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From: lizard@expressway.com (Lizard)
Newsgroups: alt.toys.transformers
Subject: [Fanfic]Horror Beneath The Sea, Part I
Date: Wed, 13 Sep 95 01:36:53 GMT
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The Horror From Beneath The Sea
An explanation:
This story is rather odd, both for me, and for TF Fanfic in general. You might 
not like it;it's an attempt to blend two genres that don't necessarily go 
well, and it is in first person, which I normally don't do, AND it stars 
characters (the Seacons) who have barely appeared in the canon.

It started when my girlfriend was looking at some of my TF's, including 
Tentakill, and said, "He looks kind of Cthulhoid", and, well, the rest 
follows. This story is a conscious attempt to imitate Lovecraft (but I'm not 
as good), and isn't supposed to be a 'parody'. It will, however, remain true 
to the TF mythos, and even explain one or two continuity errors (I hope).

Renegades *is* still being written! This isn't going to one of my novels;one 
more part, about the same length as this one, is all it will take to finish 
this tale. Honest. Really.

Lizard strongly welcomes your comments, good or bad.
***

The Transformers, including names and descriptions, all copyright 
Hasbro, and used without permission. Text of story copyright 1995 to 
Lizard. This story may be downloaded or printed for personal use, and 
archived at publically accessible WWW and FTP sites, but may not be 
included in edited compilations, printed or electronic (such as CD-
ROM) without the express permission of the author. (lizard@surf.com)

Part I:The Ship

Begin Report
From:Snaptrap, Seacon Team Leader
To:Megatron, Decepticon Commander Supreme

Hail Megatron!

You have requested a report on the events which occured two Terran 
weeks ago. I am providing you with one. You may choose to accept it, 
or not;certainly, the insane babblings which are all my subordinates 
can provide are sufficient to cast doubt upon my own rationality in 
your eyes. How I retain what little mental functionality I do is still a 
mystery to me;perhaps it is the discipline needed to retain my control 
during the gestalt fusion which creates Piranhacon, or perhaps it was 
random chance, or, perhaps, I am as mad as Tentakil, Overbite, and 
the rest, and simply do not know it.

I recall how it began clearly enough. As with so many things that end 
badly, it began with Starscream.

I was swimming near our main base when the call came. This form is 
still new to me, as is the aquatic medium it is designed to travel in, so 
I spend as much time in battle training as possible. I had just begun 
my daily exercises when an alert sounded...an emergency summons. 
Naturally, I responded.

You were engaging in business on land;Starscream had been left 
temporarily in command. I rushed into the command center, fully 
expecting it to be swarming with attacking Autobots,  but all that 
awaited me was Starscream, placidly ingesting Energon and looking 
amused.

I transformed to my bipedal mode and stood there, waiting, wondering 
where the emergency was. Starscream was curiously silent. Finally, I 
spoke.

"Well? You sounded an emergency call!"

"Hm? Did I?" He glanced down at the control panel. "Oh, I did. I'm so 
sorry, Snaptrap. I seem to have hit the wrong priority key." He looked 
up, daring me to make an issue of it, knowing I would refuse. He is a 
loathsome creature, Megatron -- you would do well to be rid of him 
soon.

I swallowed my pride, for the moment. "But you *did* intend to 
summon me?"

"Oh, yes, of course. Here." He tapped some keys, and the monitor 
which normally shows the placid seascape near our base shifted to a 
different scene. At first, I thought I was looking at the ruin of that 
cursed Autobot Broadside;but a second glance showed it to be just a 
human shipwreck, and not a particularly impressive one.

"Well? It is a sunken Terran vessel. Of what importance can it be to 
us?"

Starscream sneered. "You lack imagination." He adjusted the controls 
once more. Writing came into view. "You *can* read Terran English, 
cant you?"

"Certainly. Megatron was quite insistent we be able to deal with the 
fleshlings well enough to rule them. That scrawl at the front reads 
'Cephalopod II', and the scribbles on the side spell out 'Miskatonic 
University Oceanographic Department'. I repeat -- what of it?"

"Universities are places where the Terrans advance their primitive 
science. It is possible there is technology on this craft which might be 
of use to us."

Possible, but hardly likely. The few times the Terrans have created 
truly useful technology, the Autobots have rushed to protect it. There 
was no sign of such activity now, and the encrustations of organic life 
on the craft indicate it had been underwater for days, perhaps weeks. 
This was simply another attempt by Starscream to be more than a 
figurehead stand in for you. A goal he has pursued for millions of 
years, without success. 

"Very well. I shall take my Seacons and explore the wreck."

Ah, hindsight! In order to avoid a pointless bout of political 
manuevering, I acceded to what I saw as a simple waste of time and 
Energon. If only I had known! But I didn't. I didn't.

