Beast Wars: Friendship is Magic

Blitz Streak had spent about a week, working at the Wonderbolt Academy and keeping a low profile so as to avoid any unwanted attention.  Needless to say, he was beginning to grow restless.  Rainbow Dash would still privately tutor him on how to fly and would even accompany him on occasional searches for his lost comrades.  Not that he was ungrateful, he appreciated the fact that she would go out of her way to help an almost complete stranger.  Well, he wasn't exactly a stranger anymore, she at least got to know him a little better during his stay at the Academy and vice versa.  Rainbow would almost always accompany him wherever he would go to keep an eye on him and make sure he didn't do anything to blow his cover or stir up a scene.  It was a pretty casual week.  Blitz would do his job (which he didn't particularly enjoy all that much), Rainbow taught him some lessons, he would practice, and then the two would go out searching for at least an hour before they had to turn in for the night.  They'd wake up the next day and basically repeat that cycle.  It wasn't until today, however, that this routine was broken.

It was around 6:00 on a Saturday morning, the young Maximal was usually in stasis mode at this time.  He didn't need to work until about 8:00, so of course he would cherish those two hours of snoozing.  At least he would have had his slumber not been untimely interrupted by a familiar voice.

"Hey, Blitz, wake up." Rainbow gave the robot in disguise a nudge.  Blitz just gave a small groan as he buried his face in the pillow.

"Do I have to…?"

"It's only for a few minutes." The cyan pegasus rolled her eyes before prodding his back a bit harder. "Come on, this is important."

The word 'important' is what happened to snap him out of his sleep.  Blitz slowly rose into a sitting position on the bed, rubbing his optics with his hooves and giving his body a quick stretch before relaxing.

"Alright, what's up?"

"I'm going to be heading out for a meeting with my friends.  It's supposed to be some kind of royal business with the Princess."

Blitz tilted his head.  "Who?"

"Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you about that.  I was referring to Princess Celestia."

“Pardon me asking, but who's that?" The Maximal inquired once again.

"How exactly to explain this to an alien robot… oh, I got it!  You know that Optimus guy you told me about, how he was your leader?  Well, she's similar to that, except she rules all of Equestria."

"Huh… well, that just about sums it up." Blitz replied with a small nod.

"Yeah, and I kind of need you to come along with me.  The Academy isn't exactly a long-term staycation resort, so you'll be living at my place." Rainbow added.

Blitz cocked an eyebrow and asked, "What about the job you got me assigned to?"

Rainbow nonchalantly shrugged. "Just quit."

"Blunt, but truthful.  Not like I really need the money anyway." Blitz chuckled. "So, you're completely cool with me crashing at your place?"

"Absolutely.  Why wouldn't I be?" Rainbow said as the two exited the small quarters and made their way outside.

"Oh, I don't know, possibly out of fear that I might touch and/or break something important?"

"Nah, all the breakable stuff is in my room, safe and sound.  You're good." Rainbow nudged his side a bit with a smirk.  Blitz returned the gesture, stretching out his wings with a grin.

"Well, what're we waiting for?  Lead the way!"

"Try to keep up, rookie." Rainbow's grin grew wider as she extended her wings and got into a crouching position.

"I happen to be a fast learner." Blitz winked before the two took flight.

"So, this is your house, huh?" Blitz whistled. "Weather work must really pay well."

"Oh, yeah.  Big time." Rainbow chuckled. "Make yourself at home."

"I'm just supposed to sit around while you go on this important meeting?  When do you think you'll be back?"

Rainbow shrugged. “No idea.”

"Well, in that case, I suppose I could head out on my own and look for my buddies while you take care of your stuff." Blitz suggested.  That idea made Rainbow freeze up a little bit, her mouth becoming dry.

"Um… you might want to wait on that, Blitz.  You're not quite familiar with the rest of Equestria yet, so there's a high chance that you might get lost." She scratched the back of her head.  While this reasoning was partially true, she also wasn’t very fond of the idea of him striking out on his own without her supervision.

