Remember Me, a transformers/beast wars fanfic

This was made for TantaGreen on Deviantart, in response to her drawing me a scene from my story "The Little Details" with Terrorsaur and Waspinator. I started this fic in June, but I'm still irritated it took me nearly two months to get it done. This fanfic was particularly hard to write, taking into consideration that this is my first shot at Dinobot/Rattrap. I hope I managed to pull of writing Rattrap's accent correctly. The story can be considered AU since Beast Machines never takes place during this plot's timeline.

You don't remember me but I remember you

I lie awake and try so hard not to think of you

Taking Over Me - Evanescence

"Ey! Chopper face! You mind tellin me exactly what yer doin?"

Dinobot snarled and turned his head to face Rattrap, his scarlet optics enhanced by the sunset the raptor was watching. "And to what force in the Allspark's nature do I owe this unfortunate visit?"

Rattrap's optics narrowed as he slowly approached. The rat had been on monitor duty - he noticed Terrorsaur and Waspinator flying around just outside their territory for what had to be the millionth time, although it appeared they were seemingly doing nothing harmful - when he had seen Dinobot leave the base. He had watched the raptor sit outside on the cliff edge by the base for a good megacycle until Cheetor came to take over his shift. Seeing Dinobot watching the sunset for no apparent reason irked Rattrap, mostly considering the ex-Pred could have been doing something else to help out around the base, but the fact Dinobot was not training either also poked at his curiosity. "My great aunt, Arcee. Now what the Pitt are you going?"

Dinobot's mouth curled into a frown and he turned away, looking back over the horizon. "Watching the sunset, cheese eater. I would have assumed that would be obvious to you."

Rattrap walked closer and stood beside the seated raptor, flanking his right side and temporarily standing over him. It was a nice change of pace actually, mostly considering it was the scaled Maximal that usually towered over him. "Yeah, but what gives? Pfft, ain't watching sunsets for pansies? Geez, you disappoint me, Dinobutt."

"Silence, vermin," Dinobot snorted, his optics still cast out gazing over the sunset. The red orange glare of the sun's rays cast spilled its fiery colors over the clouds, staining them and the sky around it a pinkish orange like paint on a canvas. A flock of geese flew in the sky just over the horizon, and even Rattrap had to admit it was a pretty sight. Sure, he knew the Darkside got a much better view of the sunrise because they were further east, but he was sure they did not pay it much heed anyway. His thoughts were interrupted by Dinobot. "And I'll have you know that watching the sunset can at least give me some time alone so I can think."

"Like you can't do that in yer own quarters or somethin," Rattrap teased. "You comin in or what?"

"When the sun is down," Dinobot answered, eerily more quiet than usual. Usually, Dinobot would always belt the rat with a rude comment after he said anything to address the raptor. Noting he had not even referred to him by name meant that there was something on the taller Maximal's mind.

Rattrap shrugged to himself. "Primus kill me for dis later…" He muttered half out loud to no one in particular. Whether or not Dinobot heard him was irrelevant. The rat then promptly plopped himself down next to Dinobot and avoided looking at the ex-Predacon. He saw Dinobot snap his head towards him out of the corner of his vision and the raptor sneered at him.

"Exactly what are you doing?"

"Watchin the sunset with you. Ain't it obvious?" Rattrap chose that moment as the right one to turn to his companion, raising an optic ridge at the blue faced Maximal. "Someone's gotta baby sit you."

"I don't need babysitting," the raptor hissed, his pride sounding partially hurt by the statement. "You, however, could use an immediate form of bathing."

Rattrap did not respond and he turned away to look over the horizon again. Surprisingly, Dinobot did not egg the rat on. It was uncharacteristic for Dinobot to do so, and Rattrap idly worried if maybe the raptor was ill… and the fact he knew he was worried made him wonder if he himself was ill. Nonetheless, Rattrap did find it relaxing to watch the sun setting in the distance. The sun on this planet was much larger than Cybertron's twin suns - putting their masses together though, Rattrap guessed it would have reached the size of the sun they were watching now - and it was actually a stunning thing to regard. That and feeling Dinobot next to him made the rodent Maximal feel slightly more cozy than he knew he should have felt.

