From grimlock@u.washington.edu Sun Jan 11 18:31:43 1998 Date: Fri, 23 May 1997 20:21:25 -0700 From: David Filip Newsgroups: alt.toys.transformers Subject: [FANFIC 10/10] Lord of the Flies Starring the Transformers Lord of the Flies Starring The Transformers by David Filip Part 10, the finale: A Nice Place to Visit but you Wouldn't Want to Die There Windcharger and his allies loaded up on the remainder of their Soylent Green snacks, as many as their fuel tanks allowed. "Before we hit this island I would have said 'oh they're just kids' and left it at that, but now we have to go through with the plan." Rumble and Frenzy put their hands on Windcharger's shoulders. "We'll stick with you boss--" "You can count on us." "Thanks guys. I have a feeling this will be a busy morning." He reached out and handed a Soylent Green tile for Bumblebee to consume. "If I know Starscream, he'll expect me to keep talking to the rest of you guys for hours. He probably thinks he has all the time in the world, so we'll keep letting him think that." "I just don't like being bait," Bumblebee whined. "You know what my Auntie always said about being bait, she said--" "All of us are bait. He'll capture us once he gets his plans ready, and make a big show of killing me in front of everybody. He will expect it to give him the ultimate respect on this island." "Isn't there a way that's less risky." "Not unless you have a better idea. Besides, there isn't much of a risk. As soon as he starts fighting me, I'll just use the magnetic beam generator in my arm. It can't lift heavy weights too well but it will deflect anything he could throw at me and help me send it right back to him. The spears and knives are all metal, right? I could stab Starscream into deactivation with his own weapons, then I'd be the one everyone feared. At that point I'd just tell everyone to do things rationally and we'd be safe until we're rescued." Bumblebee shook his head. "I don't like this. It seems so mean." The twins nodded simultaneously as Windcharger went on. "We can still salvage Starscream if I don't wreck his brain component, but someone sensible needs to have control here." "What about Skywarp?" asked the blue twin. "He may be a cruel guy, but Starscream is our main obstacle. Who else could plan violent scenarios for all us kids? We certainly couldn't learn any of it from tv." The red twin smiled. "So we'll be okay until we're rescued!" Windcharger nodded. "Yep, everything will be fine once Starscream's out of the way. Maybe we'll even reactivate Wheelie when it's safe enough." The blue twin smiled. "Except for the part about reactivating Wheelie, I think it's a great plan. Heh. Heh heh--" The red twin agreed. "Yeah. A great plan. Huh huh. Huh huh huh. Huh huh." "No it's not." Ramjet ran out from the forest with several of Starscream's bunch in tow. Windcharger spun his direction. "Why not?" "Because Starscream knows you too well. He knew you'd just sit here and make a long and complicated plan, and that gave us all the time we needed to prepare a little ceremony for you." With those words, several armed littluns and biguns pointed spears and Swiss Army Matrix knives at the boys. These hunters were covered in Jhenera-Shuntoo paint and held cold looks in their eyes. "You're coming with us." * * * "Everything is almost ready Starscream," Afterburner reported. "We've got the spear sharpened at both ends ready for your use, the heat ray is up and running, but I don't like the angle those rocks are positioned--" "They're on their way!" Powerglide performed a double barrel roll before transforming into his robot mode and skidding to Starscream's feet. "Excellent. Are you sure that they are under control?" "Ramjet and Beachcomber's forces outnumber them by a bunch. I was also listening in for a bit, and it's funny. They knew you'd kill them, but they didn't suspect the part about the rock at all." Starscream's smile shone out. "Well, when you want to kill dramatically, you can't simply make every murder happen the same way, can you? Variety is the spice of death. That's what I always say." Afterburner bounced on his feet to get attention. "I really don't like the plan with the rock. It just isn't set properly to--" "Oh fancy that!" Starscream pointed. "Here they come! Take your places, everyone!" Starscream temporarily moved his hideout to the top of the mountain, a move that induced a fear of the beast in many, but it was so much more grandiose than his simple place by the stream. It was the kind of place where one felt compelled to give long dramatic speeches and witty retorts. "So Windcharger, we meet again at last. When I left you I was but a hunter. Now I am the master." "Only a master of stupidity Starscream!" The winding and twisting ledges at the side of the mountain left little room unless they walked in single file, so a couple guards walked in front of Windcharger's friends and a few walked