He leapt into the air, transforming.
And Stormfeather met the ground on his feet, laughing in Copperhead's face.
"Copperhead... TERRORIZZZZZZE!"
The snake's body split open, revealing a folded robot body within. As it un-contorted, legs and arms folded out, silver and copper. The snake body flowed behind the robot body like a tail extending from his head. A faceplate shut off his mouth, and two goldcopper fangs showed on its sides.
Copperhead whipped around to Stormfeather's back, quick as the snake he was, and floored him with a swift kick in the tail.
"Oof!" Stormfeather said with a dull clang of metal on rock.
Copperhead stood over Stormfeather, a look of psychotic glee in his optics. As he trained his hand-blaster on Stormfeather's delicate spark chamber, a shot rang out in the canyon. Copperhead looked up, knowing exactly who was firing- the beam harmonics and ricochet pattern could only have come from one gun.
Galvatron was there and Galvatron was angry.
"Copperhead!" he shouted in his gravely monotone. "Return to base!"
"Y-y-y-yes Lord Galvatron!"
Stormfeather was left sprawled at the bottom of the canyon as Copperhead and Galvatron retreated.
"Damage report," he groaned.
"Negligible damage to secondary systems."
"That's all?" Stormfeather said.
"Affirmative," the computer replied.
"Then why do I feel like I've been yanked through a Quantum Singularity?"
The computer whirred and gave him a raspberry.
The Falcon struggled to his feet, wary of any lingering Predacon threat. He scanned the canyon with his telescopic optic sensors and, satisfied the Preds had left, reverted to beast mode and winged his way back to base.
As Stormfeather soared across the plains in search of the two fallen Maximal protoforms, he saw three more stasis pods descending from above, converging on a singular point in the distance.
"Stormfeather to base," he said into his comm unit.
--Trifectahere,-- crackled Blurr's voice. Blurr always spoke very fast. --WhatcanIdoforyouStormfeather?--
"Get Gatecrasher on the sensor array; three more of the Gigastorm's stasis pods are descending. We should catch 'em before the Preds do."
--AffirmativeStormfeather.--
--Gatecrasher here.--
"There are three stasis pods falling on Grid Andalon. Track their descent and dispatch some help over here."
--Affirmative.--
Stormfeather descended, circling the three now landed stasis pods. "Who you sending?" he asked into his commlink.
--Scarlet, Prophecy and Steeljaw are en route.--
"Understood," he replied.
Once, long ago, the Decepticons and the Autobots battled each other on the planet Cybertron. It was a cold, desolate planet populated entirely by automatons. Once though, these robots gained souls- mechanical souls but souls nonetheless. Their sparks, as their souls were called, became stronger and they gained wills. These wills finally prompted them to overcome the slavery they'd endured for millennia. They overthrew their cruel masters, a race of cyber-organic tyrants known as the Quintessons, and claimed themselves as an independent species. Then hell broke loose.
Any new civilization has war. That's a cosmic given. But these wars were pretty nasty. These newly freed characters were given names: Cybertronians. The Quintessons called them that because they were electronic and cybernetic. But once the Quintessons were driven from Cybertron, the Cybertronians split amongst themselves. Thus were born the Decepticons- the military robots, who were used for armies and navies and other nasty things- and the Autobots- the peaceful 'bots, who were the medical technicians, builders, artisans. And the Decepticons sought to dominate the Autobots, naturally, as is the nature of all military hardware. Thus began the first of Four Cybertronian Wars.
Along the line, these robots gained alternate forms and specialized talents. And also along the line of Cybertronian history, was born the Matrix of Leadership.
Now I'm not going to go into a detailed history of the entire Cybertronian saga, but there are certain moments in the Wars that demand attention...
...Unicron, the ultimate Transformer, leapt from the inky blackness of space to dominate the universe by devouring planets. He hoped one day he could destroy the Autobot Matrix of Leadership... his hopes were dashed as he was ripped apart from inside as the Matrix's power was unleashed. Where he came from and whence he went lost themselves in the mists of history, although the Cybertronian Covenant of Primus indicates Unicron was the dark alter-ego of the light god Primus...
...Megatron once lead the Decepticons to countless victories, countless defeats, countless draws. He only desired power over all Cybertron. But his reach exceeded his grasp and he found himself facing down the barrel of the Autobot Leader, Optimus Prime's gun. Blasted nearly to smithereens, he was brought to the portentous Unicron and reformatted as Galvatron. But Galvatron, too, was blasted to smithereens... Megatron was a megalomaniacal idiot....
...Then Megatron was reborn- in a way. Centuries, if not millennia, later- for the historical records have been lost- another ambitious Decepticon-descended Cybertronian rose to power. He, too, called himself Megatron. He, too, led a band of disenchanted Predacons (as the Decepti-spawn were called)... these Predacons went rogue and battled with a Maximal (the future Autobots) cruiser through a transwarp time portal, flinging the ships back in time millions of years. What the respective faction leaders didn't know was that they'd crash-landed on the Earth their ancestors had waged war upon millennia before (though eons before it actually happened). Thus began a great part of the Fifth Cybertronian War- the Beast Wars. Upon the olden ground of Earth, the Predacons and Maximals battled each other... which leads us to our story until now.
"WHO IS WITH ME?!" boomed the voice of the colossal and charismatic Predacon general Megatron. A cheer broke out from the crowd. "WHO WILL JOIN ME IN THE RECLAMATION OF CYBERTRON!?"
The Predacon gang- 1200 strong- cheered loudly in approval.
"TO THE SHIP!" he bellowed. "TO THE SHIP!"
Aboard his large cruiser, Megatron and his followers clandestinely planned for the future: the eradication of all Maximals and the securing of the ancient Golden Disk, a Cybertronian artifact of great power. Suspicious glances flashed from optic sensor to optic sensor; none of these Predacons trusted any of the others.
"We shall secure the Golden Disk today! HELMSMAN!" he shouted.