"Rattrap?"

The rat snapped his head in the direction of the address, and he was met with Dinobot looking him straight in the optics. "What?"

Dinobot's scarlet optics narrowed thoughtfully. "I would like to propose something."

"Like what?"

"A deal," Dinobot responded quickly. The raptor looked over on the horizon again. "But you have to promise to keep it. On your honor."

"What little honor I have, you mean," Rattrap tried to joke. The fact Dinobot was being so quiet with him and acting so unlike himself was making the rat vexed, and the thought of him being concerned for the ex-Predacon's well being irritated Rattrap to no end. "So spill. What is it?"

"Remember me."

Rattrap abruptly woke up to three loud bangs at his door.

His day was usually spent getting stared at by passers on the sidewalks and being whispered about behind his Transmetal and partially organic back. His day was also usually spent expending as much time inside his apartment as he knew was possible. It was also spent looking through the dump nearby his home, although that point could be seen as entirely irrelevant. Still, the fact remained that today was not a usual day.

The blue of Cybertron's two suns - Primus forsaken Prima - was always the first of the two suns to rise. In the mornings, it lingered around the forty-five degree angle point in the sky before being followed by its red counterpart - dubbed Unima - to even out the sunlight that shone throughout the day. He remembered his great aunt Arcee telling him that there used to be no suns at all when Cybertron was drifting through space before it found a suitable rotation around the twin stars, although he was less than enthusiastic about it.

For a matter of speaking, he hated it when Prima shone through his window in the morning. He always woke up facing the window that looked to the stupid sun, and Rattrap always woke up with a bright bluish tinted light in his optics.

The beginning of the unusualness of his day? For one, Rattrap did not wake up to Prima's glare.

Three loud knocks on his apartment door made the Transmetal rat groggily come online. Prima and Unima were already in synch in the sky from what Rattrap could tell by looking out the window right next to his recharge berth, and it was rather obvious he slept in later than he anticipated. He did not mind of course seeing as he really had nothing to do since the Beast Wars finally ended, but he usually never got to because of the first sun's rays assaulting his optics. Slowly, the Transmetal rat forced himself to get up, hanging his legs over his berth and looking at the ground with a nasty case of post recharge haze lingering in his slowed processors.

He nearly jumped out of his casing when the knocking resumed and his battle computer snapped online. It was something the Beast Wars had given him other than a beast-mode of course and, no matter how hard he tried to resist it, he always jumped to attention ready to fight at the slightest sound. As soon as he realized his surroundings and exactly where he was, he made himself get up to head to the door. It was probably mid afternoon he guessed, and the distracting thought nearly made him trip over a lone castaway cable Rattrap had collected during one of his many dumpster diving expeditions. He cursed and continued across his one room, garbage littered apartment to his door.

Upon getting there, entering the code to open it, and actually opening it, he was met with the sight of something else slightly unusual.

"Spots?"

The Maximal's grin would have ripped the cat's face in half had physics provided, but it was a safe bet to assume that the laws of physics were in Cheetor's favor. The Transmetal-Two cheetah narrowed his optics in an almost playful manner and his almost insane grin reflected in his words. "Miss me?"

"No," Rattrap teased, idly tapping his fingers on the side of the doorframe to his apartment. The last time Rattrap had seen the youngest of the Axalon's crew - who had definitely matured in the year they had spent on Cybertron since they had returned home just by the looks of it - had been during a press conference that the Maximals had held regarding questioning the Axalon crew about the occurrences of the Beast Wars. Since then, it had to have been a solid six months. "But you could've called or somethin. What's up?"

Cheetor's grin wavered for a moment, returned, and then vanished. Entirely out of character for the cat one could say, and Rattrap raised an optic at him in mild concern. After a moment though, the Transmetal-Two Maximal pulled a small datapad out of his subspace and handed it to the rat. Rattrap looked at it and, after a brief moment, took it. Cheetor reached a hand back to rub the back of his head. "I came to give you that."

