"I didn’t do it!" Depth Charge and Tarantulas looked at each other in surprise after they had chorused that together.

I glared at them from the front-seat door to The Beast. "I KNOW you didn’t do it," I growled at them. Well, okay, so I wasn’t so sure Tarantulas hadn’t done it, but how could he? He had buried himself in the doggy bag Grandma had given him as soon as we had gotten into the van. The munching sounds had been kind of irritating...

Besides, I didn’t think any of the Beast Warriors would voluntarily get near The Beast, much less sabotage the evil vehicle.

"The sparkplugs are fried," Rolland said from where he was working under the hood. "This van isn’t going anywhere until they’re replaced."

"Thrillsville," I sighed. I mournfully looked down at my cute little sandals (bought at the insistence of my mother for the express purpose of being worn to church). "Another pair of shoes bites the dust," I muttered to no one in particular.

"Why?" Optimus asked curiously. "They look fine to me."

I sighed again. "They won’t look so great after we’re done walking, what," I considered, "three miles? No, two and a half." That’s how far it was to the house. Grrrrr...why did The Beast choose to stop running HERE? It was the middle of a road through a swamp! The mosquitoes had already decided I was their lunch!

"Walk?" Rattrap asked cautiously when I didn’t elaborate.

I leaned over and opened the back door. "Everybody out. We’re gonna get some exercise."

"Wazzzpinator tired! Wazzpinator want to fly!"

I lifted an eyebrow. Was it worth freaking out anyone who passed us on the road to shut the wasp up? I considered. What would I do if I saw a little kid flying?

"No, Waspinator," I said calmly. I did NOT want to get the police involved in my life, and innocent passer-bys didn’t deserve to be put in the Funny Farm.

"What about me?" Silverbolt asked. He probably wanted to give Blackarachnia a ride, and who KNOWS what THAT would lead to...

"No." The fuzor and black widow both gave me disappointed looks.

"Can I transform to my tank mode?" Rampage asked hopefully.

I smiled (he flinched. Grrr...). "Only if you give Depth Charge a ride," I said smoothly. The ray-bot was NOT used to walking, and he was currently telling that to everyone who hadn’t yet shut out his whining. Yeesh! I hadn’t thought Depth Charge was such a wimp!

Rampage and Depth Charge eyed each other. "I’ll keep walking," the crab said quickly. He snickered at the ray-bot’s tired look. "Poor little Fishy..."

"Die!"

I sighed and thought about breaking up the fight. You’d think they would have learned some manners from Nursery this morning, but noooooo...

"Get back down here!" I yelled at Terrorsaur as he flew by overhead.

"Aw..."

"Don’t think I don’t see what you’re doing, Megatron!" I glared at the Predacon, and he reluctantly powered down his jets and started walking again. I snarled right back at the Transmetal T-Rex and marched forward again.

My feet were KILLING me. I was going to have blisters all over the sides of them from these stupid sandals...

"Er, aren’t you going to separate DC and Rampage?" Cheetor asked me tentatively.

"No." Let them fight. Hopefully, they’d roll onto the road and get hit by a semi. Two less brats to babysit!

Yeesh, I was sure in a bloody frame of mind...

"Wait for us!" came the faint call from far behind us as the two enemies finally noticed we had left them behind. Took them long enough!

I glanced back and snorted with laughter. Depth Charge was looking after us with a pathetic look on his face. Apparently he didn’t like the thought of running to catch up with us. Of course, he was also sitting on Rampage’s back at the moment, and the crab looked ready to kill him. So when Depth Charge started to stand up, Rampage threw him off and tried to strangle him...

I kept walking. Maybe they’d get lost if I wasn’t around to get them back to the house...

No such luck. Drat! They had caught back up with us by the time we reached the end of the street. Depth Charge was riding on top of Rampage’s vehicle mode...

I didn’t even WANT to know what he had done to convince the crab to give him a lift. I just wanted to get HOME...

By the time I actually arrived at the house, I wanted to be back out walking, blisters and all. I hate my computer.

"TIM, just give me the slagging message," I sighed.

The silver supercomputer in front of me showed a cute little happy face. "Unable to process the message at this time," TIM lied smoothly.

Uh-huh. "And why can’t you?" I asked. "The original Tim never had any problems with it!" I smirked. "Or can’t you just admit that Tim was a better computer than you?"

I swear the little happy face on the screen growled at me. "Very well. Processing now." TIM sounded a little ticked off. Good.

I leaned against the wall while I waited. So much for a peaceful Sunday afternoon...

When the Beast Warriors and I had gotten home from my Grandma’s house, TIM had been calling for me. He did that by setting off all of the alarms he had; I had almost been deafened by the blaring of the sirens. THAT had jerked me out of the pleasant half-daze I had been in.

It had taken me a couple minutes to actually find the source of all the noise...and then TIM refused to give me the message he said he had received from HASBRO. His reasons and excuses had changed each time I asked for the thing, so I KNEW the supercomputer was lying to me. That made me angry...

...which seemed to be TIM’s goal in my life, so far. ARGH.

"Processing done."

I blinked. "Huh. That was quick." I moved to see the screen again, but it was blank. "TIM..."

"You didn’t say the magic word."

I gritted my teeth. "Axe."

Apparently TIM couldn’t follow my logic in that. "Axe?"

"As in, there’s one in the garage."

"Ah." This time he seemed to understand my threat, because the screen filled with words:

Dear Lady Dementia,

The HASBRO/Vok negotiations are finished.

The Vok agreed to sell HASBRO the planet for a

large price, allowing the Beast Warriors to have a

permanent retirement home. Until the Vok are able

to remove all of their possessions from the planet,

though, the Beast Wars characters must remain with

you. However, we at HASBRO have noticed how

much money it takes for you to support the Beast

Warriors, and have come up with a more...agreeable

solution. A dimensional portal will be set up in a room of

your choice in THIS dimension, allowing you and the

Beast Warriors to move from one dimension to the

other when necessary. The Vok have requested that

all of you not be in that dimension when they are, so

the Beast Warriors will occasionally have to stay in

your house.

Sincerely,

HASBRO

"Drat. Drat! DRAT!" I kicked a chair and didn’t even notice the pain from my foot. HASBRO had weaseled out of sending a representative to confront me! No fair! And here I had been spending as much of the company’s money as I could...

The evil laughter eventually penetrated my fuming. What was...TIM?

Oh. My. Insanity.

I had forgotten about what the evil computer had promised to do to the Beast Warriors’ computers. I did NOT want to have to get in a fight today! And it was practically guaranteed that if Megatron found out ALL of Tarantulas and Terrorsaur’s plots, there’d be a fight...not to mention a couple of deaths...

So much for my peaceful Sunday afternoon. Actually, the ‘peaceful’ part of the afternoon had probably died back at Grandma’s house.

I looked at the purple swirly thing in my closet doubtfully. This...was it? Somehow, I had expected more. I turned to the Beast Wars munchkins and shrugged. "Okay, we might as well try it out. Any volunteers?"

I heard crickets chirping in the background. Hey, I thought crickets only chirped at night...

I rolled my eyes and walked forward. A moment of disorientation, and then--

I was in my closet. Er, sort of. This was my closet as the Vok had left it, a crushed and burned mound of building materials. I took one step and twisted my ankle.

"OW!" I lifted my blistered foot still in its cute little sandal and looked at my already-swelling ankle. "Crud!"

"Hahahahaha!"

