"That’s IT!" Depth Charge yelled. "I’ve had it!"

Cheetor looked up at him innocently. "What?"

The ray-bot was tearing out fistfuls of imaginary hair. "You! The Maximals! This stupid war! Rampage! Whatever! I’m sick of it all! I’m sick of chasing after Rampage just to destroy him, I’m sick of Optimus, I’m sick of the Predacons, I’M SICK OF MY LIFE!!" He stood there for a moment, thinking things over. "I think I need to make some drastic changes around here..."

Cheetor laughed nervously and patted him on the shoulder. "Hey, calm down--eep!" He found his wrist being held by the other Maximal.

"And most of all, I’m sick of you!"

Rhinox opened the old storage room and looked inside. "Interesting..."

"What is it?" Optimus looked into the room. "What ARE those things?" He picked some of the flat rectangles up.

"Computer disks," Rhinox told him absently. He was holding a large can and reading the label. "I didn’t know the Autobots had beer," he said in puzzlement. "How did this get in here?"

Optimus blinked. "Beer?"

Rhinox nodded. "Yes. It’s a beverage made of fermented grain that can get organics drunk. I have NO idea what it’s doing onboard the Ark..." He paused and thought. "It’d be interesting to see if it affected our beast modes at all."

A suspicious look was directed towards the cans. "It gets organics drunk, you said? I wonder if Rattrap..." A sudden buzzing roar and a scream cut him off, and then panicked shouting came from outside of the room. Both of the Maximals raced to the source of the sound.

Rattrap met them in the entrance to another corridor, looking both furious and grief-stricken. His voice was disbelieving. "Captain Minnow’s gone off the deep end!"

"Was that Cheetor screaming?!" Optimus asked anxiously. "What happened?!"

"He killed Cheetor!" Silverbolt said from down the hall.

Rhinox almost bowled Rattrap over as he lunged past him. He paused as he came in sight of what was left of the cat. "What..?"

"I tried ta stop him," Rattrap said in a strangled voice, "but he still had that chainsaw..."

Tarantulas stared at his computer screen and sighed. "I should really be plotting something," he mumbled...and then opened up a new game of Solitaire. The game was addicting!

Megatron powered up his new machine...and nothing happened. "Slag it!" he roared, slamming his fist down on it.

"Royalty!" Inferno’s voice was coming from the speakers around the room. "Something is happening in the lava!"

"What?!" The tyrant ran through his ship until he came to where Inferno was staring down into the glowing red liquid below. Two lumps were growing out of it, shedding the lava as they moved...

"Scorponok?! Terrorsaur?!" Megatron rubbed his eyes and looked again. The dead Predacons were still there, desperately trying to get out of the lava. "Inferno! Go help them!" He stared in shocked silence as the ant obeyed. How had THIS happened?!

Off in the arctic somewhere, a falcon and a snow tiger suddenly appeared.

"Oh, I don’t feel so good..." Airazor transformed and held a hand to her head. "What happened to us?"

Tigatron wobbled for a moment before catching his balance. "I don’t know. The last thing I remember--" Growls from the side interrupted him, and he smiled as half-a-dozen adolescent snow tigers attacked him. "Kids!"

Airazor watched the romping tigers in surprise. "Um...kids? Is there anything you’d like to tell me, Tigatron?" she asked warily.

Tigatron had the grace to look ashamed. "Well...you know how I used to go off on all those solitary patrols?" Airazor nodded. "I wasn’t really patrolling. You see, Snowstalker and I, er, had kittens before she died, so..." He flattened his ears and looked up at the femme. "I just couldn’t leave them..."

Airazor just stared with her mouth open.

Tigatron sighed and brightened as his children bounded away. "I’m going to care for them full-time, now," he said over his shoulder. "Please tell the Maximals for me! And I’m sorry!" With that, he left, leaving Airazor gaping after him in stunned surprise.

"Men," she muttered as she turned to go home. "That’s it, I’m giving up on them..."