"Yes, Lord Megatron," a gravely voice hissed from the forward portion of the bridge.
"Set course for Cybertropolis, full ground speed!"
"Affirmative, Lord Megatron."
The greenish-gray cruiser, Megatron's very own battleship, which he "acquired" (for lack of a better word; its captain was slagged beyond all recovery and Megatron took control of the ship, unbeknownst to most high-up Predacons) during a campaign on Taltex VI, lifted off the ground, hovering a kilometer above Cybertron's surface.
In orbit of Triptychon- a third, artificial (if such a thing could be said of the satellite of an artificial planet) moon of Cybertron- a Predacon battle fleet was massing.
Immense gunships, their sole armament a tremendous hypermolecular particle beam, hovered above the abandoned Decepticon military installation.
"Prepare for the attack," said Galvatron, supreme lord and commander of the Predacons. "We shall strike in 10 megacycles."
Megatron's cruiser sped toward the immense dome of New Iacon, at the heart of Cybertropolis, a rogue shuttle undetected by the massing Predacon attack force. As the Maximal city-base, named for Optimus Prime's staging ground during the Fourth War, grew larger, Megatron ordered the weapons to charge, zeroing in on Crystal Tower, the Maximal headquarters.
"Megatron!" a voice resonated from the science station. It had a cold edge to it, a droning nasally voice. "Iacon Tower is within range."
"CHARGE WEAPONS!" he shouted. "ONCE MORE, MY PREDACONS, INTO THE BREACH..."
Megatron grinned. "Terrorize," he whispered.
The attack came like lightning upon Iacon. Maximals scrambled among falling girders, immense fires, blast radii. Hundreds of dead Maximals littered Iacon's ramparts.
It was a true blitz on the Predacons' part, and the bad guys were winning.
"Lord Megatron, the boarding party is ready."
"Excellent. Take it!"
The ship's nosecone leveled with a giant blast-hole on Iacon's wall. Two doors opened and a flood of Predacon warriors rushed out.
The Maximals were not unprepared. Within microclicks, laser fire and force blasts heated the air. The Predacons and Maximals locked with each other in mortal combat. But this was merely a diversion- Megatron had planned well. "Are you ready?" he asked into a commlink.
The staticky voice of his science officer returned. "Affirmative."
"Then go and bring me the Golden Disk."
Within ten cycles, the battle was over and Megatron was taking a retreating posture. His ship sped toward the reaches of the upper stratos, Golden Disk aboard and undamaged.
"EXCELLENT! We have obtained the Golden Disk, yes... Now it is only a matter of time before I rule the Predacons, the Maximals, and all of Cybertron... my idiot brother Galvatron will receive his final insult... groveling at my feet! Yesss...." Megatron trailed off.
"LORD MEGATRON!" shouted his weapons master. "There's a Maximal vessel in pursuit... it's..."
"Spit it out, tactician!"
"A large Maximal cruiser."
"DAMNATION! Science officer, is the transwarp cell charged and ready?"
"We are prepared for the space-jump, Lord Megatron, but our coordinates have not been set," a sinister and devious-sounding voice replied from the aft section of the command center.
"I don't care! Just get us out of here!"
The Axalon opened fire. Lances of fire slashed at the Darkside's hull, cutting it open, lacerating its tritanium skin.
"Megatron," the science officer reported again, "the primary Transwarp cell has been damaged. Our jump is in peril!"
"I DON'T CARE! YOU WANT TO LIVE, YES? THEN GET US OUT OF HERE!"
"U-u-understood, Lord Megatron."
The two ships leapt into hyperspace... and you know what happened then...
"Lord Galvatron!" Stiletto shouted. "A Predacon ship has entered transwarp space... scans indicate it was the Darkside, a small recon--"
"The WHAT?!"
"The Darkside, sir."
Galvatron leaned back in his seat and brooded. "Of all the times for my idiot brother to make a move..."
"You mean Megatron's on that ship, Lord Galvatron?"
"Indeed... that blasted fool's probably off hiding the Maximal Golden Disk somewhere... it's been his ambition to steal it since we were protoforms."
"Shall I intercept? Stiletto inquired.
Galvatron sighed in defeat. "The attack will have to wait. Set pursuit course."
At Iacon, the damage was being assessed. Myriad CR Chambers were readied for the damaged and dismembered Transformers. Rodimus Primal, Optimus's second-in-command, looked over the damage.
"Megatron must be stopped," he said. "No matter the cost."
"Those are words Ah've heard before, Rodimus."
"I beg your pardon, Ironhide?"
An ancient looking red Autobot- one of the few un-reformatted Maximals- stepped forward. "Right before we made that trip to Earth during the Great War."
"That was a few cycles before Unicron was defeated, wasn't it?"
"It was... unfortunately, Ah was taken off-line before the final battle, when Megatron's troops boarded mah shuttle... That was... a long time ago. Now... now Ah'm just an old junkpile with nothing to offer."
"That's not true, Ironhide. You and the Six Old Warriors have been incredible military advisors for as long as I've been processing."
"Our days are numbered, Prahmul. Prowl, Wheeljack, Grimlock, Bumblebee, Jazz and myself... we're all that's left of the old Autobot Guard. The Maximals with their new-fangled alt-forms have outdone us."
"Don't say things like that, Ironhide--"
"Rodimus!" came a female Maximal's voice. Scarlet stood before him, preparing to make her report. Ironhide stood back. There was work to be done and Ironhide would just get in the way.
"Continue, Scarlet."
"The Axalon has gone after the Darkside, sir. And the Gigastorm has taken after them in pursuit. Shall we follow in the Trifecta?"
"Absolutely. Alpha Squadron, aboard!"
The eight Maximal soldiers and scientists dashed towards the gangway of the Trifecta, each one speeding up the ramp in his fashion. As soon as the eight crewbots were aboard, Rodimus made his way to the bridge.
