Final Fantasy 7 1/2: Magic Planet
A Final Fantasy 7/Beast Wars crossover fanfic written by Stella 
Quetzacotl
First created: Sep 11, 2001
Last modified: Sep 11, 2001

~~~~~Legal Stuff~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is a work of fiction written for entertainment purposes only.  All
FFVII characters are the sole property of Squaresoft.  All Beast Wars
characters are the sole property of Hasbro.  All other characters are 
the sole property of the author.

Most of the Maximals' and Predacons' dialogue in this chapter is taken 
from the Beast Wars pilot episode.  While I have tried to keep it as 
close as possible, some changes were necessary due to storyline.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~Setting~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is a TOTAL rehash of the Beast Wars saga, in which the group lands
on the FF7 planet (what would you call it, anyway?) instead of Earth.  
They'll take different beast modes, but I'll keep the same names for 
convenience.  The time is twelve years after the FF7 saga; Marlene is 
sixteen years old.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~Text Conventions~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[This is a character thought]
*This is emphasized text*

Chapter 4
	"Face me, Optimus!" the Vlakorados roared.  "I, Dinobot, 
challenge you for leadership of the Maximals!  You and I - one on one.  
The winner shall be leader.  And for the loser... well... " He flicked 
a clawed hand at the crevasse below.  "It is a long way down."  He 
beckoned.
	"He's crazy," Laz protested.  "Fighting on that little bridge 
is suicide."
	Optimus shook his head stubbornly.  "I don't want to fight 
you."
	"You do not have a choice.  Your command center is back there,"
Dinobot hissed, jerking a thumb over his shoulder, "and no one crosses 
this bridge until you face me.  So stop wasting time."
	"Yo." Rhinox stepped forward.  "Don't we get a say in this?"
	Rattrap swished his tail, making Marli sneeze.  "Hey, I'm easy.
Let Chopperface and the Boss Hoss duke it.  It's no fur offa my tail."
	Cheetor bared his teeth at the Trickplay.  "No way!"  He leaped
to Optimus's side, fur bristling.  "Hey, Scalebelly!" he challenged.  
"How's about you try a piece of the Bad Kitty, huh?"
	Optimus waved him off.  "Cool your circuits, Cheetor.  I 
wouldn't send anyone to do anything I wasn't willing to do myself."
	"Oh, right, NOW he says that," Rattrap grumbled, and was 
rewarded with a kick to the head by Traveller as Optimus stepped onto 
the stone bridge.  It groaned complainingly under his weight.
	"That bridge won't hold under both of them," Laz whispered.
	"This is foolish, Dinobot," Optimus told his opponent, giving 
no indication he'd heard.  "We're Maximals.  You're a Predacon."
	"All the more reason I should lead, then," Dinobot answered, 
cryptically.
	"Look, I don't know what happened between you and Megatron - "
	He was cut off abruptly.  "Megatron!" Dinobot spat.  "Megatron 
will fall as soon as I have your Maximals at my command."
	Marli poked Rhinox.  "Megatron was that Under Lizard, right?  
The red wingless dragon?"  Rhinox nodded.  "Man, no wonder he 
defected."
	"I don't think you can really call this a defection," Rhinox 
answered slowly.
	"You're welcome to join us," Optimus offered, his words 
sounding perverse after Rhinox's statement.
	Rattrap sputtered.  "Hey!" 
	Optimus shushed him.  "Maximal and Predacon - we're both, after
all, just robots in disguise.  But you're not going to lead."
	"I beg to differ."  Dinobot's body seemed to uncurl, stretch 
into pure muscle and bone spikes and hard skin.  "For in anticipation 
of my new role as leader, I have already reprogrammed my activation 
code.  Dinobot - MAXIMIZE!"  Dizzyingly he morphed into a towering 
robot of cerulean metal and red scales.
	"Optimus Primal - MAXIMIZE!" Optimus answered.  He lunged, twin
swords out.  Dinobot blocked him with a sword of his own, one made of 
silver-white metal twisted around itself.
	"Oh, man, this is not good," Laz moaned, covering his face in 
his hands.  "They're going to fall any second.  Tell me when it's 
over."
	Marli drew her staff and gazed at her two Materia crystals.  
"Gravity - Barrier," she said morosely.  "I don't know how much good 
Barrier will do against a drop that deep."  She re-sheathed her staff. 
"And Gravity'll just make things worse."
	Cheetor shook his head, unable to take the pressure any longer.
"I'm going in there!" he announced.  "Cheetor!  Max - mmph!"
	Rattrap strangled the cry with both hands on the cat's muzzle. 
