Author's note: This story is written in Optimus Prime's voice, as he tells it to Rusti.

Bug Bites Early spring brought a brief storm to the Hundred Acre Wood. The wind blew harsh, stripping weak leaves from trees and forcing all citizens to shut their homes to the outside. Eeyore slept soundly in his home, fierce winds and a bit of rain never bothered a donkey. Lightning roused him a time or two and Eeyore thought for sure he could hear voices on the wind. Bt his sleepy donkey eyes saw nothing in the darkness." The sun failed to peek through the clouds and more rain it seemed, was sure to fall. Eeyore roused and went about his way in search of breakfast. In spite of the weather, the tasty thistles enticed him into the gloomy outside world.

He nibbled contentedly on breakfast when an oddity caught his wayward attention. Eeyore stepped back then peered closer for a better look.

It sat on a flower, its stature not much larger than an Earth humming bird. It was a silver bug with arms and legs like Christopher Robin. Except the 'bug's' body was more square, like a wagon or a wooden board. The bug's head seemed a bit small for its body and the head portrayed an unpleasant expression.

Attached to one arm, the bug held something long and black like one of Rabbit's spy-glasses. The bug's backside displayed a set of graceful, colorful wings, a striking contrast to the rest of the squared creature.

"You!" Its voice was also small, but mean, demanding, "who are you? What is this place?! Where am I?!"

Eeyore's usually droopy ears stood straight up-an amazing accomplishment for a donkey of his stature. But being the sensible, polite donkey that Eeyore was, he decided staring would be a rude

thing to do. So he answered the 'bug's' questions. "Ahh'm just a donkey. Eeyore's my name, or so everyone calls me. I don't know everything, but it seems the storm might have brought you here to the Hundred Acer Wood."

"Speak faster!" the bug demanded. "Why am I so small?"

"Don't have all the answers to the universe, so I couldn't tell ya. But you could probably ask Rabbit if he knows . . . or Owl after he tells you his family history."

There came a blaring clamor not far behind them like a screaming kremzeek on an overload from the Pitt.

Rusti blinked her eyes at the inconsistency. She had to intervene, though she knew how much it annoyed Prime, "Um, Optimus, there are no kremzeeks in the Hundred acre Wood."

Optimus stared at the sixteen year-old girl and she read that "I-know-what-I'm-doing' expression from his whole posture. "This one comes with stripes and a tail."

*
The very next second Eeyore was thrown off his feet. He hit the ground and rolled two and three times before contacting a large set of shining summer-sun eyes.

"Hi there, Eeyore, ol' pal, ol' buddy-boy! I was just bouncing 'round about the trees when I heards ya talking to yourself all by yer lonesomeness. So I says to myself that we oughta come have a look-see."

Eeyore managed to his feet and blinked, taking inventory of his person. "I was mindin' my own business, as donkeys do, when I came across this angry little bug. 'Cept I don't think he's really a bug . . . seein' as how he talks back. Can't say I know everything, "But he doesn't look like a tiny person either. . . though I could be mistaken."

"A buggy-boo, eh?" Tigger's bright face glowed at the prospect of something new and his head turned this way and that. He even gazed up, forgetting donkeys can't fly and that Eeyore would not likely have seen anything up there. Then he gazed at his Tigger feet, lifting one to make sure he had not bounced on Eeyore's bug.

As Tigger's eyes rose from the ground, they spotted the odd two-legged bug on the flower with arms crossed and a set of bright colorful wings. Tigger's smile grew even larger (if that were possible) and set his face as close to the bug as he could get. "I say here!" he declared, "I seemed to have found a strange bug!"

"That's the one," Eeyore replied in his slow, deliberate tone. "That's the one I was talking to. Though it occurred to me that most bugs can't talk. Don't see why this one should."

"MORONS!" the 'bug' declared. "I AM MEGATRON! LEADER OF THE DECEPTICONS! I DEMAND AN EXPLANATION!"

"Hey!" Tigger giggled. "Whaddya know! It really *can* talk! I say there, little orphan alien insect-like critter, we hadn't seen your type before!"

Megatron's red optic sensors glowed frightfully bright. He shouted and tantrumed as loud and hard as a bug could. But in his current size, Megatron's raging frustration produced little more

noise than Roller laughing behind my back.

Unfortunately, his frustration was not understood either by Tigger or Eeyore. They stood and stared. Then Tigger, the ever-observant, discovered something was out of place.

"Saaaay, if you're not supposed to be a bug, but you can talk, how come you have a pair of flutter-butter-butterfly wings there stuck there on yer backside?"

Megatron flinched, stunned by the question. His left hand reached over his own shoulder and found the tips of lovely, colorful wings growing from his shoulder joints. "He twisted and craned

his neck as to see them but could not. "What the Pitt are THOSE doing there!!?" he demanded. But neither Tigger nor the Donkey could answer him.

