Author's Notes: Hi everyone! Well, this is my very first Beast Wars fic. I binge watched the show so I could get in the right mindset to write this story, and I had honestly forgotten how much that show got away with. I think when they made Beast Wars the Canadian censorship board was taking a nap! LOL! Anyway, this is technically a sequel to one of my earlier G1 fics (You Will Care For Me), but I'm writing it in such a way so that newcomers will be able to follow the story (I hope). Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy the fic and please remember to leave a review :)

Chapter 1

Still Alive

Rattrap, Airazor, and Tigatron had been sent to scout an area near the coast after the Alaxon's computer had detected a surge of energy that lasted for only a few seconds. That didn't make a lot of sense due to energon readings generally remaining constant throughout this area, so the working theory was that the surge was caused by a Predacon weapon.

Rattrap didn't like being the third wheel on this little search and retrieve mission. He noticed that Tigatron and Airazor had been getting chummy for a while now, and he was sure they were falling in love. That was something Rattrap would just as soon not be in the middle of. Pit, the only reason Tigatron had been by the base was to see Airazor. In Rattrap's humble opinion those two should just get a room and leave everybody else out of this mess.

At the moment Airazor was flying overhead to see if she could find anything, and Tigatron was keeping watch in case of Predacon attack. This wasn't the worst mission Rattrap had ever been on, but being with these two was too quiet. Dinobot might be a pain in the chassis, but at least Rattrap could have a decent conversation (argument) with him.

/Hey, can you hear me?/ Airazor asked over the comm since static was common in the area they were scouting.

/Yes, we can hear you,/ Tigatron replied, /What have you found?/

/Guys, you're going to want to get to the beach now,/ Airazor told them emphatically, /I'm not sure what this is exactly, but you have to see it to believe it./

The two Maximals wasted no time in running to where Airazor was waiting for them. She met them near the ocean, and beside her was a large grey frame and a smaller damaged frame.

"What the...?" Rattrap exclaimed; too stunned to say anything else.

The frame Airazor found was huge! It looked to be as big as the Autobot frames of old, and it had large prominent wings and spikes. It looked to be partially torn apart, and the smaller frame had many large chunks of it missing.

"What is this thing?" Airazor asked apprehensively.

"I'm not sure," Tigatron replied hesitantly.

"Yeah, well I am," Rattrap informed them, "That frame belongs to an ancient class of Cybertronian known as a seeker. They were jets that generally came in groups of 3. Of course there ain't no more livin' seekers. They all either died or were upgraded durin' the beginnin' of the Beast Age. Rhinox knows more about this slag than I do, so ask him."

"I will," Airazor replied even as she walked closer to the wreckage, "So, if this giant frame belongs to one of the ancients, then does that make this normal sized robot an ancient minibot?"

"Probably," Rattrap shrugged, "Yikes, I'll tell ya, that seeker is armed to the teeth and has a lot of close-combat spikes. Probably a Decepticon. We gotta get this thing outta here before the Preds try to salvage these frames for parts."

"Of course," Tigatron nodded in understanding, "We cannot allow those fiends to desecrate the corpses of our ancestors."

"Pfft...whatever," Rattrap snorted as he shook his head and went to grab one of the seeker's arms to pull it away from the tide.

Tigatron went to pick up the smaller bot. It was the same size as Rattrap's robot mode, but it looked so small and frail compared to its bulky seeker counterpart. It surprised Tigatron that the seeker was once capable of flight given how big and heavy it was up close. He silently mourned the loss of such a noble being, though he knew its death was likely centuries ago. As he went to pick up the small frame however, he noticed something beneath the surface and gasped!

"A spark!" Tigatron exclaimed in shock, "This Cybertronian still has a spark!"

"No way!" Rattrap shouted, "Lemme see!"

Rattrap and Airazor looked at it, and sure enough there was an exposed spark beneath the shattered chassis compartment. The minibot had been turned on its back so they had been unable to see the spark before, but now they knew that this ancient Cybertronian was clinging to life by a loose wire.

"It needs to turn into beast mode or it'll die from exposure to the energon!" Airazor cried out frantically.

"Oi, newsparks..." Rattrap muttered as he rubbed his forehead, "Airazor, it doesn't have a beast mode. It's an ancient! Ancients generally had vehicle or appliance modes. If it's gonna survive we have to get it back to base and quickly!"

