Disclaimer: Faction#1 belongs to HasTak. Faction#2 belongs to Nintendo.
CROSSOVER WARNING! (You've been warned.)
Transformer, I Choose You! (la cheese.)
Under the heavy gunfire that occurred above, Ratchet swore.
An explosion sounded not two metres away from him, and he bent over a dazed Mirage and dirt rained down on the both of them. A vicious claw slash by Ravage had the spy's leg circuits laid bare and leaking energon. The rest of his body had taken some heavy denting by Rumble, but those would have to wait.
The twins weren't efficient enough, never mind they were considered the prime of the frontline warriors they had. He was still being shot at, even with those lousy two standing guard. He silently wished that it was Bluestreak instead. The little kid could shoot more Seekers down than those two, period.
Useless twins.
"Ratchet! That hurt!"
Ratchet turned back to the white and blue spy. He realized that he had unintentionally tightened his grip on Mirage's mangled leg, and the pressure re-activated the nerve system he had temporarily stalled.
Cursing aloud, he redid his work, and proceeded to continue patching up the spy. Mirage was in no danger of leaking to death, but they needed the spy to infiltrate and assist. There could, no, would be more casualties out there, and that meant more tender loving care Ratchet would have to give today.
Slag it.
With a slam that was not really intended, Ratchet closed the panel on Mirage's leg and welded it shut.
"You better watch where you run, or else-"
"INCOMING!"
Ratchet had little time to comprehend what Sunstreaker had shouted, but he lunged for his patient, who had yet to recover to his feet.
He felt something hit his back, the sound of the blast confirmed what he thought was a gunshot. And slag did it hurt!
He was blinded, he was paralyzed (oh great, now their medic was down!), he couldn't feel his limbs, but what he knew (despite his mind being hazed by the gunshot) was that he was still very much alive.
Something was not right about the situation.
What was happening?
It took mere astroclicks for the haze in his head to clear, and Ratchet finally online-d his optics.
He was seated on the abdomen plate of the spy, but something felt disturbingly wrong.
And Mirage was astounded too.
"… Ratchet?"
Ratchet cursed, but his whole world collapsed when he uttered a word he had never dreamed he would say.
"CHANSEY!"
Mirage made a face, "Ratchet, you don't want to know what happened to-"
"How the CHANSEY should I know what happened to me, you - CHANSEY CHANSEY!"
Mirage winced.
"Ratchet… you're…pink…"
Pink? What the slag was Mirage talking about? He must have missed some crossed wires in the cranial unit.
It was only then Ratchet looked down on himself.
He recoiled in horror.
He was pink! He also found himself with atrociously short little stubs for arms, his feet were now round and tiny, and he felt a certain gain of weight on the lower half of his body. And where his sub-space pocket and windshield were, there was a pouch, and was that an organic egg in there?
He cursed again.
"CHANSEY!"
That did not come out right at all. His vocaliser must have been affected by the shot, as it came out in a high-pitched squeaky tone. Of all things, by Primus, it sounded cute!
By now the battle was over, with the Decepticons defeated and possibly hightailing back to their headquarters, probably with a little merit of a wounded medic, Ratchet could tell by the lack of gunfire and the sound of jets leaving the scene.
And the Autobots were making their way towards them now.
"Oh - CHANSEY!"
"… and you're…" Mirage poked the tubby creature on his abdomen, "squishy."
With that poke, Ratchet was shoved off the spy and fell to the grass below him, bouncing twice before halting. Wincing from the pain, Ratchet could only feel himself melt into slag. He wanted to, but his new pastel pink and tubby form would not heed his wishes.
First on the scene of eternal embarrassment were the two lousy guards, Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, jovial as sunflowers in a sunny meadow. If Ratchet could stop that irritating remark that left his mouth whenever he got his anger across, he'd be spouting like Old Faithful right now.
"'Raj! Where's Ratchet? I hope no one got hit…" The red one's cheery voice, trailed off at the sight of something on the grass.
Something rather round, cherub, in a cute hue of pink, and really looked like a baby penguin that suffered from a paint accident. Its little mouth, tiny wings, and the little egg nestled in its pouch made it look like the cutest little… thingy the red Autobot had seen.
Sunstreaker noticed it too.
"Hey, look at that, Sunny! Ain't it sooo adorable?" Sideswipe pointed at the little creature. Its beady black eyes gazed at the mech; its pink feathers that crowned its tiny head bristled.