Rattrap eyed the device with a curious and disbelieving optics. Datapads were an efficient way to record data, true, but the one he was holding currently had almost no data space whatsoever. Such pads were often used to send small messages - an emphasis on small would be appropriate - but the pad itself was low grade enough to be more easily compared with a sheet of paper with only several letters written on it. "What's this?"

Cheetor shrugged, a gesture that looked less innocent on his Transmetal-Two body than it did on his original or even standard Transmetal form. "Don't ask me. Someone came by this morning and handed it off to Optimus. Big-bot gave it to me and told me to give it to you. He said it was important and it was from someone you remember."

"Guess it really is important if he gave it to you for rush delivery," Rattrap mused, turning the thin datapad over in his silver digits. "How many traffic laws did you violate this time?"

Cheetor's grin suddenly returned, although with noticeably less intensity than before. "Organics can't break traffic laws."

"Speed violations," Rattrap corrected himself, not looking up at the cat.

Cheetor's grin did not even falter before it vanished from his face entirely, replaced by a rather childish looking pout. "You're no fun anymore. Whatever happened to the Rattrap I remember? He die or something?"

Everything stopped right there.

Rattrap glanced up at the cat with deep red optics, regarding him silently, and Cheetor quickly shut up. It was an unspoken reminder, really. When they returned home from prehistoric Earth with Megatron - who was sent to prison for the rest of his life without the possibility of parole - there had been complete focus on the "Organic Maximals" by the media. Questions were asked - most regarding what occurred during the Beast Wars - but a question had quickly popped up after six or so months: Who had died?

It was something no one who survived the Beast Wars was really ready to talk about, but it came up all the same. When Optimus Primal did reveal the names of everyone who perished, Rattrap had to brace himself.

Rattrap told himself he never wanted to hear Dinobot's name ever again. Upon hearing it said when Optimus finally got to Dinobot's name, the Transmetal rat had to leave the rally. News crews questioned him, but they quickly ceased asking him when he told them to "shove it up their tailpipes" in an atypical cold tone.

To put things slightly more bluntly than intended, it was a common fact Rattrap was iffy around the concept of Dinobot. More or less, after he died, Rattrap had tried his best to forget about him. It broke the deal he and the raptor had made on the cliff edge while watching the sunset several years back during the early stages of the Beast Wars, yes, but he honestly did not care if he broke it or not. Loosing Dinobot hurt: Trying to forget about him made it feel somewhat better.

…Except for when he did remember Dinobot though. Then the pain of loosing the ex-Predacon came back. So began the game of the rat trying to forget about him again. Beside the point, that rally had been the last time he had seen any of the Axalon's members. Cheetor included.

Cheetor cleared his throat. "Sorry."

Rattrap shrugged in an offhand sort of way, something greatly out of character for him. "Whatev. Listen, tell the others I said hi when you see 'em, okay kid?"

Cheetor nodded slowly. "Fine…" He looked away and turned on his heel slightly, as if going to walk away, but he turned around again before rattrap could retreat back into his room completely. The metallic rodent was about to enter the code to close his door when, abruptly, he saw Cheetor turn out of the corner of his optic. With the data pad still in hand, he looked up and met the cat's eyes with his own. Red bore into red and, after a moment, the cheetah Transmetal-Two quietly spoke up. "We miss you."

Rattrap was frank. "Not as much as I miss chopper face."

With that, he closed the door in Cheetor's face and went back to bed.

iii

Rattrap was silent during the whole ceremony. Rhinox had about enough.

"Rattrap? You okay?"