"Give it to me," Airazor ordered, "I'll airlift the injured mech to safety."

Wasting no time, Rattrap gave the injured Cybertronian to Airazor and she quickly flew away with it. As she took off in the sky though, Rattrap remembered one more loose end from this scouting mission.

"Aw, great! Now you and me have to drag this rusted out carcass back to base!" Rattrap groused to Tigatron as he looked at the dead seeker frame.

Rattrap sighed miserably as the two mechs took hold of the seeker's wings and pulled it with them as they slowly made their way back to base. Rattrap just hoped the Predacons didn't show up to steal their prize. An ancient's body could have some obsolete but very effective weapons and parts for them to exploit.

It was three hours before Rattrap and Tigatron made it back to the Axalon. Fortunately there were no Predacons to inhibit their progress. Airazor had been on the Axalon for quite a while by the time the other two got back from hauling the scrapped body. Airazor managed to get the living ancient back in time and Rhinox examined it quickly to determine the best course of action.

"So, where's our patient?" Rattrap asked when he and Tigatron returned.

"Rhinox said the body was beyond repair, but the processor and spark were intact," Airazor informed them, "The only option left to save her was to put the spark and processor in a new protoform body and place her inside a restoration pod for reconstruction. Now it all depends on whether or not the memory log was damaged. I hope the ancient survives. Optimus theorizes that she might have come from an exploration team sent to recover something lost on this planet a long time ago. She could have also come through the same time anomaly as we did, though that is less likely since she was the style of protoform constructed during the age of the third Cybertronian war."

"Makes sense," Rattrap shrugged, but then after a moment asked, "Wait, she?"

"Um, yes. Is that important?" Airazor asked in confusion.

"Um, yeah!" Rattrap exclaimed as if it should be obvious, "That means it's probably a Decepticon! Most of the Autobot femmes were slagged durin' the war if they weren't powerful enough to fight off the 'Cons. It was millions of years before the femme population recovered, and by then most of 'em looked pretty different from the one we found."

"It is likely not a Decepticon," Tigatron contested, "That seeker we recovered had Autobot sigils on its wings."

Just then Rhinox walked over to them from the medbay with a pensive expression on his face. He looked exhausted from monitoring and adjusting the restoration pod's settings every few minutes to ensure a smooth rebuilding of their new guest.

"Any change?" Airazor asked worriedly.

"She will recover, but I...I had to change the protoform's core programming," Rhinox explained tiredly, "For one thing, she needed a body capable of acquiring a beast mode, so I had to outfit her with Maximal core programming."

"Eh, big deal," Rattrap replied dismissively, "She'll get used to it."

"Maybe, though I am not certain this femme is mentally prepared for the transition," Rhinox said hesitantly, "According to her spark signature, she is a sparkling."

"What's a sparkling?" Airazor asked curiously.

"Many vorns ago the Cybertronian spark was not capable of instantaneous maturation," Rhinox told them.

"Uh, and what does that mean to those of us that don't speak techno-babble?" Rattrap asked impatiently.

"It means Cybertronians used to go through a form of infancy, not unlike organics," Rhinox clarified, "Sparklings are baby Cybertronians, and it would often take them 4 or 5 vorns to be physically and mentally prepared for adult bodies. That all changed during the third Cybertronian war when Optimus Prime and Megatron built mechs with adult bodies for combat purposes. They couldn't afford to wait for sparklings to grow up since in a war zone that was unlikely to happen before the helpless beings were vaporized by the enemy. Nowadays Maximals and Predacons are born with adult bodies and processors, but that femme in the pod was in a sparkling frame when you found her."

"That was a baby?" Airazor asked in disbelief, "But she was as big as Rattrap! How big did the ancients build themselves to be?"

"Big," Rhinox replied simply, "Now, this newcomer is in an adult frame due to reconstruction. She is somewhere between 3 to 4 vorns old, so she was close to being ready anyway. Still, we don't want to scare her. Wherever she came from, she is clearly not a Maximal and might not even know of our kind. She likely came through a temporal loop or was forced into stasis during an attack. Either scenario is likely given that her companion was dead."

"Do you think...? Airazor had trouble saying what she was thinking due to how awful the thought was, but finally she said, "Do you think that the seeker was her creator?"

"Probably," Rhinox replied solemnly, "Whatever happened to that sparkling, she is a Maximal now. She will need our protection if we are to keep her out of Predacon hands. We will also need to arrange quarters for her...whoever she is."