"Shut up, TIM," I grumbled. That was one thing I’d have to get used to again; the evil computer had speakers everywhere in this dimension. Then another thought hit me. "TIM...why aren’t my shields up?" If my shields were up like they were SUPPOSED to be in this dimension, then I wouldn’t have twisted my ankle. In fact... "Where’s my subspace compartment?"

There was a moment of silence. Then, "Oops?"

"Right," I said sarcastically. Now, WHY didn’t I believe that it was ‘accidental’ TIM hadn’t immediately put up my shields? I mean, in my home dimension shielding wasn’t possible. But in this one, it was supposed to be part of the original Tim’s programming to put shields around me and supply subspace compartments for my ‘Freakin’ Huge Guns’.

There was a beep, and suddenly I just KNEW I had subspace pockets and shields. It’s a strange feeling to explain. You just...know. Sort of like when you go insane...

Unfortunately, my ankle still hurt. Grrr...

"TIM, can you fix the house?" I asked the rubble in the direction the computer room used to be in.

"Yes. It will take some time, however, and will require my full attention."

"Hmmm..." I glanced around. This place was pretty much useless for me to live in. I’d have to bring over supplies just to survive for a while until TIM could start doing that. "Okay. I’ll get everybody to come over into this dimension, and I’ll start bringing stuff over." Lemme see, chocolate, more chocolate, painkillers...

I mentally listed things that I knew from experience I would need while I carefully turned around to go back into the dimensional portal (I had to change out of this stupid pink dress and these slagging sandals, too). My ankle twinged again, and I sighed.

Ankle brace...

A frying pan? What was a frying pan doing under my bed?

I puzzled over that as I threw the flat metal cooking utensil up onto the bed and dove back under. I had the chocolate, the painkillers, and most of the other junk I would need. Now I just had to fish the stupid ankle brace out from under the bed where it had somehow migrated to.

Cheetor had mentioned seeing the thing under my bed while playing with my cats. He waited until I had just about lost my last bit of sanity looking for it in all the cabinets and whatnot in the house before telling me, so I hadn’t exactly been grateful. I HAD remembered to say ‘thank you’ before throwing him through the dimensional portal, though...

Ah-HA! There it--no, that was another coat hanger. I swear, the things breed and produced offspring when I’m not looking. I threw it up on top of the bed with the rest of its brethren. Of course, I still didn’t have a clue as to how things like that keep ending up underneath my bed. I mean, how did an ankle brace and a frying pan even get in my room?!

At least I wasn’t wearing that dress anymore. I had a pair of hugely baggy jean shorts with big pockets on because I was figuring on filling them with supplies, and a white T-shirt. I was planning on writing ‘Alien Experiment Gone Wrong’ on it later in something more permanent than the blue marker I had already used, in honor of my Vok abduction and cloning. What better way to pay tribute to my dead clones?

"Help!"

I yanked my head up in alarm and slammed my head up against the board at the bottom of my bed. "Ow!" I jerked back out from under the bed and looked up at the originator of the shout for help.

Tarantulas fled around the end of the bed and cowered on the other side, opposite my closet door. He was in ‘munchkin mode’ because TIM automatically shrunk the transformers who came through the dimensional portal...and he looked completely terrified. "Lady Dementia, he’s gonna kill me!" he yelled.

"Who?" I asked practically, rubbing the back of my head.

"Rampage!"

"Huh?" I raised an eyebrow and shot a look at the serene purple portal. It was undisturbed. "Why?" I couldn’t think of any real reason the crab would be trying to kill Tarantulas. Well, besides the fact that Rampage was a homicidal maniac. I had actually thought that the two of them were getting along pretty well, what with their mutual hatred of Megatron and all...

But apparently not.

Tarantulas squirmed. "TIM sent Megatron copies of my plans," he admitted in a small voice. "Terrorsaur’s hiding in the Maximal base, but I was too far away to get there in time."

Okay, so TIM’s full attention was NOT on rebuilding the house, like he had said it was. Grrrr...I did not need this right now...

Right about then Rampage and Megatron stepped through the portal. They both looked about ready to bite someone’s head off. Well, Rampage looked like he specifically wanted to bite MEGATRON’S head off, but Megatron just looked ticked. Tarantulas yelped and ducked behind the bed again.

"What’s going on?" I asked tiredly.

Megatron scowled. "This is none of your business, Lady Dementia."

Ooo, WRONG thing to say to me. "Rampage?" I growled madly.

All the Predacons straightened to attention involuntarily at my tone of voice. "Yeah?" Rampage asked cautiously.

"Why exactly are you going to kill Tarantulas?"

The crab jerked his thumb in Megatron’s direction. "This bozo wants me to--AAAA!" He shrieked as Megatron dragged out Rampage’s spark-box and compressed it.

"Megatron!" I hurled the coat hanger collection at him. "Cut that out!"

"Yipes!" The tyrant tried to dodge the incoming barrage of wires, but that only resulted in him getting even more tangled up. The spark-box went flying and landed on the bed.

"Yes!" Rampage laughed and grabbed for his spark.

I snatched it up before he could and stuffed it into one of my pockets to deal with later. "Oh, I don’t think so." Yeah, that’s all I needed. ANOTHER maniac on the loose... "I claim this spark-box in the name of The Demented Angel and continued peace and quiet. Er, something like that." Peace and quiet? Yeah, RIGHT. I had already had to settle a couple of arguments in the BW dimension using the firm application of a FHG to the ‘bots who were fighting.

But around here, I guess that IS peace and quiet...

"Aw," Rampage whined. "No fair! Now I’m under the control of another tyrant and madman!" I glared at him. "Um..."

"Why you little--" I grabbed the frying pan off the bed and whapped him over the head with it. "MadMAN?!" I got up and chased the crab around the room while Megatron fled back through the portal and Tarantulas tried to crawl under the bed. I was waving the pan over my head crazily. "Do I look MALE to you?!"

Yeesh, some people...

"I think we’ve got it all..." I checked things off of the list I had made. "Chocolate?"

"Check." Tarantulas poked the five-pound bar of Hershey’s Chocolate. "You’re really going to eat all this?"

I shrugged and nodded. "In one sitting, probably." I read the next item off. "Painkillers?"

"Tylenol, right?" Rampage held up the empty butter tub I use instead of those dinky bottles Tylenol comes in. I mean, c’mon! 25 pills per bottle means a LOT of bottles for me! So I just buy the bottles in bulk and empty them into the 5 lb. butter containers I also buy in bulk (lets hear it for Sam’s Club!). Saves space. Aren’t I thrifty?

"Check." I put a little check mark on the list. "Hmm...ankle brace. I still have to find that stupid ankle brace!" I sighed and resigned myself to walking on a painfully puffy ankle for a while. Oh, but that reminded me... "Hey, TIM!" I yelled.

My bedroom door was open, so the evil supercomputer heard me. "What?" it called back.

"Can you move the portal until so that I don’t walk out onto a pile of rubble?" It was an ankle death-trap...

"Yes."

"Great! Do it, please." I gathered up the frying pan and coat hangers to put to the side, but I paused as I turned around to face my closet. The dimensional portal had changed colors to a sickly green/yellow. Eew...

"Um, are we supposed to carry this stuff across?" Tarantulas asked. "I think Megatron might be waiting for me..."

"Too bad," I said casually, but then I chuckled and added, "for Megatron. I have bigger guns than he does. Don’t worry, you’ll be safe."

"Lady Dementia!"

"Oh, wonderful." Rampage picked up the tub of painkillers. "Fish Face is gonna come bother us." He grumbled something rude to the affect that Depth Charge’s off-duty hobbies are better not spoken of in public. Don’t even think about asking for anything more specific, because I am NOT repeating that! I think Rampage picked up a lot of interesting language from the Jerry Springer Show last night...