"Don't just stand there like fat dust mites on a microbe! Get them off me!"

"Okay!" Tigger moved to pluck them off the Decepticon's back. He held the micro-cosmic Decepticon with one hand and tugged at the wings with another. But the effort proved futile as the odd things held fast to Megatron's exostructure, making the attempt a rather painful one

"No! Stop!" he ordered. "You fool! You'll kill me!"

Quite the dilemma.

"Hmmm." Tigger put on as serious an expression as he could possibly muster (which is not much compared to some). "You know, I just thunk a' some'tin'. Maybe if you was to somehows remove the wings, you won't be bug-like anymore."

"Sounds like a winning thought to me." Eeyore agreed.

Megatron crossed his arms. "How do you suppose I'm to get these things off?!"

"Well . . . " and once again Tigger carefully considered the situation, dipping his head left, then right, winking one eye then the other. "you could flap them off."

"That's ABSURD! YOU FOOL!"

Indignant, Tigger set his paws on his striped hips. "Hmph. With a potty-mouth like that, you won't get any which way done nohow."

Eeyore decided to offer a suggestion of his own: "I know I'm just a donkey and flying is far from my field of expertise. But maybe they're only glued on. And it's been my experience that sometimes when glue gets wet, it doesn't act like glue anymore."

Megatron's optics lit up with hope. "Yes! Yes! Where can I find water?"

"Why, it's all around you, Buddy-boy!" Tigger sounded dangerously cheerful. "It rained all last night and now we gots all these wonderful baby swimming holes!"

Megatron glanced at the questionable objects to which Tigger pointed and sure enough, there were thousands of 'lakes' everywhere. But Decepticons are vain creatures and mud puddles are not the ideal place in which to remove a set of wings. But Megatron was getting desperate.

"Whoa there!" Rusti called, "time out."

"Yes?"

"Optimus, how did Megatron get wings? I mean, he's a mechanical beast and wings don't just grow on metal. I mean, did he become a trans-organic or something? And if he did, how did it happen and who caused it?"

Prime stared at the girl, "Rusti, I'm telling a story, not programming a computer. Logic has nothing to do with it."

Rusti not surprised, "Ohhh! Okay."

*

So Megatron gave the puddle a try. He flew in, splashed about and rose from the muddied water.

The wings were still there. He shot Tigger and Eeyore a dirty look.

"It seems the glue is glued on right tight, little Bug-a-boo." Tigger shook his head gravely. "Might need to soak for a bit with bubbles and a rubber ducky."

That did not please Megatron, but he complied and sat in the cold dirty puddle.

Three hours passed with no results.

They tried other methods, too. Tigger tried to rub the wings off Megatron's back by scrubbing him against a tree trunk. Eeyore brought over a pair of scissors to cut them off but strangely enough,

that did not work, either. They also tried the first idea, which was to fly them off.

But the results again were to naught.

They tried paint thinner.

Nail polish remover.

S.O.S soap pads.

Laundry detergent.

Peanut butter.

Ice.

A toilet plunger.

Megatron raged in words that made both Tigger and Donkey blush and suddenly, the top of his head blossomed into a pretty white orchid. Eeyore and Tigger flinched and took a step back.

"Why-" Tigger glanced at his companion, "why you just bloomed!"

Megatron could not figure out why they were staring at him so. Bloomed? He touched the top of his head and sure enough, there was a flower petal fanning out where nothing should be. "WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?!!" He demanded. "GET THIS THING OFF ME! *YOU* DID THIS! REMOVE IT IMMEDIATELY!!

Eeyore and Tigger gradually recovered from shock and it was Eeyore who spoke first, "seems to me you blossomed when you shouted."

"Say!" Tigger declared, "that's a good observation-ation there, ol' buddy. Maybe if you was to get mad enough, and stay dat way, you'd make them wings and flower melt right off your body."

"I DO NOT BELIEVE THIS!!" Megatron looked positively ugly with anger. He flew to the nearest tree and rubbed his back against the bark. Then he rubbed the top of his head against it to remove the flower but that failed also. He knocked his head against the tree in dire frustration. "THIS IS ABSURD! I AM MEGATRON, LEADER OF THE DECEPTICONS! I AM NOT SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE A FLOWER!!! I DEMAND YOU GET THIS STUFF OFF ME NOW!!!!! WHAT ARE YOU STARING AT?!! FOOLS! YOU'LL SUFFER FOR THIS! I SWEAR BY IT!"

But all Eeyore and Tigger could do was stare for Megatron, without realizing it, tantrumed himself into another form: this time the shape of a very fat bumblebee. Now he was even smaller, but

clearly, no less louder than before.

Tigger and Eeyore gazed at one another. Sadly they could do nothing for the bug except to leave him to himself, to natter on endlessly and bang himself against the tree or soak himself in the

nearby puddle.

"Guess some days you just can't win." Eeyore quipped.

End!