Beast Wars and all characters and things related are copyright and trademark of Hasbro and Mainframe Entertainment. This work, however, is the original work of the author.
Note: This story begins between "Bad Spark" and "Code of a Hero".
Rapther
By TVfan
Predicon Base
"You've located a stasis pod?" Megatron questioned as he leaned forward in his chair taking an interest in Blackarachnia's discovery.
"Yes, Megatron," the female spider answered, "Here, in grid H9.2."
"That's close to Maximal territory," Megatron said, "Why haven't they discovered it?"
"You're asking me to tell you what goes on in their feeble little heads?" Blackarachnia asked sarcastically.
Megatron scowled at her, but ignored it, "No. Send Rampage to the location to retrieve the pod. I would like to thoroughly test his capabilities." Megatron then leaned forward with a sinister smile on his face, "Perhaps we can rid ourselves of a few problems."
Jungle
"Dinobot to base," the Maximal's only saurian transformer spoke into his own radio frequency.
"Rhinox here, what do you have?" was his answer.
"Nothing," Dinobot growled flicking a leaf with one of his two talons, "Megatron is apparently quiet for the moment. I'm on my way back."
"Very well," Rhinox replied.
Dinobot turned back toward base only to loud grumbling coming from several feet away. Crouching close to the bushes and other plant matter of the jungle, the velociraptor began to approach the sound.
"Apparently Megatron is not as quiet as we'd thought," he growled.
The source of the noises that Dinobot heard was coming from a rocky outcropping near a sharp cliff. The large transmetal crab, Rampage, had found the stasis pod, but it had crashed in a manner in which half the pod was buried in a section of bedrock. How the pod survived the landing he didn't know or care.
However, most of the pod's circuits were buried in the rock, and Rampage was quickly losing his temper trying to pull the pod out of the ground. The great crab in a fit of rage grabbed the pod as tightly as he could in his pincers and yanked with all his might. The pod lurched free, and slammed back into the earth very hard.
"Finally," Rampage grumbled, as he shifted into his robot form, "Now to show Megatron I'm a good little servant and maybe he'll let me kill something."
Rampage produced a strange device from an internal compartment and attached it to the side of the pod, activating the device as he did so. He pulled a small chip out and opened the compartment where the protoform's datatracks and programming were located.
Rampage was just about to pull the Maximal chip out when a harsh, growling voice spoke up from behind him.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you."
Rampage turned, reaching for his gun as he did so to see Dinobot, still in beast mode, leap out of the jungle and onto him. The Maximal raptor kicked Rampage's missile launcher out of the crab's hands and clamped his jaws around Rampage's neck.
"Heh, heh," Rampage chuckled, "You forget I'm a transmetal. You can't hurt me that way. Not easily."
Dinobot responded by lifting Rampage up and tossing him back away from the pod. The heavy transmetal didn't go far, considering his weight, but his brief time of flight was long enough for Dinobot to maximize and aim his optic's lasers at Rampage.
Rampage had just got to his feet when Dinobot's lasers struck him squarely in the chest. The blast knocked him off his feet and back by several yards. Rampage looked up to see Dinobot frantically trying to start the stasis pod's activation procedures with the Maximal chip still implemented.
"Oh no you don't," Rampage growled getting to his feet and charging towards his crouched attacker.
Dinobot turned to be tackled over the pod by the charging Rampage. The two bots wrestled on the ground on the other side of the pod, with neither gaining any real ground. Rampage finally pinned the Maximal to ground and grabbed his missile launcher, which was laying close by.
"Say good-bye, Dino-whimp," Rampage challenged.
Dinobot pulled his legs up and kneed Rampage in gut. Rampage startled by the Maximal's move lost track of where he was aiming and a missile flew through the air and narrowly missed the stasis pod. Dinobot the fired his optic's lasers at point blank range into Rampage's chest at full power before the transmetal crab could aim again and fire a new missile.
The blast knocked Rampage off Dinobot. He looked himself over and noticed that the Maximal's lasers and blasted a moderately sized hole in his outer layer of armor on his chest. He also looked back to see that the pod was getting ready to activate. He had to do something or there would not only be another new Maximal, but he would be outnumbered and destroyed.
"You win this round," Rampage growled slowly and aimed his missile launcher at the pod.