Rattrap and Rhinox, being the only non fliers of the Maximals, were left on the ground working the cremation process of Dinobot's funeral. After the Great War, the "Requiem" was invented by several Maximal scientists. Usually, deceased Transformers were recycled for parts for new Transformers awaiting to come online. Due to the sheer emotional toll of the Great Autobot and Decepticon war however, the aftermath of the colossal struggle left many Transformers refusing to see their dead loved ones off on manufacturing belts. Even considering that Cybertron had access to more metals than ever for new robots - courteously of demise of the Great War boosting the economy tenfold - scientists invented a funeral device in the form of the Requiem to give the deceased's loved ones a form of closure. It supercharged and disrupted the protoform energy inside the empty shell, causing it to return to its original liquid state, before it spiked the energy in the device and turned the liquid into a crystal form. At the end of the process, it turned the dead robot into a series of loosely held dust particles that would easily come apart and blow away if there was even the slightest breeze. When there was a breeze, the dust that blew away was a glimmering, beautiful sparkling blue. Even the scientists of Cybertron could never figure out exactly why the particles glimmered such a dazzling blue of course, but it mattered very little to Rattrap at the present moment.

The silver and chrome Transmetal rodent looked at Rhinox out of the corner of his optic, keeping another glued on Dinobot's hovering form on the Requiem. Both he and Rhinox were working the controls to the Requiem while the Maximal fliers got ready to put a show of their own on in Dinobot's honor, but Rattrap still did not want to be in the position he was. Moments after Dinobot's death, Silverbolt had piped up that sunrise would be in under eight hours. With that, all the Maximals - save for Rattrap, who was still in shock - went to work building a Requiem. The device was easy enough to make thankfully, and they had it done a full hour before the sun even started to light the sky.

Speaking of Dinobot, he had already been moved to the Requiem's podium. Watching Rhinox and Optimus carrying Dinobot's body made Rattrap violently ill, and he had been sick for twenty minutes before he had it in him to get up and help Rhinox at the funeral device's controls. In the raptor's hands from where he laid on the podium, cast over his chest, were his sword and a small bouquet of wild flowers Optimus had said Dinobot had given to him as a "get well" present once when the gorilla had been temporarily turned into a berserker.

Rattrap's voice was soft and he never turned to Rhinox once. "No."

Rhinox's face tightened and the brown and green tinted rhino slowly turned away. Rattrap was glad too. The rat went back to silently watching Dinobot's prone shell slowly turn to a mass of loose cyber dust that would surely be gone on the wind's breath if there was even the slightest gust. The sun continued to slowly break the surface of the horizon and rose in the distance, some of its pre-gold glares casting shadows over and across the hastily assembled Requiem, and just the simple thought of it being Dinobot on the device made Rattrap's fuel tank rev and heave in his stomach. His spark felt no better.

Dinobot was dead. He had argued with the ex-Predacon not even a day ago before he left the Axalon for the final time in his life, and now the raptor was dead.

"You know…" Rhinox started softly, watching the sun begin to rise over the ocean as it cast its first weak morning rays across the cliff they were on, "you're not the only one to mourn as much as you are. You don't have to feel so down about that."

The rat turned his head sharply towards his companion, optics ablaze even in the low light. "What makes ya think I'm mournin?" Rattrap had not meant to snap, but he could not help it. Suppressing his anger for Dinobot throwing his life away - even though it was really the only choice he had to protect the proto-humans - and keeping his anguish down as low as possible to prevent it from showing was harder for him than getting used to the presence of Dinobot when he first joined the Maximals. The fact he had not gotten a moment's sleep in over twenty-four hours also was getting to him rather noticeably. And to think he used to hate the raptor…

"Because you are," Rhinox said sternly. "This is a war. There's life and death at stake. I wish Dinobot did not die either, but it's life. And it's okay to mourn. It's the normal thing to do." The rhino paused to let the information sink in and, before the only Transmetal Maximal present could respond, Rhinox continued. "Cheetor mourned for Tigertron. I mourned for Airrazor."

Rattrap cringed at the names of the two scouts being mentioned. Just at the remembrance at the names of the two Maximals they had lost less recently than Dinobot caused Rattrap to mentally grimace. No one had been really close with Tigertron or Airrazor - as they were both loners who really only spent time with one another - with the exception of Cheetor and Rhinox. Cheetor had been attached with Tigertron because they were both cats and Rhinox had practically been a father figure to Airrazor.