behind. Ramjet recalled Starscream's plan and pushed Bumblebee further out to the edge of the catwalk. The guards stepped aside to let Windcharger walk up the remainder of the ledge to look eye to eye at Starscream. "You stole Bumblebee's faceplate. That's not right. You have to give it back." "Really?" Starscream used a voice of innocence. "Who says?" "Look at what you've done!" Windcharger shouted back. "You barely helped with the shelters, you took the particle beam and turned it into a glorified barbecue grill, we lost a bunch of littluns when you set the island on fire, you undermined the democratic process, you shot down a ship, none of us even know where Brawl is, you led Brawn off to his death, you captured Laserbeak, you had us kill Thundercracker, you stole Bumblebee's faceplate, and most of that was just yesterday!" "Quit living in the past!" Windcharger's temper blazed out. "If you wanted to be sensible again we would have let you borrow Bumblebee's faceplate for the p-beam. But you weren't! You had to come down and sneak in like a thief!" "Say that again!" "Thief! Thief!" "I'm not even going to dignify that with a response," Starscream responded. "Stop it now Starscream! You're insane! You destroy everything you touch." The hunter returned eye contact with a menacing visage. "Oh no, I don't destroy it. I consume it in my hunger for power." "I'm going to end your hunger once and for all." "How would you do that Windcharger? Will you send Cockroach after me?" "You may be young, but your design is old. Yesterday's model. Ready for the scrap heap." "We'll see who's ready for the scrap heap." Starscream grinned psychotically. "Yes we will Starscream. One shall stand. One shall fall." "Why would you throw your life away so recklessly?" "That is a question you should ask yourself Starscream." "Well I meant it as I question that you should ask yourself Windcharger." "Uh..." Windcharger's mind raced for a comeback. "Takes one to know one." "What the hell does that mean?" "I know you are but what am I?" With his opponent angered to the point of incoherence, Starscream felt quite pleased. "That was a really lame comeback. I hope you realize now that you can never win." "I'm a rubber, you are glue--" Starscream considered further insults, but made a rush and stabbed at Windcharger's chest with a spear instead. The smaller robot parried at lightning speed. "You'll have to do better than that Starscream! "Enough of this stupidity!" Starscream finally screamed, backing off with the knife. "I brought you here for one reason and one reason only. To take you and your friends out of my misery!" "But wait!" Bumblebee shouted and stepped forward blindly. "I've got the megaphone." This quieted the savages, making them wonder what silly thing Bumblebee would suggest now. Skids asked "So what? The megaphone is attached where your face should be!" Bumblebee ignored the laughs and continued. "We don't have to argue over this. Just ask yourself a question: Do you want to be killers on this island like Starscream or sensible Cybertronians like Windcharger?" Dirge laughed from behind a giant boulder. "We're Transformers! We can be two things!" The clamor of laughing children rose once more. Some even threw tiny rocks down at Bumblebee and caused him to hug boulders on the ledge of the pass. "Which is better? To have rules and agree or to hunt and kill?" Windcharger tried to add something to the conversation but his voice was drowned out by the complaints. "Should we be responsible and take care of ourselves, or tear each other apart? What happened to that kid who turned into part of a space shuttle? Do you remember him?" Rather than drawing a response of shock from the crowd, the laughter persisted. Skywarp laughed from behind the boulder. "He talks too much! I really think we should kill Roachboy." Starscream nodded and made a wide gesture. "Behold, all of you! When anyone opposes me, they shall meet their end...like this!" The cue was all Skywarp needed to push the boulder from it's place. With the taboo of the old life even less of a memory than before, he watched proudly as the mighty rock rolled on its way down the mountain toward Bumblebee. Fortunately for the little yellow robot, Afterburner was right and the rock couldn't stay on course for long. Instead of killing one robot as Starscream had intended, the boulder rolled across the mountain pass exactly where Ramjet, Beachcomber, First Aid, Rumble, Frenzy and the entire micromaster Off-Road Patrol were. All of these robots were crushed in a horrifying instant, resulting in a less-than-spectacular display of Starscream's power. Dirge looked down at Ramjet's dead body. "Uh oh." Thrust agreed. "I know what you mean. We lost more drummers than Spinal Tap that way." Seeing the red twin was still alive, Powerglide flew down to ask an important question. "Before you die, I have to know which of you is Rumble and which is