"Many of you," Rodimus said, "may not make it back alive. We are after not one, but two Predacon ships- one helmed by Galvatron, the other by the rogue Megatron. Each of them has a complement of the deadliest Predacon warriors. In Primus's name we are obliged to apprehend them and bring them to justice on Cybertron.
"Maximals--"
The group looked to Rodimus eagerly.
"Let's transform... and move out!"
The Trifecta, in enormous plumes of white and grey steam and smoke and coolant, lifted off from the scarred and pocked surface of Cybertron, on a dead-intercept course for the Gigastorm.
"Gatecrasher," Rodimus called.
"Yes, Primal?"
"Can you locate the chrono-signature of the Gigastorm's transwarp cell?"
"Scanning..." Gatecrasher punched several keys on his board before an affirmative-sounding ping emerged from it.
"Yes, sir. Shall I calibrate the transwarp drive to intercept?"
"Do it," he responded.
In a blast of light and motion, the Trifecta blurred into hyperspace, following micrometer for microcycle the path of the missing Predacon vessel.
And in a blast of light and motion, the Trifecta blurred out of hyperspace, still following micrometer for microcycle the path of the missing Predacon vessel...
Which floated dead ahead in space, bristling with charging energy weapons.
"ACTIVATE SENTINEL!" Primal shouted. "We're not going into this battle unprepared!"
"Sentinel active," Stormfeather called from the tactical station.
"Prepare to fire weapons!"
"Weapons charged, boss!" came Scarlet's voice from the firing station.
"Fire at will, Scarlet!"
The viewscreen flashed with images of enormous bolts of energy lancing through space, nipping at the shields and hull of the Gigastorm. This was not an undefended Predacon ship- for Primus's sake it was the Predacon flagship! It would be a tough battle for both ships.
The Trifecta was not entirely helpless either, Galvatron noted. Those dreadful Maximals could make a push, but By the Pit Galvatron could push back!
"FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!"
Stiletto fired upon the Maximal ship with psychotic glee, cackling every time the sensors scored a hit against its shields.
"We're weakening them, Lord Galvatron!" she shrieked in utter enjoyment. "Their shields are down to 46 percent capability!"
"Don't get too confident, Stiletto!" Starscream called from the defense stations.
"They're draining our shields too! Our energon levels are being drained exponentially. We only have enough left for a ten minute battle!"
"Retreat! Predacons, brace for emergency landfall!"
"Are you serious, Lord Galvatron?!"
"Yes! Abandon ship! All Predacons to stasis pods!"
The Predacons knew better than to disobey their master, and each of them scurried off the bridge in cowardly Predacon fashion, filling the turboelevators to the Stasis Hold.
Each Predacon took on a stasis pod, some fighting for the ones that were left.
Galvatron, however, remained on the bridge.
"Computer, engage Galvatron AFA sequence Alpha two sixty."
The computer whirred and a ring of energy enveloped Lord Galvatron as the ship descended into the stratosphere of this new planet. The scream of wind and fire coming in through the hull breaches was drowned out by the thrumming of the transformation energy that Galvatron was bathing himself in... the Predacon master was reformatting his outer shell, heedless of the carnage that was plaguing the Gigastorm.
--AFA completion in 2 point 6 nanocycles,-- the computer chimed. --WARNING: Total outer hull compromise in 3 point 8 nanocycles. Extreme danger to remaining crew.--
"Computer, deactivate all voice messages."
The energy subsided as quickly as it had emerged and Galvatron saw the ship- no longer Decepticon purple but glowing white, crimson, orange... it was time for him to make his escape.
Dashing over to the bridge escape pod bank, he noticed all three escape pods had already been jettisoned. "Slag!" Galvatron cursed. But he remembered something about his new alt-form...
"GALVATRON... TERRORIZE!"
The hull began to disintegrate around him as the bluish sky of this primitive world began to appear. Galvatron, panicking, looked for a hole big enough... he found one... and leapt through it.
"Triple rockets!" he shouted. His body contorted and formed itself into a large, three headed cyberwolf with rockets sprouting out of its back. The rockets fired and the jet-wolf shredded its way through the upper atmosphere.
Nine stasis pods were all that survived the superhot atmospheric entry. Nine stasis pods were scattered across the face of this new, primitive planet. The hulls of nine stasis pods heated in the hyperfrictive upper atmosphere, and their respective speeds immolated their forms into nine streaking balls of light and fire.
Galvatron clanked down on the surface of the barren desert, on the northern part of this new continent.
"Galvatron... Terrorize!"
Galvatron's beast mode lunged onto its two hindlegs as the torso swiveled around, splitting. His tail flew off and attached itself to the emerging left arm. A gruesome, villainous face emerged from the shifting beat mode. The two auxiliary heads swiveled to the side, forming epaulettes of sorts, as the middle head folded down into Galvatron's chest cavity, making a breastplate. The fur from Galvatron's haunches slid up, heightening the Predacon Supreme Commander to even larger heights- the added a good meter to his stature, making him a 5 meter tall monstrosity, bent only on carnage and conquest.
"Computer, locate Gigastorm," Galvatron called into his right wrist, a self-contained Teletran-Alpha terminal.
--The Gigastorm has been destroyed.--
"WHAT?!" Galvatron blasted.
--Predacon Elite Command Ship Gigastorm was lost at chronorecord 6:49:20.8 in the upper atmosphere of unknown planet. Remaining components: 600 hardweight of dust particles, mostly carbonized during failed re-entry procedure.--
Galvatron began to pace in a ten meter circle, deigning the entire mission a failure and ceding all hope for ever finding and defeating his brother.
"Computer," he said after having an epiphany. "Locate stasis pods."
--Working...--
Galvatron fumed at how interminably slow his wrist-computer could be at times. Finally, the female voice chimed in.
--Nine stasis pods have descended in Region Talos.--
"Display holomap."
Within a microcycle, the holoprojector mounted over Galvatron's eye lit up, overlaying a grid with coordinates and labels across the terrain.
"Direct me to Region Talos."