On a ridge overlooking a valley, the original Dinobot suddenly appeared.

"What a waste of a good death scene," he grumbled, and started back towards where the Maximal base should have been.

Transmutate looked around itself. "Friends? Friends?" It wandered off, looking for Rampage and Silverbolt.

A teenage human holding a toilet plunger crawled out of thin air and into the middle of the funeral ceremony for Cheetor. She dropped the toilet plunger when she caught sight of the Maximals.

"Whoa, so THIS is what’s under the sink! Weird." With that, she turned around and crawled back into thin air, leaving the toilet plunger behind.

The gathered Maximals stared in amazement.

"I’m going to bring down my score just three more points," Tarantulas muttered to himself, "and then I’m going to stop playing. Really."

*Beep! Game ended. Play again?*

The spider looked thoughtful. "I bet I could score even lower..."

*New game.*

Rampage shredded the fish and laughed. He lazily left the remains behind and scuttled up onto the beach. He transformed and looked around, wondering what else he could destroy.

Depth Charge caught him completely by surprise, kicking him in the back and flat onto his face as he attacked from behind. Rampage rolled over and froze as his mortal enemy slammed a foot into his chest. This was a different Depth Charge than the one HE knew!

He held a chainsaw above his head, about ready to bring it down into the crab. His face had a deranged look, and he had dried mech-fluid spattered all over his front. The chainsaw blade had a dried coat of the stuff, too.

"Now I know why you had so much fun doing this!" the mentally imbalanced ray-bot chortled insanely. "I like it! Killing Cheetor was the most fun I’ve ever had!"

"Holy slag!" Rampage jerked his head to one side and cursed as the chainsaw descended. A moment later he stared at the blade next to his face. "What’s wrong with you?!" he yelled at Depth Charge.

"Absolutely nothing!" The ray threw back his head and laughed maniacally. The sound cut off abruptly though, and he leaned down to look at the crab, who was just looking at him in disbelief. "Say, you want to go kill Quickstrike? He gets on my nerves."

Rampage blinked at him for a moment. "Okay..." He took the hand Depth Charge offered, and the ray pulled him to his feet.

A circle of sky suddenly disappeared right above them, and a teenage human holding a basket of laundry peered down at them. She looked down at the two transformers calmly. They stared back up at her.

"So you two are in my washing machine." She blinked. "Well, okay. I think I’ll wait to do the laundry..." The circle of sky reappeared, blotting out the human.

Rampage and Depth Charge stood there for a moment before leaving to go kill Quickstrike.

Megatron finished explaining the situation to the newly restored Terrorsaur and Scorponok. They thought things over while he waited.

Scorponok started speaking, "Leader, I--"

The sounds of a fight cut him off, and the remains of Quickstrike were tossed into the room. Rampage and Depth Charge followed them in, the ray-bot still revving his chainsaw and Rampage looking at him in awe.

"What’s going on?!" Megatron roared.

"Rampage and I are going to go randomly destroy stuff." Depth Charge revved his chainsaw again. "Got a problem with that?" Rampage shrugged and aimed his missile launcher at the tyrant, too.

Megatron laughed nervously and held out his hands in a calming gesture. "Uh, of course not..."

"Good. C’mon, Rampage." Depth Charge grabbed the Predacon by the shoulder and dragged the crab after him as he stomped back out of the room. The rest of the Predacons just stared after them.

Back at the Ark, things weren’t going so well. Rattrap had been sent out to investigate some Maximal energy signals out near where the old Maximal base had been. HE hadn’t come back, but Airazor and Dinobot had. When asked, Airazor had snarled something about ‘males’ and Dinobot had mentioned Rattrap having an accident.

Blackarachnia and Silverbolt had found the rat’s body at the bottom of the waterfall. Dinobot claimed the gashes all over him must have come from the rocks. Blackarachnia also reported another encounter with the human female, who had just been muttering in a confused way before walking away and disappearing again.