I rolled my eyes, but since the ray-bot was on pet-duty for today I stayed behind as Rampage and Tarantulas walked towards the portal. Lusha came running into the room and straight for the portal. That was exactly why I had assigned someone to keep an eye on the pets, because I didn’t want my poor dog and cats running around in the BW dimension. I felt better knowing that they were safely in MY dimension.

I dropped the coat hangers and caught my dog by the collar with my now-free hand. "Lusha! Sit!" I struggled to hold onto my hyperactive dog while Depth Charge ran into the room. Unfortunately for me, Lusha had dug her feet into the carpet and was determinedly dragging herself AND me towards the portal. I was attempting to hold onto her collar with one hand still holding the frying pan, so that gave her some additional leverage against me.

Rampage and Tarantulas stepped through the eerily yellow/green portal just then, right as Lusha stuck her nose into it. She jerked her head back immediately and I gasped as I heard, very faintly, two screams come from the portal. What the..?

Lusha backpedaled frantically right into my legs, screwing up my balance since I was straining backwards on her collar. I let go of her collar in shock and started to fall backwards--onto Depth Charge, who was just skidding to a halt behind me. He squeaked in surprise as I started to fall on him, then put all his running momentum into a shove that was probably MEANT to keep me on my feet. Instead, I overbalanced and stumbled forward, frying pan still in hand...

...into the dimensional portal.

The good news was that TIM had done what I had asked. I didn’t walk out of the portal onto a pile of rubble. In fact, I didn’t walk at all.

I fell.

I was able to twist in mid-air so that I landed on my feet, which meant I landed on my sprained ankle, which meant I yelled really loud because I STILL hadn’t found that slagging ankle brace and landing really hard on a sprained ankle HURTS. Fortunately, the dimensional portal had spit me out only about ten feet up in the air. Unfortunately, I cracked my skull against the ground when I sat down quickly because my ankle screamed at me that it was really impolite for me to make it support all that weight. Ow!

And that was the good news.

The bad news, of course, was that TIM had done EXACTLY what I had asked. That meant that, no, I didn’t land on a pile of rubble, but, yes, I did land in the middle of a battle involving the Maximals and Predacons. Not the Maximals and Predacons I knew and annoyed, though. I knew TM2 Cheetor, and the one in THIS fight was only Transmetal...

And I was certain Depth Charge had not somehow gotten through the portal, somehow found where I had hidden his weaponry, and engaged in mortal combat with Rampage all in the time it had taken me to fall. For that matter, how had all the others found their weapons? I was SURE no one would think to check in my underwear drawer...

The fight between the factions had broken off when I had fallen out of the sky, apparently, so as I blinked at all of them, the Maximals and Predacons blinked right back. I sighed and decided that I’d try ignoring the problem. Who knows? Maybe for once it would go away...although that theory hasn’t worked on my brothers yet.

Hey, I could hope, couldn’t I?

I started to stand up slowly as I took inventory of my injuries. By the time I had straightened up, I was determined to demand Hazardous Duty Pay from HASBRO. My ankle was most definitely sprained, and I could hardly put any weight at all on it. My head was killing me. I had an interesting assortment of scrapes and bruises. My temper was VERY frayed at this point.

I still had the frying pan, though. My hip had a spectacular bruise from landing on it. Well, I had landed on the pan AND the corner of a certain small box...

I noticed the Maximals and Predacons were still staring. "What’re YOU looking at?!" I snarled at them.

Have you ever been in a situation where you know that you should be scared to death, and you’re so angry you couldn’t care less? I was in a situation like that. I obviously didn’t have any shields, I could tell I didn’t have any subspace pockets (read: no FHG), and I was surrounded by transformers with big guns.

Yeah, well, I have a frying pan, so watch out!

Speaking of my frying pan, there was something I had to do. "You!" I pointed at Depth Charge, who had actually stopped trying to kill Rampage long enough to stare at me. I carefully limped over and glared up at him. "C’mere!"

He leaned down curiously. "What?"

*Bang!*

"Ow!"

"That’s for getting me into this mess," I growled at the ray-bot, who now had a nice flat spot on his head where I had hit him with the pan. I squinted, trying not to succumb to the black dots that were dancing across my vision. Ooo, I must have hit my head harder than I thought...

I dizzily looked around as a nagging thought interrupted my glaring at Depth Charge. "Tarantulas? Rampage? Are you guys okay?"

"I’m alright," Tarantulas said faintly from somewhere off to the side. "I landed on your chocolate bar. Er, sorry, but it’s kinda squished."

"My chocolate!" I wailed despairingly. I reined in my grief over the ruined chocolate as Rampage said something from...behind me? "Say again?" I asked as I turned to look.

Yep, there was Rampage. All two of him.

"I said, I’m still really small. Am I supposed to still be like this?" Rampage the munchkin was standing in front of his giant twin, who was staring down at him with an incredibly hilarious stunned-bunny look on his face. Actually, most of the Maximals and Predacons had that same look...I just hadn’t noticed because I hurt so much.

Wow. I didn’t know Megatron’s jaw could unhinge that far.

Then it hit me. "Oh. My. Insanity." Unconsciousness beckoned, and I gladly went towards it. "There’s TWO of him..." I dimly heard myself say as I fainted dead away.

Mmm...warm. I like being warm.

It occurred to me that I was lying on something hard and flat. So what? I was WARM. Warm, warm, warm.

After a little while, it also occurred to me that someone was calling my name. Should I respond? Nah. Nice and warm...

"Lady Dementia!"

Warm...

"Wake up!"

Slag it, whoever it was interrupting my meditation of warmth! How annoying. Warmth is good...

"C’mon! Get up!"

Get up? Why would I want to do that? Warm...hey, didn’t I know that voice? Tarantulas?

"Lady Dementia..."

No, that was Rampage. There was something I had to remember about Rampage...oh, yeah. There were two of him.

Um...I’ll go back to being warm. I like being warm.

"I’ll make you brownies...

Ooo, Tarantulas sure knew how to wake me up! I opened my eyes and looked through the bars that were next to my face. Tarantulas and Rampage (munchkin mode) were looking at me from behind similar bars. I blinked at them and slowly turned my head until I was looking up.

Yes, my cage looked like the one Rampage and Tarantulas were in. That is to say, I was in a bird cage. Tweet, tweet. If there were newspapers lining the bottom of this thing...

My eyes returned to the crab and spider. "Warm," I said.

"Huh?" Tarantulas stared at me for a moment before sighing. "That’s because we’re in the holding area." He ruefully looked down. "Hanging over lava DOES tend to make it warm."

I shook my head very slowly, verifying that there were dwarves in my head attempting to dig their way out. "Warm," I insisted. I mentally scowled at the determined miners hammering at my skull. Bothersome little things, dwarves are. Almost as bad as munchkins.

Tarantulas gave me a funny look. "Yes, you’ve already said that..."

"Warm." I thought about the spider’s lack of understanding and reluctantly forced another word past the monumental headache being produced by the dwarves. "Brownies."

"Oh!" Tarantulas laughed in relief. "For a moment there I thought your mind was slipping even farther."

I stuck my tongue out at him.

"Sure, you can have warm brownies," Tarantulas said, easily ignoring my feeble attempt at indignation.

Rampage cleared his throat. "This is all nice, I suppose," he said when we turned our attention to him, "but it’s not helping us get out of these cages!"

