"I hate you." I glared over my propped up foot. Since my broken toes hurt so badly, I hadn’t slept much last night. All because of this one transformer.

"Er..." Depth Charge shifted uneasily.

As a result of this transformer, I was awake at 6:00 AM. "I really, REALLY hate you." I selected a pillow and eyed him evilly, trying to decide if it was worth throwing it.

Tarantulas knocked on my partially opened bedroom door right then. "Lady Dementia?" he said quietly, not wanting to intrude on my bad mood.

Good idea. Futile, but a good idea.

"What?" I snarled at him. "And will you get rid of that rainbow?!" The little shimmering rainbow above his head was making my headache worse.

"Rainbow?" Tarantulas thought a minute, and then nodded. "You're still seeing things, I take it."

"I-oh, nevermind," I said disgustedly. The Beast Warriors were all convinced that I was hallucinating because of my flu or whatever I was sick with. I had given up trying to reason with them. Just because THEY couldn’t see the smiling walls and such didn’t mean that I was delusional!

"What do you want?" I asked, looking away from that stupid little rainbow. At least Tarantulas’s head had stopped looking like a strobe light...

Tarantulas gave me a wary glance, "Well, Tim’s not fixed yet..."

"Duh." If HASBRO’s computer was fixed by now, I wouldn’t still be feeling horrible. And speaking of horrible... "Kleenex boy!"

Depth Charge sighed, and handed me a tissue. I grinned nastily and handed back to him a soggy Kleenex a moment later. He made a face, but didn’t object.

Considering that I still hadn’t decided on a punishment for his breaking all my toes, he had better NOT object...

Tarantulas chuckled nervously. "Um, Lady Dementia, I, um, should..."

"Oh, spit it out, will ya?" I was not in a pleasant mood right now.

"Er, well, since you’re not feeling any better..." Tarantulas slowly held out a little glass stick. I recognized it immediately as a thermometer.

"In your dreams and my nightmares," I told him flatly.

"But-"

I narrowed my eyes at him, and hissed. I do that when I’m about to go postal. It’s a habit I picked up from my cats. Sometimes I smile, too...

Tarantulas and Depth Charge both backed away fearfully.

"Um, maybe not." Tarantulas said hurriedly. "We’ll, uh, come back later." He fled out the door, snagging Depth Charge by the arm so he came with him.

Leaving me all by myself. Ooo, he’ll regret that later. At least when Depth Charge was actually in the room with me, I could concentrate on just glaring at him. But if he was gone, I could sit and think of things to do to him...heeheehee...

"Lady Dementia?" A hand tentatively shook my shoulder.

I’d know that screechy voice anywhere. I slowly opened my eyes, rubbing off the icky crusty things that had glued them shut. Yet another symptom of this sickness...I made a mental note (that’d I probably forget) to tell Tarantulas and Rhinox about it. They were still trying to identify what I had.

"Lady Dementia?" My blurry vision showed a red and silver figure next to my bed.

"I’m awake," I managed to mumble. I groped for my water glass on the bedside stand, but when I lifted it, I found out it was empty. Well, that was helpful. "Whatcha want, Terrorsaur?"

"Um, well, I thought you’d like to see these guys..." Terrorsaur bent down to pick up something from the floor.

Something in his voice penetrated the fog around my mind. Terrorsaur? Sounding embarrassed?

A soft meow told me why. "Georgia? Cat?" I held out my arms for the shedding duo. "Aw, that was sweet of you, Terrorsaur," I said with a smile.

If he was human, he would have been blushing. "It was nothing," he mumbled to the floor. The floor blushed for him.

I was already feeling better just from holding my pets, although Georgia’s white fur seemed to be changing into a shade of orange as I watched (I was NOT seeing things!). I cuddled the cats close to me.

Terrorsaur smiled a little as he watched me coo to my pets. Still seeming a bit embarrassed, he glanced away. He saw a sheet of paper on the bedside stand, and picked it up curiously. "What’s this?" he asked. "Is this some sort of list?"

I grinned, "Yeah." Heeheehee...

He gave me a strange look, and started reading the list out loud:

" ‘1. Tie up and give to Rampage.

2. Kill.

3. Mangle."

"What is this?" Terrorsaur’s eyes were wide in shock.

My grin turned into a smile. Terrorsaur shuddered. "Things I feel like doing to Depth Charge," I said softly. "I thought I should start writing them down." After all, my memory sucks, and I wouldn’t want to forget any of them.