Frenzy? Who is red and who is blue?" "My name is--" The energon flow ceased within the red twin and he suddenly went motionless. Powerglide checked the other bodies, but they had been too badly damaged to function. Frustrated beyond belief, Starscream picked up a single fist-sized stone and threw it down at Bumblebee. It struck the yellow robot in a glancing blow to an ornament at the side of his head, causing him to lose his balance, spin, and fall off the mountainside. Bumblebee crashed across a jagged section of rock on his way down and his torso hull was ripped open by the impact, scattering loose pieces everywhere. The megaphone flew off his head casing and shattered on a slightly lower row of rocks. "That's what you'll get!" Starscream shouted to Windcharger, ignoring the accidental deaths of his friends. "I meant THAT! There isn't a tribe for you any more! The megaphone is gone! Everything is gone! And so are you!" With full intent to kill, he threw his spear at Windcharger. He also found the fully expected result: Windcharger switched his right hand for the magnetic beam generator and magnetically deflected the weapon. Starscream called out to complete his plan. "Now Warpath!" Starscream's small red follower quickly transformed to tank mode, leveled his barrel at Windcharger, and fired a plastic shell. Expecting to deflect a metal object, Windcharger failed and saw the shell sever his whole right forearm. Warpath raced for a word to exclaim, then found it. "WOMLET!" he yelled happily. "You're toast without your magnetic beam generator!" Starscream reached for a Swiss Army Matrix, flipped it open, and lunged. "He may say toast, but I'm thinking of metal-kabobs." Windcharger transformed into a corvette and revved his engine. Clearly Starscream was a stronger opponent and there was nothing to do but run, so he drove under Starscream's feet, circled back, and went toward the ledges. Skywarp, still embarrassed by his rock's inaccuracy, offered advice meekly. "He's attempting to make his way down the mountain. Shouldn't we stop him?" "No," Starscream decided. "We'll give him a head start and make this a truly interesting hunt. We will start to chase him as soon as he is out of our sight. I'll use the beastie's gun and a stick sharpened at both ends to make this a truly glorious event. The rest of you can fan out, but save the kill for me." Starscream stepped out to the edge of the mountain and looked as the damaged red corvette loudly drove away. "Don't think I ain't not gonna find you Windcharger! Don't think I ain't not gonna!" * * * Without his forearm, Windcharger's corvette mode simply appeared to lack a door, but his robot mode was hampered in two critical ways. First, without the magnetic beam generator, he was weaker than many of the choir boys. Second, without two hands, he could not open his Swiss Army Matrix's knife. He contemplated what he could possibly do to avoid Starscream's warriors and to defend himself, but ideas were in short supply. Already down the mountain and into the jungle, he evaluated everything he had seen. Many of his friends were killed and many were now nothing more than savages in their gaudy new Jhenera-Shuntoo paint. "Aaaaghh," he slowly groaned to himself. "If only there were more of us. I could have an outlaw tribe, or something that could survive." "Okay, I'll help." "Brawl? What are you doing here?" Windcharger looked up to see the armored robot hanging from a series of vines and creepers between trees. "Skywarp and the others decided to throw me off a cliff for some reason. I sure am lucky I ended up getting caught by the trees instead of hitting the ground--" "Quiet Brawl, I don't need your life's story! I need your help." "What?" Windcharger transformed to robot mode. "You were right, when you came to us through the future, you were right. Warpath knocked my magnetic beam's arm off and I'm in big trouble. I need you to open my knife. I can't do it myself any more." "I can't do it entirely myself either," Brawl noted, shaking around in the vines. "I'm stuck as I am. I can only offer you one hand." "That's fine." "You'll let me out of these vines when I get your blade out, right?" "Of course Brawl. I promise. Now help me out here." Brawl's only free hand reached down to Windcharger's outstretched hand, and together they managed to push in and twist the Swiss Army Matrix until a knife sprung out. "Thank you Brawl. You saved my--What the hell is that?" Windcharger and Brawl looked up to see a Quintesson on an anti-gravity platform. "You Cybertronians think you can do anything you want, but you can not. Unicron, the most powerful living weapon in history will soon be under our control, and your world will be destroyed." "A talking Quintesson?" Windcharger and Brawl spoke simultaneously. "NO VULCAN' WAY!" "Yes way!" the Quintesson exclaimed, ignoring the boys' vulgarity. "Some of the Quintessons here do not possess