I blinked a nod at his words because my head hurt too much to move. "How’d we get here?" I croaked.

Tarantulas sat down facing me through the bars. "Megatron grabbed you before the Maximals could do anything," he said matter-of-factly. "He’s probably off trying to use you to force them to surrender, now."

I blinked another nod. That made sense to me. "How come YOU’RE here?" I asked hoarsely.

Rampage walked around the cage in a slightly nervous gesture while Tarantulas shrugged and answered. "I certainly wasn’t going to stick around with the Maximals. Especially not with the rat."

"I’m not going near Depth Charge without my weapons," Rampage grumbled. "He’s huge!"

"You’re tiny," I half-chuckled. "And cute," I added when the crab scowled. That earned me an incredulous look from both of the captured Preds. I sighed. "Nevermind..."

Still looking at me a little funny, Rampage sat down next to Tarantulas so he was facing me, too. "Megatron tried to question us," he told me angrily. "So did, um..."

"Your twin?" I asked.

"...yeah. We didn’t say anything, so they’ll probably be back in a little while."

I slowly began levering myself into a sitting position. Stupid dwarves. Didn’t they know that my head is too hard to dig through? "Any guards?" I moaned through the bright flashes caused by my headache (probably those slaggin’ dwarves had helmet lights to help them dig).

Tarantulas shook his head. "No. And I can’t open the locks." He shrugged. "I already tried." He gave me a thoughtful look as I gritted my teeth against the pain and flung myself into a sitting position. "Lady Dementia..."

"WHAT?!" I glared at him. Ooo, even my EYES hurt! Rampage and Tarantulas tried to hide behind each other, and I bit back the pain that had made me snap at him. "Sorry," I said in a strained voice. "What?"

The spider peeked out from behind Rampage and relaxed when he realized I wasn’t angry at him. "We are definitely not in either dimension. I just thought you should know."

Hmm, not in the HASBRO Beast Wars universe OR mine? That could be useful...and fun! Heeheehee, I could cause some serious problems in the timeline around here...

I absently looked down at myself as I thought. "Hey, where’s my frying pan?" I had been forming a real attachment to that thing! I had finally gotten a chance to whack Depth Charge over the head with something hard...now if I could only do that to certain other moronic robots...

"Megatron took it," Tarantulas said. "Along with a box made of tinfoil, or something..." He gave me a puzzled look. "What was that thing, anyway?"

I exchanged a glance with Rampage, who looked extremely uncomfortable. When I looked back to Tarantulas, I just shrugged. I think it would be better if I didn’t tell many people about that just yet.

"I need to talk to Megs," I decided. "Any ideas on how to get him over here?" I raised an eyebrow at them.

They both shook their heads.

I smiled (they flinched. ARGH!). "Well, then. We’ll just have to go with the old tried-and-true way to annoy him..."

About mid-way through ‘Douse the Halls with Gasoline,’ Megatron came stomping into the room. Took him long enough! I mean, the rest of the Predacons had started trickling into the room during ‘Great Big Gobs of Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts’, ‘Oh When You See a Hearse Go By’, ‘One Eyed, One Horned, Flyin’ Purple People Eater’, and ‘Jingle Bells, Batman Smells’.

My fellow prisoners had caught on to my ploy after the first couple of songs, so I had a ragged chorus on the ‘Fa-la-la-la-laaaa’s’ going, despite Rampage’s twin’s stunned look. Probably because we were all singing off-key. I sang too high, Rampage sang too low, and Tarantulas wandered all over the musical scale. Me and the crab both flinched whenever he actually hit a true note.

Tarantulas and Rampage trailed off when ol’ Megs came in and ordered Quickstrike and Waspinator back to their stations, though, so I switched to another old favorite.

"I hate you, you hate me. Let’s go out and," Rampage recognized it first and shouted the next words with me, "KILL BARNEY!!" We glared at Megatron.

Tarantulas took the next words, "With a knife to his back," Rampage continued, "and a bullet through his head," I giggled, "Hip-Hooray!"

We all screamed the last words, "BARNEY’S DEAD!!"

It hurt to laugh with my headache, but Megatron’s expression was just so funny...and Rampage’s twin still hadn’t recovered from the shock of seeing himself sing. Heeheehee...

"Hiya, Megs!" I called to the tyrant cheerfully. "Have you gotten Optimus to surrender yet?"

He picked his jaw up off the floor and looked at me warily. "Nooo..."

I shrugged. "That’s too bad." I turned my attention to Rampage (the one outside the cage), next. "Hey, Crabcakes," I said casually, "do you know what Megs is gonna do to your spark? I could tell you..."

Emerald eyes narrowed at me, and looked at Megatron suspiciously. "What is the fleshling talking about?"

"Her name’s Lady Dementia," Rampage told himself from the cage. "And you might want to listen to what she says. It’ll spare you a lot of hassle."

Ah. Apparently Rampage had figured out what I was doing. You see, if Depth Charge was already here in this dimension, but Cheetor wasn’t TM2 yet, then Megatron hadn’t cloned Dinobot yet. And since Rampage had been very angry but essentially helpless after it happened, what would happen if he KNEW what was going to happen?

And I think Megatron didn’t believe that I knew what he was planning, because he didn’t look very worried...well, time to prove him wrong.

I grinned at the tyrant. "So...cloned Dinobot lately?"

See Megatron. See Megatron worry. Worry, Megatron, worry...

I looked at Rampage again, who was watching me narrowly. He didn’t seem to understand my comment on cloning Dinobot, so I elaborated. "Megs is gonna clone Dinobot and use your spark to--Meggie, it’s not nice to point guns at people." I looked innocently at the tyrant over the tail-gun he had pointed at me.

Something clicked in Rampage’s mind. "You--!" he roared, launching himself at Megatron. Mini-Rampage cheered him on.

Megatron was forced to turn away from me in order to stop the oncoming crab. I winced as Rampage collapsed yelling from the pressure on his spark, especially when the Rampage I knew started shouting death threats. Inferno started towards the larger crab threateningly. Not a good thing.

Let’s see if I could confuse the issue a little...sorry about this Rampage, but I needed you as a distraction.

"CUT THAT OUT!" I screamed. Whoa, my voice was REALLY loud in here. Something about the echoes from bouncing off the walls? Oh, but that made my head hurt even MORE...Megatron and Rampage didn’t even glance towards me. Inferno whirled to glare at me. "Inferno, as your Queen I order you to stop Megatron!"

Confusion showed on the loyal soldier’s face. "Huh?" I knew that would catch his attention...

Tarantulas waved to get Inferno’s attention. "She’s the Royalty! Is that so hard to understand?"

"But--" Inferno looked between me and Megatron. "The Royalty..."

"Lemme put it this way," I sighed with an exaggerated show of patience, "a Queen is female. Is Megatron female?"

The ant opened and closed his mouth. He turned to Megatron. "Are you female?"

The tyrant momentarily glared at him before turning his attention back towards the shrieking crab-bot. "Of course not!"

He turned back to me, still not convinced. "But he leads the colony..."

I sighed again and rolled my eyes towards Tarantulas and Rampage, who had given up on threatening Megatron when he saw what I was doing. "Do I lead the colony?"

"Yes," they said immediately.

"See? And remember how many times Megatron demanded you NOT call him ‘Queen’?" I tilted my head as I looked at Inferno, who now looked hopelessly tore between Human-As-Queen or Megatron-As-Queen. "Bad ant," I said mildly. "You’ve failed to protect the colony and your Queen."