"Oh, well, I guess I can probably wait." Blitz shuffled one of his forehooves.

"Good, just sit tight and I'll be back before you know it." Rainbow nodded as she headed out the door.

"See you later." Blitz waved.  Once the door shut, the gears in his processor began turning.  He found himself in a bit of a vice.  Rainbow had told him to stay put, but his inner instinct was telling him to look for his other friends.  He was grateful for Rainbow's help, but lately he's been playing by her rules and now she's gone.  Maybe it wouldn't hurt to just slip out for a few hours and come back before she did?  After all, these are his friends and he can't just sit around, doing nothing while they're wandering aimlessly or still in their pods, or possibly in danger.  He weighed his options and sighed to himself.

"Sorry, Rainbow, but I can't just sit around while my buddies are Primus knows where." He got himself a small sheet of paper and grabbed a quill in his mouth. "I have no clue how they manage to write like this…" he muttered, scribbling a rather sloppy note, explaining his absence under the circumstance that she returned before he did.  The writing was at least legible and that was good enough for him.  He took the paper into his mouth by one of the corners and shut the door on it, leaving the note visible to those who would approach the front entrance.  He took a deep breath.

That should take care of it…

He jumped off the cloud, his wings catching wind, and was soon airborne.

"Did you see the look on those ponies' faces when we set fire to their tents?  Priceless!" chortled the red teen dragon, Garble, as he and two of his cohorts, Fizzle and Fume, landed by their new hangout cave.  They had recently "borrowed" said cave from a few unfortunate teenage dragons that lacked their strength.

"I thought I was going to bust a gut!" Fizzle laughed. "Those stupid ponies are so easy to push around; I almost feel sorry for them! Almost!"

"Maybe they'll think twice about camping out in our forest." Fume added.

"I think we've all earned ourselves a little celebration with today's catch." Garble said as they entered the cave. "A couple gems ought to do the trick-" the red dragon stopped upon finding that the interior of the cave had been breached from the top.  The sunlight beamed through the opening and highlighted a large pod resting in the rubble before them.

"What the heck is that thing?" Fizzle scratched the side of his head as the trio gathered around the capsule.

"Organic life forms identified within range. Beginning scanning process." A computer voice was heard as a prod extended and a purple film shot out from it, rotating around the surrounding environment, passing harmlessly over everything on its way.

"What the heck is it doing?" Fizzle asked.

"I think it's looking around the place," Fume suggested.

"I don't care what it's doing!  This thing ruined our new hangout spot and it ain't getting away with it!" Garble screamed angrily, scooping up a large rock and throwing it at the prod.  Before the rock could even reach it, the prod retracted into the capsule once it had finished making a full rotation of the surrounding area, causing the projectile to land somewhere behind it.  A slight rumble was heard, emanating from the interior of the craft and the pod's lid shot open, a screen of smoke leaking out and flowing across the ground.  Despite the thickness of the smoke, the dragons could somewhat make out something inside.  The shape climbed out of the capsule, standing fully erect.  It stepped forward out of the smokescreen into clear view of the organics standing by.

The teen dragons were surprised when, lo and behold, the being looked just like them, another teen dragon.  This new dragon had black scales, dark purple spikes which end in a purple colored webbed crest on his head, red eyes with black pupils, and had purple wings.  But something didn't look right about this new comer.  For one, just by looking at him, they could tell he was above the average height for a teen dragon.  Not only that, but he also looked far older than they were and was obviously more physically built.  He looked more like a fully grown dragon that was shrunk down to their size, instead of an actual teen.

This new dragon turned his head, scanning his new surroundings, then looked down at his claws.  He looked at his back and took note of his wings, a look of interest crossing his face in the form of a raised eyebrow.  The newcomer stretched his wings to their full length.  Once he did that he folded them back up and looked over the rest of his body.

"This form will do very nicely.  Yesss," The black dragon said with a low chuckle.