our ability to speak, but some have a power to rival Cybertron's own. You should make no mistake about our ability to take revenge, young Cybertronians. You will be judged." The anti-gravity platform hovered away just as quickly as it arrived, leaving Windcharger and Brawl slack jawed. "Windy, did that make any sense at all?" "No Brawl, but that hasn't stopped things from happing before--" Windcharger's words were interrupted by a siren. First Aid rammed him, turned around, and changed from an ambulance to a robot. Spinning his spear about menacingly, First Aid reveled in the moment. "Here we are, beastie. I'm going to kill you once and for all." "Don't you see? Starscream's using you! He's--" "Enough talk!" First Aid hurled himself at Windcharger, missing only slightly as his opponent rolled away. "You aren't going to cheat me from the glory of my victory! I know Starscream will give me lots of your tasty EnerMeat once I bring you down!" Windcharger parried several more blows as he replied. "You don't get it. Remember how you were before. Before--" Windcharger ducked under a sweep of the spear's butt. "Before everything went to hell. You were peaceful, kind, considerate--" "Die you bastard!" First Aid's spear plunged deep into Windcharger's midsection. While he pulled his weapon out to stab again, Windcharger finally found the courage to fight back. "I didn't want to have to do this," he growled. "I really, really didn't want this to happen!" Windcharger knee-kicked, punched and head-butted First Aid until the spear hit the floor. Finally, with a flash of his blade, Windcharger's Swiss Army Matrix's knife drew across First Aid's metal body from crown to crotch. Stunned as so many of his fuel and hydraulic lines were cut, the medical robot stared silently at the sky and fell back. Windcharger paused for a moment, hoping to forgive himself for what he had done and what he might do later. This pause was soon met by the soft whoosh of light jet engines. Powerglide descended through the trees as a jet and landed as a knife-wielding robot. "Whoa-huh-ho beastie. You think you can pick on the med students just because they're a bit psycho, do you? Well try the hero now!" He flashed the blade threateningly. "There can be only one!" Abandoning any attempt to reason, Windcharger thrust his knife forward as Powerglide did the same. They passed each other harmlessly but turned, made eye contact, and circled the ground as if held in an imaginary boxing ring. The fighters bobbed and weaved continuously, failing one slice here, blocking a stab there, doublestepping to a side and faking their moves. The fighting wore on for one hundred astroseconds until Brawl spoke. "Hey Powerglide! Look out behind you!" "Shut up Brawl, you know I'd never lose focus during a fight to one of the oldest tricks in the--Hey!" With Powerglide's attention on Brawl, Windcharger lunged in for a horizontal slice. Powerglide's head cleanly slid from his shoulders and rolled across the jungle's floor. The last remaining energon in his head allowed him to share his lament. "You know, I guess I jinxed myself with that 'there can be only one' bit. I probably deserved this." The power light behind Powerglide's eyes went dim, but the threats to Windcharger's life were not nearly over. "Skids! Shoot here!" Thrust called in from above the treetops. A sudden torrent of fire danced across the jungle nearby. "What was that?" Windcharger asked Brawl in a panic. "I actually remember this. I could hear Starscream's bunch when they were talking, and they said something about using the heat ray to smoke you out while they hunt you down. Starscream even said something about burning the whole island to the ground if they have to. I just wonder what they meant by the stick sharpened at both ends. They said they were going to use one for you." Another shot of the heat ray sent the ground asunder, knocking Windcharger's footing out from under him. "They're going to try and fry me! I've got to escape." He turned into a corvette, far more damaged than before, and drove away at full speed. "Aren't you going to rescue me? You promised!" Brawl looked nervously at the nearby fires. "Sorry Brawl. There's no time!" Windcharger sped off. As he turned through a wild Quintesson trail here or a path from a previous fire there, he pondered the meaning of the stick sharpened at both ends. What could it possibly be used for? * * * Dirge circled over the ground. "Is that what I think I see? It's a trail of EnerBlood." "Oh yes," Starscream voice was calm and measured, but he giggled wildly inside. "Windchar--I mean, the beast has left us a trail to follow. We'll be on him in a minute, but I just thought of a fun way to taunt him before the final kill." * * * After finding a hollow EnerFruit tree, Windcharger attempted to tend to his wounds. Since energon drained from his system at a rapid rate, he could do little but cover