The Trifecta was entering the planet's orbit: slowly, surely, but successfully. As it descended, Blurr and Scarlet noticed an intensifying rumbling coming from the rear section of the ship.
"Rodimus, do you hear that?"
Rodimus perked up an aural sensor.
"I do," he said. "It sounds like a misalignment of the convector coil in the rear engine compartment. Scarlet, you and Blurr go check it out." His aural sensors could hear anything.
"YessirRodimussiryoucancountonmeandScarlettocheckwhatever'swrongoutandma keitrightagain!" Blurr replied in his usual unintelligible mumble of words.
"Good." Rodimus could understand it if the others couldn't.
As Scarlet and Blurr walked down the corridor to the rear compartment of the ship, an enormous boom rocked the Trifecta to its very circuits. Apparently, as Blurr and Scarlet were on their way down, the entire extreme-right ventral booster assembly exploded. Later inspection of battle records indicated that the booster assembly had taken heavy damage during the firefight, but it was not considered a primary system, so self-repairs were not given precedence over, say, life-support. Of course, life support wouldn't mean slag if the booster blew up and took the ship with it, but that was Cybertronian programming logic: the good of the many over the good of one measly booster assembly, even if it poses a greater danger in the 1/1000000 chance that it would actually explode. This was all logical on paper, but apparently Cybertronian shipwrights were quite inexperienced in actual field logic.
"Rodimus to Blurr and Scarlet!" Primal shouted into the bridge comm.
"Scarlet here, Primal."
"Are you two all right?"
"That's a big affirmative. We weren't even halfway to the booster when it blew. But the booster itself... I don't think there's much we can do," Scarlet responded, looking out onto the landscape below her through an immense gaping hull breach where the booster assembly used to be.
"Return to the bridge and prepare for landing."
"Understood, Primal."
Primal switched the communicator off just as Gatecrasher gasped.
"What is it?"
"That booster explosion has created a quantum surge... our CR Chambers and beast form retention circuits have been... well, not damaged, but altered. The computer's records are actually being rewritten. The surge has installed a randomized form application protocol; Maximal-Alpha... Autotronic... Cybertronic... and if I'm right, that surge should also effect the stasis pods in our hold as well as the Predacons'."
"Is it a good thing?" Primal asked.
"We won't know until we emerge from CR."
"Well that's just Prime."
Inferno, the immense fire-ant, looked at the remaining moon.
"The Madness of Queen Megatron," he mumbled to himself, thinking of how Megatron's machinations had activated the immense Vok planet-killer. "How does the Royalty expect to win?" he asked aloud.
"I expect to win," came the reply from behind him. "By any means necessary."
Inferno spun around to see the commander- his Queen- standing, in beast mode, behind him on a ledge, bright metallic red snout glinting in the now-wan moonlight.
"But Royalty," he said. "The Colony has been destroyed. How do we expect to win now?"
"Simply put, O Loyal Inferno, I shall find a way," Megatron smiled.
"Understood, my Queen."
"For the last time--" Megatron sputtered, futilely trying to change Inferno's reverence for him.
Three solar weeks or so before Tarantulas found the Nemesis and Tigerhawk had destroyed the Predacon base, Megatron registered an immense chronoradiation surge around ancient Earth. He had wondered, with their primitive Autobot sensors, if the Maximals had found the same radiation. Hopefully, Megatron had thought, they hadn't. Megatron was betting on this trump card to win him the Beast Wars. But where did the radiation surge come from? Well, the Predacon computer replied, its harmonic variance patterns matched the transwarp signatures used on most modern Predacon vessels, which meant...
"YES! Salvation has come!" he shouted, almost giving away the secret he was going to keep- for now.
Waspinator gave him an awkward glance, and Quickstrike just continued to click around the base, compulsively cleaning everything. That was just another of those little "spark flaws" the second generation Predacons had. Rampage was a genocidal maniac, Blackarachnia was a two-faced traitor, Inferno had gender confusion and implantation issues, and Quickstrike had obsessive compulsive disorder. Well, Megatron thought, at least the base is clean.
He looked over at Quickstrike who was wearing- and Megatron had no idea this was even in the Predacon ship's stores- a frilly pink apron. He carried a feather duster- apparently made from the Maximal spy Airazor's pinions- and was gingerly dusting the waste removal droids.
"That 'bot ain't right," he mused, and went back to his research.
He heard the click-on-click of Tarantulas's legs as he entered the command chamber.
"Tarantulas, you have a lot of nerve entering this Predacon base, traitor. Now, you will explain yourself here, or I will blast you, yes..."
Tarantulas converted to robot mode, his increased stature not impressing Megatron in the least.
"But lord Megatron!" he groveled. "I have found information regarding our rescue!"
"Spare me your idiotic technobabble and harebrained scheming, spider, and get on with it."
"An immense surge of green-band radiation has entered our timeframe."
"I am aware of this, Tarantulas," Megatron replied. "You have two cycles."
"Well, Lord Megatron, my scanners indicate that the radiation matches the harmonic resonance signature of a Predacon vessel's transwarp drive."
Megatron looked at Tarantulas in mock-wonder, already knowing everything about what Tarantulas had discovered, but playing along just for the sake of mocking his ex-lieutenant.
"Zzzzpider-bot cannot be truzzzzted, Megatron!" Waspinator chimed, almost on cue.
"Don't you think I don't know that, Waspinator?" Megatron bellowed and fired a blast of nova flame way off target, missing Waspinator by megaclicks. Immediately Quickstrike scurried up the wall (it still creeped Megatron out that most Predacons could walk vertically as well as horizontally) and cleaned the large black spot where the fire had hit. Megatron laughed inwardly.
Tarantulas spoke again.
"Lord Megatron... I do believe a Predacon ship has come from the future-past or future-future to save us."
"The what-what or the what-what?" Megatron asked, not feigning the headache growing within his cranial module.
"The future-past... err..." Tarantulas sputtered on this one. "...is our past, but this timeframe's future. The future-future would be ours and this timeframe's futures."