Nevertheless, the rat knew that Cheetor and Rhinox still probably had not been in mourning as much as he was now. He had been more than attached to Dinobot than Cheetor had been with Tigertron and Rhinox with Airrazor. Rattrap knew why that was - down in the darkest depths of his spark he did at least - but the thought of him… possibly loving Dinobot made him recoil even more.

Rhinox still had not made his point. At least, not until a click later.

"Waspinator mourned for Terrorsaur-"

Point made.

"Whoa, whoa, back up. What?" Rattrap turned his full attention back to Rhinox at the new set of information provided to him. He had not heard Terrorsaur's name uttered in a little more than half a year since the red flier died, and it was a jolt to his memory banks. He had almost completely forgotten about the scarlet flier too. He turned his thoughts away from Terrorsaur alone and mingled it with the thought of Waspinator mourning over the red pterosaur's demise. How Rhinox could have known that jarred at Rattrap's mind, mainly because he really had not paid any attention to Waspinator or his late wingmate to begin with himself.

Rhinox sighed, said nothing for a moment, and then turned his head back to face Rattrap's suddenly flabbergasted one. "After Terrorsaur was… killed in the Quantum Surge, Waspinator started acting up."

"Like he never does," Rattrap mused, sarcasm dripping off his voice. Still, he did realize Waspinator had acted off ever since the Quantum Surge. The wasp did not go out on as many sugar binges as he normally did, he seemed slightly more aggressive than the usual norm, and he stopped going on the same sky routes he and Terrorsaur normally took when it was late out. His memory of watching the two fliers hanging just outside their territory on the radar the same night he struck a deal with Dinobot to never forget him made itself present.

Rhinox ignored him. "I picked him up on the Axalon's scanners in our territory a few days after Optimus was revived, and I investigated by myself since it was late and I figured Waspinator wouldn't be too much of a problem to handle. I found him tearing up some foliage and I would have intervened if not for the fact he was sobbing. Screaming too, but the worst part was he was doing all of that because of how broken he was over Terrorsaur."

Rattrap kept silent, going over the information in his head silently.

Rhinox continued. "I must have watched him for an hour before I finally left, but I'm pretty sure they were mates." The rhino's face was hard and entirely solemn, and the information as a whole assaulted Rattrap's logic chips with force.

The chrome rat's optics widened at the term. "They were bonded?" The thought of Terrorsaur and Waspinator always together with each other just outside their terrain hanging out by some of the hot springs or out in the open skies jabbed at Rattrap's mind, and the realization of how close they had to have been made him shudder. He had never had a mate personally - and the thought of Waspinator and Terrorsaur as lovers made Rattrap mentally cringe - but thinking about Waspinator loosing Terrorsaur so abruptly made him pity the wasp.

"I can only assume," the rhino said softly, turning away. "I went through the same thing when my mate died."

Once again, a second point made. Slightly more surprising than the first too. "You were bonded?"

"Once," Rhinox said even softer, his face clenching in silent agony. He turned away. "But that was in the past. A long time ago. I don't want to talk about it."

More of the sun began to rise and Rattrap could hear the sound of Optimus and Cheetor's jets in the distance. He was sure he would have been able to hear Silverbolt flapping his wings if the two prior Silverbolt turned the sound of their turbines down, but the fact remained the three Maximal fliers were coming. "So," Rattrap said slowly, watching Dinobot again and trying not to look at Rhinox's suddenly pained expression at remembering his lost bondparther. "What are you gettin at?"

Of course he knew what Rhinox had been getting at. Right from the beginning too of course.

Rhinox voiced it. "Despite what you think, you're not alone."