THAT hit him hard. "Never!" he shouted. Inferno wheeled and fired on Megatron, who hadn’t been paying attention to the conversation. "False Queen! The true Queen demands you be stopped!" The tyrant went flying as napalm bombs blasted him out of the room. Rampage gasped as the pressure on his spark eased. I smiled.

Everybody in the room flinched. I scowled and hissed at them.

"Now THIS is traveling in style," I laughed. "And it’s fun!"

Inferno turned his head to look at me. "My Queen?"

I waved a hand. "Don’t worry about it, Inferno. I was talking to Tarantulas." Not really, but I didn’t want to confuse Inferno any more than I had to. He was still dealing with the fact that I was the Maximal-Queen as well as the Predacon-Queen.

As far as I’m concerned, being Queen is good enough!

"Are you really going to give my spark back?" Rampage asked from the ground. He was in tank mode giving Tarantulas and mini-Rampage a ride. I was riding on the Blender-Butt Express above them. Being in the air meant I didn’t have to walk on my hurt ankle.

I held up the spark-box I had stolen from Megatron’s unconscious form before Rampage had recovered enough to take it. "Hmm...I’m still thinking about it." On one hand, I hated forcing Rampage to obey me using it. On the other hand, though, he’d probably kill me if I wasn’t...

Rampage sighed and went back to talking with his miniature twin.

"How long before Megatron recovers and comes after us?" I called down to Tarantulas.

He looked up at me. "Well, it depends if Waspinator and Quickstrike put him in the CR Tanks right away, or if they argue for a while first." That was how we had left the wasp and fuzor, right after they had refused to come with us because I was a ‘fleshy’ and Inferno had almost ripped them apart for calling me that. Hey, it might be true, but they didn’t have to make it sound so insulting! Anyway, Quickstrike had immediately claimed leadership of the Predacons, and he and Waspinator had started arguing.

I had taken my frying pan, tinfoil box, and Rampage’s spark-box, and left them to argue. It didn’t matter to ME. All I had wanted was out of there. Well, that, and some painkillers. Megatron had also stolen the remains of the butter tub containing the Tylenol, though, so at least my headache was just a dull pain right now. The dwarves were taking a coffee break...

I realized Tarantulas was still speaking. "What really worries me," he was saying, "is that, er, where am I?"

I blinked down at him. "Huh?"

He gestured impatiently. "You know. My bigger self."

"Oh." I frowned slightly. That WAS weird, now that I thought about it. Tarantulas was always poking into things and causing trouble. But there wasn’t a single sign of him...and that was making me uneasy. "Inferno, land a second, okay?"

"Yes, my Queen."

I could seriously get used to being called that...

I dismounted from behind Inferno and limped over to where Rampage had stopped. "When’s the last time Tarantulas was around?" I asked the tank.

"I don’t know," he said carelessly. "Why?"

"How far are we from your lair?" I asked Tarantulas next.

He looked around. "Um...not far."

"Inferno, go up and take a look around for the Tarantulas you know," I ordered the ant. He immediately saluted me and activated his jets, shooting into the sky. "I don’t like this..." I glanced around uncomfortably. The area we had stopped in was covered with big boulders. A certain spider could be hiding behind any one of them...

Above us, Inferno suddenly encountered a web in mid-air.

"Paranoia pays off again," I sighed when the ant spun out of control and hit the ground not far from us. Tarantulas and Rampage hopped off of the tank, and he transformed, looking around warily. I put my back to them and glanced around in that direction.

Here I was, in the middle of nowhere, with two homicidal maniacs and one semi-psycho Predacon scientist whose larger version was hunting us. My ankle was swollen, puffy, and painful. The dwarves in my head were finishing off their last cup of coffee and were getting ready to mine again. I was a small, unarmed, and injured fleshing.

Well, okay, so the frying pan evened up the odds a little.

"The itsy-bitsy spider caught a mouse in his den," I crooned to no one. "The itsy-bitsy spider BIT OFF THE MOUSE’S HEAD..." An involuntary chuckle pushed its way out of munchkin mode-Tarantulas, and another, deeper version of that chuckle came from...over there. Gotcha, spider.

Over there was a group of boulders, and as I watched a shadow shifted.

"Rampage, catch!" I started to throw the spark-box towards the large crab, who stared at me with his eyes wide in surprise. Mid-way between the ‘bot and me, a filament of webbing caught the small box. Just a second before, another strand of webbing had hit my hand right where I had been holding Rampage’s spark-box a moment before.

"Slag," I muttered. I hadn’t wanted Tarantulas to get Rampage’s spark-box...

All thoughts along that line, and most other lines, stopped as something hit me from the same direction as the webbing had come from. A small sting, and I wandered off to La-La Land again. Hmmm, I wonder if the leprechaun would talk to the dwarves for me...

"Er, don’t do that."

"Tehehe, why not? She’s unconscious!"

Not precisely, but I wasn’t about to let anybody know that I had woken up. The first speaker must have been the Tarantulas I knew, because the second voice was slightly deeper, like it was coming from someone bigger.

"She’ll get angry." Um...Rampage, mini-mode.

"So? Why do you two care what a fleshling thinks?" Tarantulas sure sounded disgusted. I wonder why?

"Have you ever watched Barney?"

"No."

"Teletubbies?"

"...no..."

"Be glad that you haven’t." Rampage seemed to think that answer was sufficient, but Tarantulas had other plans.

"I don’t know what ‘Barney’ and ‘Teletubbies’ are, but I don’t have any intention of stopping my plans because you two freaks think a fleshling will be angry. Tehehe, she won’t be alive long enough to be angry!"

That did NOT bode well for me...and did he realize that he had just called himself a freak?

There were a couple rustles and creaks, and then Tarantulas made an irritated sound. "What is this thing?"

"Tinfoil," his miniature twin said slowly. "It’s probably a block of chocolate, or something." I stiffened slightly at the description and peeked through my eyelashes. I could see a blurry Tarantulas standing over me with a box with tinfoil wrapped around it. Behind him, I could barely see a couple moving figures that must have been mini-Tarantulas and Rampage. What had happened to Inferno and this dimension’s Rampage?

"Don’t unwrap it!" Rampage said urgently. I silently echoed him, but I didn’t move.

"Tehehe..."

"No, I mean it! She made Megatron watch the My Little Ponies movie for messing around with her chocolate," Rampage continued quickly. "He was almost comatose by the time she unstrapped him."

Tarantulas hesitated. "What?"

Mini-Tarantulas sighed. "Lady Dementia makes troublemakers watch these nauseating videos of hers." The dim figure I could see shuddered. "She made me watch...Cinderella..." Heeheehee, Tarantulas had definitely respected my authority since then! Well, okay, he SORTA respected my authority...sorta, maybe, not at all...

There was a shout from somewhere out of my sight, and Tarantulas whirled to face the source, brandishing something that I could only see glowed blue. It looked familiar...

"I’ll kill you slowly for this spider!" a deeper version of the munchkin crab’s voice said. Ah, Rampage.

"I think not, tehehehe, not while I have this!" Tarantulas did something to the blue glowing thing, and Rampage screamed in pain. The spark-box! Tarantulas had the spark-box! "Now, put that box down over there, SLAVE, and go fetch another one from the same room." That was exactly why I hadn’t wanted the spider to get his hands on Rampage’s spark...of course, treating Rampage like a slave was going to get him killed, either by me or by Rampage himself. I’d pity the spider, but, well, I didn’t.

"Hey, why do you want to kill me, anyway?" I said before Tarantulas could torture Rampage more. I sat up and gritted my teeth at the pain, grinning as Tarantulas whirled to face me in shock at the same time. "That’s not a very nice thing to do to a guest."