"I wouldn't say that yet," his brother replied, for he spied something else on the bird: a tiny black chevron sat over the eyebrows, and that scowl was all too familiar…
"Too right you – CHANSEY – won't!"
The two brothers were taken aback.
It was Ratchet! That voice they remembered hollering at them and muttering cusses as the medic would fix up their straggling limbs and pieces just came out of the pink creature, which now did not seem so angelic as it rubbed its chevron, adorable squeaking coming from the creature's non-indexed hands .
Mirage, who was now seated cross-legged, shook his head.
"It's Ratchet, though I don't know what he is now…"
Ratchet thought the same too. His scowl turned in more than it normally would have.
"Ya sure, 'Raj-man?"
Ratchet turned around to see the entire army of Autobots staring down at him.
Oh slag.
Prowl had the look of confusion written all over his face. That was expected. Being turned into an alien had absolutely no logic behind it.
Jazz was amused by his buddy's bewilderment, but that smirk on his faceplate just made Ratchet's feathers ruffle (and ruffle them he did).
Hound and Trailbreaker uttered not a word. Shock had, mercifully, robbed them of speech, but their jaws still did drop a measurable distance.
The Mini-bots held back, certain of the medic's fury even if he was reduced to a little chick way smaller than them, but Cliffjumper did have quite a smirk on his face.
Bumblebee, however, rushed forward.
"Ohmigosh ohmigosh ohmigosh! A real Chansey!"
He plucked the little creature off the ground and gave it a bear hug, ""How didja get here little guy?"
"Wait – wait a second… Chansey… OH!" Bluestreak suddenly exclaimed from behind Prowl and Jazz. Ignoring rank, he shoved the two officers aside and joined Bumblebee,
"A real live Chansey! Imagine that! It looks awfully cuter than it does on TV, you know! Ginny was right, every single one of them is sooo cute! You know who Ginny is, right, Bumblebee? The little girl? Yeah, she absolutely adores Chansey and would give anything to have a real one! And here is one! Ooh, be careful with its egg! Says that when the egg breaks, it gets really angry…"
And all that while, Bluestreak was prodding his way around the little critter, pinching the cheeks, tickling it under the wing, trying to get a good glimpse of it while it was still in the yellow Mini-bot's embrace.
"STOP HUGGING ME, YOU – CHANSEY!"
The two Autobots squealed.
A sudden clearing of someone's vocalisers snapped the two Autobots to turn around at attention, Ratchet still in the grasp of Bumblebee's arms and looking much like a teddy bear in a child's arms.
Optimus Prime stood over the two, his optics bearing into that of the new Ratchet – a much cuddlier Ratchet.
"What are you staring at?" Ratchet growled, now narrowing down the reason for that colourful metaphor's appearance. He did not dare curse this time, and that phrase came with a little hesitation to bite back an epithet.
"You're RATCHET?" Bumblebee and Bluestreak gawked in unison.
"If you haven't noticed, yes," the pink creature sourly replied. The sarcasm more than made up for the (astonishing) lack of cuss words.
"Oops…" That came from the yellow minibot.
"Sorry, I honestly thought-" the gunner started but Ratchet quickly silenced him with a murderous glare and crossing his arms, making him look even cuter but the soldier did not dare to laugh.
"What happened, Ratchet?" Optimus Prime asked, his face poker straight.
"I was shot in the back and turned into a…a thing!!"
"Pink thing," Mirage corrected.
"Chansey," Bluestreak re-corrected.
When the silence that followed told him that they were lost, the gunner continued.
"It's a Pokémon, the creatures that exist in a children TV show. There are many kinds of them, some are small and cuddly, some look like the worms and caterpillars, some are just monsters and some…"
"Bluestreak."
At Prowl's command, the gunner stopped.
"And how did you know this?" Optimus queried.
"We watched it with the community centre kids every Saturday, and we just found out the Dinobots like it too! We watch it ALL the time. I think we've gotten up to episode two-hundred-and-three, that's when the gym match between Ash and Blaine takes place. In a volcano, too! It's amazing how those humans can battle in virtually any kind of terrain!" Bluestreak chirped. "but we know he's gonna win, he always does. Then he'll be one badge closer to…"
"I think that's enough information," Prowl cut in, relieved that at least the Dinobots were not on the scene today.
