Final Fantasy 7 1/2: Magic Planet
A Final Fantasy 7/Beast Wars crossover fanfic written by Stella 
Quetzacotl
First created: Feb 5, 2002
Last modified: Feb 6, 2002

~~~~~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.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~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 6
	Megatron reviewed his memory captures of the two fire-wielding
humans.  “By all accounts, humans do not have such abilities 
naturally,” he mused, “no.  And I did not detect any mechanical devices
on their person.”  He turned to his comm board.  “Tarantulas, what 
headway have you made in your analysis of the energy fields of this 
planet?”
	“None at all,” came the irritable reply, crackling over the 
comm waves.  “I can condense the particles into liquid form, but the 
liquid cannot be contained by anything I have in my lab.”  A crash of 
breaking glass, followed by a yelp.  “Megatron, this is pointless.  Why
are we wasting time studying these humans and their environment?  The 
Maximals are the greater threat!”
	“Your wounds suggested otherwise, spider,” Megatron snapped.  
“Now question my orders again and you will find yourself with wounds 
suggesting dismemberment!”
	A pause, then “Yes, Megatron,” Tarantulas said sullenly.
	“Good.  Megatron out.”  He clicked off the power to his comm 
board - he did not want to be disturbed right now.
	He had some thinking to do.  Oh yes...

	“Hyaah!”  Marli’s staff swept through the straw dummy like a 
knife through butter.  It exploded spectacularly with a muffled 
‘whoomph’, spraying straw and sawdust and burlap in all directions.  
Marli froze in place, eyes closed and face expressionless, as the 
dummy-shrapnel rained softly down to stick in her hair and clothes.
	“Real dramatic, Marli.  How many of those things have you 
destroyed again?”  Linda, Marli’s best friend from school, leaned 
against the fence in the practice yard, blonde hair glimmering in the 
dying sunlight.
	Marli relaxed her pose and turned.  “That was only my third 
one,” she answered guiltily.  “Besides, they’re made cheap.  They break
if you even touch ‘em.”
	Linda snorted.  Tanned, somewhat heavyset, and fond of gold 
jewelry, Linda had never had any interest in the combative arts.  Her 
forte was more on the cooking-and-shopping end of the spectrum.  
“You’re amazing.  Everybody else is heading to Gold Saucer with their 
dates for Couples’ Night and you’re here swinging that staff around.”
	“I need to hone my skills, Lin.”  Marli twirled her staff 
absently.  “You were there for that meeting, right?  Dad’s sayin’ it’s
not safe to go outside the city gates anymore.  I want to know I can 
protect myself if anything happens.  Besides,“ Marli grinned, “I don’t
have a date.”
	Linda smiled slyly.  “You could ask Laz.”
	Marli sneered at her.  “Fun-ny.”  She nodded to a small dojo 
built just inside the practice yard.  “Anyway, Laz’s in training too. 
He’s learning the tonfas from the old monk, Clay.”
	“Tonfas?”
	Marli grinned and beckoned her.  “Come on.  I’ll show you.”

	After about ten minutes of hard watching, Laz and Clay held 
still long enough for Linda to finally see what tonfas were.  They 
turned out to be sticks of solid metal reaching from knuckle to elbow, 
with a smaller stick affixed perpendicular to one end as a handle.  
“When did Laz start doing this?” Linda whispered to Marli as teacher 
and pupil leapt into action once again.
	“A month ago,” Marli whispered.  “A week after we met the 
Maximals.”
	Linda turned back to watch.  “He’s gotten really good.”
	As if in answer, Laz jabbed at Clay with the knuckle end of his
tonfas, both shots hitting the monk’s abdomen.  Clay retaliated by 
bringing his weapons down sharply on Laz’s head.  Laz yelled, stumbled
back, and fell on his butt.  Before he could get up he found his 
teacher looming over him, the elbow end of one tonfa grazing his 
throat.
	Clay straightened.  “That’s all for today, Lazarus,” he said 
quietly.  For an old man, he was astonishingly well-built, with the 
strong wiry muscles of a martial artist or rock climber.  His skin was 
darker than Barret’s and he was completely bald in the manner of his 
profession.  There were a few wiry silver hairs growing from his chin, 
but not enough to be called a beard, or even a goatee.  He wore a black
cotton robe over matte-gray satin pants and a white shirt.