And then Silverbolt, Optimus, and Cheetor roared past just overhead Dinobot's final resting place in a human tradition of showing someone who died with honor. Rattrap had not even heard them directly overhead until he saw them out of the corner of his vision. The sun rose even higher in the distance, casting its golden rays across the Requiem just as a soft breeze brushed past Rhinox and Rattrap. Dinobot's body disintegrated at the wind's slight touch and his body was turned into nothing but sparkling gems of blue. The ashes danced in the air before disappearing into the breeze, leaving the Requiem empty of an occupant.

Knowing he was not the only one to mourn made him feel slightly better, but it did not stop his spark from feeling as empty as the now vacant Requiem. In that instant, before he could asses what he wanted to really do, he vowed to break the promise he made to Dinobot about never forgetting him.

By the time the second of Cybertron's twin suns was setting, Rattrap was getting antsy.

Around this time of day, anyone could have seen Rattrap minding his way down the streets of Iacon to head to any bar that was closest. He often received stares from those that passed him that had obviously never seen a partially organic Transformer amongst them, but that was not where he was at the moment. The Transmetal rat racer had followed the directions on the pad to meet someone at the local dump around sunset, and he had pulled up to the gate before transforming and reassessing his situation. Prima had set a good twenty cycles earlier and Unima was just beginning to dip into the horizon like a fireball from hell dipping into Cybertron's surface. Unima's glow turned almost everything a golden red and it briefly reminded Rattrap about the sunrise that cast itself over Dinobot's funeral and the sunset that cast itself over Dinobot when they made their deal.

He forced the thought out of his mind.

Rattrap walked over the entry and shook the steel barred gate. The old fashioned chains and lock rattled against the steel bars and Rattrap silently wondered who the frell wanted to meet him out here to begin with. Surely none of his relatives - he had seen enough of them for the rest of his life taking into fact they had all practically swamped him when he came back from prehistoric Earth - but there was not really anyone else he knew. That and it could not have been a total stranger either. If Optimus trusted whoever it was enough to give Rattrap the message, then it could not be anyone dangerous.

Rattrap gave the gate a final jerk and, seeing as the old thing was not going to open, he looked around and saw a disposal unit - similar to a human's equivalent of a garbage can - sitting conveniently next to the ten foot wall that lead inside the dump. Instinctively so, he shifted to beast-mode and scurried over. "Geez, this person really must wanna see me if they're gonna make me jump a fence and trespass. Makes me wonder if it's a Pred…"

He abandoned the thought a moment later when a mental image of Dinobot popped into his mind.

He jumped onto the can and it wobbled under his weight. He straightened out his tail to keep his balance and the wobbling ceased a second later. The rat mentally patted himself on the back and he crouched low, locking his optics on the wall's top ledge and maintaining his balance. The thought dawned on him that, despite the fact Dinobot used to call him the most aggravating, idiotic, and most horrid smelling of all the Maximals the ex-Predacon had to work with, Rattrap knew even the raptor would have been impressed by his-

Rattrap felt himself leaning forward too much, jerked to a position he wanted far too quickly, and the disposal unit wobbled under his weight. He cried out and jumped towards the wall before he could help himself, and he barley caught the wall's edge with the tips of his claws. The trash can toppled over with a crash, and Rattrap hung from the wall desperately kicking his feet in an attempt to scramble upwards.

His right foot finally found some hold and he scrambled up the wall's face, sitting on the top when he finally got to it. He sat at the top, looked down at the toppled disposal unit and the trash littered around it, and he glared at it hard. If looks could kill, the trash unit would have died had it been actually alive.

And he still could not help thinking about Dinobot.

The rat transformed to his robot-mode, careful to keep his balance, and he jumped down into the dump. He landed on a large piece of sheet metal that was conveniently located on the pile of trash up against the wall, and he rode it down the makeshift hill like a surfboard. As soon as he got to the bottom, he leaped off and landed almost gracefully. He stood up, dusted himself off in an offhand style, and he glanced at his surroundings. There was a small, almost road like path that lead to the center of the dump - and Rattrap knew this because he had been here dumpster diving before - but curiosity poked at him again when it came to who this mystery person wanting to meet with him was.