I won't bore you with the mundane details of our passage through the 
Terran oceans. The craft was located much further from our base than 
Starscream had implied;thus, we were low on Energon when we 
finally sighted it.

It was smaller than I'd expected, then I remembered the scale of the 
flesh creatures. By their standards, it would have been a fairly robust 
vessel. As I approached it, I felt...I cannot say. The water seemed 
colder, somehow, though a quick check of my temperature sensors 
showed no meaningful difference. And the voices of my comrades 
seemed...faint, more distant, though again, audio checks showed 
nothing amiss. I glanced at them. Overbite was in his shark mode, 
swimming rapidly through the dark still waters. Tentakill had begun 
to tear open the metal plating near the front of the wreck. The others 
were just hazy blurs on standard visual, following their orders to keep 
a watch for intruders.

They were doing as well as could be expected, on a boring mission and 
low on fuel. I decided that, as long as I was going to be here, I might 
as well do my job as ordered. I transformed to my humanoid mode.

In this form, entering the hull was easy. Tentakill stood aside to let me 
pass through the gap he had created. I took a moment to examine the 
metal itself. According to Starscream, the sinking had occured barely a 
Terran week before, but the metal was rotted, pitted, and corroded, as 
if it had lain on the bottom for months, perhaps years. And it was 
covered with...something.

The inner surface of the hull was encrusted with some sort of 
organism. I am familiar, of course, with the organic inhabitants of 
Terra's oceans;I have all the data in their primitive computer systems 
at my beck and call. But this resembled nothing they knew of. It was 
soft and pulpy, with no exoskeleton, a sickening yellow striated with 
dark purple and putrid green. It grew in large, lumpy splotches all 
over the interior of the ship, and it seemed to pulse and vibrate. In the 
nonvisual spectrum it...it...there are no words. I limited my optics to 
visual only.

I was about to attempt to secure a sample, when a scream of terror 

ripped through the water and the radio frequencies. Nautilator. The 
rest of us swam to him, wondering what sort of idiocy he had gotten 
himself into now, and whom he would blame it on.

When we came upon him, we recoiled. His left arm, up to the elbow, 
was covered in the same sort of fungal growth, and when he waved it 
around, we could see that patches of his endoskeleton had been rotted 
away. Multicolored strands of polyfibre muscles and glistening 
crystalline wires were visible through the rotted metal, and the dark 
sea around him was made darker with the spray of leaking lubricant. 
And he was still screaming.

"It's growing! Get it off me! It's growing!" Nautilator's voice was 
growing more panicked, and I feared for his grip on sanity.

"Huh. That must *hurt*." Overbite was clearly amused, and did 
nothing to help. Neither did any of the others;as you know, Nautilator 
has done little to inspire feelings of affection. Nonetheless, he is my 
subordinate, and I do my duty.

Which isn't to say I can't enjoy it.

I transformed. The form given to me by the emergency repair units 
resembles a creature the fleshlings call a "snapping turtle". There was 
no reason to not take advantage of this shape. With a lunge, I flashed 
forward, sezied Nautilator's arm in my jaws, a foot above where the 
fungal infection had grown, and *bit*.

There was one final scream, then his consciousness went into 
shutdown. Now, it remained to seal the wound. 

"Scalor. Your weapon, please."

Scalor's primary gun fires a metal rotting acidic gloop, cohesive even 
underwater. It was a simple matter to adjust the settings to minimize 
the damage. I fired it at the stump of Nautilator's arm, cauterizing the 
wound quickly. 

For a moment, there was silence.

"Ssssss...go baack?" Tentakil's sibilant hissing broke that silence. I 
glanced around at the others. They seemed quite eager to do just that, 
and, I suppose, it would have been the wisest course of action. But I 
was hearing Starscream's mocking laugh in my head. "What? Six of 
you, one of the most powerful gestalts, defeated by a *mushroom*?" 
And we'd simply be sent back to investigate again. Best to do it now. 

We'd be weakened without one of us to form a weapon-mode, but we 
could still form Piranhacon if we had to. I said as much to my troops. 
They were displeased, but they obeyed. I have trained them well. With 
you as my inspiration, Megatron, how could I do otherwise?

Once again, we began to explore the ship, careful of the fungal 
growth. We didn't know what Nautilator had done to cause it to attack 
him in the manner it did, and we deemed it best to not take 
unnecessary chances. It seemed to me the fungus was the cause of the 
wreck, but we weren't here to determine *that* -- we were here, so 
Starscream claimed, to look for any technology the fleshlings might 
have abandoned.

We found something else.

Soon:Part II -- The City Without A Shape

*-----------------------------------------------------------------*
Evolution Doesn't Take Prisoners:Lizard
Lizard is more dangerous than cyberporn!:The New York Times (paraphrased)