	Laz eyed his teacher warily.  “Yes sir.”  Clay had a reputation
for springing unexpected surprises on his students - claimed it taught 
them awareness essential for the martial arts.  Laz had been the victim
of such surprises several times already, and wasn’t too keen on 
repeating the experience.  “Same time tomorrow, sir?”
	“Of course.”  Clay inclined his head.  Laz bowed, turned, and 
ran smack into Marli and Linda.
	Laz jumped back into a loose fighting stance instinctively as 
the girls yelped.  “Crater, I’m sorry,” Marli said quickly as Laz 
relaxed.  “We didn’t mean to intrude - I just wanted to show Linda what
tonfas were - “  She realized she was babbling and shut up.
	Clay smiled.  “The friends of Lazarus are always welcome here, 
of course.”
	“Oh, we’re not - “ Linda began.  Marli elbowed her.  “Um, I 
mean, yeah.  Thanks.”
	“Laz, you’ve gotten really good,” said Marli as Linda rubbed 
her arm.  “How often do you practice?”
	Laz shrugged.  “Just a couple of hours every day.  Clay-
sensei’s got other students, or it’d be longer.”
	Linda stared.  “A couple of *hours*?  *Just* a couple of hours?
You’re crazy.”
	Laz stowed his tonfas in his belt to avoid looking at Linda.  
“Naw.  It’s fun.”
	Marli grabbed Linda by the back of her shirt.  “Come on, Linda,
let’s go.  I need to get back to practicing myself.”  She dragged her 
protesting friend from the dojo.
	Clay watched them leave.  “How old are those two, Lazarus?”
	“Marli - the brown-haired girl - is sixteen,” Laz answered, 
toweling off his face.  “Linda’s fifteen.”
	“Mmm.”  Clay nodded.  “Well, until next time - “
	Laz tensed.
	“ - Think about improving your defense,” the monk finished, a 
merry twinkle in his eyes.  “A good defense is essential to the 
tonfas.” 
	“Yes sir.”  Laz watched his teacher leave, gray eyes clouded 
with thought.

	“Optimus.  Come look at this.”
	Optimus extracted himself from a particularly messy dispute 
between Rattrap and Dinobot to come to Rhinox’s side.  “What is it?”
	“One of those vacuum-cams we sent out during the battle with 
Megatron is still functioning.  We have a visual on the stasis pods.” 
Rhinox gestured toward a small screen set just to the left of the main
screen.  On it was a view of inky blackness, stars, the curve of 
mottled white, blue, and green that was the planet they’d landed on... 
and a line of stasis pods, describing an arc around the world’s orbital
plane.
	“That’s great,” Optimus praised.  “Can you zoom in?”
	“Yup,” Rhinox answered.  “In fact, that wasn’t all of what I 
was going to show you.  Look at this pod.”  He typed in a set of 
coordinates at his console and pressed a button.  The view on the 
vacuum-cam screen changed to zero in on a single stasis pod.  At the 
press of another button, a subset screen appeared in the lower right 
corner, this one graphing the pod’s movement against the movement of 
its fellows.  There was a distinct disparity between the two lines.
	Optimus straightened.  “Its orbit’s decaying!”
	“Yup.”  Rhinox nodded slowly.  “According to my calculations, 
the pod should enter atmosphere in approximately three megacycles.  And
its projected landing point - “ He sighed.  “Is near the human town, 
North Corel.”
	“Not good.”  Optimus shook his head.  “We’ll have to warn them.
Traveller, open communications to the humans,” he ordered, turning to 
the Chocobo-Maximal.
	“Right.”  Traveller tapped a few buttons, frowned, re-entered 
the sequence, turned a knob, peered at her own viewscreen.  “No good,”
she reported.  “The energy fields are still too dense.  Not even the 
long-range comlinks can get through.”
	“Well, that’s just prime,” Optimus sighed.  “The humans aren’t 
going to be too happy with us when that stasis pod comes crashing into 
their backyard.”  