Optimus was so grief-mazed that he began drinking the beer Rhinox had discovered, just to dull the pain. Airazor left the Ark in disgust after the Maximal leader grabbed the toilet plunger the human had left behind and started doing Statue of Liberty impressions with it. The rest of the Maximals joined in the drinking.

Megatron was about to go crazy. Tarantulas wasn’t answering his radio. Inferno and Scorponok had disappeared after going out on a patrol. Or, actually, they hadn’t exactly DISAPPEARED. After all, Terrorsaur and Waspinator had found pieces...

The good news was that Depth Charge and Rampage had left the area, so it was safe to go outside again.

"This day keeps on getting worse and worse," Megatron muttered.

"Megatron!" TM2 Dinobot suddenly burst into the room. "I found this human in the control center!" He threw the teenage female onto the floor. She got up carefully, making sure she didn’t spill any of the drink in her hand. She had somehow managed to keep the cup she was holding upright while Dinobot was throwing her around.

She smiled up at them happily. Both of the Predacons flinched, and she frowned. "Hiya, Megs!" She hiccuped and took a sip of her drink. "Boy, this is the best hallucination I’ve had in a while!"

"You’re...a hallucination?" Megatron asked tentatively. She grinned and nodded. That’s it, his mind was gone. He must have gone over the edge. Well, HE certainly couldn’t lead the Predacons to victory anymore. He turned to TM2 Dinobot. "Get Terrorsaur." The raptor nodded and left.

"Terrorsaur?" The female blinked. "But that’s not right...TM2 Dinobot was created AFTER Terrorsaur died..."

She was a hallucination. He could show her his secrets without worrying. "It has something to do with this machine, I think," Megatron explained to her, pointing to his creation. "I turned it on, and suddenly Scorpinok and Terrorsaur were alive!"

"It’s alive! ALIVE!" she giggled.

"Um..."

"Oh, nevermind." The human wandered over and looked at the machine. After a moment she laughed. "Ah-HA! I know what this is!"

Megatron blinked. "You do?"

She nodded earnestly. "Sure. It’s a Plot Machine," she said solemnly. "They’re used a lot in cruddy fanfics. This just confirms that this is all a dream." She sipped her drink again and sighed happily. "Happy Pills and Cherry Pepsi give me strange visions..."

He eyed her. "Right..." Terrorsaur came in just then. "Ah, Terrorsaur, congratulations!"

"Huh?" Terrorsaur looked at him, and then at the human female. "Hey, who’s she?"

She hiccuped again and extended the hand not holding her drink. "Hiya, I’m Lady Dementia. You must be my vision of Terrorsaur."

Terrorsaur didn’t touch her hand. "Megatron..?"

Megatron waved his hand. "Don’t worry. She’s only a hallucination." It occurred to him briefly to wonder why Terrorsaur could see her, too, but he ignored that thought. "Anyway, Terrorsaur, I’m leaving. Have fun leading the Predacons." With that, he walked out of the room.

Terrorsaur gaped after him.

Lady Dementia sipped her drink and slapped him on the arm. "Congrats, Terror’! You know, I think I’m gonna follow the vision of Megatron..." She ran after the ex-tyrant.

The hallucination found him again outside the base. "Sooooo, whatcha gonna do now?" she asked curiously.

Megatron shrugged. "Follow my dream, I suppose."

Lady Dementia skipped around him as he walked in his beast mode. "Uh-huh. You’re gonna destroy Optimus Prime’s head again?"

He shook his head. "No, I’ll leave that to Terrorsaur. I’m too crazy to be a Predacon, now."

"You’re crazy?" She burped. "Nah, duh. So what dream ARE you going to follow?"

Megatron stopped suddenly and looked off into the distance. "I’m going to become a Catholic priest."

Lady Dementia tripped and fell from the shock. "You’re going to WHAT?!"

The ex-tyrant looked defensive. "Well, I was studying to become one when I started with the whole ‘Restore the Predacons and Decepticons’ thing. I might as well go back to it."

