With a disgruntled sigh, Waspinator continued his late night flight. He had no idea what he had ever done in his life to have become the Predacon whipping-boy, but surely it wasn't bad enough to deserve all this poor treatment. Not only had he been crushed, shredded, scrapped, zapped, cubed, and possessed, but he sincerely doubted that he still had any of his original parts. The Maximal rat probably had most of them anyways.

"Why univerze hate Wazzpinator?" the giant wasp whined. "Maximalz beat up on Wazzpinator. Predaconz beat up on Wazzpinator. Planet beat up on Wazzpinator. Alienz beat up on Wazzpinator. When Wazzpinator get vacation?"

Coming up to the coordinates that Megatron had given him, the Predacon flyer swept out of the sky in a playful attempt to better his mood. As the mouth of the cave came into view through the low lying clouds Waspinator gulped, frightened by the ominous sight before him, before he transformed and landed with a heavy thud. Leary of any creature suddenly leaping out to chew his face off, he carefully approached the opening.

"Why Wazzpinator always get zlag azzinmentz?" he whimpered.

"Because," a dark, angry voice growled, punctuated by heavy thuds that not only echoed from the mouth of the cave, but shook the ground the fearful Predacon stood on, "you're the only one that I can trust to survive them."

Waspinator's jaw dropped as the huge head followed by the elongated neck that supported it came out of the cave, the angry growl of the creature making him almost shake himself apart. "Wazzpinator not want to die."

"Oh, trust me, Waspinator," Megatron dipped his head down to look at his minion, "out of all of my troops you are the only one, aside from myself naturally, to survive the Beast Wars." Watching as the pliable Predacon seemed to gain a glimmer of hope for his future, the dragon smiled victoriously. "Now listen up, and if you prove yourself more valuable to me than you already are, then I will make sure that you have a very important place at my side, yeess."

The main issue with the drone mentality, at least according to any sentient being, was the mundane routine that they fell into. Taking the time to just watch and note the time each patrol passed in certain areas helped Rhinox formulate his plans on which areas to hit when for the best opportunity to scavenge supplies. The only wild card thrown in there was his sizable friend. He had only seen the large black base coated bot as it patrolled randomly in the area and twice Rhinox had thought it had spotted him, his foe stopping to scan directly where the Maximal had been hiding only to move on after a few cycles.

The patrols from the Vehicon drones actually had been growing infrequent, much to Rhinox's surprise, the gap timing between each sweep growing larger each solar-cycle by twenty nano-clicks until it was roughly a mega-cycle between one patrol to the next. A less experienced bot would have thought that the enemy was only relaxing their attention to the matter at hand, since he had not, to his knowledge, been spotted since the warehouse ambush. But there were several reasons that Rhinox had lived as long as he had; one of the many was that he was fortunate to have survive such foolishness when he was younger. He will not relax his guard until Ruby had completed her mission.

There was much Rhinox had learned in his time in the Beast Wars, but the most important one was that he should never underestimate Megatron, or the fact that the tyrant always was three moves ahead of the game.

Megatron frowned down at the piece of Golden Disk that Waspinator had come back with and placed in his clutches. The Predacon leader had sent the expendable bait to investigate the energy signature that near mimicked his own, weary of finding some sort of trap at that location set up by the brutal aliens that have seen fit to torment them all. Instead the insect comes back after three whole solar cycles with a fragment of the little trinket that had started this whole war in the first place. The jagged piece with a slight melt to its edges barely managed to survive the blast that creature had given it.

There was also the fantastical tale that Waspinator told to go with the piece, that the signature was a visitor from the future and that he had followed Ruby back in time to keep the Maximals from winning the Beast Wars, that the little time traveling rodent had come back in an attempt to make sure that Megatron was not victorious in his rule. The being that Waspinator apparently spoke with had also given him orders to relay the message to Megatron that Ruby had to be destroyed. There was also the air of importance that the flyer seemed to be holding his head up with. Apparently this being had played the wasp well, feeding him a false hope in order to make sure that his commands were obeyed. Megatron had to make sure that he did not fall for such trickery himself.

"This does answer quite a few of my questions, yeess," Megatron mumbled as he placed the fragment away on his person, "but it only leads to more. If our little flying rodent is indeed from the future, then we must make sure that she does not fix it."

Just over two complete lunar cycles after the loss of Dinobot the Maximals had gathered onto the bridge of the Axalon after a long day of uneventful patrols, though this day was one they had looked forward to for the longest time. Rhinox had stayed up all the night before and well into the following day working on his figures, Ruby by his side manning the scanning station while he worked. All waited on baited breath for him to speak, none daring to break the silence. Then finally …

"The transwarp explosion wave-front should be moving into Cybertronian space now. They'll be detecting it within a few cycles." Rhinox turned away from his station to look at Rattrap, who was the closest, "This is it. We're going home."