Tarantulas blinked at me for a moment before finding his voice again. "You’re an alien construct," he told me coldly. "That’s enough of a reason for me."

An alien construct? I raised an eyebrow. "I’m called insane sometimes..."

"Sometimes?" the spider’s munchkin twin muttered.

I ignored him. "...but I’ve never been called an ‘alien construct’ before. What makes you think I’m an alien?"

He silently pointed to my T-shirt. "I believe that says, ‘Alien Experiment Gone Wrong.’"

I looked down at the blue marker on my shirt and burst out in hysterical laughter (Ow, my head...). How appropriate! I had destroyed an entire alien ship because of my clones, and now, because of my clones, I was going to be destroyed!

Calming down slightly, I glanced between the spiders. "Did YOU think I was an alien?" I asked the Tarantulas I knew. When he shook his head, I frowned. "You know, I don’t think you two are actually that similar after all."

"Huh?"

"Huh?"

I grinned slightly at the dumbfounded looks on the two Tarantulas’s faces. They were bewildered by my complete subject change, I guess. "Do you both have a vehicle mode?" I asked while climbing to my feet slowly because of my ankle (apparently, Tarantulas held fleshlings in such contempt that he hadn’t even tied me up!). In answer, munchkin-Tarantulas transformed to his vehicle mode and zoomed around the lab.

I looked at the larger Tarantulas expectantly. "Well?"

"Of course I do!" he said angrily.

I sniffed. "I don’t believe you."

He scowled at me. I wrinkled my nose at him. He sighed and transformed. "There. See?"

I looked him over critically, limping over until I stood next to him. "I don’t know...the colors might be a little off..."

Tarantulas blinked at me as I frowned thoughtfully at his colors. "That’s ridiculous! We both look completely alike!"

I tapped my lips with a fingertip, contemplating the two motorcycles. "No, maybe it’s because he has more..." I waved my hands, searching for the words. "More--yeah, that’s it!" I snapped my fingers. "Definitely. There IS something you’re lacking."

Tarantulas revved his engine a little impatiently. "What?"

"Don’t worry, it’s an easy enough thing to get, so we can fix you up." I patted Tarantulas on the back.

"What am I lacking?!" he growled.

I smiled. "Dents." With that, I grabbed his throttle and twisted it HARD. Tarantulas accelerated forward with a startled yell...right into a wall.

Yep, we fixed that problem. He had lots of dents, now!

Tarantulas transformed automatically, so we knew when he came back online. We were still discussing what to do with him at that point. He yelped in terror as his former ‘slave’ reached down and grabbed him by the neck, lifting him up to eye level. Rampage did NOT look very happy with Tarantulas.

"Hiya!" I greeted the now-conscious spider cheerfully, despite the ache in my head and ankle. "So...I think you’re an alien. Should I have Rampage kill you?"

He shook his head frantically, not looking away from the crab-bot for a moment.

I pouted. "You’re sure? We were really looking forward to it!" We meaning me, Rampage, and Rampage. Well, probably Inferno, too, but he was still offline.

"C’mon, Lady Dementia," mini-Tarantulas said tiredly, "don’t kill him..."

"Please?" Tarantulas added when I smiled at his miniature twin.

I frowned at the general flinch (I have a nice smile! I really do!). "Oh, fine. I won’t kill him. But I WILL hit him with my frying pan!" I proceeded to do just that, whacking him over the head with the cooking utensil. I felt better. "Alright, we’re still going to go to the Maximal base. Should we tie him up and leave him? And you don’t get a say in this," I said before Tarantulas could say anything.

"Can I torture him?" both Rampages asked eagerly.

"No," I said firmly, much to the spider’s relief.

"We could let him go..." mini-Tarry suggested. The crabs scowled at him. "...or not."

"How about letting Megatron have him?" big-Rampage suggested. "Hehehe, he wasn’t very happy with him the last I heard!"

"Nah. How about we give him to the Maximals?" little-Rampage said in turn.

Oooo...evil idea! "Um...munchkin-spider," heeheehee, got a nasty scowl for THAT one, "do you have the equivalent of a permanent marker somewhere in your lab?"

Not much later, we got out of there, furious yells still following us. Rampage and Rampage were laughing evilly with me while Tarantulas sulked. I think he took our revenge as a personal insult to himself.

The munchkins and I were sitting on top of the tank as Rampage trundled along, but Inferno still hadn’t come back online so he was being dragged after us. That was how Cheetor found us.

Rampage (the small one) broke off his rather bloody (but in a funny way) story to stare at something behind me. "Incoming cat!"

"Really?" I twisted around and sighed in disappointment when I saw that it was only Cheetor. I was missing my little kitties...

"Should we duck?" Tarantulas asked. "He’s flying awful low..."

The tank under us muttered something uncomplimentary about Cheetor’s flying skills, but I only shrugged. "Nah. I’ll handle this." The flying cat caught up with us, jets sending him zooming through the small opening between me and Tarantulas.

Er, okay, so he TRIED to zoom through the opening. But the opening was filled abruptly by a flat piece of metal...

*WHAM!*

I shook my wrist as the cat collapsed between me and the two Preds. "I gotta stop abusing this pan like this," I mused, studying the Cheetor-imprint in my frying pan. I shook my wrist again. "Ow..."

"You said it," the cat groaned. "Oooh, what hit me?" He opened his eyes and blinked up at me in befuddlement.

"No, you hit it," Rampage (munchkin-mode) corrected. Cheetor turned to blink at him.

"Actually, Lady Dementia DID swing it, so maybe that counts as hitting." Tarantulas thought that over. "But he DID run into it, so I don’t know." Cheetor blinked at him, too.

"You know, I’m not a taxi," Rampage rumbled from underneath us all. "And you guys need to lose some weight!" Cheetor looked completely bewildered by now.

"Fuss fuss fuss," I sighed. "You’re all failing to see the point of this little incident."

"Huh?"

"Huh?"

"Huh?"

"Jumpin’ gyros, what’s going on?!" Cheetor wobbled to his feet and promptly got knocked off his feet again as Rampage trundled over a rock.

I turned a completely serious face to the cat. "Take us to your leader."

"--so that’s why we’re here. Any questions?" I grinned brightly at the assembled Maximals, who were standing outside their base in front of us because no one would allow us inside. What, didn’t they trust us? I don’t know why not...heeheehee...

"Can you step away so I can get a clear shot?!" Depth Charge snarled immediately. He was aiming his remora-gun at both Rampages, but I had made sure to stand between them.

"No." I rolled my eyes. "They’re not going to try anything, DC."

"Why should I believe that?!"

I dug into my pocket and took out Rampage’s spark-box. "Ta-da! It’s a controlling device for homicidal killers!" Now if there was only one for ray-bots with Macho Syndromes... "And, it also makes a good nightlight!" I continued dramatically, displaying the glowing spark-in-a-box on my hand. "Remember people, it only costs an arm and a leg! That’s right, an arm and a leg!...literally. Anyway, don’t you want one? Why, you could have your own homicidal killer out to kill you, only kept away with this marvelous product! Batteries not included, offer only good in the BW Universe, deaths are not my problem. This is a Demented Angel Product, buy one now!" I grinned and reached into another pocket, dragging out a small box covered with tinfoil. I ripped the tinfoil off as I kept talking, revealing the spark-box underneath. Clever disguise, no? The way I had figured it, Megatron would never touch anything that looked like chocolate after the My Little Ponies thing... "And if you accept this offer now, you’ll get our Once-In-A-Lifetime Offer of buy one get a miniature one FREE! That’s right, free!...until he finds a weapon and demands payment. AND, with the small controlling device, you also get a munchkin-sized homicidal killer out for your blood! Buy one now!"