She just looked at him for a moment. "But I thought you were crazy..." she said finally.

He shrugged again. "You’re the only hallucination I’ve had so far. You’re not TOO bad." And he strode off, apparently intent on becoming a Catholic priest.

Lady Dementia dazedly shook her head, but then noticed something. "Hey! I spilled the last of my Cherry Pepsi!"

Airazor landed right in front of Megatron.

"Back off, bird," he said, not even fazed by the fact that she was alive. "I’m not a Predacon anymore."

"I know, I heard your plans," she said right back. "So you’re going to be a Father, huh?"

Megatron nodded slowly.

She smiled. "Neat. Can you make me a nun?" At his nod, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. "Thanks! Yay, no more men!"

Terrorsaur opened the door to Tarantulas’s lab and looked in. Tarantulas was there, hunched over his computer playing Solitaire.

"Tarantulas?"

"Go away, I’m busy." The spider was so wrapped up in his game that he didn’t even notice Terrorsaur was alive.

"Get off the computer, Tarantulas," Terrorsaur sighed. This was the sixth time he had tried to get the spider away from the computer game. He wasn’t going to settle for an ‘I’ll get off soon,’ again.

"AAAA!! Slag it, you distracted me! My score went down!"

"That’s it," Terrorsaur said grimly. He signaled, and TM2 Dinobot came and helped him wrestle the spider away from the computer. They hauled him to an empty room, wincing from his screaming as they went. They tied him to the chair in the room.

"Let me go! I just want to finish one more game!" Tarantulas yelled.

Terrorsaur waved Waspinator into the room. "Tarantulas, we’re going to break your addiction to that stupid game. Until you promise to delete it from your computer, you’re going to listen to Waspinator’s life story. Have fun." He walked out of the room, leaving Tarantulas behind to listen to Waspinator.

Lady Dementia walked into the Maximal base. Blackarachnia’s enraged screams met her.

"How COULD you?! I trusted you!" The spider was standing in front of Silverbolt...who had his arm around Dinobot’s shoulders.

"We’re in love," the raptor told Blackarachnia.

"I thought WE were in love!" she shouted at Silverbolt. The fuzor just shrugged, and then they walked away, leaving the spider by herself. "What am I going to do?" she whispered.

"Well, Airazor’s becoming a nun, and Megatron’s a Catholic priest," Lady Dementia said practically. "You could go join them."

Blackarachnia looked startled for a moment, but then she nodded. "Yeah...thanks. I think I’ll go do that..." And the spider walked out of the base.

Terrorsaur leaned against the door and knocked. "How’s everything going?"

"--but then Wazzpinator--"

"Let me out! I’ll destroy the entire computer, just make him stop! Heeeeeeelp!"

"That’s better." Terrorsaur smiled and opened the door.

Megatron and Airazor were both walking along when Blackarachnia found them. At first she was amazed at their changes in appearance. Megatron was wearing a black robe with a Father’s collar (you know, it has a square of white on it), and Airazor had on a nun’s headdress.

"Er, can I become a nun, too?" Blackarachnia asked awkwardly.

Megatron smiled tranquilly. "Of course, my child."

Rhinox blearily looked up as Optimus ran by with Lady Dementia on his heels. She was screaming something about her underwear. The article of clothing in question was on top of Optimus’s head.

The Maximal sighed and went back to drinking.

Terrorsaur signaled, and the Predacons attacked. The fight was over quickly, what with Rhinox and Optimus drunk and Dinobot and Silverbolt locking themselves in their room. Lady Dementia was generally ignored as everyone knew she was a hallucination. She just sat on the sidelines and cheered on the drunks.

The Predacons had won!

It was about the time that the Predacons were celebrating that Megatron and the two nuns came by. Everyone stared at them.

"Have you any sins to confess?" Megatron asked gently.

"Um..."

"Hey! You! Priest, or whatever you’re called!" The shout came from behind Megatron, and everyone turned to look. It was Depth Charge, still hauling Rampage along behind him. The crab looked happily dazed.