Garble, Fizzle, and Fume were beyond confused by this point.  This guy was acting like he had only now just realized he was a dragon.  How can something be that hard to notice?  Garble was the first to gather the nerve to finally speak to this weirdo.

"Hey freak, what's the big idea of ruining are hang out spot huh?!" Garble shouted.

The black dragon either didn't hear Garble or just ignored him entirely as he didn't even acknowledge Garble in the slightest.  Instead, he tapped the side of his head.

"To any and all Predacons, this is Megatron.  Do you copy?"

Static was the response.

"Come in, Predacons."

Same result.

The black dragon let out an annoyed grunt at the ineptitude of his equipment. "What a useless piece of junk," He grumbled as he switched off his comm link,

"Well, I suppose I'll just have to go and find them myself; or what's left of them anyway.  Yesss."

"Hey!" Garble yelled out, "I'm talking to you, freak!"

Megatron turned his head toward Garble with a sigh.

"Are you really still here?" he asked them in a very disinterested tone.  He figured they would have been smart enough to back off.

"You're damn right, we're still here!" Garble yelled.

"It seems that I've overestimated your capacity to think or at least use basic common sense.  Yesss." Megatron replied.  He really wasn't in the mood to deal with these imbeciles, especially at a time like this.

Garble was now shaking with rage.  The nerve of this dragon made his blood boil.  First, he destroys their cave, now he suddenly insults them?  Garble's eye twitched as this newcomer was really beginning to push his buttons now.

"You calling us stupid?!" he shouted.  Now, Fizzle and Fume were getting aggravated as well.  They weren't gonna let this freak insult them!  Especially not after the fact that he’d just trashed their hang out!

Megatron just rolled his optics, finding his patience for these persistent creatures to be diminishing at a steady rate.

"Look, I've wasted enough time with you idiots.  So, I'll just be-"

"WHAT THE HECK JUST HAPPENED?!" Came another trio of voices in unison.  These ones didn't belong to the dragons that stood before him.

Megatron growled in irritation.

Oh, for spark's sake…

How he despised it when someone dared to interrupt him.  Their gazes returned to the cave's entrance.  Garble grinned as his three other pals, Clump, Vex, and Baff were standing at the entrance of the cave looking dumbfounded and panicked.

"Garble, what the heck happened to our new hang out?!" Baff snarled.

"Yeah, where are all the gems!?  Vex and I were gonna have a gem eating contest!" added Clump who was equally as agitated as the rest.  Garble turned toward

Megatron and pointed a claw right at him.

"It's because of this freak!  He ruined our hang out!  Now, we don't know where the gems are!"

All the teen dragons turned toward Megatron and glared at him, nothing but hatred and contempt in their gazes.  Megatron, for his part, just stared back with pure disinterest.

“Very well, I could use some amusement." he couldn't help but chuckled inwardly.

Clump stomped right up to Megatron and poked him in the chest.

"Alright, pal, I'm giving you ten seconds to start begging before I clobber you into next week!" he yelled, and started to count.

Crossing his arms, Megatron simply let this foolish reptile continue with his dribble.  He would humor this fool for a bit.

"1!  2!  3!  4... uh… hey guys what comes after 4?" Clump asked.

Garble and the others face palmed. "Five!"

"Oh, right!  5!”

Megatron just stared at Clump as he continued his count.  The fact that he couldn't even count, however, nearly made him chortle out loud, but he was able to keep his composure.

"6!  7!  8!  9!  9 and a half! 9 and three quarters!  Last chance to beg freak-!"

And just like that, Megatron's composure had dissipated.  This was too much stupidity for one day and before Clump could even get the chance to finish his sentence,

Megatron had grabbed him by the head with both hands.  The other teen dragons looked on in shock and horror as the black dragon actually started to lift Clump off the ground with little effort.

"The five of us together couldn't even lift Clump!  Yet, this creep is picking him up like he's a stupid pony!" Garble's eyes widened even further as he watched his friend get hoisted up into the air.