"Clamp it, kitty.  Nailin' da Chopperface from behind won't settle 
anything."
	"Yeah.  Like it or not, we gotta let 'em finish," agreed Rhinox
somberly.
	Traveller looked away.  "The Predacon's good," she said 
tensely, crest drooping.  "I don't know if Optimus can win."
	"He's gotta," Cheetor breathed.  "He's just gotta."
	Marli, Laz and the Maximals watched in silence as the battle on
the bridge raged on.  There were times where Marli, engrossed in the 
spectacle, had to physically force herself to remember to breathe.  
Fingering her necklace through her jacket and shirt, Marli swallowed
past a throat gone horribly dry and watched as Optimus and Dinobot 
exchanged sword blows and shouted challenges and compliments.  [It's 
like old-time duels,] she thought giddily.  [They're being so darned 
*polite* about it all.  Like they don't even realize where they are.]  
At one point Optimus slipped from the ledge, and Marli gave an 
involuntary cry and started forward, ready to cast Barrier no matter 
how little it would help - only to be stopped by Dinobot's pulling 
Optimus back up onto the bridge with the air of a shepherd pulling his 
lost sheep from danger.
	"What're you doing? You'd won!" Optimus protested as he 
regained his footing on the bridge.
	"You slipped," answered Dinobot contemptuously.  "To defeat you
in such a manner would be lacking in honor.  I would not have earned 
the right to lead."
	Marli swallowed her heart back into its accustomed resting 
place in her chest as the Vlakorados checked his sword for dents.  "I 
prefer to beat my opponents the old-fashioned way," he commented 
casually.
	He lunged, his blade striking sparks off of Optimus's twin 
katanas with a furious clang.  "Brutally!" Dinobot clarified, grinning 
with his mouthful of sharp white teeth.  Optimus threw him back and 
followed through, pressing Dinobot back toward the thinnest part of the
bridge.
	"How can he do that?" Laz demanded of no one in particular.
	"Do what?" Rattrap asked, looking up at the boy.
	"Well - well - be so *nice* one minute and then the next - " He
gestured.  "So *bloodthirsty*."
	"Eh, he's a Pred."  The Trickplay shrugged.  "Dey're all 
crazy."
	"He's a *warrior*," Rhinox corrected with a glare.
	"Just as crazy," supplied Traveller weakly.
	Laz was about to offer a pun of his own when Marli's sudden 
intake of breath cut him off.  "Laz," she said.  "Use your Sense 
Materia over there, behind those rocks."  She pointed to where a series
of boulders jutted from a ridge on the group's right.
	Laz glanced at her, wondering if she had gone crazy with 
stress.  Marli's face was set, eyes glittering as she gazed at the spot
in question.
	He shrugged, and aimed his magic.
	It was a struggle for Laz's Sense to penetrate through the 
rocks.  He wanted to circumvent them, trail the Sense over or around, 
but Sense spells could only travel in a straight line for all but the 
greatest of mages.  Beads of sweat formed at Laz's brow and upper lip 
as he pushed at the spell, aware he was using more magic than he 
usually did.  The Sense wormed its way through the rock at last and 
surrounded the five creatures gathered behind it.
	"An Under Lizard.  A Bizarre Bug.  A Head Hunter.  A Formula.  
And a Stinger.  All battle-damaged but gearing up to fight."
	Laz reported his findings slowly, intense concentration etched 
in his face and his voice.  He let the spell go just as Traveller 
gasped, "Predacons!"
	Rattrap wheeled around.  "Heads up!" he yelled to the fighters 
on the bridge.  "Dis party's got big-time crashers!"  
	"What?" Optimus turned, all thoughts of dueling forgotten.

	"No, no, NO!" Megatron snarled, stamping his feet.  "How did 
that rodent know, blast it!  How?"
	"Maybe fleshie-bots told him?" Waspinator suggested from his 
post at the crack between two boulders.
	"Don't be foolish, Waspinator," Megatron snapped, having no 
patience for idiots with no sense of reality.  "All units, terrorize!"
	"Waspinator, TERRORIZE!"
	"Terrorsaur, TERRORIZE!"
	"Tarantulas, TERRORIZE!"
	"Scorponok, TERRORIZE!"
	"Megatron, TERRORIZE!"  Megatron shed his lizard form in favor 
of his robotic one.  "Open fire!"  He stepped out from behind the rock.
	"Demi!" cried a girl's voice, and a sphere of black energy, 
shot through with veins of yellow, came flying at the Predacon group.  
Megatron caught the apparition out of the corner of his eye and stepped 
aside, letting the sphere hit Tarantulas full in the face.  He 
screeched and went down.