Ruby watched silently as the other's celebrated, only cracking a slight smile at their joy, especially her grand-sparker's curled little paper party horn, as she twisted around the little clicking noise-maker in her hand. The others thought it was due to their most recent loss, but the truth was much darker than they could imagine at the moment. A glance over at Silverbolt, who currently had Rattrap hanging onto him, showed that she wasn't the only one not overcome with joy about the news.

"Cybertron," the Fuzor contemplated for a moment. "The home I have never known."

"Oooo! You are going to love it!" Rattrap exclaimed. "I know dis little place where you can get Dirty Mech-fluid mixed with just a touch of Radium," he laughed a bit at the fond memories. "It'll take yer head right off! Not only dat … eh …" the rodent trailed off as he suddenly remembered there were youngin's in the room, glancing back to actually see that he had Cheetor's rapt attention and Ruby resting her chin on her arm, which was propped up on the console between her and Rhinox, with just one eye ridge raised as she looked over at him. Clearing his throat he leaned closer to Silverbolt to finish his deal breaker in a badly concealed whisper that they still could hear.

As Silverbolt refused as politely as he could attempt at the moment before he walked off, Rhinox heard Ruby mumble behind him, "This coming from the bot that swore to disown me if he ever caught me in a place like that."

Turning to face her, the engineer looked down at her with her chin still propped up on her hand. "What did you say?"

Ruby only looked up at him with her optics, giving a helpless shrug with her shoulders. "Sorry, just remembering an overprotective uncle of mine."

Their attention turned to Cheetor, who began to give Rattrap an alternative celebration venue, "Aw, forget him, Big R. You and I can go to the Six Lasers over Cybertron Amusement Park. There's the Space Slide, and the Galaxy Coaster, and the-"

"Kid!" Rattrap held up his hand, pausing for a moment to actually consider the option, "don't make hurt'cha."

With a sigh, Ruby got up to her feet and began to walk towards the lift, giving Cheetor a pat on the shoulder as she passed. Optimus turned to watch her, frowning a bit, "Where are you going?"

"Don't feel right leaving one of us alone on patrol right now, so I'm going with Silverbolt,"she replied.

Nodding, her commander didn't directly reply to the veiled remorse in her tone. Dinobot had stormed out of the base by himself and the worst they could imagine happened. Was Silverbolt in danger as well?

As they watched her exit via the lift, Rattrap crossed his arms over his torso. "Somethin' fishy is goin' on with dat femme."

"What do you mean?" Optimus asked, turning his attention back to his second-in-command.

"I mean all de odd damage she's gotten' from not only bein' around were we lost three of our friends, but other important events, dat's what."

Rhinox frowned, sharing a look with Optimus, which did not escape Rattrap or Cheetor. Primal then turned back to the other two still left on the bridge. "Ruby has a … highly in-tuned intuition," Optimus chose to reply and before they could ask any more questions on the matter, he began to issue orders. Megatron was going to strike soon. Primal could feel it.

Slowly scuttling his way over the rocky terrain, Rampage crested the ridge that held his prey. The tiny Maximal femme was currently sitting near the top of one of the many peaks in her robot mode, her right leg bent at the knee to rest her corresponding arm, looking down into the little valley nestled at the top of the ridge that his sensors had detected Black Arachnia and Silverbolt. He watched as she sighed, turning her gaze from the pair to watch the sunset on her right. The pain he was feeling from her was powerful, her sorrow great and growing each time he saw her. A pain that he in some regards shared with her, but found when she was the source it was a pure intoxication he had to have more of. There was also something mixed in with her sorrow, something that he had noticed the last time she was so near, but as to what exactly that something was he couldn't place a claw on it. With a light shrug, the immortal crab pressed closer to his target, for once not arguing, much, with Megatron about the assignment.

Ruby's audio receptors caught the scraping of scuttling claws against the rocky surface, but didn't look away from the sunset before her as the massive figure stopped in front of where she sat. "I believe they hung out the 'do not disturb' sign," she mumbled.

"But my dear, I'm already disturbed," Rampage chuckled darkly. "Though they are giving me some wonderful ideas at the moment."

"Good luck with that."

Tilting his bestial head to the side, the Predacon focused up on her as she shifted to turn to face the last of the fading threads of light completely, resting her chin on her right knee as her arms hugged her leg close, leaving her left foot to dangle before him like a fishing lure. Feeling the appendage with his antenna, he was rather disappointed when she didn't move away from him. Really, this femme was no fun at all. "There is something different about you, my sweet. Granted you are truly the first that hasn't shown me their fear, but something has changed with you since the first moment I found you in my arms. You feel … more powerful," he finally chose to say.

