By Amanda Flowers
nightspider@crosswinds.net
With much owed to Maggie Anzjon
Now, the Decepticons had all been Decepticons for a long time, on the order of five to ten million years, or so, but none of them can remember having ever seen anything quite as weird as that one time that girl clung to Soundwave's leg and wouldn't let go.
It was a regular day and a regular ordinary weird scheme, something about Megatron having to get power for energon cubes, and that type of nonsense. Stuff you don't write your creator about.
The Decepticons, those of them there were that day, were all set to congregate on Moon Area High School during their annual chorus-choir-chamber-ensamble-band-orchestra-jazz-ensamble concert. The chamber ensamble was in their dresses and tuxes and boy did they look sharp. It was a dressed-up kinda night.
"She is my slender small love..." the chamber choir was singing, even the girls. The parents were all getting fairly bored, 'cause, frankly, you can't go to many of those things and not start to get irritated with them, and they were all hoping for some kind of retribution. Maybe a bomb. It's not that the music wasn't good, but a bomb would have livened things up a bit. When all of the sudden, like pennies from heaven, twenty-foot-tall Decepticons started crawling out of the woodwork. There was screaming and chaos and panicking like Smurfs under a Gargamel invasion, but no one really minded all that much. For a bit, the choir, kept on singing, and then they decided maybe they ought to let the Decepticons have the mike for a while.
When Megatron grabbed the mike, it looked really funny in his six-foot hands. "Attention Flesh-creatures!" he rasp-shouted, and the Flesh-creatures paid attention, 'cause he had the mike. "We have come looking for energy!" Meanwhile Skywarp and the gang was down in the crowd mugging random folks for their energon, which they all just happened to be carrying. You could get energon from anybody in those days. "We have discovered the perfect music for the maximum amount of energy, and we demand that you play us The Funk!"
The choral teacher didn't understand what The Funk was, but she was pretty sure it wasn't in the Madrigals book or the book marked "Palestrina."
"You really shouldn't ask that," said the teacher, who was flabbergasted and befuddled and other fun words. "We're a white high school in Pennsylvania! But if you'll wait a while, we're having Melvin sing 'Close Every Door.' He's a senior and he always does a really good job..."
"Silence! I demand The Funk, and I demand it now!!"
The teacher wasn't sure how to Funk, but she tried. Frankly, it sounded pretty awful. Soundwave was having a really hard time getting even one of those clear cubes filled with Funk Power. He was so annoyed that he really didn't have time to notice the girl with the brown ponytail who was clinging to his leg and not letting go.
"RAVAGE, TRANSFORM," he droned, which got Ravage out of his hair for a while. "LASERBEAK, TRANSFORM," he added, figuring he might as well get rid of another one while he had the chance. The other Decepticons all knew that Soundwave talked like that since he'd had to get his throat replaced after that loss in the Viet Cong, so nobody ever said anything about it.
"I like you," said the girl who had clung to Soundwave's leg and wasn't letting go. She was maybe about twelve. Ravage began hissing and growling at the choir teacher, which was not helping her Funk at all.
When, of course, predictably, Optimus Prime showed up, with about thirty-eight Autobot flavors-of-the-month that nobody could keep track of. Autobots reproduced like rabbits, and it was pretty much just those ten Decepticons they were fighting. (It really wasn't fair, said most of the Decepticons.) So it was fire in the hole and "freedom is the right" and "Decepticons, retreat!" and that was the end of that idea. And people loved the Autobots and gave them flowers.
"That was a foolish plan, Megatron!" whined Starscream. "If I were the one in charge, we would have filled a thousand cubes of funky energon!" Everyone knew that Starscream whined like that because it was in his contract.
"Quiet, Starscream, or I will release you from my command!" Megatron always said he was going to do that, but it never happened. The others had theories about how come, but nobody ever said anything about that, either.
"MEGATRON, I MUST MAKE A REPORT," Soundwave droned.
"What is it, Soundwave?"
"ONE OF THE HUMANS IS TAILING US."
"How foolish! How?"
Soundwave looked down, where, as he pointed, a young girl with a brown ponytail had clung to his leg and was not letting go. This was fourtunate for her, given that the Decepticons were about a mile in the air.
Megatron decided that this was really odd behavior for anyone, especially a human. Not even the Autobots followed them after they had retreated. The Autobots were always too busy being loved and getting flowers from people. Megatron knew he was the real hero because he fought against impossible odds, and because he had, with the help of only a handful of troops, stopped a choir concert from being boring. But he never got that kind of recognition.
The girl was shivering somewhat, since it was cold up there. But she didn't look particularly unhappy about her current situation.
"What is the meaning of this?" Megatron demanded.
"I like him," the girl insisted.
Megatron got very annoyed. She was obviously too old to be acting in such a child-like manner. "Starscream, execute that flesh-creature!"
"I don't have to," said Starscream, "'cause I don't want to and you're not the boss of me!"
Megatron growled, but knew that Starscream would probably come around sooner or later. "Fine. Thundercracker, execute that flesh-creature!"