"And how, exactly, did our dear CMO get transformed into a Chansey?" Prowl asked the twins, who looked sheepish, for once.
"We were against Soundwave and Starscream when Thundercracker took out a weird looking gun from subspace. He fired it towards our direction, and we couldn't block it in time."
Sideswipe gave a hesitant smile.
"Wait… a gun… Optimus, you think this is the new weapon the Decepticon's were referring to?"
"I'm not sure," the leader replied, "but if it is…"
"…fully functional."
Gears murmured, unable to keep the grin off his faceplate, the listening device close to his ears.
The other Autobots had gathered in the security room, closely listening to the Mini-bot. There was good reason for this excitement: Trailbreaker caught a Decepticon signal, and it sounded as if they were on to something, something really big. Gears volunteered to listen to the broadcast.
"So… Thundercracker, am I to assume this little… gadget of yours will work?"
"Yeah! It came from a visual telecommunicating box you found in the junkyard, of all things! How do you get a gun out of that thing?"
The listening Autobots chuckled as Gears mimicked Starscream and Skywarp respectively, 'Starscream's' voice dripping with mock sarcasm.
"It was no sweat. Once you get the box sheared down to size, use some of the chips it had to fire at trigger pull, you can get a gun out of almost any Earth machine."
"Even from a car that happened to be an Autobot?"
"Even that."
Gears' eyes widened. Surely Starscream was joking, right?
"He's joking," Hound assured the little one, but his companion did not notice.
Gears imitated a high-strung Decepticon and wrung his hands in mock anger.
"I KNEW THIS WAS COMING! You buffoon!"
Then Gears brought his finger to his lips and shushed. Everyone tried not to laugh at the animated mini-bot. He was a good actor – when he was in a good mood.
"The gun will shoot, and it's lethal all right, but because I used processing chips that sorted out the images for the television pixels and the frequencies of the signals, there can be side effects on the target."
"Then you won't point the gun our way, hear?" That was Skywarp.
"Hmm… guessing what I think that gun could do, I could turn Megatron into that purple dinosaur on that TV show, Barney, right? Or probably a human female –"
And with that, the transmission ended as Mirage accidentally tripped the wire in shock.
"…it could well be."
"Why, if I get my hands on that…" Ratchet churned, raising his fist in emphasis of his surmounting anger, waddling threateningly towards the direction the shot had come from.
"Easy now, Ratch-man-"
"How can I go 'easy now' when I'm a pink-" Ratchet's black chevron quivered irritably.
Jazz had to bite back his words, and left the creature alone.
"I want my old form back! I want my big, white, bulky and useful form back! I don't want to be smaller than a Mini-bot! I don't want to be cannon fodder! I don't want to be PINK!"
His fist still shaking wildly with emphasis to his emphasized talking and waddling, he turned to his comrades. They were the only ones who could help him now. They had the guns; they had the brawn and definitely the ability to walk instead of waddle.
But right now, their faces were a mix of amusement and pity. All of them could not think straight now.
All but Wheeljack.
In fact, the mentioned engineer was rubbing his chin with one hand, his optics lowered to the ground.
It was his thinking pose.
With relief, Ratchet turned to Wheeljack, "C'mon, 'jack! What's on your mind? Help me out of this screwed up moment, would ya?"
"The only…"
The engineer paused for a moment, his head slightly cocked in thought, then spoke up once more.
"The only way I see Ratchet getting his old form back is him getting shot again by that gun, but with its settings in reverse. I have no idea how Thundercracker made that gun of his, but I should be able to reverse the controls."
"And the only way to do that is to get that gun from him," Sideswipe smirked, "and I think Sunny and I can do that just fine."
"Now hold on a sec," Ironhide countered, "if yer two get shot and turned into pokey-whatchamacallits, who'll be able to get it back? We don't need more than one TV critter around here."
A snarl rose from Ratchet.
"Ironhide has a point," Optimus agreed, "so I think we'll send in Mirage and Bumblebee as well. You shall leave immediately and return to the Ark."
The four nodded in reply.
Wheeljack turned to them, "Recharge and go. And please don't do anything stupid when you're getting that gun back. If it gets trashed, you'll have a pink-coloured virus going through your innards after the next battle."
"It's a Chansey," Bluestreak corrected.
"Oh – CHANSEY!"
Everyone stared at him.
The little creature was now staring at the top of the hill where the battle had taken place.