Terrorsaur gulped, and started reading again,

" ‘4. Drop from a high spot after disabling his flight systems.

5. Hit with frying pan repeatedly.

6. Have a fish fry.

7. Lock in the B.Z."

Terrorsaur gave me a puzzled look, "B.Z.?"

"Brother Zone. It’s downstairs."

His hands started shaking. Apparently he had heard some horror stories about the place. He stared at the list and then at me. "There’s like 50 of these!"

"I have a good imagination." And a bad attitude...

Terrorsaur smiled nervously, and put down the list. "Um, I should be going..." He edged towards the door.

"Okay. Thanks again." I yawned, and made a shooing gesture towards the door. "Now, go away so I can sleep, please."

He nodded and left.

I thought for a second and added another item to the list: ‘Destroy a colony.’ Hey, it worked for Rampage...

It was noon.

"You should eat something," Rhinox said sternly.

I hobbled down the hall, ignoring the Maximal. I was concentrating on walking with one foot. It was a pretty hard skill to learn.
I was concentrating so hard that I walked right into Depth Charge, who wasn’t exactly watching where he was going, either. We crashed into each other, sending me staggering back to hit my head against the wall.

I landed on my back, staring up at the ceiling. It was a generic white. No, wait. It was a sort of green color now...

Oh. It was just the Lucky Charms leprechaun. Where had he been?

I realized someone was talking frantically, and tore my attention away from the leprechaun. Next to the cereal box icon, Depth Charge stared down at me anxiously.

As usual, I said the first thing that popped into my head. "I hate you."

Rhinox laughed from my other side. "She’s fine."

Well, that’s one way to tell if I’m alright. "I’m not too fond of you at the moment, either," I growled, and tried to stand back up again.

The operative word is ‘tried’. My vision spun, and I slumped back to the floor, my stomach revolting against the rest of my body.

Rhinox discovered a large bump on the back of my head after I was done heaving. Like the inexperienced human doctor he was, he found it by the simple means of...

"Does this hurt?"

How many times do I have to put up with this?! "YES!" Ooh, shouting makes my head hurt worse.

I tried to look at Rhinox, but he seemed so blurry... I closed one eye. That was better. I turned to glare at Depth Charge, but glaring just isn’t as effective when you have one eye closed.

Besides, the sudden movement made my head scream in pain...

Everything went black for a moment.

"Hello there, lassy! Are ye after me Lucky Charms?" The leprechaun smiled at me. Funny, he was the only person in focus at the moment...

"No, I’m not," I told him. "Do you know what just happened?" I looked at all the blurry things going by. I thought I heard voices...

"Are ye after me pot o’ gold, then?"

"Hmm? Oh. No, sorry." I was barely listening to the leprechaun. If I strained I thought I could hear voices telling Depth Charge that Lady Dementia was going to kill him...

Well, duh. Oh, maybe I wouldn’t KILL him, but I could make him wish I had. I turned back to the leprechaun since the voices weren’t saying anything new.

"Ye want ta sing with me, lassy?" The leprechaun started singing something about red balloons, hearts, blue moons, and how they were all magically delicious or something.

The thought of cereal made my stomach twist, but something wet splashed into my face before I could ask the leprechaun to stop.

"I REALLY hate you," I gritted out, wiping the water off of my face while glaring at Depth Charge. He had just soaked my head with water to wake me up.

I looked around. They must have brought me into the living room while I was talking to the leprechaun, because I was laying on the couch with a bunch of the Beast Warriors hovering over me. Ooh, did I have a splitting headache...

"You should eat something, Lady Dementia," Rhinox insisted, apparently to distract me from plotting revenge against Depth Charge.

The rhino would have to do better than that...

I grinned at Rampage, who was slouching against the wall nearby. The leprechaun had followed me out of the dream, and had morphed into his demon form so he could sit on the crab’s shoulder. "Hi, Rampage. How are you?"

The demon grinned back at me, but Rampage gave me a wary look. "Fine," he said finally.

I ignored Depth Charge completely. "Do you know of any colonies you could destroy?"

Rampage straightened up in surprise. "Huh?"

"What?!" Depth Charge stared at me in shock.

"Just kidding." I smiled at Rampage, who shrank back. I sighed, and forced my face to stop smiling. Yeesh, they act like I’m a ticking bomb whenever I do that... "I just did that to see his face," I told the crab, pointing at Depth Charge.