This time, I had succeeded in shocking EVERYONE. The Rampages were gaping at my presentation of their sparks. Depth Charge was stunned at the sight of the two sparks within his reach. The Maximals were well and truly confused by my rapid-fire sales-pitch. Tarantulas was laughing hysterically, so I wasn’t sure if he counted.

"Er, how much do those cost?" Blackarachnia asked uncertainly after a moment. Optimus frowned at her while Depth Charge scowled. The Rampages were still a bit shocky.

"You say this ‘TIM’ will be able to contact you through our computers?" Optimus asked finally, deciding to ignore my attempt to sell the Maximals the sparks.

I sighed in disappointment that my sales talk had failed (I could have gone into telemarketing!), but nodded. "He should be able to. And by this time he should have also figured out that HASBRO would probably not be happy if me and the munchkins are missing." Okay, so they’d probably only care that Rampage and Tarantulas were missing, but TIM would still need me around to prevent suspicion from falling on HIM. That is, if he wanted to keep working on his evil plans (or whatever) without HASBRO’s knowledge. "Tarantulas is the best with computers, so you’d better let him in."

"Eh? Why should we do dat?!" Rattrap asked indignantly. "Dis is some Pred trap, or somethin’! Ya--"

"--can never trust a Pred," us three dimension-jumpers finished for him.

"Funny," I continued thoughtfully. "You never seem to say that whenever Tarantulas is on your darts team."

I had done it again. "Huh?" was the general sound that emerged from the Maximal ranks.

"Darts." I waited for a reaction. "You know, little sticks with a pointy end that you throw at a board and try to hit the target on it. Darts." No reaction. I sighed and turned to Rampage (the small one) and Tarantulas. "Should I tell them?"

They looked at each other and shrugged. "The Megatron we know isn’t here," Rampage said. "As long as he doesn’t find out, I don’t mind."

I turned back to the Maximals. "Every other Tuesday night around dark, I get into an argument with Optimus, Depth Charge, and Megatron. I can usually keep them occupied at my house until about midnight, and then they go back to the bases. While I’m keeping them busy, though, a certain group of Megatron-haters get together and play darts using a picture of him as a target. Tarantulas and Rattrap usually kick skidplate whenever they’re on the same team, for some reason. Got it?" I waited expectantly.

"I can understand why you’d have to distract me," Optimus said slowly, "because I wouldn’t let any of the Maximals go alone to this ‘meeting’, but why Depth Charge?"

Rampage (mini-crab) answered that one. "He never stops pestering me long enough to go if he’s not busy."

Rampage (the big guy) frowned down at himself in puzzlement. "You actually cooperate in this...darts...thing?"

The crab blinked. "Well...yeah. It’s fun," he said defensively.

"Anyway..." I raised an eyebrow at Optimus. "Are you going to let Tarantulas in, or not? We could always go back to the Predacon base and try, but I don’t think they have as good of computers."

The ape considered it for a long moment. "Alright," he said slowly.

I lounged against a boulder, yawning. Waiting was boring. I needed to do something to entertain myself. I looked around the area outside the Maximal base, searching for a likely subject. Rattrap? Nah. Blackarachnia? Hmm, maybe. Silverbolt was too much of an honorable goody-goody to have gotten into any REALLY embarrassing situations.

Ooo, Depth Charge was still glaring daggers at R and mini-R...

"Hey, DC!" I yelled. "Do you know anything about mushrooms?"

"Don’t you DARE!" Rampage (the tiny one) yelled back.

"Drat," I pouted. And it would have been SO fun to have seen their reactions...

Depth Charge and this dimension’s Rampage looked between us in confusion. "Did we miss something..?"

"Don’t ask," the munchkin sighed. "She was going to tell an embarrassing story about--never mind. Just don’t ask, okay?"

Depth Charge still looked curious. "What could be that embarrassing?"

I laughed. "Well, one day Tarantulas--"

"Lady Dementia."

I paused and looked at mini-Rampage. "Yes?"

"Don’t. Ever. Mention. That. Again." He glared at me.

I wasn’t particularly intimidated by a three-foot tall robot. "Tarantulas--"

"C’mon, please?" Okay, now he was trying to appeal to my softer side.

"Anyway, he--"

"I’ll kill your cats!"

"You’re dead." I shook my finger at the munchkin and stalked towards him. "NOBODY messes with my pets. Not the Vok, not my brothers, not YOU."

"Eep!" Mini-Rampage tried to hide behind his larger twin.

"What can she do to you?" the big crab chuckled. "Hit you with that frying pan of hers?" He laughed again. "You actually FEAR her?!"

The munchkin scowled up at him. "Not her. It’s those Disney videos..." He shuddered and looked nauseated, then yelped as I made a swing at him with the frying pan.

"I don’t get it," Depth Charge said after a couple minutes of watching me chase Rampage around himself. The larger crab looked mildly amused. "What’s so important about your pets?"

I stiffened indignantly and turned to face the ray. "My pets are--"

"Don’t get her started," mini-Tarantulas grumbled, walking out of the Maximal base. "Lady Dementia will talk for DAYS about her pets." He sighed as I stuck my tongue out at him. "I’ve done what I can, but it’s all up to TIM, now. We should get SOME response soon, and someone should come to help us."

I rolled my eyes. "If you could call it help..."

Tarantulas narrowed his eye at me. "Hey, we got you down from the Vok ship before it exploded, didn’t we? We’re not as incompetent as you seem to think we are!"

I raised an eyebrow pointedly. "Uh-huh. Then what about the time you--"

"Wait a nano!" Depth Charge shouted, waving his hands to get our attention. We glanced over at him, and he looked between me and Tarantulas in confusion. "Vok ship? Exploded? What are you talking about?!"

I sighed. Tarantulas laughed nervously. Rampage just shrugged.

"What I don’t understand is how you seem to know everything that’s going on," Blackarachnia said slowly, heading the rest of the Maximals coming out of their base.

Tarantulas chuckled nervously again. Rampage shrugged again. I tried to look innocent. From the way everyone looked at me, I didn’t think that I had succeeded.

I widened my eyes and fluttered my eyelashes. Bambi eyes! Rampage (toy-crab!) and Tarantulas backed away warily while everyone else looked at me like I was crazy. Well, I was, but... "What?"

"Okay, spill it," Rattrap said, eyes narrow.

Hmmm, now how should I handle this? I grinned. "Ah, de Maximals wish to know de future, yah?" I tried to sound like a stereotypical French/Gypsy/strangely-accented weirdo fortune-teller. "Dey come to de right place, yah! De Demented Angel sees all, knows all, and confuses all! Come, come! Come have your fortunes told and your futures foreseen!" I sank to the ground to sit Indian-style, the backs of my hands balanced on my knees so that I looked like I was meditating. I began humming tunelessly and rocking back and forth. After a moment of that, I started bobbing my head up and down while fluttering my hands near my head. "Um, buddahbuddah, ummm, buddahbuddah," I chanted softly, just loud enough that it would get annoying soon.

The Maximals gaped at me. Both Rampages looked skeptical. Tarantulas was rolling around on the ground with laughter. Someone asked if I was having a convulsion, or something.