and plug his internal machinery with the roll of duct tape from his Matrix. He thought about home, thought about First Aid and Powerglide, and wondered what he could do. "I'm not going to die. Yeah, that's it. I could take them all on, one at a time. Yeah. I'll fight all the biguns, and win. I certainly won't worry about civilized Quintessons. That was just my imagination. Then I'll reactivate Wheelie. That's got to be it. Then the two of us will turn the heat ray back into a particle beam, and we'll be able to send signals into space again. It will be easy. Yeah--" Windcharger's delusional planning was interrupted as his Swiss Army Matrix beeped. "It must be Starscream," Windcharger thought to himself. The walkie-talkie/cell phone on the Matrix was getting its first call, and he doubted it would be good news. "Hello? Who's there?" He asked carefully. "Come off it Windcharger, you knew it would be me. How about answering a hypothetical question?" Starscream proposed. "It's bright in the day and you left a shiny trail of EnerBlood from your gaping wounds. All your followers are dead. All my followers are hunting you. What do you do?" "Windcharger? Who is Windcharger? I'm sorry sir, I don't know what you're talking about. You've reached Snapdragon's Catering. We are open twenty four hours a day to suit your business' late-night snacking habits. Our specials are--" Starscream shrieked into the handset. "Who do you think you are?" "I'm your worst nightmare," Windcharger taunted. "You moron. You aren't going home alive! All I want to hear are your last words!" "You want some last words?" Windcharger's mind raced in an attempt to find a good movie line. "Yippie kai yay mother--" "You'll have to repeat that." Starscream shook his Matrix. "There seems to be some static interference in that last part." Louder and impatiently, Windcharger repeated his comment. "Yippie kai yay moth--" "There's still some static. Again?" "You're pushing it Starscream. You're really pushing it." Windcharger thumbed the power button, placed his matrix in an internal storage box and turned back into a car. He figured that driving would be safer than hiding from the infrared eyes many Cybertronian kids possessed, but not by much. He simply didn't want to die as a stationary target. Suddenly, he saw Starscream right before him and ran the robot down. Windcharger wondered why his rival would be so small when he just realized he had driven over the decoy Starscream had recovered from Ultra Magnus. "There he is!" Obviously following a tracking signal from the broken decoy, Starscream led the charge as his mad posse followed. KILL THE BEAST CUT HIS FUEL LINE SPILL HIS ENERBLOOD Skywarp's teleportation ability put him directly in front of Windcharger, causing the red corvette to turn too quickly and roll over. Windcharger transformed to robot mode, but found Skywarp's spear dig directly through his left thigh. "You aren't going anywhere." Windcharger disengaged that leg at the hip and scrambled back with his good arm and leg. His classmates cheered and slowly followed him to allow the pleasure of the hunt to last longer. Starscream raised the blue beastie's rifle in the air and shot at Windcharger, blowing his remaining leg off at the knee. The explosion caused his body to flip through the air and spill EnerBlood throughout the forest before it came to a harsh landing near an EnerFruit tree. "Come back, beastie!" Starscream shot at Windcharger again, blowing away much of his midsection and causing massive fuel loss. Skids must have noticed the sparks from afar, for he too shot the heat ray down in the general area. Oddly this sudden blast caused more of a distraction and gave Windcharger a chance to crawl to a vine. He tried to swing from that vine to the next treetop, but his attackers simply walked through the fire and patted it out on their metal skin. Several spears nearly struck him until one hit and lanced through his right shoulder. He fell from the tree and scrambled to the edge of a bluff. The hunters closed in slowly, believing this was his last moment. Suddenly, Windcharger used his last remaining strength to push himself over the incline and to roll down the hill. Bump after bump sent Windcharger's gyros spinning. He attempted a scream for mercy but couldn't seem to make it happen. The angled spear through his right shoulder broke the remainder of his arm cleanly off, and his left arm lost its grip on the knife. At the end of the hill he skidded across the beach and hit a black piece of metal. "Oh my Windy. It certainly seems like you've gotten yourself into trouble today." Windcharger heard the uncommon manner of diction and wondered if he was hallucinating the voices of the dead, or if he was dead himself. "That accent, it's so familiar. Could it be you Dead End?" Straining his damaged neck to look up, it certainly seemed to be. "Yes it's me, and you won't believe how happy I