"I am Father Megatron," the ex-tyrant told him.

The ray-bot heft his chainsaw and laughed. "Like I care! Anyway, can you perform marriages?"

Father Megatron nodded slowly. "Yessss...but the only femmes around are nuns..."

Rampage finally got his feet under himself, and he stood up. "We’re gonna get married, because we’re in love!" He threw his arm around Depth Charge’s shoulders.

Depth Charge laughed. "And then we’re going to kill everyone!"

They all stared at the couple.

Lady Dementia giggled. "Oh, that’s so cute!" she cooed. "C’mon, everyone! Let’s set up the wedding!" She busily pushed the Maximals, Predacons, and Catholics around, arranging everything. "The best thing about being drunk on Happy Pills and Cherry Pepsi is that the delusions are usually very entertaining," she confided to Tarantulas. He didn’t appear to hear her, because he was staring fixedly at the Maximal computers and mumbling something about ‘Solitaire’.

"Um, is everything ready?" Father Megatron asked.

Lady Dementia nodded, and then paused. "Wait a minute, who’s gonna be the Best Man and Bride’s Maid?" She blinked, looking between Depth Charge and Rampage. "Who’s the Bride, anyway?"

"He is," Depth Charge said before Rampage could. Rampage scowled but nodded reluctantly. He didn’t seem to want to get into a fight with the chainsaw-toting ray-bot.

"Oh. So who’s gonna be--"

"Friend!" Transmutate walked slowly into the Maximal base. It pointed at Rampage. "Friend."

"Transmutate?!" Rampage exclaimed happily. He ran over and looked at the ‘bot.

Depth Charge took offense at the reunion between the two of them. "You cheated on me?! Already?!!" He raised the chainsaw.

Rampage blinked. "But I didn’t--"

*VROOOM!*

"--nevermind." Rampage looked down at the remains of Transmutate and sighed. "Slag."

Lady Dementia scowled. "Great. NOW who’s going to be the Bride’s Maid?"

Depth Charge shoved the body into position with his foot. "This will work."

She rolled her eyes. "Ooookay. And the Best Man?"

The ray-bot glanced around and spotted Optimus, who was singing a drinking song about pigs and metal, or something. "Hey, Primal, get over here!" When the drunk Maximal had reeled into the Best Man’s position, Depth Charge turned to Father Megatron. "You can start."

"Wait!" Lady Dementia ran outside the base and returned a couple minutes later with a bouquet of flowers. She pushed it into Rampage’s hands. He looked at it blankly. "It’s traditional," she explained. "Of course, you’re also supposed to have a garter on, but I think we should skip that part..." She bounced away.

Father Megatron blinked and started the ceremony. "Dearly beloved--"

"Whatever. Just get to the good parts," Depth Charge said in a bored voice.

He blinked again. "Er, do you, Depth Charge, take--"

"Yeah."

"Um, okay. Do you, Rampage--"

"He does, too."

Father Megatron frowned. "He’s supposed to answer for himself."

Rampage shrugged. "Works for me."

Depth Charge hoisted his chainsaw. "Get on with it."

The priest sighed. "You may kiss the bride..."

A moment later Rampage slumped to the floor with a happily dazed look on his face. Depth Charge started his chainsaw again as the crab recovered. "And now onto the rest of the wedding events!"

Lady Dementia clapped her hands in excitement. "Cutting the cake and dancing?"

The ray-bot gave her a disgusted look. "No! The Chainsaw Massacre and the honeymoon!"

She nodded. "Oh. Right. We don’t have a cake, anyway." The Lady looked behind herself as the first screams started. "Oh, drat. I think the Happy Pills are wearing off, and Ralph Ares isn’t due to ship me anymore until this weekend." She sighed and waved to the happy couple. "Have a nice day!"

They waved back to the hallucination as she walked into thin air and disappeared.

Back to Lady D. Fanfiction Index