Thundercracker started to fire on the girl, but he kept missing by a country mile. This was odd, considering he was at a pretty good range.
"BE CAREFUL," droned Soundwave, who was annoyed, even though nobody could tell.
"I...I can't do it, Megatron!" Thundercracker complained.
"Why not?!" It was pretty easy to tell that Megatron was upset.
"Well...because nobody's ever allowed to kill anyone human on this show. Haven't you ever tried it before? It just...uh...doesn't happen like that!"
Megatron screamed in raspy outrage.
"I've decided I like him and I'm not letting go," said the girl, and that was the end of that.
It turned out that the girl's name was Natalie. She was the sister of a brother who had a big solo in the band portion of the concert. She was a big fan of music, but she wasn't a fan of high school choirs and bands.
One of the first thing that Soundwave tried, after realizing that there was no way she was going to let go, was to Transform. This turned out to be a bad idea, because Natalie was totally ready for it, and after he'd Transformed he found himself as a small tape recorder clutched very tightly to the chest of a young human girl. This was not nesecarrily a terrible thing, but there was very little he could accomplish when trapped in such a fashion, and by some terrible miracle when he Transformed out again, he found that the girl was still clutched to his leg and not letting go. But now it was the opposite leg.
"MEGATRON IS CALLING YOUR PARENTS," Soundwave told the girl.
"I don't care," said Natalie.
"YOU ARE PROBABLY GOING TO BE IN TROUBLE."
"I don't care," Natalie answered. This made sense, because they were probably going to have to get the Jaws of Life to remove her from Soundwave's leg.
Soundwave went and found some Jaws of Life, but they didn't work either.
This was really the last thing he needed to have happen to him this millenium. It was bad enough having The Tape People to deal with. Because of his direct link to them, he was the only one who could hear a few of them talk, and he had to put up with it all the time. Today Ravage was sitting around complaining something incoherent about "the mother country" and "moose and squirrel." This might have even been tolerable if Laserbeak hadn't insisted on picking up that Jersey accent. And the worst was when Rumble had women over. No, the worst was when Rumble and Frenzy both had women over. But naturally Someone Out There had found a way to make life even more annoying, and that was by adding a girl that had clung to his leg and wasn't letting go.
To pass the time, Soundwave went ahead and ran a tape through. It was a weird one he had found somewhere that had music on it from obscure video games. Video game music still wasn't very good then, though the theme from "Spider-Man and the X-Men" was a pretty under- rated piece of music.
Soundwave sat down on the ground in the corner, frustrated and pretty tired. "DO YOU DO THIS OFTEN," he asked the girl.
It took her a minute to figure out that was a question, since the pitch of his voice never changed. She liked that, though; that was neat. "No, but I did today because I think you're cool. Do you invade choir concerts often?"
"NO. IT WAS A DUMB IDEA," Soundwave asserted.
"It was still not as dumb as that time with Starscream and the disco," Laserbeak added. "That was totally lame-o."
"Disco? Zhat was not disco. Zhey were punk-rockers of some kind!" Ravage insisted.
"It was disco. Rumble, tell 'em it was a disco," Laserbeak replied.
"I thought it was ska," said Rumble, confused.
"BREAKDANCERS," Soundwave shouted. This confused Natalie very much, since she hadn't heard anything at all since "dumb idea."
"I don't like them much. If you're very bored," Natalie added, "I have a tape from last year's concert. They sang 'River In Judea.' Of course, they sing that every year."
"HEARD IT. THOUGH I BELIEVE THAT SHE SHOULD HAVE DECREASED THE TEMPO MORE DURING THE INTRODUCTIONS, HAD THE BARITONES BACK UP THE TENORS AT THE END RATHER THAN TAKING THE DIVISI, AND TAKEN THE THIRD VERSE AT A MORE OF A MEZZO PIANO."
"That's what I told them, too, but they didn't listen to me. No one ever pays attention to me."
"YOU WOULD MAKE A GOOD DECEPTICON."
"Yay! Thought you'd never ask! Are you recruiting?"
"No!" shouted all The Tape People.
Actually, it sounded like a really good idea to Soundwave, since she was effectively bullet-proof. He asked Megatron about it later.
"Does she have any useful skills?" Megatron asked. He was an equal oppurtunity Decepticon.
"SHE HAS A GRIP OF DEATH," Soundwave assured him, and the other Decepticons nodded about that.
"I could hold you when you turn into a gun," Natalie said. "No offense, but that is a really dumb idea for a secondary form."
"Ohhhhh, like a tape player is sooooo much more useful," complained Starscream, who felt like being contrary that day and every day.
"It's for spying purposes. Soundwave, tell 'im it's for spying purposes."
Really it was for playing music during long boring meetings, but Soundwave told everyone he agreed with the girl.
"I know! We will keep her as a hostage!" exclaimed Megatron.
"Didn't my parents already tell you that you could keep me?" Natalie asked.
"Well...technically..."
"Then I make a crummy hostage."
She had a point.
"I thought of an excellent plan!" Starscream exclaimed suddenly. Bombshell and Astrotrain stood up and left the room. "Let us use this as inspiration for a new age of Decepticons! We should recruit all the downcast and lonely children of the world to be our right hands in our ultimate quest!"