He glanced at the still staring ray-bot and chuckled. The little demon on his shoulder turned back into the leprechaun, who started dancing a jig on Rampage’s head.

Weird.

"Lady Dementia..." Tarantulas shook his head, and looked at Rhinox. "If you won’t let me take your temperature..."

I made a gagging sound.

"...then you should at least eat something," Rhinox finished Tarantulas’s sentence smoothly.

Why won’t they quit bugging me about eating?! My stomach feels awful, I don’t wanna eat!

An evil idea sprang into my head as I watched Depth Charge. He looked increasingly uneasy as I continued staring at him while I thought it out.

I looked at Rhinox and Tarantulas. "Fine. I’ll eat something."

They exchanged relieved looks. Hadn’t expected me to cave in this easily, hmm?

"Um, what do you want to eat, then?" Tarantulas said over his shoulder as he headed for the kitchen.

Heeheehee... "Fillet of manta ray," I said sweetly, looking at Depth Charge.

The leprechaun turned back into the demon and rolled around laughing.

"Yum yum yum," I said around my mouthful of food. "Yum yum yum..."

Depth Charge was looking increasingly sick as I continued eating. He stared at the table top as I munched on one of his fellow manta rays. Rampage had been nice and caught it for me. It took a while (his laughing scared the fish away), so this was my dinner instead of lunch.

I smiled at my unlikely tablemate. "Do you want some?" I asked him, holding out a piece.

"No," he gritted out.

"Are you suuuuuure?" I coaxed, waving the strip of fish in front of his face.

"Yes!" Depth Charge looked away, his color starting to tint green.

"Okay." I shrugged and waited until he turned back to me to stuff it in my mouth. "Mmmm..."

He clenched his hands in an effort to stop their shaking.

"Yum yum yum..."

"Will you stop? Please?" His voice was definitely starting to take on pleading tone.

Good. I burped. "I don’t know what you’re so upset about."

Depth Charge stood up suddenly, glaring down at me incredulously. "Upset?!"

I looked up at him innocently. "After all, it tastes just like chicken."

He swayed. "Chicken..?" he echoed faintly.

"Yep." Not really, but where’s the fun in telling him that? I grinned, knowing there was a large chunk of manta ray stuck between my teeth.

"*urp!*" Depth Charge bolted for the bathroom.

When he got back, I was showing Rampage my list. "Now, I know #36 is a little improbable unless I find a kettle big enough to stuff him in, but..."

Rampage was rolling on the floor by then with laughter, so I stopped and patiently waited for him to recover. The little demon was grinning his little head off.

"What are you doing?" Depth Charge asked suspiciously. He cautiously walked around the convulsing crab, who burst into fresh peals of laughter when he saw the ray-bot. He tried to read the list over my shoulder, but I gave a snarl to warn him off.

"Make yourself useful and get me some cushions for my foot." I thought a moment, "And the leftovers from dinner."

He sighed, but got the cushions to prop my poor mistreated foot up. He also brought the leftover manta ray to where me and Rampage were chuckling away (he carried the stuff like it was some toxic chemical...).

I exaggeratedly rubbed my head, "And some Tylenol."

Depth Charge ducked his head at my pointed reminder that I hadn’t forgiven his role in my present condition, and fetched the painkillers meekly. Heeheehee...I could get service out of him for DAYS if I wanted! Nah, I want revenge, not room service. And he knew it. He was doing the best he could to lessen that revenge...maybe I’ll go easy on him.

Maybe.

I grinned at Rampage. "So, what do you think about #45?"

He read it, and laughed. "What would make it even better would be to do that during a lightening storm with a metal pole," he said evilly.

I snorted with laughter at the image of Depth Charge swinging by his tail on the top of a pole during a storm. Interesting image... "No, that wouldn’t work," I told the chuckling crab regretfully. "I don’t have any metal poles that-wait a minute, sorry. I gotta sneeze..." I snapped my fingers, "Kleenex boy!"

Depth Charge muttered something nonrepeatable and gave me a tissue.

"AAAACHOO!! What was that?" I lifted an eyebrow.

"Nothing."

"Good." I smirked. "Catch." I tossed him my soggy tissue and went back to laughing with Rampage and the little demon dude as Depth Charge fumed helplessly.

It was a good evening, altogether.

Hey, things may be looking up! I mean, I may have been sick, have broken toes, a bumped head, and maybe, MAYBE I was seeing things, but things could only have gotten better from here! Right?

I should have known I jinxed it...

Back to Lady D. Fanfiction Index