"NO!" Dinobot roared as he fired his optic's lasers.
Dinobot's lasers successfully it Rampage's missile launcher knocking it out of his hands, but a missile was fired none the less. Rampage changed into his tank-mode and retreated at full speed into the jungle, while Dinobot watched in horror as the missile exploded at the edge of the cliff. The missile blew away most of the rock that the pod was sitting on and the pod began to slowly teeter on the edge of falling.
Dinobot dove to catch the pod, but it was too late. It fell over the edge. Other than the protoform chamber itself, practically everything burst free from the stasis pod as it hit the ground.
The Maximal raptor returned to his beast mode and leaped from the cliff, landing nimbly a few feet away from the pod.
"Hopefully the protoform survived," Dinobot muttered as he approached.
As Dinobot got closer to the pod he heard a voice coming from inside the pod. It was a growling voice and definitely angry, but yet it also sounded slightly… feminine to Dinobot.
"Come on!" the voice growled, "Why won't this slagging thing open?!"
"Hold on," Dinobot commanded, "I'll try to open the pod."
Dinobot looked the remains of the pod over. If the protoform had activated during his battle with Rampage, it had to be that reason alone why the transformer inside was even online. The pod's doors had suffered from the battle though. Some of his laser blasts must have hit the pod and welded the door shut.
"Dinobot, MAXIMIZE!" the raptor screeched.
Dinobot took his sword and planted the point into a section of the pod's door that wasn't welded to what remained of the pod's body.
"The door is welded shut," Dinobot informed the transformer inside, and then commanded, "On the count of three push upwards on the door."
Dinobot returned to his sword's handle and prepared to push down on it, using it as a lever.
Then he shouted, "Three!"
Dinobot pushed down with all his might and he heard the new transformer push up on the roof of the pod. The sound of breaking metal reached Dinobot's audio receptors as the door burst open, freeing the transformer.
"By the pit…" Dinobot began as looked at the new transformer.
Standing in pod was a transmetal raptor. The armor looked slightly more advanced than the standard transmetal, but not by much. Its tail and beast arms were entirely silver. Its feet and most of its legs were forest green, although there was a stripe of black then came down from its hips to its knee that was black. The armor plates that made up its hips, upper torso, and the armor around its arms was also black. The bot's head, neck and lower torso were the same forest green as its legs.
"Close your trap," the bot said in a feminine voice, "Before flies get caught in there."
Dinobot paused and looked at her.
"May I ask the name of the female that just insulted me?" Dinobot demanded.
"Rapther," the female answered, "That's Rapt-her. Got it?"
Dinobot slowly nodded, "Come with me, we will need to get back to base."
Rapther glanced at the trees and then at the cliff before turning her golden optics to Dinobot again, "Lead the way."
Maximal Base, Sometime Later…
Dinobot stood in robot mode in front Optimus to deliver his report. Rhinox and Rattrap sat nearby, while Rapther watched the two warriors curiously.
"You say Rampage had found the pod?" Optimus asked.
"Yes," Dinobot nodded, "I denied him the time to place a Predicon personality chip, but he did place some other device on the pod and the female came online as a… transmetal."
"I see," Optimus answered.
"Ah lovely transmetal she is, though, choppaface," Rattrap commented glancing at Rapther.
Rapther growled at Rattrap.
"I'd watch your mouth, Vermin," Dinobot addressed in an amused tone.
"What concerns me," Rhinox began, "Is that our sensors didn't pick up the pod. You were already in the area, Dinobot. If we could have picked up on our sensors, Rapther could have been activated without interference from Rampage."
"That is irrelevant now," Dinobot answered back.
"Maybe not," Optimus spoke, "We never found all the pods that landed after we defeated the alien construct. If Megatron detected this one, he may have detected or even activated others. We must find them."
Predicon Base
Megatron frowned as Rampage delivered his report.
"I am disappointed in you Rampage," Megatron said coldly, "Dinobot should not have been able to defeat you so easily, no. Did the protoform come online while you were fighting?"
"No," Rampage answered just as coldly.
Megatron scowled at the crab hopping to intimidate Rampage. He was disappointed to see that he failed to do so. Finally Rampage spoke up.
"I did however see an interesting little valley on my way back here," Rampage said with a smile…
To Be Continued…