"Oh man, oh man! The situations we get into!" Rattrap rubbed his hands anxiously, "I just hope Optimus knows what to do about this. I do not wanna share a room with a million year old baby!"

She felt dizzy as her processor slowly regained consciousness. She expected to be in the Matrix, the eternal smelting pit, or simply to cease existing. She knew she shouldn't still be alive, not after that explosion...

It had all started in the Gregorian year 2000 aboard the Nemesis. Little Terrabyte had snuck aboard the ship with her two best friends, adult formers named Honey Venom and Quantum Boom, in order to kill Megatron and Starscream. Honey Venom had a personal vendetta against Starscream since he had killed her adoptive father and mentor, Skyfire. Terrabyte had no personal qualm with the Decepticons, but Honey Venom was her best friend so therefore loyalty dictated she accompany her on this ill-planned road trip of revenge.

It had ended about as well as Terrabyte assumed it would. Megatron set the Nemesis to explode and had trapped Honey Venom under a support beam. Terrabyte tried to stay by her friend's side, but Q-Boom had cut off her left servo to dislodge her from Honey Venom and flew her away. They never made it out of the ship, however. The explosion caught them, and the last thing Terrabyte remembered was intense heat and pain. It happened so quickly that Q-Boom didn't even scream.

That should have been the end of her existence. The little femme knew she should be dead, yet she could feel her body and spark. She was clearly alive, but there was an emptiness inside of her. She couldn't feel the sparks of any of her family members or the loyalty bond that kept her bound to Honey Venom like a knight to a king. There was nothing inside of her except herself, and that terrified her.

She opened her optics to find she was in a small containment unit surrounded by an unknown chemical substance. Her optics widened in primal fear and she tried to kick and punch at the walls to get the slag out of there!

Optimus Primal was at the console in his beast form when he heard the soft pounding coming from inside the CR chamber. He got up from what he was doing so he could release the new Maximal, and he only hoped this one wasn't as crazy and/or unpleasant to work with as some of his other colleagues.

He entered the code and the CR chamber opened. The femme that had been desperately trying to escape a moment ago looked at Optimus Primal and immediately stopped moving. She placed her arms at her side stiffly and stared at the big ape.

Terrabyte didn't know what to make of this situation. There was an adorable ape standing in front of her. Was this the afterlife? Her caretaker would have never allowed animals aboard the Ark. He hated it when animals shed their fur and skin. After her premature death had she been deemed worthy to have a pet of her very own at last?

Her thoughts were cut short when she saw a large rodent, a cheetah, and a rhino enter the room. Then the gorilla transformed into a mech! Terrabyte shook her helm and rubbed her optics in disbelief, but no one seemed to notice her do that.

"Hey Big Bot," Cheetor greeted Optimus warmly, "Oh, I see our new friend is awake. Hey there compadre, I'm Cheetor. What's your name?"

She didn't reply, but rather just stared at the peppy beast machine.

"Her left servo is missing," Rhinox noted, "I was afraid of this. Her processor must have logged the damage before she went into stasis lock."

"So?" Rattrap asked, "Shouldn't the CR chamber just make her another one?"

"Not with technology this old," Rhinox lamented, "This femme is an ancient. They are not one hundred percent compatible with our current technology. If she is to have a new hand, I will need to make her one from scratch."

So, this was the future, she assumed from his words. Well, judging from the barren organic landscape in the window, she figured this must be a ship that explores beyond the reaches of Cybertron...if there was even anything left of Cybertron.

The elevator that led to the bridge lifted up and opened a few seconds later, and another robot appeared. This one was blue and adorned with brown scales. Terrabyte took a look at first the newcomer and then the ape-bot. They both had red optics. Red meant Decepticon. Then again they were animals. Wait, did that mean...it worked?

"Optimus, I am finished loading the body into the cargo bay," Dinobot announced after he stepped out of the elevator, "I scanned the weapons systems, and they seem to coincide with a combination of late Autobot and early Predacon technology. It is impossible to determine this seeker's former allegiance."

"Heh, sounds familiar," Rattrap quipped as he stared Dinobot right in the optic.

Optimus noticed that the femme was staring up at him now, and her yellow optics were focusing on him with an intensity that was almost uncomfortable.

"Why you good for nothing rodent!" Dinobot snapped at Rattrap.