am." "But you let yourself die in the ocean. You were clinically depressed to the point of suicide." "That was before I became a hero," Dead End chirped. "My Stunticon impact field helped me get past a lot of those Sharkticons, and I found a way into a city full of civilized Quintessons. I stole a spaceship from them and notified the school right away." He practically giggled. "The school said I could have anything I wanted if I didn't leak my dangerous escapade to the press. They're going to let me skip algebra! I'm the happiest kid who ever lived!" Windcharger was too shocked by the story to concern himself with the confirmation of civilized Quintessons. "That's..." He struggled for a word. "That's nice." Turning away from Windcharger, Dead End yelled. "SchoolMasters! I found one of them." Three adult robots walked forward to evaluate Windcharger's condition. "Do you see this?" Arcee, the SchoolMaster Field Trip Coordinator pointed to Windcharger's mangled body. "This is why we need field trip permission slips every time." She proceeded to drag Windcharger into Optimus Prime and Megatron's view. Familiar with Windcharger's record, Megatron almost laughed. "That's the kid who always sneaks onto field trips, you know. I bet his parents didn't sign a permission slip." Optimus Prime shook his head. "Great. What do you suppose the parents will want now that we let him sneak onto a field trip and get deactivated? A whole new body?" Arcee nodded. "Probably a much bigger one." "This is all I need. Shockwave is pushing for educational budget cuts as it is." All three SchoolMasters shared a collective sigh before Optimus changed his tone and looked down. "Dead End told us about you boys. Is Ultra Magnus still in one piece?" "Uh, no," Windcharger's data processor was running low on energy. "But...uh...he might be repairable." Megatron shook his head. "This happens every time we let him lead a field trip." "Yes," Arcee agreed, "but half of our shuttles are flying deathtraps anyway. It doesn't matter who pilots them. Better him than one of our better instructors." "But we packed the cargo and first class sections completely when the shuttle came back from Earth. He was on a Soylent Green run for our faculty lounge," Optimus lamented. "This shouldn't have happened." Soon Starscream and the others came charging down the hill. KILL THE BEAST CUT HIS FUEL LINE SPILL HIS ENERBLOOD The chant stopped when they noticed the SchoolMasters. All the students froze in their tracks, dropping the occasional spear and knife. Starscream's jaw lowered ever so slowly and his grip on the rifle loosened down to one finger. Warpath shook his head in an attempt to find a sound effect to say; none came. Some of the littluns started to cry. Only Skids, still on the mountain and oblivious to the SchoolMasters, continued to hunt. The heat ray scorched the jungle even brighter than Cyclonus' ship had before. Optimus Prime was not yet horrified by the kids' ratty appearance. "We saw your smoke. It was as if the whole island almost burned down. Even during the Gobotronian War we never saw such devastation. What have you been doing? Playing a war game?" Windcharger nodded. "Nobody killed, I hope. Any deactivations?" "No more than twenty. Maybe closer to fifteen." "Killed?" Megatron knew as a rule when people were telling the truth and looked out at the crowd. "It looks like detention moon Charr is going to be a little full next week." Many of the children looked down at the weapons in their hands while Arcee considered this. "How many children are still here now, and where are they?" "I don't know," Windcharger answered. "Who is in charge here?" A little boy with a blue rifle and a spear sharpened at both ends almost stepped forward, but thought better of it. Instead, Windcharger answered Arcee's question. "I am." Horrified, Megatron's jaw dropped. "Your whole island is on fire and you don't know where everyone is and how many there are?" "Brawl!" Windcharger's broken body jumped suddenly. "I left Brawl in the..." He looked into the raging fire for a moment, then looked away quickly. Megatron stared out at the fire too, knowing the long search that would be ahead of the Cybertronian Boys' Academy. If they couldn't find, repair, and rebuild as many of the kids as possible, law suits would close the school down for good. Disgusted at the thought and at the children, he commanded them to "Get into the shuttle." They all hung their heads and silently walked in as Optimus, their principal, asked a rhetorical question. As with all his questions, this one was designed to blend into one of his usual morality lectures. "How long were you on this island?" "A little over three days," Dirge guessed weakly. "The day and night cycle here is only five astrohours long for each," Optimus shouted. "You were here for a bit more than thirty astrohours, and look at yourselves! I thought you could hold out for a