Ruby finally looked down with a slight frown at the gigantic crab that was just caressing her foot as they spoke. She had fought her first instinct to move away in fear when she first detected him, but at his suggestion she had a powerful, almost overwhelming, urge to defend herself at the perceived slight on her honor. It also was not easing away the more he ran his feelers over her foot, but she did her best not to kick him in the face for it. "I miss him more every day, Rampage. Even though I knew he was going to die and I thought I could change that."

"Oh, really? So you know the future, my little pet?"

She heard the humor in his tone, the sarcasm dripping through it, but she kept her sudden surge of anger in check, just barely. "I know that Megatron cut out the core of your spark to keep you under control."

"Bah! So your rat of a spy has been digging into Megatron's files again. That doesn't prove anything."

"The Maximals don't know this yet," she glanced back down, turning her head to rest on the side of her knee now. "I also know what Megatron will do with said spark core, aside from keeping you in check."

Slowly he began to climb across the rocks, surrounding her dangling leg like it was prey to be feasted upon. "Alright, I'll bite. What is he going to do with the core of my spark?"

"Megatron will clone a more powerful version of Dinobot and use your spark to give it life."

Not only did Rampage suddenly jerk backwards, away from her almost completely, but Ruby felt a powerful jolt in her torso. With a slight cough she sat up, gently pounding her fist into the middle of her torso plate.

"Excuse me. Think I had some bad Energon." Once again she focused down on the mad, yet brilliant, Predacon. "I know you're angry already about the control he has over you. Would it anger you further to know that he outlives you?"

Rampage's beast mouth frowned at the thought, his claws snapping a couple times as he slowly backed away. "Why are you sharing this precious information, my sweet?"

"Because I need an extra set of hands to make sure that my Megatron, a nice sized target safe for you to let out all your pent up anger on, doesn't succeed."

At the idea that he would have the opportunity to extract some serious pain on the Predacon tyrant brought a deliciously dark smile to his face as he savored the thought. "My hands are wherever you need them to be, my pet."

"Good, you might want to get going before we're forced to fight. There's going to be plenty of that in a little while."

"Fine, fine," Rampage mumbled as he slowly crawled away, "but the next time we meet, we'll have that bit of fun I promised you."

Ruby waited a few more cycles before she transformed into her own beast mode to crawl further on top of the peak she rested on to wait, the cool night air gently blowing through her fur as the billions of stars overhead twinkled in the clear sky. It was a few mega-cycles before Silverbolt flew past her, obviously in a hurry to get back to the Axalon. With a hop off of the top of the mountain, Ruby opened up her jets and easily caught up to the distracted Fuzor.

Silverbolt did a double take as he caught sight of the other flier that appeared right beside him. His scanners never detected the femme, so her sudden appearance out of nowhere was rather startling. "Ruby!" he called out, quickly clearing his throat as the worry of being caught with the enemy seeped into his frame. "I-um … rather surprised to see you …"

Ruby smiled the best she could in her current mood. "Don't worry, I always thought you two were made a rather cute pair. I'll help you win her over."

Blinking in surprise, Silverbolt was taken aback at her calm acceptance of his strange relationship. "I … um, thank you. But the others, they will not be happy when they find out." Then his ears folded back. "Are you going to tell Optimus?"

"It's not my place to," she chose to answer, feeling a powerful swell of emotion, like a deep understanding of his struggle, in her chest. "And you can trust me. I know how to keep a secret." With a playful wink to punctuate her point, Ruby was glad she was able to ease a bit of Silverbolt's worry about her knowledge of his forbidden fruit. The rest of their flight had continued in silence as the moon slowly began to creep higher into the sky.

Dark green optics watched its prey from the shadows. It took time for his repairs since his first encounter with the Maximal , but he was fully operational and determined to finish his task. The rhinoceros based fighter darted around the building, looking around like a rat searching for a cat that might have been hiding around every corner, before it entered the storage facility. Apparently it was feeling very comfortable with the relax of the patrols, just like Megatron said he would become. Now it was time to finish their battle.

Silently the massive, mostly black, Vehicon transformed into a large truck, his huge wheels silently rolling over the metallic roadway as it crossed the street to the warehouse. He could feel the promise in his spark that their battle was going to end this time.

Author's Note: I don't own the show. Thanks for reading.

Ah, the beginning of the end of season 2. Sorry it took so long for the update.

Got me a Twitter 'n Facebook account a while back, if any of you are interested. The information is in my profile.