Lo and behold, once everyone followed its gaze, was Starscream. By his side were Thundercracker and Skywarp, forever the flanks of the Second in Command.
"So it actually worked," Starscream grinned, more so at the transformed medic.
"Aww, he doesn't look so scare-wey anymore," Thundercracker taunted.
"Coo-chi-coo-chi-coo! Come here, chicken," Skywarp waved a curled finger at the little form.
Finally unable to take the hilarity of the Autobot medic turned into an adorable squishy, the Seekers exploded into vigorous and thunderous laughter.
"Why… you…you… CHANSEY!"
It was far enough for the medic-turned-monster.
His hands groped for some projectile he could fire at those darned Seekers. No matter if he was a small squishy, he still had his limbs and he would make full use of them.
He found something, and hurled it at the most prominent and easy target: Starscream.
And it hit Starscream dead-smack on his forehead. Whatever the projectile was, it exploded upon contact in a spray of solid and liquid white. What remained on Starscream's forehead was a glob of sticky and icky yellow and translucent goo that trickled down his optic.
It was an egg.
Ratchet looked to the only source of an egg in the area – his newly-gained pouch – to find another egg sitting in its cradle.
Oh…
He grabbed the second egg, to find a third egg appearing in his pouch soon enough – in a most undecipherable manner that could mess up the laws of physics and biology the world knew as of today.
And this he lobbed at Skywarp – and the egg hit home.
In a rage of Seeker fury, both assailed jets launched themselves at the little creature, while Thundercracker drew out a gun.
All havoc broke loose.
Bumblebee leapt for the Seeker's pink target, while the other Autobots dashed forward to meet the challenge. Ratchet, however, seemed to take care of business himself and launched two egg missiles as the Autobots clambered forward.
Shouts of dismay and surprise came from the tangle of Autobots and Decepticons, as arms clashed and grappled. Though, strangely, the sound of gunfire was never detected.
Showing a spark of his visceral intent of staying alive, Ratchet the Chansey darted out of the fray, narrowly missing Sideswipe's pile-driver by a hair and nearly becoming roadkill by Optimus's charge at Starscream.
But, for all his dawdling, he made it out alive and unscathed – to find something that had been tossed to the ground next to the fight.
It was a bulky gun, bulky in the sense that its ridiculously bulky cartridge box made it seem that the otherwise thin gun would have snapped before it could fire its virgin shot.
But, it could be that gun that changed him into this… Chansey-thing.
He ran a visual scan over the gun and discovered the Decepticon emblem on the hilt.
Ahh, so it was the gun.
Now what could he do with it?
Immediately, he sought for the gun's circuit panel, but found that his fumbling, finger-less hands could not undo the hatch.
"Now I've got you, runt."
Ratchet spun around to notice Thundercracker, approaching with a decidedly alarming rate.
With no second thought, he pivoted the boxy gun to aim it at the Deception. His hand found the trigger, and he pulled.
It was a second too late when he noticed something bizarre the Decepticon's face.
It was etched with stark terror.
A flash of pink light erupted from the gun's port, causing the medic-turn-Pink and Cuddly to stagger back and shield its optics (or eyes?) from the glare.
All on the battlefield paused in their fighting at the flash of light, and turned to stare at the event that just transpired.
The large Decepticon Seeker had disappeared from sight. When the light died away, the red optics and the black and blue body had all but dissipated.
In its place, however, was a most… intriguing creature.
Flopping on the grass was a blue scaly fish, with equally blue side fins and black dorsal fins, a pair of black whiskers sprouting from its cheeks and under its fat red lips and the dilated red pupils in its eyes stared at all who gaped at the creature.
"Thundercracker!" Skywarp shouted in alarm.
"A Magikarp!" Bluestreak blurted out.
All optics shifted from the fish out of water to the Autobot gunner.
"A Pokemon fish, that does… err… nothing better than flopping and gulping on the ground until it evolves," Bumblebee uneasily supplemented as he tugged his friend's arm.
"Err…" The gunner tried to finish, but the glares from the two remaining Seekers, especially Skywarp, did not leave much space for him to squeak.
Ratchet watched the carp flop helplessly on the grass, gulping and making a lot of incomprehensible noise, but he showed no pity.
If it did anything, the gun now gave him, the little pink midget, power and control of the battlefield.
He pivoted the gun around to point it at his next target, a grin on his features and his little black chevron glinting in the sunlight with utmost confidence.