	Cheetor jumped at the suddenness of Marli's attack.  "That's 
your magic?"
	"Some of it," Marli answered.  "But Gravity magic doesn't do 
much, it just hurts a lot.  You might want to do whatever it was you 
were doing a while ago."
	"Oh, you mean transform."  Cheetor suddenly realized he was the
only Maximal still in beast mode, and the others were glaring at him 
impatiently.  He grinned sheepishly.  "Cheetor, MAXIMIZE!"  He began to
fire on the attackers, who spread out as they returned fire.  Rhinox's 
chainguns joined his quasar cannon, then Rattrap's photon guns and 
Traveller's laser rifle.  Marli pulled Laz under an overhang and 
readied her Materia for another shot.
	Optimus was barely aware of the firefight going on around him. 
He was only aware of Dinobot's sword and his swords clashing, light 
flashing off Dinobot's scales, the stinging pain in his shoulder where 
he'd been scored.  "You're crazy to want to fight at a time like this,"
he grunted, catching Dinobot's crosscut.
	Dinobot growled and disengaged.  "A true warrior fights to the 
end, no matter the circumstances."
	Optimus certainly couldn't fault the Predacon for feeling that 
way - he felt the same, most days.  "You know, for a Predacon, 
Dinobot - " he blocked, then attacked afresh - "you have qualities I 
could like."
	Dinobot stumbled back and parried Optimus's blows.  "And you 
have proved to be a worthy adversary.  I will have you recycled with 
full honors."
	"Well.  That's just - "
	"Big Guard!" the boy Laz shouted behind him.
	"- prime!" Optimus struck at Dinobot with the hilt of his 
sword, only to be stopped cold three inches from the Predacon's chin by
a shield of shimmering yellow light.  "Huh?"
	Dinobot snarled.  "What in the Pit - " His sword was half-
buried in another yellow shield, this one covering Optimus.  He ripped 
it free and stumbled back.  "What devilment is this?"
	Optimus looked over his shoulder.  "Sorry," Laz called to him, 
throwing a hand behind his head.  "I was casting Big Guard on the 
others - " he waved his hand to indicate the rest of the Maximals, all 
now sporting golden shields of their own - "but the magic works on all
allies."
	Dinobot opened his mouth, but before he could say anything he 
had to duck as a fleet of missiles and lasers cut over his head with a 
savage whine.  The follow-up salvo streaked toward the bridge in a 
perfect arc and hit spectacularly just behind the Predacon, sending up 
a cloud of vaporized rock.  The bridge roared in its final agony and 
collapsed as Optimus and Dinobot leaped for the edge.
	"Remorph!" Optimus yelled, reverting to beast mode as they both
disappeared behind the cliff face.
	"Optimus!" Cheetor cried, leaping forward.
	Rattrap turned on Marli.  "Cantcha help 'im?"
	"How?" Marli demanded.  "He's already got Big Guard on him, 
that's all we can do!"  She pointed her staff and her magic at an 
incoming Formula-turned-robot bearing down on them from behind Rattrap.
"Demi!"
	Rattrap ducked as the Formula-guy went into a tailspin, 
shrieking like a banshee.  "Well - well - doncha got a Float spell?"
	"There's no such thing as a Float spell!" Marli felt something 
hot bite into her back and whirled, her shield glimmering in her eyes. 
"Demi!  Fry, you shrimp!"  The Head Hunter-robot fell back, full in the
grip of the Gravity magic.  Marli whirled back to Rattrap.  "C'mon!" 
she ordered, starting toward the chasm at a gallop.
	Optimus's arm screamed from the strain of holding not only his 
body weight but another's aloft in midair, from the crumbling edge of 
what was left of the bridge.  "Uh, if you guy's aren't doing 
anything..." he called, casting a panicked glance to the bottom of the 
chasm.  He couldn't see it.  Oh slag.
	"Hrrr..." Dinobot was coming to - Optimus supposed the 
concussion missile he'd seen among the armada of ammo had knocked the 
Predacon silly for a few moments.  Dinobot stirred grumpily, then 
jerked as he realized where he was.  Namely, hanging by his ankle from 
a very high cliff.
	The girl's - Marli's - face peeked over the edge, her skin 
flushed with pink.  "They're okay!" she called over her shoulder.
	"'Okay?'" Optimus yelled back, aware that he was panicking but 
not really caring.  "You call this 'okay'?"
	She grinned.  "Considering the alternative.  Hang on, I'll go 
get the big blue guy."