school week at least! Even Megatron thought you'd last longer than that! We both lost money on this bet! Maybe it's sad, but I would have thought that a pack of Cybertronian boys -- none of you are Gobots? You're all Cybertronian, aren't you? I would have thought that Cybertronians could have put up a better show than this." They nodded sadly and walked toward the shuttle while Optimus Prime continued. "So once again it seems that, with the fabric of society removed from the posterior of our populace, the solid waste that is our planet's youth has been flushed down the toilet of reality, down to the sewers of apathy amidst cruelty. As parents and teachers, it is our duty to jiggle the handle of experience and prod with the plunger of careful guidance to prevent this and make sure everything flows through the plumbing of life as it should. If it is too late for that, we must disinfect our sewers of apathy amidst cruelty with the chemical sprays of measured discipline. Only then can we drain our youth to the treatment plant of rehabilitation that will safely bring them back to society like so much recycled newspaper and not like cheap leftover fertilizer. "Yes, whenever one walks in these sewers, one must be ever vigilant and watchful for the alligators. The alligators of retribution must not be allowed to feed on the sewer-dwelling youths, they must be exported through the animal control agency that is the Cybertronian Boys' Academy. With croc wrestlers such as Megatron and myself on call, we hope to catch any alligator and ship it off to the game refuge that is the detention moon before it consumes our youth. Perhaps there, and only there, will the alligator be stopped, and our youth will be able to return to their original state." "You mean solid waste?" Arcee asked. "They should return to a state of solid waste?" Optimus considered his analogies for a moment, then answered with confidence. "Yes." "Maybe you should tell it to the kids. All the ones we found on the beach already walked into the shuttle by the time you were disinfecting the sewers." Optimus wondered if he was so wrapped up in his own speeches that he was out of touch with the children, but let the notion pass. He briefly looked out at the flaming island and walked back to the shuttle. * * * Starscream stared out the shuttle's window silently, as many of the other hunters did. All of the children were silent, and only Dead End seemed happy here. Spasms of guilt, anger, and upset coursed through Windcharger, and he felt a few words needed to touch the air. "There was a beast on this island, and it was us." "And the blue guy." Afterburner pointed out. "The beast was us and the big blue guy." Low on energy, Windcharger's consciousness faded. "Right." Even knowing he would soon have his brain component placed into a new body, the chief considered this his moment of death. We wept for the life he just ended, for the lives of so many, the cruelness of a robot's energon pump, and the fall through the air of a wise, true friend named Bumblebee. The last words he heard as Windcharger were the SchoolMaster's plan to come back with a search crew over the next few weeks to pick up as many bodies as they could. Brawl was fire-resistant enough to survive, and Laserbeak was safely tied up with Skids and the heat ray, but many of the littluns might not be so secure. Sitting as a scrap pile in Dead End's overhead storage compartment, Windcharger vowed to be a new robot in his next life. Perhaps he would paint himself in the colors of fire, as a reminder of his time on the island and a way to honor those who would not return. Regardless of his plans, Windcharger ran out of energon and lost consciousness by the time his principal boarded the shuttle. Optimus Prime walked down into the children's flight cabin and pointed out the window. "Well kids, there's something I think you could learn from this. It seems that once again, when the fabric of society..." The End. I'll probably put a sequel on the net by the winter of 1997. It will be titled "Lord of the Flies: The Aftermath" and cover a lot more with Unicron, Quintessons, the flip side of the time travel scene, the Gobotronian War, what "TF: The Movie" would have been like if Starscream and the Combaticons were the main characters, and more. NOTE: As of January 29th, 1998, the sequel is written but deep in the editing stages. Check with me by email if it isn't posted to the alt.toys.transformers newsgroup sometime before summer this year. Until then, that's all you get. Now read a book! -----David Filip------------------------ grimlock@u.washington.edu ----- Are you tired of conformity on the internet? You can rebel against the culture of the net in four easy steps! 1) Thank and encourage crossposters. 2) Discuss politics politely. 3) Support censorship. 4) Praise Apple Computers, Intel, Microsoft, AOL and the entertainment industry for a job well done.