Megatron glared into Clump's eyes, baring his teeth.  It was pretty clear that he no longer found amusement in this little affair.

"Let me make a few things clear, you pathetic worm." He snarled, his claws beginning to tighten around the dragon's skull. "I am Megatron, leader of the Predacons, and you would best-" The Predacon leader's monologue was cut off once again, but this time it was a particular sound instead of a voice.  It sounded like a series of loud cracks.  Megatron glanced at the other dragons, yet none of them were doing anything.  They were all just watching on, not sure of what to do.  He skimmed his eyes around the cave.  Nothing appeared to be collapsing or even a sign of such an event, so it was certainly not that.

Wait…

Realization struck Megatron like a train.  Could it be?

It was here that the Predacon leader looked back at Clump, but more closely this time. Megatron's eyes widened.  This creature's jaw was literally broken, limiting him to just pain filled grunts and groans.  It was then that Megatron understood what he had just done; he had just broken this dragon's jaw with little to no effort!  To make absolute sure of this Megatron applied a small amount of pressure on Clump's head.  Sure enough, another small crack came at the expense of a disgruntled grunt by the teen dragon.

"I don't believe this," Megatron gawked. Though, his surprise quickly evaporated into sheer amusement. "Oh, this is just priceless!  I am just crushing this thing's head and I'm not even using my full power!  I knew these creatures were idiots, but to be this fragile is so pathetic, it's amusing! I wonder..." It was then that Megatron's face broke out into an evil grin that stretched to the tips of his face.

"Hey man, let Clump go!  What do you think you're doing?!" Fizzle managed to get out, breaking from his shock.

Megatron shifted his eyes towards Fizzle.

"Just testing a thought out," was all he replied with, and turned his attention back to the helpless dragon in his grasp.

"T-Testing what?" Fume asked, unsettled by the look on Megatron's face.

Megatron's only response was his evil grin growing even wider as he slowly began to add more pressure to Clump's head.  More noticeable cracking sounds could be heard, as well as Clump's groans of pain getting louder, devolving into almost gurgled screams.

"CLUMP!" The five dragons shouted in shock.

Before any of them could do anything, there was a loud, sickening, wet crunch which echoed, bouncing off the cavern's walls.  The teen dragons looked on in horror as

Clump's body slid lifelessly to the floor, while also missing his head.  The Predacon leader looked at his now bloody claws, and burst out into laughter.

"By the Matrix, I wasn't even using HALF of my total strength!  Yesss!  You lowly creatures make even the weakest of my crew look competent and invincible!  And that is not an easy thing to accomplish!  No!" he practically cackled.

Vex's horror slowly dissolved into anger as he glared at Megatron, the very monster that murdered his friend.

"YOU KILLED CLUMP!" Vex roared and charged at Megatron full force.

"VEX, WAIT!" Garble yelled, but Vex had already taken off.

Megatron looked at the dragon charging toward him, trying his best not to laugh at this one’s ignorance, but failing miserably. "Well, if you wish to die so soon, then I will be more than happy to grant you your wish!" Megatron's evil grin returned and he said one simple phrase, a phrase that would haunt the remaining teen dragons until the day they died.

"Megatron, Terrorize!"

What made this unforgettable was what would occur next; within seconds, the dragon shifted into a metallic titan that towered above them.

It was at that moment, Vex realized that he had made a horrible mistake.

Too late.

The dark blue orb on Megatron's waist glowed with life, and discharged a red beam that struck Vex square in the chest, knocking him to the floor.  The Predacon approached the fallen dragon, his feet making the very ground tremble, his optics ominously dripping purple mist from the corners as the darkness of the cavern illuminated them.

Vex, scrambled to his feet and turned to make a run for it, but Megatron's fingers coiled itself around his tail.  Vex felt himself being lifted off the floor, and was flung into the wall of the cave, sending a tremor that rocked the stalactites above.  Megatron slammed his foot against Vex's chest.  The dragon kicked and scratched at his attacker's leg, but to no avail.  With a sadistic chuckle, Megatron's arm slowly shifted into a baton-shaped tube, a red light beginning to flare from the tip, and brought it to level with his face.