	Dinobot took a time out from sniping at Rattrap to add, “And no
doubt the Predacons will be more than willing to capitalize on the 
humans’ misfortune.  Not to mention the stasis pod itself.”
	“There’s that, too,” admitted Optimus sourly.  He reverted to 
beast mode and looked over his shoulder.  “Dinobot, Rattrap, come with 
me.  We’re going to intercept that stasis pod.”
	“Wahoo!  Finally, somethin’ interestin’ t’ do!” Rattrap cried 
gleefully,  practically cartwheeling about the bridge.  “But, uh,” he 
added, stopping in mid-cartwheel, “do we hafta bring Chopperface 
along?”
	“Shut up, Rattrap!” was the unanimous reply.

	“Stasis pod, huh?” Barret said musingly.  He, Hensen, and James
had met Optimus and the others outside the city gates again, but this 
time the Maximals had been allowed to approach almost to the threshold
of the city.  Optimus chose to take that as a good sign.
	“I’m afraid so,” he agreed.  “And if this pod’s orbits decayed 
so quickly, there’s no guarantee that the other ones’ won’t as well.  
If Rhinox’s predictions are anywhere near accurate, it may be raining 
stasis pods all over the planet for a while.”
	“Jus’ great.  I already got the people in a panic over this 
whole alien-robot thing - no offense,” Barret added hastily.  “But now 
I find out there’s another hunk of metal headin’ for Earth, an’ nuthin’
to do but wait and hope it don’t land on anything important.” 
	Optimus blinked.  “I was going to suggest,” he said gently, 
“that you move your people underground, or somewhere away from the 
projected area - “
	Barret glared.  “I knew *that*,” he snapped.  “I was talkin’ 
about buildings.  Some of ‘em took a long time and a lotta expensive 
materials to build, y’know.”
	“Right, okay.”  Optimus put up his hands in a gesture of 
surrender.  “How long will the evacuation take?...”

	Laz pounded on Marli’s door, hopping from foot to foot in his 
impatience.  “Marli!” he called.  “He-ey, Marli!”
	He was just about to knock again when the door swung open, 
revealing a dripping wet Marli wrapped in a towel.  “This better be 
important, Laz,” she snapped.
	Laz stared, blushed, and grew incoherent.  He ducked his head 
and muttered something, scuffing his feet on Marli’s front porch.
	“Laz, I’m warning you, if I nearly broke my neck running to the
door just to see you mumble at me, then I’ll clock you so hard you 
won’t see straight for a week.”  Marli adjusted the towel around her 
body and glared.
	Laz swallowed.  “I said,” he said clearly, “that the Maximals 
are here.  They said that one of their something-or-other-pods is gonna
be falling from orbit in a couple of hours.”  He pointed up.  “Right on
top of North Corel.”
	“What?  Well, why didn’t you say so?”  Marli started to push 
past him, to go to the main gate, then decided against it.  “Mmm... On
second thought, maybe I oughta get dressed first.”
	“Y-yeah.”  Laz nodded emphatically.

	“Whaddya mean, we can’t go outside?” Marli demanded.
	The watchman shrugged.  “Mr. Wallace’s orders,” he said.  
“Everyone is to stay in the city until they can send transportation 
from Gold Saucer.  The trams are overflowing already, and Mr. Wallace 
wants everything to be as orderly as possible.”
	“But I’m not going to go *far*,” Marli protested.  “I just need
to ask the Maximals something.”
	“I’m sorry, but orders are orders,” the watchman said 
helplessly.  “I can’t let anybody out ‘til Mr. Wallace gives the word.”
	“Aarrgh.”  Marli turned away, gritting her teeth.  “Why does 
Dad always manage to subvert my social life?”
	Laz touched her shoulder.  “Come on, Marli.”  He jerked his 
head to the side in a ‘follow me *this* way’ gesture.  Marli frowned, 
but nodded and let the younger boy lead her down along the city wall.
	“Listen,” he said in a stage whisper once the guard was out of 
earshot.  “There’s a hole in the fence around here - or there should be
if they haven’t fixed it yet.  We can go through and circle around to 
the front.”