Blackarachnia dared to walk forward and touch my shoulder. "Are you alright--"

"Ah, Blackarachnia!" I exclaimed, still using the phony accent that couldn’t decide what country or culture it really belonged to. "Sit, sit!" I urged her. "Lady Dementia tell o’ your future wit’ de Maximals!"

The widow looked back at the others helplessly, but slowly sat down on the ground in front of me. "Uh...okay..."

I pretended to concentrate really hard, placing my fingers on the sides of my head and scrunching my eyes closed. "Lady Dementia now summon de Spirits o’ Insanity an’ Saturday Morning Cartoons to help her...ummm, buddahbuddah--ACK!" I opened my eyes abruptly, staring at the anxious widow with a horror-stricken expression on my face. "De Spirits tell Lady Dementia that you should avoid de Transmetal 2 device. Make Blackarachnia r-e-e-e-ally ugly."

Tarantulas howled with laughter. Mini-Rampage joined him.

I smothered a giggle. "Next!"

Blackarachnia shook her head with a puzzled expression on her face. "But I don’t understand..."

I shrugged. "De future is de future. Deal with it. Next!"

The widow stood up slowly, obviously still confused, but Cheetor quickly took her place. "Tell my future!" he said excitedly.

I closed my eyes. "De Spirits are speaking...yes...ooo, that’s interesting..."

"What?! What?!" Cheetor shifted, eyes wide.

Shaking a finger at him, I frowned. "Avoid feral ice cream," I told him cryptically. The two munchkins collapsed with laughter again. I couldn’t control the giggle this time, and I glanced over at Rampage (big guy). "De same advice goes fo’ you, yah."

The larger transformers looked SERIOUSLY confused. I giggled again. Rampage (itsy-bitsy crab) and Tarantulas looked like they couldn’t even stand up anymore, just from laughing.

I smirked at Cheetor’s bewildered expression. "No worries, kitten. What comes, comes." I did a Vok impression, trying to act like not only was I superior, but I was being superior in an all-powerful, all-knowing, really annoying kind of way.

It worked. I got varying levels of disgusted glares from the assembly.

I noticed that Depth Charge’s glare was registering the highest on the Disgust-O-Meter, and a frown crossed my face. "Ah, so Depth Charge not believe Lady Dementia sees de future?"

He snorted. "To put it bluntly? No."

The frown deepened, then disappeared as one of the Rampages made the mistake of moving, which attracted my wandering attention. I snickered evilly. "Fine, then," I said airily, all insulted dignity and hauteur. "Depth Charge not want t’ know how t’ kill Rampage, since he not listen t’ Lady Dementia." I folded my arms and sniffed contemptuously.

"WHAT?!" Rampage, Rampage, and the ray-bot all yelled at the same time.

"You wouldn’t," the small crab said, but he sounded uncertain.

"I’m immortal," the larger one said.

"No, you’re not," me and the smaller twin sighed. We had gone over this before in one of the long talks HASBRO had insisted me and Tim have with certain Beast Warriors...but let’s not get into that...

"How?!" Depth Charge asked eagerly.

I lifted my nose in an arrogant pose. "Why should Lady Dementia tell de unbelieving ray-bot this? Depth Charge not believe what De Demented Angel say before!"

"Tell me!"

"No."

He sighed. "C’mon, please?" he tried coaxing.

I grinned brightly. "Nope."

"Why not?!" he asked angrily.

I shrugged. "I don’t feel like it." I curiously watched his furious expression as he started to storm towards me. "First ray-bot doesn’t believe Lady Dementia, then gets angry when she refuses to tell de future." I sighed when he reached me. "Lady Dementia need vacation."

"Then I’ll send you on one!"

Okay, that was NOT Depth Charge. I looked to the side away from the Maximal base while Blackarachnia, Rampage and Rampage, and Rattrap roared with laughter. Mini-Tarantulas grumbled something impolite. His larger twin sputtered angrily at the uncontrollable laughter he was creating. I managed to keep a straight face with difficulty. I was helped in my efforts by the Pizza-Cutter Of Doom pointed straight at me.

The large spider-bot had futilely attempted to cover up the words I had written all over him, but there were just too many of them. The words, ‘Alien Experiment Gone Wrong’ had been written in all the available space I had been able to find in something that LOOKED like whiteout, but mini-Tarantulas had assured me was more like a permanent marker. I had finished up my drawing by playing Connect-The-Dots with the little eye-pattern on Tarantulas’s head.

It wasn’t pretty. Hilarious, yes; pretty, no.

"You!" Tarantulas yelled finally, deciding to ignore the giggles. "I’ll kill you!" A slight glow gathered at the end of the PC of Doom, while another, similar glow formed behind the spider.

I eyed both the lights warily. One was about to kill me, but what the other one? Ooo, it was changing colors now! I like purple...

Tarantulas noticed that I was paying no attention to the dramatic, hate-filled speech he was making. I was staring at something beyond him with a blank look in my eyes. I guess bright shiny things occupied more of my attention than my imminent death. I vaguely noticed that everybody behind me had stopped laughing, either from the threat to my life or the purple glowy thing forming.

"Pretty!" I squealed. "Big pretty purple swirly thing--oh, slag."

That last bit was brought on by the people stepping through what I now recognized as a portal. Tarantulas froze as hands clapped down on him shoulders and grabbed his gun, while behind me I could hear startled exclamations. Apparently, no one had really believed me when I had told them about where I had come from and who was there.

Okay, so they weren’t munchkins anymore. I had still told the truth!

Megatron looked down at me while I made a face up at him. "I wouldn’t trust TIM to hold the portal for long," he said.

"Thrillsville," I sighed. "Okay, just gimme a sec." I got up and limped over to where Rampage was still leaning against a boulder. His munchkinized twin had already run for the portal along with mini-Tarantulas. I made a mental note to myself (don’t laugh! I can sometimes remember stuff!) as I saw Depth Charge standing behind the word-painted Tarantulas from this dimension.

"What do you want now?" Rampage grumbled, glaring at me.

I smirked. "Here you go!" I said cheerfully, handing him his spark-box. I turned and limped away before he could do more than gape at it and me. When I was safely within reach of the portal, I turned and looked at the Depth Charge fighting with the now-free Rampage. "Sorry about hitting you with my frying pan," I called to him. He didn’t look at me, concentrating instead on trying to kill the crab. "I meant to do that to THIS one!" I frowned and reached over to whack the Depth Charge I knew over the head with my battered frying pan.

I grabbed him by the arm while he staggered from the impact and hauled him through the portal with me. "Have a nice day!" I screamed back through it. I heard somebody scream something back about killing the aliens, so I think that was Tarantulas. Ah, well.

The portal flashed and disappeared, leaving me and the Beast Warriors standing in my re-built closet. A moment later, it reappeared. "Portal setting: Lady Dementia’s dimension," TIM said.

"Gee, thanks," I said sarcastically. "That’s really helpful NOW." I shook my head at the follies of evil supercomputers and turned to look at the gathering of Predacons and Maximals in my closet. "So...what’s new?" I asked.

"What happened?!" Blackarachnia asked. "TIM wouldn’t tell us anything!" There was a general mutter of other questions and speculation over how I had come to be at gun-point with Tarantulas.

I exchanged a look with Rampage and Tarantulas (now restored to their proper size). Rampage just shrugged. Tarantulas chuckled nervously. I tried to look innocent. From the looks I was getting, I gathered that I wasn’t pulling it off. I widened my eyes and fluttered my eyelashes. Bambi eyes!

There was a mass stampede for the door.

I giggled and limped after the fleeing Beast Warriors. Home, sweet home...

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