"I think I understand," Megatron lied, wanting to shut this buffoon up. "And your point..."
"My point, Mighty Megatron, is that if we send a signal into the past or future or wherever this Predacon vessel is, we can have them return to our timeframe and rescue us."
"But what if there is a Maximal ship in the same timeframe and it follows the future-past-whatever Predacons here?"
"That is a risk we're well equipped to overcome," Tarantulas said. "What with this ship and its armaments, which took down a Maximal cruiser..."
"The Axalon was a science ship, I might remind you."
"Yes, Lord Megatron... but does a science ship have Sentinel defenses?"
"You're saying that the Axalon's registry was falsified?"
"I do believe so. Note how its commander is a Prime, not a Minor. Rhinox, Lord Megatron, is one of the oldest and most revered Maximal Generals. Does a science vessel normally carry a Prime and an old General?"
Naturally, Tarantulas had been correct. The Axalon was indeed not a science vessel, but the Maximal Flagship, albeit a disguised one.
"Optimus," Rattrap called from the corridor. "Do you see what I see on these scanners?"
Primal clomped over to Rattrap, dwarfing the Transmetal rodent about three meters to one. "Chronometric radiation?" Optimus raised a brow strut. "Looks like a Maximal signature."
"Do you know what this means?!"
"It means you should look into this further before jumping to conclusions, Rattrap."
"Spoilsport..." Rattrap whined.
"Just keep scanning, Rattrap."
Scarlet and Blurr were the first to emerge from the CR Chambers in their new beast modes. Scarlet's form matched her name- a flame red Autotronic fox whose fur and robotic components were complementary shades of bright crimson. Blurr's form also matched his name: a black and grey Cybertronic cheetah with bright purple accents on his socket joints and connection braces. Both of them stood, in robot mode, about 2.5 meters high, Scarlet carrying a small laser pistol as her main armament, but hiding a cache of missiles and projectiles in her segmented tail. Blurr's cheetah tail converted into an energon whip and the optic receptors on his cheetah head, when folded across his chest, could create an energon 'cloud', effectively knocking out the circuits of any Cybertron in the area. His main advantage was his immense speed in either mode, practically enabled by two energon-ion output pulse engines on either side.
As Scarlet and Blurr acclimated themselves to their forms, Gatecrasher and Steeljaw emerged from their chambers.
Steeljaw stood, in beast mode, a chunky 3 meters high, with immense shoulder units on his left and right forward appendages. He was a large Cybertronic Puma whose main identifying mark in beast mode was his lower jaw, covered in large metallic spikes. Gatecrasher was a standard Beast Warrior- fur outside, robotic inside. He was a bear, replete with large front and rear paws, immense claws inside those paws, and a muzzle full of sharp teeth. Steeljaw and Gatecrasher Maximized and their robot forms were just as intimidating as their beast modes. Gatecrasher was enormous, but Steeljaw made him seem small in comparison. Gatecrasher's bear head peered to his left, forming his shoulder connector. In place on his right arm was a .2 meter barreled ion cannon- the "Sparkbuster" as the Maximals called it. Steeljaw swung a large chain mace- the remnants of his beast form tail, his cougar head's mouth opening to reveal his masked face. A large sword- The Grim Lach- was slung across his back. Smears of red and silver made up his chest region, glinting in the dim light of the Trifecta.
The four Maximals waited for two cycles before the rest of the Maximals emerged from CR. Prophecy, the Maximal tactician, emerged as a snow-white owl with immense red and white wings. Seaspray emerged, a leathery hard shell covering his rear portion, which converted to an ultrastrong shield in robot mode. Springer was quite disappointed with his beast form: a jackrabbit. Scarlet looked him over and smiled.
"You're as cute as ever, Springy," she giggled.
"But I feel like such a shell."
"Maximize, slagbrain," she continued, covering her vocoder to stifle her laughter.
Springer complied and his rabbit form was replaced with a lithe yet powerful robot mode, lightly armed.
"Don'tworrySpringer!Thatbeastmodemightmatchmetranswarpfortranswarp!"
Springer rubbed a hand over his superior cranial region. "Why is it I can't understand a single slagging word he says?"
The seventh CR door swung open and a blue-tinted, low-slung bird waddled out. Its eyes flashed with intense curiosity at the rest of the crew as it bobbed its head along, gazing at the others.
"Stormfeather... Maximize!"
Quickly, the blue falcon shifted and turned and was a Maximal warrior, adorned like the most elite of the elite troopers, with high epaulettes and a very striking metallic blue shell.
"Well, Stormy, you look like you've filled out your new form pretty darn well."
"I'm just glad we didn't have to use DNA scanners to replicate this planet's life forms... have you seen some of them? Primitive, to say the least."
As they all stood conversing, the group was startled by the sound of the final CR Chamber door opening. Out stepped a very large, bristly catlike creature, but slung lower to the ground and with a much more powerful looking frame, plus a pair of daggerlike front cuspids- like a standard form version of Steeljaw's striking physique, but this to the N'th power. Without guessing at it, any Predacon lackey could tell who this was: Rodimus Primal, Maximal Elite.
He looked over each of the newly formed Maximal warriors with a discerning eye.
"You've all taken on marvelous new beast forms, I must say..."
The cat swept his head across the bridge again before taking a breath and saying "Rodimus Primal... Maximize!"
The Maximals stood at attention of their newly re-formed leader.
"Maximals... roll call!"
"Second in command Scarlet, function ballistics."
"First Lieutenant Gatecrasher, function scientific analysis."
"Second Lieutenant Steeljaw, function hand to hand combat."
"Chief Operations Officer Stormfeather, function aerial assault."
"Designation Seaspray, function aquatic assault."
"Designation Springer, function rapid recon."
"DesignationBlurrfunctionrapidgroundassault."
"Designation Prophecy, function tactician."
"Maximals, it looks like we're about to kick Galvatron's tail across the quadrant."
