Disclaimer: I no own Transformers, though I do like occasionally playing God with the toys.
Warnings: None.

Story takes place during the events of the episode "Aerial Assault", but no spoilers aside from the existence of the Giant Purple Griffin. It's sort of a creative interpretation. A monument to how amazingly ridiculous G1 got sometimes.

Seriously. A giant purple griffin.

Monument To Creativity

Megatron sat in his office chair-cum-throne-cum-status symbol, tapping his fingers idly on the arm.

He needed a new plan today, or otherwise the troops would start getting rowdy. Rowdy Decepticons were not intended to be kept in close quarters - rowdy underlings led to bored underlings, and bored underlings led to Megatron having to sit through status reports over just why the Nemesis's main ventilation shafts were all filled with silly string, and then he would have to bash some cranial units in.

Beating on his hapless troops did get a little old, after a while.

So, a plan. He needed a plan. He stopped tapping his fingers for a moment, scowling into blank space.

It needed to be...big. Yes. The last few plans had been all revolving around small objects or direct attacks, it was time for a change of pace. A giant weapon, one that would make the Autobots quake in fear. He hadn't done one of those in a while, and it would put the Constructicons to good use.

Big. A weapon. Would it be mobile or stationary? Hmmn, stationary tended to be more powerful, but more of a target. Mobile it was, then. A giant, mobile fortress, yes! That was perfect!

He grinned, pleased to have an idea to start expanding on. A giant fortress would be impressive, indeed. But most Cybertronian architecture tended to be rather dull and unimpressive. He would need to awe and horrify the humans as well, so he would make something in the shape of one of their nightmares, their legends. Something that was just as horrifying for all of his enemies to look on - and it would have to be purple. Purple was the noble color of the Decepticons. Purple it was, perhaps a darker, more blueish shade than their faction symbol. It would look more menacing that way.

His grin slowly got wider as he surfed through the databanks for human monsters until he found a suitable candidate. And suddenly, there it was, in all of its glory. Its majesty knew no bounds.

Megatron allowed himself one of his full evil laughs as he sent an order to the Constructicons to start building. His engineers would see the fortress bristling with weapons and Decepticon technology, he merely had to wait until it was done.

He settled back into his chair, laugh fading into pleased chuckles. "Everyone in the base will be in awe of this perfect plan, even that traitorous Starscream!"

"Megatron's completely fragged in his head." Starscream stated flatly.

The second-in-command stared upwards at the massive hunk of metal the Constructicons were building. The desert sun gleamed painfully bright off the metal hull, which was about as menacing as it would ever get. A giant purple griffin. A giant purple griffin.

Clearly, the energy crisis was not because of the Autobots stealing it all, but because Megatron was obviously getting himself overcharged on a regular basis to think up these absurd plans. This was his most impressively ridiculous yet.

He turned to his erstwhile companion. Soundwave stood passively, staring up at the ill-conceived plan as well. Even without visual facial expressions, Starscream had the feeling that even Megatron's loyal dog of a third-in-command was rather stunned by how absurd this latest plan was.

"Totally, completely fragged." Starscream repeated for emphasis. "Clearly, too insane to be ft for command anymore."

"Outer appearance: inconsequential. Proper functionality: only thing that matters." Soundwave mildly replied, not looking away from the half-constructed griffin. Just as Starscream sneered, about to reply with his usual scathing sarcasm, Soundwave continued. "However, Starscream's opinion and aesthetic sense: shared."

Somewhat mollified, Starscream turned back to observe the griffin as well. Soundwave might have been a back-stabbing snake loyal to only Megatron, but there was some things they both shared. Opinions on the quality of Megatron's more insane plans - or rather, the lack thereof - was one of them.

"...Why is it a giant griffin?" Starscream asked after a moment, met with a shrug from Soundwave.

Some things were beyond even their comprehension.

"Why is it a giant griffin?" Scrapper mused to himself as he welded another piece of armor onto the griffin.

Off to the side, Bonecrusher shrugged.

"I mean, I am pleased Lord Megatron holds us in such high regard to build such things, but...it's a giant griffin. You'd think that when he's coming up with a plan for a giant fortress to put fear into the sparks of all who oppose us, he'd choose a design that looked a little less..."