"Only way to find out," he mused. He shifted to his beast-mode and scurried down the path. His mind was set for getting to the center of the dump - he was positive that his anonymity mech would be there - but it did not keep his mind from wandering, and it was more than obvious it was going to bring him back to Dinobot.

The raptor's image came back to his CPU and he did not bother to try to ban it. He had honestly tried to forget about Dinobot despite the face he vowed to the velociraptor to not do such a thing and it starting to come back to bite him in his aft. Right, sure he had felt something for the raptor after he got used to him hanging around the Axalon, and sure he had gotten more attached to the larger mech than he wanted, but it was something he could not help. A moth being drawn to flame would be a good similarity, mainly because the moth had never known why it was so attracted to the brightness of the fires it was drawn to. The association was eerily similar because, no matter how hard Rattrap tried to figure out why, he could not come up with an explanation as to why he liked Dinobot as much as he had.

Then again, Dinobot's sense of principle had almost been… Maximal. Rattrap had never liked Preds - he always thought they were all too sleazy for their own good - but Dinobot was different. The tan and light brown Predacon turncoat was almost too bold for his own sake and it was something that completely drew him away from being a typical Decepticon descendant. His honor was always something that managed to completely bowl Rattrap over though. Wherever it came from, it was most certainly not normal Pred programming or Predacon normality. Wherever the raptor's sense of nobility had come from, it still left Rattrap accepting the raptor much more quickly than he liked. He was a Maximal, Dinobot a Predacon. Why should he feel for him?

And, no matter how many times he tried to come up with an answer for himself, he could never come up with one. That was why he was trying to forget about Dinobot. Because thinking about him brought up too many questions unanswered.

By the time be broke free from his dismal thoughts, he had reached the center of the dump. The makeshift gravel road ended and lead to a big clearing with trash piled around on all sides. Garbage mountains almost blocked out Unima's setting rays of crimson light, and just the simple thought of a sunset made Dinobot spring to his processor again.

No one was in sight. Just his luck. A setup.

"What can you expect from someone that said they knew you," Rattrap said out loud. "Geez, I don't even know who the slag it is I'm meetin let alone remember someone I forgot about! Who the slag could it have been?"

His only audience - or so he thought - for listening to his query was the unwanted and littered garbage around him. Now, with no one there and him being all alone, he could not save himself from the assault of memories involving Dinobot from flooding his core processors. Thus the mourning returned, and Rattrap wished he had a few drinks before he left his home.

When Waspinator mourned over Terrorsaur, Waspinator had obviously loved the red mech. Considering Rhinox had mentioned the two had probably been mates, it would have been obvious Terrorsaur would have loved the green wasp too. His own mourning over Dinobot had not been as severe as Waspinator's over Terrorsaur, but he had mourned on a level, Rattrap mused, that could have borderline Waspinator's. He was sure the same went for Rhinox and whoever the rhino had been bonded with.

Did he love Dinobot, then? For real?

"I doesn't matter anymore," Rattrap quietly mulled over, abruptly miserable. "And he didn love me anyways. Why would it matter?" His own question went unanswered. Only the silence of the sunset followed and only the trash listened to him. Or so he thought.

"It will be the only thing that matters when I'm through with you!"

Rattrap had less than a second to react when a massive crane claw came crashing down just mere centimeters from his head to his immediate right. His beast-mode's instincts kicking into gear, Rattrap leaped away from the assaulting object and scurried away to take cover behind what little remained of a hover craft. The rat peeked out and found himself staring at a small construction earth mover. He recognized the model as being one favored by Predacons, and he silently cursed at Optimus for letting him get into an ambush. Primus, how could he have not seen the crane sooner!

The crane moved forward and the claw lifted high into the air. Rattrap had almost no time to react at all when the large, torso sized claw came down a second time. It smashed into the hovercraft with enough force to make Rattrap's body jump into the air without its own accord, and the Maximal leaped backwards again, transforming to his bipedal robot-mode in midair. The crane's claw lifted up a third time, but Rattrap sidestepped and tried to jump to his immediate left. The claw suddenly jerked in his direction and it got him in the side, causing him to cry out as he was tossed aside like a rag doll. He flew into another pile of trash and felt the air get knocked out of him. He had completely forgotten how weak his beast-mode was to the sheer power the steel crane held. His mindset was still in the Beast Wars, it seemed.