"Playtime's over, 'Vex’, yesss." Megatron grinned as the beam fired once more.  The front of Vex's head exploded upon contact, sending shards of his skull and streams of blood across the walls, floor, and Megatron's face alike.  The tyrant turned his attention back to the dragons, not even bothering to wipe his faceplate.

"WE'VE GOT TO GET OUT OF HERE!  COME ON, GUYS, GET MOVING!" Garble shouted.  Fizzle, Fume, and Baff did not need to be told twice as they followed Garble and headed toward the exit.

They never even reached it as Megatron had already blasted the cave entrance, blocking off their only escape.  Plagued with fear the dragons began making their way toward the opening in the ceiling.  But that soon turned out to be a bad idea as the Predacon leader got right in front of them.

"Leaving so soon?  I don't think so, no." Megatron told them and literally smacked the four out of the air, sending them all to the floor.

Megatron was enjoying himself until he noticed sparks coming off him, making it hard to move.

What in the world?!

"Energon surge. The planet possesses a massive supply of energon; too much energon.  Sustained exposure will cause critical and permanent damage.  Transform into beast mode immediately." The computer in Megatron's head reported.  The tyrant grumbled and changed back into his dragon form.  He looked over and saw that the four teenage dragons were still on the ground struggling to just get up.

"No matter," Megatron muttered to himself as he walked over to the dragons, "I don't need to be transformed to deal with these fools."

Garble was panicking beyond belief inside his head.  This psycho killed two of his friends with no effort and was going to kill them next.  Worst of all he could barely move after getting hit out of the air and his friends were out cold.

Come on, Garble, think!  There's gotta be a way you and your remaining pals can survive this!  Think, dammit, think!

Garble’s mind gave in to desperation.

Megatron grabbed Garble by his throat with one hand and hoisted him up.

"Now then, you pathetic creature, do you have any last words before I destroy you like the other feeble reptiles who dared to challenge me?" Megatron taunted, savoring the melody of the cracking bones beneath his iron grip.

Garble's mind was racing over a mile a minute.  There had to be some way out of this. He just wished something, anything could come in and help them.

Wait... help?

That last word rang in the teen dragon’s mind.

"We-ack-can-ack-help you!" Garble managed to get out.

Megatron merely laughed once more.  Oh, how he loved it when they begged.

"You help me?  What use could you possibly have?"

"Do-ack-even know-ack-what you are?" Garble asked.

Megatron arched a brow at this question. "Why does that matter?"

"Well-ack-we're only-ack-teen dragons!"

"Teens?" Megatron questioned as he brought Garble closer. "You mean you're just a bunch of brats?"

"Y-yeah… pretty much..." Garble wheezed, he was losing air and fast, his lungs beginning to burn and face fading into a dark blue hue. "D-Do you… even know-ack-where you-ack-are? Well-ack-we can-ack-help…"

Megatron stood there, contemplating what this dragon had to say.

As much as I hate to admit it, he has a point.  I know next to nothing about this world, and what kind of creatures reside here.  Until I can reassemble my crew, these dragons may be of use to me.

Megatron finally released Garble's neck.

The red teen dragon gasped for air as he looked up at the Predacon leader in fear, his chest heaving rapidly, and not just from the lack of oxygen.

"Perhaps you and your idiot friends may actually be useful after all," he said. "You will tell me everything that you know about this place and you will follow my orders to the letter.  Ignore any of said orders or deviate from what I tell you to do, then I will kill you and your friends without hesitation.  Do I make myself clear?"

"C-Crystal c-clear," Garble squeaked out.

"Good.  Now, what's your name?"

"G-Garble, sir…"

"Well, Garble, congratulations to you and your remaining friends." Megatron said with a plastered grin that held such malice, making Garble feel like he was staring into Tartarus incarnate.

"You all belong to me, now. Yesss."