"Hokey hokey hokey?" Mixmaster supplied.

"Yes, 'hokey'. This will drive everyone to their knees, all right. To their knees with laughter." Scrapper trailed off with an angry mutter, banging a piece into shape with perhaps more force than was necessary. This thing would never look dangerous in the slightest, despite whatever idea Megatron had in his processors.

Well, it might look dangerous to other giant, male griffins - and dangerous in a different way than he knew the word - but Scrapper suspected that was human prejudice leaking into his opinions.

He had human in his opinions. Ew.

He glared at the purple metal. He was Scrapper! He was an engineer, a Constructicon! He should be building massive lasers and works of art to further the Decepticon cause, not constructing a giant metal bird-mutant out in the middle of the hot desert sun!

Offlining his optics in a feeble attempt to pretend the entire thing just didn't exist, Scrapper reviewed Megatron's instructions.

Build me a giant mobile fortress, Scrapper. Check. He was doing that.

It should look something like this, Scrapper. Following was a scribble that might, vaguely, in some way, resemble a griffin. He'd only gotten the idea that it had to be a griffin because the word was scrawled next to the drawing. An artist, Megatron was not. At least it had given him a color base to work with. Okay, he was doing that too.

And arm the fortress with enough firepower to make Primus look like a firecracker. Because Primus knew why Megatron would want something like this to continue existing. Scrapper sure didn't.

"You know..." Hook began, a distant look in his optics. "You can't really judge how much firepower Primus has, because no one's ever seen it. So, theoretically, he could have any amount of firepower. Not necessarily the most..."

Scrapper smiled. His day was looking up.

Purple carnage now littered the desert, some of it still smoking from the battle. Air Raid absently kicked a piece of debris away from his foot.

"You know, I know we're pretty young and we haven't seen a lot of this war, but I have to say, that giant metal thing definitely was the strangest thing I've ever seen." The F-15 stated, surveying the wreckage.

"Indeed. It looked like it was modeled after an Earth legend called a 'griffin'. Why the Decepticons felt like they had to make a giant, metal version, I don't know." Skydive continued picking through the debris, looking for anything that they could salvage and take back to the Ark so that the purpose of the strange creation would be better-known.

Fireflight stared off in a daze towards the desert, and Slingshot merely shook his head. Silverbolt cycled exhaust in imitation of a sigh.

"Well, whatever it was, it's destroyed now, and the Decepticons are long gone. Grab anything we might need and let's get out of here."

The Aerialbots scattered, picking through the once-shiny purple and blue metal, looking for anything. Fireflight continued his strange watch over the desert, and the other jets knew by now to just leave him to it. They'd be subjected to whatever the absent-minded flier had in his processors sooner or later.

Finally, after the wreckage had been sorted through and the Aerialbots had ascertained that the strange creation of the Decepticons had been nothing other than a mobile fortress, they took to the air and headed for home.

And, after about an hour of flight, the predicted came.

"Do you ever think that maybe Megatron just makes those kinds of things because he's bored? Or that he just wants to build something cool? Maybe we should send him some clay..."

There was a long silence between the others as they tried to process Fireflight's statement. Finally, Air Raid spoke.

"Have to say, 'Flight...I don't think Megatron would appreciate a pack of Play-Doh."

"Oh." The Phantom veered a little out of formation. "That's sad. I would appreciate Play-Doh."

"Formation, Fireflight." Silverbolt chided gently. "And we'll see about getting you some clay when we get back, okay?"

"Okay!" The jet chirped happily, and Silverbolt decided to just ignore the fact that Fireflight drifted farther out of formation when he tried to get back into it.

They had destroyed his griffin, those accursed Aerialbots!

Megatron scowled fiercely at the reports. Starscream's report read with the same insufferable sarcasm that the Seeker was known for, and Soundwave's, while impartial to the point of tedium, had strong hints that not even his loyalty allowed him to turn a blind optic to this blunder. Obviously, both of his lieutenants had enjoyed the destruction of the fortress.

Well, no matter. They'd soon come to see how brilliant it was in time.

Throwing the report datapads back onto his desk, Megatron slumped into his chair with an expression that no one would dare call pouting under threat of painful dismemberment.

It had been such a nice giant purple griffin, too...

Sometimes, these things just happen.