The crane was upon him again, and he had even less time to roll away from the claw as it tried to slam into him for a third time. He rolled over to his left twice before he caught a glimpse of the claw trying to crush him again. He stopped himself and rolled over to his right as it came down hard where he could have been if he kept going left.

Then the crane transformed.

There was the familiar whirl of parts moving, compressing, and contracting that made themselves known as the Predacon transformed. The claw turned into a right hand, a second, slightly more normal looking arm and palm appeared and slammed down next to his head on his left, and the rest of the body stood up and took shape. Now, looming over Rattrap in Unima's red sunset, was a eight foot tall monster of a Pred with navy blue, brown, and white plating. Red optics on a dark blue face glared down at him hard, and a part of Rattrap's memory was jarred.

The Predacon snarled. "You forgot our deal."

At least he knew it was the one who called their meeting here, that much was for sure. Rattrap was too weary and out of breath from moving around so quickly since the Beast Wars that he could not find a sarcastic retort. He found room for an aggravated one. "Who the slag are you! You call me out here and then you attack me! What the slags do you freakin want, Pred! What deal!"

The face above him remained stern. "You didn't want to remember me. I know you didn't, because Optimus said you didn't. At least he's honorable enough like me to speak up in your defense, vermin."

Now Rattrap was more confused than anything. He narrowed his optics at the blue face, taking in the familiarity of the voice and the terms "honorable" and "vermin" more so than the whole sentence spoken by the much larger Predacon. The red eyes of the larger bore into his own and, after a moment, the Predacon looming above him let his deep frown slowly form into a smirk. "You still smell, rodent."

Rattrap felt his spark skip a pulsation in his chest, and both disbelief and sheer elation rush his spark for the first time since Dinobot died. A brief recollection of the deal they did make at remembering who he was speaking to jarred his CPU enough to let him let his mouth fall open and to let him feel moisture prick the corners of his optics.

"Dinobot?"

"Remember me."

"Eh?"

Rattrap turned his gaze from the sunset he and Dinobot were idly watching to the raptor himself. Dinobot's features were almost gold in the sun's setting light, but they were shadowed the moment the raptor turned to face Rattrap. "Remember me. This war won't be kind to me, I'm sure, so promise me you won't forget me when this confrontation claims me."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Rattrap blurted, turning to the raptor. "Who ever decided your mortality?"

"No one, vermin," the brown striped raptor hissed, turning away. "As a warrior, my mortality is a simple factor of my life. With my place being on the battlefield, my end is to eventually be there as well." The raptor's tone was entirely serious, lacking the sarcasm or almost hurtful jest it held when he was belting Rattrap, and it was something that borderline scared Rattrap. Still, the ex-Predacon turned Maximal continued on. "My only request to you is that you remember me."

"Geez, chopper face, you can't be serious," Rattrap started, silencing himself when Dinobot turned his head back to face him once more. The raptor's face was hard, more so than usual actually, and the fact that Dinobot was entirely serious managed to work its way into Rattrap's processor. The rat shrugged, turned away, and tried not to think about it further. The more he did think about Dinobot being killed, the more it bothered him. The fact it bothered him disturbed him even more, though the sun's staggering and breathtaking appearance as it dipped into the horizon made Rattrap's mind feel more at ease. "Whatev, lizard head," he sighed. "Not like that's gonna happen for a long time, but I'll remember ya. Now shuddup and watch the sunset."

"I thought you said this activity was pointless earlier," Dinobot chuckled. "Had a change of spark now?"

Now that was the Dinobot Rattrap wanted to hear. "Shut it."

And, yet, he never did completely forget Dinobot.

…Then, even long after the Beast Wars finally ended, Dinobot also never forgot about him.

Fin