"Eh, go stomp on a daisy, Chopperface," Rattrap waved him away dismissively.

"Why I oughtta!" Dinobot tried to throttle Rattrap, but Rhinox transformed and held him back.

"Knock it off!" Rhinox shouted more forcefully than normal, "The seeker to which you are referring was most likely someone important to our new Maximal, and we should give her time to grieve."

Maximal? Optimus? Yes, it was true! The Maximal project had been successful, and now Terrabyte was in the care of the next generation of Cybertronian. Their red optics did not mean Decepticon. That was just the preferred optic color of the creator of the Maximal project, and now Terrabyte knew enough about what was going on to have an advantage in case something went wrong.

"Grieving or not, she hasn't scanned a beast mode yet," Optimus pointed out, "Are you recovered enough to endure a beast mode transformation?"

The femme did not reply to Optimus, but instead walked past him to their computer.

"Hey, get away from that!" Dinobot snapped as he stepped in front of her and growled challengingly, "Are you or are you not a Maximal? You may not use our computers until we know where you stand."

She looked up at Dinobot's red optics, and then stared at his spinning sword. This wasn't the intent of the Maximal project. Their creator would have never made a Dinobot. Only mammals and birds were considered worthy enough creatures for the Maximal design. Reptiles and insects were strictly deemed inferior. So, what was this mech?

"Can you talk, little one?" Rhinox asked her in a gentle tone of voice, "My name is Rhinox. That is Optimus Primal, our leader. That is Rattrap, and you already know Cheetor. And this hothead is Dinobot."

Dinobot snorted derisively at how he was introduced, and Terrabyte couldn't help but think that his designation was the least creative thing she had heard. That would be like if a car-former named themselves Car. That thought actually caused her to smile, and Dinobot cocked a brow ridge when he realized she was smiling up at him.

"Come along, little one," Rhinox urged her toward the computer console, "If you want to scan for your own life forms then you can. Just don't touch anything else, okay? This is very sensitive equipment."

"Why are you talking to her like that?" Dinobot asked, "Warriors are not coddled!"

"She ain't a warrior yet, Dino-breath," Rattrap retorted, "Apparently she has the processor of a toddler or somethin'."

"So do you, but I don't talk baby talk to you," Dinobot replied witheringly.

Rattrap and Dinobot continued to trade barbs while Rhinox showed the new femme the scanner. She seemed fascinated by the computer console, as if she had never seen anything like it before. He turned the scanner on and several animals appeared on screen.

"These are the animals in our immediate area," Rhinox informed her, "Pick whichever one you like."

Rhinox watched as the white femme scanned the computer screen with her delicate index digit. She passed over the saber tooth tiger, the falcon, and the buffalo. She seemed to consider the frog, but thought better of it. Finally, after several minutes of searching she landed on the animal she wanted and pressed the activate button. Her body contorted until her beast made was revealed; a white kangaroo.

"Ah man, I was hoping she'd pick a cat," Cheetor whined.

"A kangaroo?" Dinobot asked flatly as he stared at the new beast in exasperation, "This beast form is useless!"

"Dinobot..." Optimus chided him.

"No! Look at her! She is a fuzzy hopping animal with a pouch!" Dinobot shouted as he gestured to her with his claws, "The Predacons are not going to look at her and say 'Run for your lives! It's the kangaroo!'."

Rhinox expected Dinobot's outburst to hurt the poor femme's feelings, but the reaction it actually got surprised him. The femme was grinning at Dinobot! She looked like she was amused by his tirade rather than frightened, and that made Rhinox chuckle.

"I know this is a big shock for you, for all of this," Optimus said to the femme, "I hate to admit this to you, but we are in the middle of a war with Megatron and his Predacons. Our survival and the survival of countless others depends on our winning the Beast War. Now that you are a Maximal, we will likely call on you to fight. I hope you understand."

The femme didn't reply to him, and Optimus wondered how much of this was even getting through. She didn't seem too keen on talking with them, if she even could, and they didn't even know her name.

"Rattrap, show her to a room she can stay in," Optimus ordered, "We'll talk more later, miss. I hope you recharge peacefully tonight."

Recharge peacefully. Terrabyte wanted to laugh. She hadn't recharged peacefully in nearly two vorns, and she was only three vorns old. She just hoped if she had a night terror it would be someplace where no one would hear her scream.