Optimus Primal sat silently at the Ark computer, two days after Tigerhawk had appeared and Tarantulas had been taken off-line. The search for Maximal signatures had taken three weeks and Primal was exactly where he'd began: nowhere.
"Teletran One, scan for other vessels."
--Scan active... working... working... None found at present.--
"How far back do your scanner logs go?"
--Self-repair and diagnostic sequence reports scanner function was regained thirty solar units ago.--
"Cross reference scanner logs for this specific chronostatic sequence," Primal said and keyed in a string of reference numbers.
--Working...working... Unable to detect chronostatic aberrance. System capabilities are not compatible with indicated parameters.--
"Well if that's not Prime," Optimus grumbled. "Optimus to Rhinox."
--Rhinox here,-- replied his trusted lieutenant.
"What's your 20?"
--I'm on level three, cross-connecting--- There was the sound of electricity sparking off of metal. ---attempting to cross-connect the Autobot technology with Maximal computers.--
"Prime! While your down there, Rhinox, can you uplink Teletran One's scanners to the Axalon's?"
He heard some clicking on the other end.
--Done!--
"Remind me to give you a raise, Maximal. Primal out."
Optimus keyed in the same sequence again and this time Teletran One spat out an answer.
--Chronostatic relationship detected. Extrapolating vector of tachyon emissions... working... working...--
Rattrap, Optimal Optimus, Silverbolt and Cheetor sped out of the base to the coordinates Teletran 1 provided them with. They neared the site of the past-future-whatever Maximal landing and halted... the forboding desert scene of Grid Vortex.
"Cheetor," Optimus said, "scan the area for transwarp residual energy."
Cheetor, a hunchbacked saber-toothed Cheetah, reared up on his hind legs, swiveling his midsection around. Within moments, his cheetah face disappeared and was replaced by a robotic cranial unit. A large missile launcher perched menacingly on his back. "Sure thing, Big Bot," he replied. He started slowly moving his head from side to side, his optic sensors shifting colors constantly, a faint beam of greenish yellow light sweeping the ground. The beam was accompanied by a mild humming. As Cheetor scanned the ground below him, Optimus and Silverbolt took wing to scout the area for physical evidence of the Maximals' appearance in the past.
"No luck."
"No luck."
"No luck," they all said in unison.
"If they were here, they were very careful about removing all trace of their incursion," Optimus replied. "I've used the best scanning devices I have and I've come up blank."
"I am afraid I have also found... nothing," Silverbolt sighed.
"Ditto," Cheetor grumbled.
"Maximals, return to base," Optimus ordered.
"What a waste of time," Cheetor complained. "Teletran 1 tells us that a Maximal ship's been here but there's absolutely no sign of it anywhere!"
"Don't lose hope, Cheetor," Optimus responded, putting his immense hand on Cheetor's shoulder. "There's just no physical remnants of their presence; that doesn't mean they were never here." Optimus removed his hand from Cheetor and began to transform, but stopped right before he gave the command, spotting something on the ground in front of them.
"Cheetor, do you see that?" Optimus asked, and pointed his large orange finger at a dark spot on the ground ahead of them.
Cheetor squinted and made out the shape of a large rectangle, embedded ever so slightly in the sand.
"Silverbolt, you see it too?"
"I certainly do." Silverbolt, unsheathing a feather-sword, stepped lightly to the outline of the square. "There's definitely a small groove here," he noted. Without ceremony, Silverbolt jammed the tip of the wing blade into the groove and pried.
Up came a metal panel with a loud clanging against he sand and... metal?... of the desert floor.
"It leads down passage, Optimus," Silverbolt reported.
"How did our sensors not pick this up? Optimal Optimus to base."
--Blackarachnia here.--
"I want you and Rattrap at our position as soon as possible. Inform Rhinox and Tigerhawk that they are in command until we return."
--Affirmative, Optimus.--
In less than two cycles, Blackarachnia and Rattrap, a motley pair- Blackarachnia, a huge Transmetal 2 spider, was perched on Rattrap, straining the tiny Transmetal rat's back as his wheels dug into the ground.
"Blackarachnia, MAXIMIZE!" she shouted, leaping into the air and shifting in a blur from the large spider to the deadly Maximal ninja warrior. Rattrap followed suit, braking loudly at Primal's position and grinding and whirring into robot mode.
"I hope everyone's weapons are charged to capacity," Primal said. "We don't know what we have to look forward to down here..."
Galvatron gazed across the sunscorched plain, looking for some sign of his Predacon warriors. Finding none, the Predacon supreme commander began to trudge southward, facing the direction his map had given him.
"Blasted... computer, scan for stable energon deposits."
The wrist computer whirred for a few moments and returned a response to Galvatron.
--All energon on this planet is in unstable crystalline form. Prolonged exposure to its radiation will cause stasis lock in Cybertronian life forms.--
"Which is why we have beast forms anyway," Galvatron thought aloud.
--Please restate request,-- the computer chimed.
"Disregard command... Beast mode."
Galvatron fell to all fours as his three headed wolf mode overtook his immense robot form.
"Triple rockets!" he shouted and lifted off.
As Galvatron shot through the lower atmosphere, he had time for some conversation with the computer.
"Computer, I noticed this beast form does not match the specifications I prepared for the initial beast mode."
--Quantum surge recorded shifted beast mode acquisition protocols. Current statistics for beast mode and robot mode exceed potentials for original form by 110%.--
"Well," Galvatron sneered. "Good work, quantum surge."
And he blazed into the setting sun.
Meanwhile, aboard the Trifecta, Rodimus Primal and the Maximals were preparing for the fall of Predacon and Maximal stasis pods.
"Prepare graviton beam," Rodimus ordered.
Gatecrasher stood ready at the sensor array, ready to fire a blast of graviton radiation into orbit to safely bring down the 10 stasis pods in orbit.
On the sensors, Rodimus noted ten little tiny specks- eight purple, two green, indicating the protoforms' allegiance. The purple were Predacons; the green, Maximals. How in the world did two- out of twenty two- stasis pods remain? Rodimus took a look at the scanner and groaned.