	"'Hang on', she says," Optimus muttered as Marli's face 
disappeared again.  "As if I could do anything else."  He could hear 
Rhinox's roar from above, nearly drowning out the fierce booming rattle
of his chainguns.  The little human would be hard-pressed to distract 
Rhinox in full battle mode.
	"Aagh!" Dinobot convulsed as blue-white lighting coursed over 
his skin.  "The - energy fields!  I am shorting out!"
	Optimus gritted his teeth in sympathy.  "Hang on!   You can't 
transform in this position!"  He tightened his grip on the thrashing 
Predacon's ankle, tight enough that he heard bones creaking in protest.
His grip on the cliff was slipping.
	"Release me!" Dinobot snapped, panicking.  "Let me fall and 
save yourself!"
	Optimus gave him a smile that was more of a grimace.  "Now 
where's the honor in that?"
	"You have no choice!" Dinobot wasn't sure why he was trying to 
get the Maximal leader to kill him.  The pain from energy overload was 
drowning out his logic circuits.
	Optimus made one last effort to hold on to the edge.  "Then we 
both go - " His clumsily built Doorbull fingers slipped at last and 
they dropped.
	About half an inch.  "Yo.  Goin' up," came Rhinox's voice, and 
Optimus dared to open his eyes as the big Maximal lifted them both to 
safety with one arm.
	 "Sorry it took so long," Marli told the two as Optimus shook 
his head, trying to clear it.  The yellow-lighted Big Guard was 
flickering, nearing the end of its life span, but it still managed to 
reflect what laser barrages the Predacons were able to send their way 
under the Maximal cover fire.  "I had to practically coldcock Rhinox to
get him to pay attention."
	"Don't worry about it," Optimus replied, half to Marli and half
to an abashed-looking Rhinox.
	Beside him, Dinobot gratefully claimed his beast mode.  "The 
Predacons seem to be in retreat," he observed, lashing his tail.
	"Looks like they stayed in robot mode too long," Optimus 
answered.  The bodies of the Predacons were lit like Christmas trees 
with the iridescent lightning that meant an energy overload.  One by 
one they reverted to their beast modes and disappeared, retreating 
toward their own base.
	Traveller looked up from her rifle.  "So why are we still 
okay?" she asked.  "We've been in robot mode at least as long as they 
have."
	"Prob'ly the young man's shield spell partially protected us 
from the energy fields," Rhinox postulated.  "It's a theory, anyways."
	"Big Guard's pretty much run out," Laz piped up.  "If you need 
to go back to your monster bodies, better do it now."
	"Eh, whadda you know about it," snapped Rattrap.
	"Shut up, Rattrap," Traveller countered impatiently.
	"Kid's got a point," Rhinox added, and transformed.  Traveller 
and Cheetor did the same.  As Optimus gathered Marli and Laz onto his 
back, Rhinox nudged Rattrap.  "What're ya waiting for?"
	"Hey, one of us's gotta have a gun out in case Chopperface 
there tries some - yaagh!"  Rattrap was hit with energy overload so 
suddenly that he fell over backwards.  Traveller and Cheetor burst out 
laughing, but Optimus and Rhinox just sighed and shook their heads as 
Rattrap transformed.  He mounted Rhinox's back sulkily, muttering under
his breath.
	Optimus turned away from his rebellious lieutenant.  "Well, 
looks like we've got a bit of a hike ahead of us.  You think you can 
make it, Dinobot?"
	"Oh, for bootin' up cold!" Rattrap reared up on his hind legs, 
fur bristling.  "Yer not actually invitin' him to join us, are ya?"
	Optimus fixed him with his fiercest glare - and Doorbull glares
can get pretty fierce.  "That's *my* call."
	Rattrap shut up and Optimus turned back to Dinobot.  "Well?"
	Dinobot looked away, half closing his eyes.  "You did best me
on the bridge, I suppose.  Yes - I will be able to make it."
	"Good."  Optimus nodded in acceptance of the implicit loyalty 
in Dinobot's words.  "We'll have to follow this chasm to where it ends 
and go around."
	Laz looked up, startled.  "What? No, you won't."
	"What do you mean?"  Optimus half-twisted his torso to catch 
Laz in his solemn gaze.
	"There's another bridge about a klick that way," Laz answered, 
pointing south.  "It's man-made and a little rickety, but it should 
hold everyone's weight."
	"What?!" Marli yelped.  "You mean there was another way across 
and you didn't *say* anything?  This whole shindig could've been 
avoided?" The Maximals muttered their agreement.
	Laz ducked his head.  "Well, they seemed to be in a hurry..."


Next chapter...
Barret, meet Optimus.  Optimus, Barret.  You just know there'll be 
sparks a-flyin'...