	Marli cast a glance over her shoulder.  “What if he catches 
us?”
	“We just have to wait until the guard’s distracted, that’s all.
I’ve done this before.”  Laz shrugged.  “Trust me.  We just can’t let 
anybody see us.”
	“Why?  I need to ask the Maximals about that stasis pod.  If 
there’s more than one up there, I’ll need to add them to my meteor 
charts, I’ll need to rework some calculations...”
	Laz stopped Marli’s rant with a hand on her arm.  “If your 
father sees us outside the gates, we’ll both be in trouble.”
	“Ooh, good point.”  Marli winced.  “All right.  So we’ll just 
eavesdrop.  No big deal, I guess.  Maybe I can talk to them later.”
	“Hoo boy.”  Laz led Marli to the hole in the gate and looked 
back at the guard.  He wasn’t looking in their direction, so the two 
kids slipped through to the outside.

	Marli and Laz managed to sneak up to where Barret and Optimus 
were debating by maneuvering through the brush lining the town walls.  
“...So how come this stasis pod’s so important?” Barret was asking as 
the two came within earshot.
	“That stasis pod contains a Maximal protoform,” Optimus 
informed him solemnly.  “My current crew of five is only a fraction of 
the number of crew members I had on board when we had to follow 
Megatron through transwarp space.  The rest were sealed in these pods 
for their protection.”  The Doorbull-Maximal looked up pensively.  
“During the battle with Megatron in this planet’s orbit, our cargo hold
was breached and all our stasis pods were lost to orbit.  We’d given up
any hope of recovering them until now.”
	James blinked.  “So basically, the only way to get your crewmen
back from orbit is to wait for them to come tumbling out of the sky and
hope they don’t smash themselves up too badly.”
	“Pretty much, yes.”
	“Man.”  James sank back on his heels.  “That’s hard lines.”
	“’Ey, that’s not the worst part,” Rattrap broke in.  “If the 
Preds get ahold of the pod before we do, they’ll turn the protoform 
into a Predacon.  One o’ *dem*.”  He made a pistol from his 
squirrellike thumb and forefinger and cocked it at an unseen opponent 
behind the three humans.  “We gotta get ta Ground Zero ‘fore they do.”
	“Here, in other words.”
	“According to our latest calculations,” nodded Optimus.
	Marli turned away quietly.  [So that’s it,] she thought.  
[Didn’t I see something out in the northern quadrant last night?  
Should’ve written it down.  Shoot...]
	“Marli?” Laz breathed.
	“Let’s go back, Laz,” Marli whispered back.  “I need to check 
something.”
	“What?”
	“I think you can see their stasis pod-whatchamacallit from 
here.  I want to check its trajectory.”  Marli didn’t wait for Laz to 
acknowledge understanding - she just clambered over his lap and made 
for the hole in the fence.  Laz shook his head and cast one last glance
at the Maximals before turning to follow.
	Dinobot watched them leave, bored.  [These humans cannot even 
keep track of their own children,] he thought.  [Those two cubs - they
are trouble, both.  They bear watching.]

	Marli pushed her way past the confused milling herds of 
villagers, practically running in her haste to get back to her house 
and her telescope.  Laz had to struggle to keep up on his shorter legs.
Once home, the girl wasted no time in readying her charts and setting 
up her telescope to point northward out her bedroom window.  Laz 
watched the whole process with the same amount of comprehension a Razor
Weed would have in geophysics as Marli bent to put her eye to the 
'scope.
	"Yes - yes, that's it," she murmured, making a pencil mark on a
nearby chart without taking her eye from the lens.  "It's closer now.  
Mmn, I can probably get some data."  She lifted her head from the 
telescope and craned her neck to glance at her charts.  "Lessee... 
first sighting was at hour-four-and-fifteen... so..."  She pulled 
herself away from the telescope, went to her writing desk.  Out came a 
ruler, protractor, and abacus.  "Time... position... and derivative is 
velocity..." she muttered, marking number runes on a sheet of scrap 
paper like a girl possessed.