"There we have it," he sighed. "Eight Preds, two Maximals. Ladies and gentlemen, we're slagged."
"Don't lose hope, Rodimus," Scarlet offered. "The Autobots were dreadfully outnumbered during the first wars; we can pull off an upset, just like they did!"
The original Rodimus Prime, long ago, had been a brash and impetuous young transformer with lost of hope. And his protégé, Rodimus Primal, was no different.
"You're right, Scarlet!" he smiled. "The Matrix will help us!"
If Ironhide had been there, he would have groaned.
Optimus Primal crept forward, blaster held at the ready, his Maximal compatriots behind him, ready for whatever might come along. Primal stood hunched down beside him, in his rarely-used gorilla mode.
"Well, Big Bot, it's Maximal," Cheetor said.
"But there might be Predacons aboard," Optimus replied. "It seems every time that Maximals fall through time, there's always a bunch of Predacons behind them."
And Optimus knew what he was talking about. As Rattrap and Optimus turned a corner, there, deactivated on the ground, lay a Predacon warrior in stasis lock.
"Computer, identify Predacon."
--Working,-- the computer replied as it scanned. --Predacon soldier is classified as Stiletto. Beast form unknown. Last seen operating at Tryptychon base, Cybertron. Current status: extended stasis lock. Accumulation of particulate matter indicates deactivation for twenty-six solar cycles.--
"Sleeping Predacons," Rattrap muttered. "If they wake up, we can be sure of one thing. We're all gonna die."
"Don't get ahead of yourself, Rattrap. We should get to the bridge and see if there are any Maximals aboard. Blackarachnia, Silverbolt, Cheetor, go up to level one and find the commander." Optimus went to a computer terminal and pressed a keycode in. Surprisingly, it sprang to life in a dull green glow. "Well then!" Prime smiled. "I can restore power." The lights sprang to life. "Now, let's see what this hunk of junk is." Optimus read the data on the screen then made a sound of joy. "This is the Trifecta! It's Rodimus Primal's ship. Good 'bot, him." Optimus paused, then said, "Blackarachnia, Silverbolt, get up to the bridge. Rattrap, you're with me. Let's see if there are any stasis pods in the hold."
The rat and the ape went back down the way they came as the spider, cat and bird-dog zipped upward on an elevator platform.
As Primal and Rattrap made their way through the corridor to the stasis hold, Blackarachnia, Silverbolt and Cheetor stood quietly in the elevator.
"Well," Cheetor grumbled. "Get on with the it, Rover."
"I do not understand what you mean, friend Cheetor."
"You do too... you're going to lord over me the fact that you and the spider are together."
"Why, Cheetor, I would never," Silverbolt replied. Blackarachnia just stood there, looking somewhat displeased at this situation.
"Listen, Kitty Cat," she snapped. "I made my choice between you and, unfortunately for you, I chose Silverbolt. Now drop it, all right?"
Cheetor just growled and flexed his claws.
Meanwhile, Optimus and Rattrap had reached the door to the Stasis Hold. Optimus looked at the lockout keypad and raised an eyebrow. Standard Maximal encryption lock, Optimus thought. Not a problem whatsoever. Optimus extended a large orange finger and punched in several numeric codes.
--maximal keycode number 9688146--
And the door slid open. Optimus and Rattrap slowly crept into the chamber, looking for evidence of active protoforms. The two split up and searched either side of the hold, finding only empty pods. Then Rattrap made a discovery.
"Hey banana-'bot," he called. "Better come over here and look at this."
Optimus and Rattrap looked at the two protoform pods, laying side by side.
"One male, one female... both are in 100% condition. We can try to resuscitate them."
"Then let's get to it. You're the one who knows how to work stasis pods."
Primal kneeled, the stasis pod still only coming up to his knees. He gingerly pressed the keypads and was met with a response he hadn't seen in the Axalon's stasis pods:
--Choose beast form-- the computer ordered.
Optimus saw a list of fifty or sixty or so animals and chose one at random. He stood and repeated the process with the second pod. Both started to hum, whir, and glow, and Rattrap and Optimus looked at them both in awe.
--Cycle complete-- the computer said, and the two stasis pod hatches began to hiss with the steam being released. Then two forms crawled out.
The three Maximals- Cheetor, Blackarachnia and Silverbolt- crept onto the bridge to find "sleeping" Maximals and Predacons littering the deck, all of them damaged but safely held in stasis lock.
"This creeps even me out," the spider noted, grimacing at the dead-eyed Cybertronians covering the floor.
There were about ten of them on the ground, in addition to the one in the corridor- were there more? the Maximals wondered. And if so, what were their allegiances?
"Wow," Blackarachnia said, looking at the computer terminals. "This ship's got a Sentinel-2 class defense system... Teletran-Alpha computers... she's pretty well-appointed." Blackarachnia moved toward one computer panel, pushing a static Predacon shell away. She used her large dagger-like foreclaws to punch in some data onto the computer.
"Well, there are a total of twenty Cybertronians onboard, excluding us. Ten of them are here, five of each, eight are in the engine room, also split 50/50, and two are... converging on our position?" Blackarachnia sighed. "Lucky for us... they're both Maximals, and they have two other Maximal signatures accompanying them- Optimus and Rattrap."
"So they got to the Stasis Hold?" Silverbolt asked.
"Apparently so. And they're here."
"Stormfeather, you look capable of it. I want you to go out and search for our two stasis pods. If you see any Predacon activity, I want you to report back to base as soon as possible. Have all of you reviewed the stasis pod retrieval protocols?"
The assemblage of Maximals nodded in unison, having taken the nanoclick necessary to interpret the information of which Primal was speaking.
"Good then. Maximals, transform and move out."
On the other side about the planet, Galvatron was still in his search for the first two of his eight lieutenants: Starscream and Cyclonus, his tactician and ballistics experts, respectively.
"Computer, location of Starscream."