He fired.
Soon, there were two more Magikarps that joined Thundercracker, one in the shades of red and black and another of purple and black, flailing on the grass.
"Eugh," Hound grimaced at the fishes, "Do we need to find some water to put them in?"
"I don't think so," Ratchet smirked as he leaned against the gun, fins crossed and legs crossed in a laid-back manner, "I think they could entice a few carp collectors to pay big bucks for them, and they deserve it."
"OK, Ratch," Sideswipe replied, from behind his brother, "But point that thing away from us!"
Ratchet turned to look at the gun, to realize that the gun's barrel was pointed straight at the Twins.
"I dunno," he drawled, "you two frankly deserve it for turning me into a chicken."
"Enough," Optimus Prime had the final say as he picked up the gun, carefully pointing it away from himself and his men.
"Wheeljack, would you mind?"
"With pleasure, Optimus," the cheery reply came and Wheeljack took the gun from the general.
With a tool, he picked open the gun's control panel and in a matter of minutes, had rewired the system.
"All right, guys, this is it. Anyone who wants pictures or holograms of a pink Chansey in real life may do so now."
Laughter rose from the gang, but instead of having his picture taken, Ratchet found himself receiving a hug from Bumblebee and Bluestreak, and then did he have his picture taken.
Ratchet scowled, and extracted more laughter from the Autobot party.
"Hurry up, 'jack. I need to screw a few dental plates shut and a spanner to throw."
And get out of this ridiculous get-up as soon as he could, he mentally added.
"Stand next to the carp. We'll change them back and take them into custody," Prowl nodded.
This Ratchet did. So as long as he could prod those three Seekers for calling him a pink chicken, he didn't mind.
Taking aim, Wheeljack fired.
A flash of pink light shot forward and enveloped the little Chansey. This time, it did not smart, but Ratchet could feel his body suddenly warm up in the light, and felt a bout of vertigo seize him for a moment.
But he didn't mind. It meant that this moment of horror would be over; he'd be back to his usual white, boxy and metallic frame. He'd be able to pick up his tools, he'd be as tall as everyone else… he'd be back to normal.
The light faded, and Ratchet looked down.
He was back to his usual self, staring down his windshield and looking at indexed white hands.
His joy was, however, short-lived.
The three Magikarps were transformed back into three startled Seekers that immediately transformed and left with much fluster.
He could see why.
A Clefairy with glowing ear-fins tugged at Ratchet's leg, and a Pikachu with a battle mask at the other.
"What the -CLEFAIRY!"
"Wheeljack, what the-PIKA!-happened?"
At his feet was the gun – but that was the least of his concern.
Nearby, a fluffy Meowth with a red chevron was busy eyeing a poor floating Jigglypuff that wore a visor band instead of a pair of blue eyes – and a very pained expression.
"Must… poke…"
"Hey, Prowl-man, don'tcha poke me! I did no – JIGGLYPUFF- against ya, man!"
A dark green Caterpie and black Weedle lingered not far from the cat and balloon. Both of them had horror etched on their armoured faces – and were pretty much confused.
A white and blue Vaporean on the other side of the field looked at a nearby red Sandshrew, as if to say, "Oh slag." The shrew replied with a sputtering of squeaks.
Ratchet heard squealing from below, and found himself looking down at two creatures at play. An Eevee with a chevron and a Pichu with small yellow horns ran around each other, oblivious to the fact that they were giant-robots-turned-cute-creatures.
Bluestreak and Bumblebee, he presumed.
A sulky Charmander – with a pair of red horns- was presumed to be Cliffjumper, by all the muffled swearing and the little flame at the end of his tail burning an angry yellow.
Last and not least on the list, the Twins were easy to spot – two blazing horses, one roan and the other dun, bickering at each other. Though, however, the roan one seemed to be in a laughing fit while the dun one looked as if Primus had damned him to live.
There was only one word that could sum up the entire situation – and Ratchet was finally able to say it.
"Slag."
A/N: This has to be one of the weirdest cross-overs possible, and strangely enough I had the guts to do this! But, I want to keep the Pokemon-TFs! They are cute!
I feel guilty for giving the Dinobots very little screentime and let Ratchet hog the limelight all over again. But, this was just for the fun of it. Will I ever do serious fics? I have no idea. (Note to self: Do a Dinobots fic. A good Dinobots fic.)