	"What are you doing?" Laz hazarded.
	"Not now, I'm busy."  Marli used her protractor to add an arc 
to her star chart, then pulled another map from beneath it and plotted 
another arc.  The brown-haired astronomer studied her work proudly - 
then frowned.  "Wait a sec.  That can't be right."
	"What is it?" asked Laz, as Marli started scribbling on scrap 
paper again.
	"According to my calculations, that thingamabob should land 
about two miles *away* from North Corel," Marli answered.  "But there's
no way the Maximals could have been off by that much."  She paused her 
scribbling to survey her work, chewing on her lower lip.  "What am I 
doing wrong?" she sighed.  "I keep getting the same answers.  Heck, 
maybe my data's wrong..."  She jumped up and went back to her 
telescope.
	Laz sat on Marli's bed with a sigh.  "We're going to be here a 
while."
	"You can go if you - Waaaiiit a minute," Marli interrupted 
herself.  "That explains it."
	"What?"
	Marli turned to Laz with a broad grin.  "We're in the middle of
the Gighee Asteroid Field right now," she explained, pointing up.  "I 
noticed that there was an asteroid awfully close to the 
whatchamacallit's flight path, and that the doodlywhat had an odd axial
spin to it.  Add that to the fact that the arc of trajectory is off, 
and you come to the conclusion that..."  She paused, waiting for the 
light bulb to go on in Laz's head.
	It didn't.  "That what?"
	"That the asteroid hit the thingamajig and changed the 
trajectory!" Marli announced, exasperated.  "How dense can you be?  
Haven't you had space physics yet?"
	"No," Laz said flatly.  "And I wouldn't have been able to 
figure it out even if I had."
	"Never mind," Marli groaned, turning away.  Then something 
occurred to her and she stopped.  "Laz," she said slowly.
	"What?"
	"The Maximals aren't going to know about the whats-its-face's 
trajectory being changed, are they?"
	Laz shook his head slowly.  "I don't think so."
	"And we can't tell them about it."  Marli pulled her staff from
its hook on the wall.  "So there's really only one thing we can do."
	Laz wasn't sure he liked where this was going.  "What?"
	"Go after it ourselves."
	"I was afraid you'd say that."

	When Scorponok entered the command room - once the bridge of 
the Predacon warship Darkside - Megatron was slumped in his makeshift 
command chair in the middle, his back to his subordinate, asleep to all
appearances.  It was a compromising position for a Predacon in command 
of Predacons, but Scorpinok was unusual in the fact that his loyalty 
quotient was especially high.  Had he been any other Predacon, Megatron
would have found himself with a crater in his back.
	"Sir?  Megatron?" Scorpinok hedged, moving closer across the 
Mythril-laden floor.  "Are you awake?" On the one hand, the Head Hunter
second-in-command had some extremely vital news to report, news that 
would undoubtedly be of interest to his commander.  On the other hand, 
Megatron was grumpy when forcibly awakened.  Scorponok was likely to 
lose his favor with Megatron - not to mention one or more of his 
limbs - if Megatron woke up on the wrong side of the chair.  
	"Megatron?"  Gingerly Scorponok approached, reached out with a 
praying-mantis claw, and prodded Megatron in the shoulder.  "Sir?"
	Megatron stirred, twitched, and lashed out with his tail arm, 
sending Scorponok flying.
	For one with such admirable reflexes, it took a moment for 
Megatron to boot up to the point that he was aware of what was going on
around him.  The first thing he noticed was his loyal second-in-
command, lying on the floor in a most undignified manner.  "Scorponok!"
the Predacon demanded.  "Just what are you doing?"
	"R-reporting, sir," Scorponok said, a sigh of forbearance 
escaping his voice box.  "Sensors indicate an object falling from orbit
around this planet.  Its projected landing point is a few klicks from 
here, at the edge of Maximal territory."
	Megatron gave Scorponok a blank stare.  "And you tell me this, 
because..."
	"Because," Scorponok huffed, "the telemetry indicates that it 
is a stasis pod."
	Megatron's eyes popped open.

Next chapter...
From the mouths of children and stasis pods ye have ordained trouble...