That evening a blue and yellow sports car sped into the hanger.
"Smokescreen?" asked Arcee.
He transformed. "What gave me away? C'mon, robots in disguise, right?"
"Where have been soldier?" asked Ultra Magnus coming over.
"Scanning new war paint. I thought it'd be proactive following Optimus' example and Bumblebee's."
"Now you can look your best stacking those empty cubes," said Ultra Magnus.
"Yes sir," said Smokescreen. As he walked toward the cubes he grumbled, "I was nearly a Prime and now I'm still a rookie."
"What was that about a Prime?" asked Ratchet from where he sat.
"Ah, time, time to stop acting like a rookie," he replied. He started stacking the cubes when Paige suddenly glomped him in a hug. She said something so quiet that no one else could hear.
"I think you'd make a great Prime, but you made the right choice. This is Optimus' battle to finish. You'll see that soon enough," she said cryptically.
She released him and walked off. Smokescreen rubbed the back of his head in happy embarrassment when he caught sight of the others looking at him. He merely shrugged and continued on with his task.
"Smokescreen was the only one who went back. If it weren't for him, Optimus might not be here today," said Arcee to Ratchet.
"Arcee, we were under the strictest of orders," said Ratchet. "And the three of you had your human partners to protect. We are just fortunate that Smokescreen is inexperienced enough to not follow protocol."
Xxxxxx
The next morning, Optimus brought back a fossil he had recovered while out looking for energon.
"It cannot be," said Ratchet examining the fossil.
"What?" asked Jack.
"The ancient remains of a Predacon," said Optimus.
"Though it remains unclear why such a skull would be found on your planet, its presence reveals all too much about the Predacon which Megatron recently sent in pursuit of us," explained Ratchet.
"You mean that dragon bot we put on ice?" asked Miko.
"Except that Predacons have been extinct since, well," said Ratchet.
"Since before most life began on Cybertron," said Smokescreen finishing for him.
"They're like Earth's dinosaurs," said Raf.
"Which means for you guys, running into one would be like us meeting a T-Rex," said Jack.
"So then what were dinobots?" asked Miko.
"Totally different," said Bulkhead.
"With Megatron's new interest in the excavation of prehistoric skeletons and a certain scientist back among the Decepticon ranks," said Ratchet.
"It would stand to reason that Shockwave cloned the beast from one such find," said Optimus.
"And now Megatron's looking to clone another," said Ultra Magnus.
"What makes you think bucket-head would stop at just one?" asked Wheeljack.
"We could have beast wars on our hands," said Bulkhead optics widening.
"And if Shockwave only requires a single strand of CNA from which to clone a beast," said Ratchet.
"He already possesses what he needs to engender this one. Autobots we must become beast hunters," said Optimus.
"One thing doesn't follow. Predacons went extinct on Cybertron so what would their bones be doing here?" asked Smokescreen.
"Probably the same way energon got onto the planet," said Paige from where she sat on the floor. "Unicron was composed of dark energon which explains its presence in the Earth. Regular energon wasn't native to Earth so it must have been brought here."
"They did move energon stores off world during the beginning of the war," said Ultra Magnus.
"I would assume that it would take awhile to clone a beast so Shockwave must already have had that Predacon developing before he came to Earth. Am I wrong?" asked Paige.
"That is highly likely," said Ratchet.
"Since it was an immediate success perhaps those weren't the only clones he's made in the past," reasoned Paige. "They are finding the fossils on Earth rather quickly so maybe he micro-chipped his creations like we do with pets."
"Are you saying that he originally sent those Predacons to Earth?" asked Cliffjumper. "What for?"
"It would make sense if they were sent to guard the energon," said Arcee.
Ratchet pulled up a few pictures of the Predacons from their ancient texts on the computer screen. "From our historical texts," he said.
"But those are metal versions of creatures from our Greek mythology and medieval literature," said Jack.
"Not dinosaurs," added Raf.
"It would stand to reason that Predacons did indeed walk on Earth in ancient times as they seem to be the basis for much of Earth's folklore. Illustrating once again that the pasts of Cybertron and Earth are inextricably linked," said Optimus.
Paige and the kids were asleep when Optimus came over to look at what Ratchet was working on. "Synthetic energon?" he asked.
"Indeed, I am concerned that without access to energon reserves since our base was destroyed our ability to deal with impending crises will be severely hampered," said Ratchet turning around.
"A wise decision old friend," said Optimus.
"Just please manage your expectations. I am dealing with more rudimentary hardware than before," said Ratchet.
Fowler suddenly barged in waking Paige and Miko up in the process and told the bots about the Con signals they'd detected. Paige didn't say a thing as she watched Miko sneak off. She knew they'd be returning with the Apex armor.