Everyone assured Starscream that this was the dumbest idea they had heard in about a million years.
Of course, the next day, they began recruiting.
Natalie approved this plan, since she was already missing interaction with children her age. It was fun clinging to the leg of a multi-millio-genarian, but she had missed her favorite episode of "My Little Ponies," which was some cartoon based on a toy that Soundwave kept hearing about.
Ravage made a recruiting poster that was actually quite nice and full of happy clip-art. But Megatron didn't like it because it said "Help Comrade Decepticons Find Moose and Squirrel." Soundwave had him change the poster. Then it said "Help Decepticons and Have Fun Too," which was not as catchy, but made more sense for the situation. Later that day, the Decepticons got their first set of calls. There weren't many children wanting to help, only to take suckers of assorted colors, which the Decepticons were giving out as peace offerings because they were such swell guys. Blue was the favorite; some marketing genius had just invented blue last week, it seemed. Skywarp was trying to get the children to hold guns, but most of them declared that they were too heavy. Kickback had the bright idea of letting the children hold unloaded guns, which seemed to work for a while.
"This is foolish!" Megatron declared. "How can our child armies attack the Autobots with unloaded weapons?"
"They're a distraction," stated Natalie, who had quickly become the ringleader of the Decepticon Children's Brigade from her vantage point on Soundwave's leg. After a while, she was busily yelling orders to other, younger children, who were all-too-happy to oblige. Megatron was beginning to appriciate her value as a commander.
"Perhaps if you ever come down from there," he decided, "I will use you as a replacement for Starscream!" He laughed, and Starscream got all sulky and refused to come out of his room for a whole thirty minutes.
The sun was going down and the party was still in full-swing. A few of the kids had become genius entrepenuers, setting up a lemonade stand for the other children who were tired from lugging around gigantic albiet unloaded weaponry. They charged a lot of money, so Megatron approved. The Decepticons, meanwhile, were all busily taking bets on how long it would be before more Autobots showed up and ruined the fun.
"I give 'em twenty more minutes," said Frenzy.
"Eh, it'll be an hour or so," said Laserbeak in that annoying way that only Soundwave could hear.
"I say fourty minutes, with not a second more!" argued Ravage, and there they went again. Soundwave was beginning to get a processor-ache.
"What'cha' thinkin'-bout?" asked Natalie, quite concerned.
"THE POTENTIAL INEFFECTIVNESS OF AN ARMY OF CHILDREN AGAINST AN AUTOBOT FORCE," he lied.
"Autobots can't hurt children, so we'll be okay. You ought to send us in first next time."
"I WILL INFORM MEGATRON OF YOUR STRATEGY."
"'Kay."
At that point, there was a flashing light, red and blue, on the horizon.
"I win!!" shouted Bonecrusher. All the Decepticons groaned and handed over their energon cubes.
"No you don't!" whined Starscream. "Look again, fool!"
Turns out it wasn't even the Autobots this time. It was a small fleet of police cars. Everyone took back their energon again, disappointing Bonecrusher to no end. (After a while he decided it was okay, since he would just have to end up sharing it with the rest of Devistator.)
The Chief of Police got out of the car, delighting several children who called him "Mister Police Man" and told him they had forgotten how to get home from here. Some of the other kids were disappointed. The lemonade stand kids hid their money, shouting various charming things like: "You'll never take me alive, copper!"
"Who is responsible for this?" shouted Mister Police Man.
"It was Starscream's idea," Megatron assured him. "I had no part in this foolish operation."
"Well, under normal circuimstances, inviting a gang of local kids out for a little party wouldn't be a bad idea," said Mister Police Man.
"It was my idea," stated Starscream, who was allowed to have one happy moment in his life.
"However," began the Police Man—and all the children and Decepticons sighed because it sounded like a Really Big However—"due to recent tragedies in our nation's public schools, children are no longer allowed to have fun."
The Decepticons groaned. The Lemonade Kids got mad and threw money.
"Does that mean we have to go home?" asked Natalie.
"Yes," said Mister Police Man.
"I DARE YOU TO MAKE HER," said Soundwave. He was sure it would never happen.
"We'll buy you an ice cream," said Mister Police Man.
Natalie shrugged. "Okay."
And down she went, and off into the big blue car, and a younger child insisted on making the siren go.
Soundwave blinked after her as she went. He suddenly felt a bit lonely.
"Hey, don't feel blue, no pun intended!" said Rumble. "You still got us!"
Soundwave contemplated suicide. He decided it would be too difficult, and gave up.
"Don't worry," Starscream was saying to the others. "We still have plans for tomorrow night...trying to take over the world!!" He thought he was really funny, but no one got that joke because it was still a year or so too early. (It had something to do with Starscream's spark traveling backwards in time, and was way over everyone's head.)
But as Soundwave walked away he saw something that cheered him up a bit. Seemed a small blonde boy had attached himself to Shrapnel's leg, and was not letting go.
Tomorrow was going to be an interesting day.
END