laserbeak," Bumblebee slowly whispered, "It probably is too late." "I refuse to believe this," Windcharger started pacing. "We can't be out of options. Brawl, do you think you can find your way back to the camp where the heat ray is located?" "Not likely. I get lost pretty easily." "Well," Wheelie started cautiously, "every cloud has a lining of silver, but this one seems...well...ur..." Windcharger spoke while he turned, but quickly caught himself. "Wheelie, we told you that if you were going to--What the hell? Did the rest of you see that?" Frenzy looked off to both sides. "What?" "Let's fan out," Windcharger ordered. "I saw a flash of light that way. Maybe it's someone coming to rescue us." "I didn't see anything--" Rumble complained. "Well I saw it!" their leader spoke impatiently. "We have to take a look. It came from behind the trees that way." "Maybe it was the beastie?" Bumblebee asked hesitantly. "It couldn't have been. It was different somehow. We'll search the jungle and meet back at the shelters in five minutes so we can make a plan to deal with Starscream." The children grumbled their compliance and spread out. It didn't take long to look through the jungle before Windcharger heard Brawl yell. "Heeeeeeeelp! Heeeeeeeeelp!" Following the tank-robot's distinctive voice, Windcharger broke through the thicket to find Brawl in a patch of quicksand. "Can't you pay attention to the world for just a second?" After quickly turning a vine into a lasso, he tossed it onto Brawl's neck and dragged him out. Brawl struggled and coughed, but his armored neck easily supported his body's weight. "Thanks man, I really--" Brawl suddenly found himself interrupted by his own voice. "Hey Windy, long time no see! Wow! It's me!" Windcharger and Brawl slowly looked up from the sand to see two robots through the EnerFruit trees. One they recognized as Swindle, Cybertron's famous ambassador and business tycoon. The other appeared to be just like Brawl. Both had suffered scratches from a battle, with this new Brawl's most noticeable wound as a Sharkticon bite pattern around his left shoulder. Brawl held a small electronic box and Swindle displayed a slight effort to swipe it away. "Wha...what's going on?" Windcharger stammered. Swindle cringed, looked to the Brawl who stood next to him and sighed. "I don't really want to bore you with the details but--" His comrade interrupted him excitedly. "We're from the future! I'm Future Brawl and this is Future Swindle! Isn't this great? What's going on my past pals?" The younger Brawl's faceplate grinned. "Cool! What's life like in the future? Is the air clean? Did you get booster jets to fly? Or a memory upgrade? Is Melrose Place going to blow up in a commercial again?" Swindle frowned and shook his head then attempted to swipe the control box, but Brawl's older counterpart moved his arm. He attempted to answer these questions until he was interrupted. "Well we're not so far ahead of you that we know anything like that, but we found the truth! The truth about Cybertron's creation! It was really--" Swindle slapped his fellow time traveler. "There's a time for the truth, Brawl, and there's a time to let me do the talking. We can't just tell secrets like this to anyone! It would shake our society from every level down to its foundation!" "But I can tell me, can't I?" "No you can't." Windcharger thought carefully before asking his next question. "Well, can you tell us anything about the island? Where is Starscream now? What traps and tricks will he pull? What do we have to know to survive?" Swindle shrugged as a signal for Brawl's futuristic counterpart to speak. "I kept meaning to get that memory upgrade, but I didn't yet. Let's see...Starscream already killed the beast, I remember that," Brawl started to rub his chin. "He's making a lot of metal spears, Wheelie is going to become an evil stooge of the Quintessons and try to kill you... Oh! This is important! You don't have to look out for Starscream as much as Warpath. He's the one who will really cripple you--" "The timer is running out you know," Swindle tapped his foot. "Fine," Brawl sighed and held the controller out so Swindle could also touch it. "It was cool to see me again." "Me too!" The younger Brawl chimed in. A white light enveloped the time travelers until their images started to fade. Swindle rolled his eyes as Future Brawl happily waved goodbye. After ten astroseconds, they disappeared. Windcharger and Brawl gripped each other's shoulders. "Did you see that?" Brawl beamed, "we're going to make it off the island! My future self told me so! "Yeah," Windcharger said, his mood suddenly changing. "You'll make it off the island for sure. I'm just a little worried about the rest of us." * * * Again in their own time, Brawl and Swindle returned to the lab. "I don't believe this," Swindle shook his head, "but we actually survived." Brawl suddenly frowned. "Yeah we did, but..." "What's wrong?" Brawl paused. His gravely voice was as quiet and grim it had ever been. "I tried to warn them but it all happened, just as I remembered it." Suddenly his voice returned to its usual state of gruff, innocent ignorance. "Wait a second. How did it happen again?" Swindle punched him hard in the arm. "You idiot! Isn't it bad enough that you polluted the timestream with graffiti? You created so many paradoxes throughout the universe that we're lucky even to EXIST! And now you're complaining because you couldn't change the events that happened on one small damn island? You're a moron!" "Hmmm, I guess there were so many paradoxes that they canceled each other out." "Nah," Swindle replied, much more forgiving, "time travel just doesn't work. The whole concept was flawed from the beginning. How long were we gone guys?" Scavenger shifted in his seat. "We didn't even see you leave." "That just goes to show you--" Swindle said with a laugh. "Wait...I should have told myself to look out for Skywarp," Brawl mused. "You can worry about it later," Scrapper suggested. "Now could you please unchain the rest of us?" * * * Rumble giggled at the story of time travel. "Maybe it was a hallucination. You two were downwind from Thundercracker's EnerWeed joint." "No, no, this was real." Windcharger continued to look around. "Brawl and I both saw it, it can't be some kind of hallucina--" The blue and black guitarist looked at the glowing joint between his fingers. "Well I have seen premonitions of the future with this, but only when I take a long draw on it--" "Who has the megaphone anyway? Listen to me guys," Windcharger said more harshly. "This thing about time travel is real. I can't see why Brawl or Ambassador Swindle would lie to us from the future. Starscream and the others are going to make a lot of high quality spears to use against us. We're also supposed to watch out for Warpath for some reason, but I don't know why. As dumb as it sounds, we'll also have to watch out for Quintessons who can control us. Specifically you, Wheelie." Bumblebee leaned forward and took the megaphone. "Isn't that what Starscream wants? For us to fear the Quintessons so we can consider it a matter of civic duty to kill them?" "We don't have to fear anyone except ourselves. We just have to make sure Starscream doesn't get what he wants--" Excited yelling in the distance cut Windcharger off in mid sentence. "I guess it's pointless to try anything now," Bumblebee mused sadly. "Starscream's hunt has begun. We can only hope no one gets hurt." -----David Filip------------------------ grimlock@u.washington.edu ----- Are you tired of conformity on the internet? You can rebel against the culture of the net in four easy steps! 1) Thank and encourage crossposters. 2) Discuss politics politely. 3) Support censorship. 4) Praise Apple Computers, Intel, Microsoft, AOL and the entertainment industry for a job well done.