--Cybertronic Construct Unit, Designation: Starscream is currently moving toward this position at twelve clicks per cycle.--
"Moving toward?"
--Affirmative. Unit Starscream has evacuated his stasis pod.--
"Excellent," Galvatron smiled. "Display position."
The computer displayed, across Galvatron's optic sensors, the map grid where Starscream could be found.
The large shaggy hyena looked skyward and saw an enormous black spot in the sky.
"Starscream, Terrorize!" he commanded, and leapt into the air, shifting and twisting, forming an immense black and red robot. His hyena head, tail and torso shifted behind him as his large forepaws created shoulder spikes, of sorts. His beast form legs changed positions slightly, making his robot legs. A large jetpack was affixed to the underside of the hyena-shell. "Lord Galvatron?" Starscream shouted into the blasting wind.
"Hyenas, Starscream? Your mere existence is bad comedy... you picked a beast form to match," Galvatron sneered.
"At least I'm not a freaky puppy like some Cybertronians."
Galvatron, hovering in midair at Starscream's side, smacked him upside the cranial unit. "You blathering fool, make yourself useful and help me find the rest of my legion."
"Understood. Computer," Starscream hissed.
--State command.--
"Display holomap of the locations of the remaining Predacon troops."
--Working...--
Starscream, satisfied with the new information, jetted off southward.
As Starscream blasted into the disappearing light, Galvatron reconnoitered, spinning in an easterly direction to face the oncoming night. Whether it was atmospheric tricks or a malfunction in his optic receptors, he saw a large dark spot on the near black backdrop of the sky. It appeared to be approaching. Galvatron lifted his arm cannon and trained it on the upcoming shape.
"State your business!" he called into the night.
"Please, Galvatron, you know me well enough to realize I could never sneak up on you."
"Ah, Cyclonus, old warrior. I see you've found yourself a good beast mode."
"Cyclonus, Terrorize!" the condor called. His head shifted backward, revealing a \/-shaped crest on a dark purple cranial unit. His wings folded against the sides of the bird, uncovering two robotic arms. The bony bird legs and feathered tail folded behind him as two crimson and lavender-hued legs appeared. His forearms and thighs sported large purple, red and white feather-like blades, and repulsor jets were mounted on the soles of his feet and his elbow articulation joints.
"Good choice, Cyclonus."
"Why thank you," Cyclonus said. "And look what the reformat has left intact!"
Behind him, a tactile-hologram "cy-clone" appeared, menacing, in the air.
"Cy-clone-us, beast mode."
The hologram reverted to its enormous purple condor shape, still as devastating-looking as before.
"Very good."
"What's the situation, Lord Galvatron?"
"I've sent Starscream out to find the rest of the Predacons as I do the same. You will locate the Maximal installation and report back to me. I shall be finding shelter- zero in on my position using your computer. Understood?"
"Affirmative."
Cyclonus deactivated the clone and shifted back into beast mode and winged away as Galvatron continued on his search for the new Predacon base of operations.
"SLAG!" Rodimus Primal shouted to Optimus as he emerged from the CR Chamber. "You formatted those two?!" he pointed, indicating the new Maximals Optimus and Rattrap had discovered in the stasis hold. "They should be recycled. They're worthless."
"No Maximal is worthless, Rodimus," Optimus pleaded.
"Those two are. Maximal recruits, state your designations," he ordered the two.
With much yowling and spitting, the first one, a diminutive Fuzor lynx/bat finally and simply articulated two syllables.
"Skyyyy....lyyyynnnxxxxxxx....," it spoke.
"And you?"
The second creature continued growling and snorting, finally offering his name in a barely intelligible gurgle. "Heavyclaw!" spat the creature.
"You see? You SEE what you've DONE?!"
"You will not speak to a commanding officer in that fashion," Optimus ordered.
"Who do you think you are, Optimus MINOR?"
"Rattrap, tell him."
"Ya see," Rattrap began as Rodimus Primal paced across the deck. "Ya lower-level Maximals were led to believe Ultra Mammoth was Supreme Commander of the Maximals. That wasn't true- for reasons I'm not at liberty ta discuss, ya know? Optimus PRIMAL is." Rattrap displayed a hologram indicating Optimus's status. Rodimus withdrew, defeated as Rattrap continued. "Now ya say that you chased Galvatron into the past in order to reclaim the Golden Disk from Megatron? Something don't make sense if we found you, in stasis lock for the last 20 solar cycles," Rattrap accused.
"Unfortunately," Rodimus began, defeated, "we made a blind transwarp jump following the Predacons, and found ourselves here. By Gatecrasher's calculations, we miscalculated the jump by about twenty solar cycles and we found ourselves in this timeframe on prehistoric Earth," Rodimus explained.
"Well then... it might interest you to know you were a bit late wakin' up... both Golden Disks were destroyed teracycles ago," Rattrap replied.
"Then why wage the Beast Wars?" Rodimus complained.
"On this planet, a new form of the Beast Wars has taken shape," Optimus explained. "We're here to protect the Autobots and Decepticons from the Predacons. We're here to save time itself."
"Well that's just Prime," Rodimus sighed.
Optimus gave him an approving glance. This boy had potential.
Stormfeather shot out of the Trifecta like a bolt of blue lightning, chasing the signal of the two fallen protoforms. But as soon as he locked onto the signals of the two Protoforms, he picked up a new Predacon signal emanating from below. As he spiraled down to find it, a green laserbolt sliced through the mechanical and flesh of his left wing. Screeching downward, he tumbled in for a landing and faced a large, copperhead snake.
He leapt into the air, transforming...
As Stormfeather flew into the air following his battle, he radioed the Trifecta and got word that the three descending protoforms were being intercepted by his three compatriots Prophecy, Scarlet and Steeljaw. And Stormfeather, the damage on is wing merely superficial, soared to wherever it was those two protoforms had made landfall.
"Stormfeather, Maximize!" the falcon ordered, shifting from a dusk-blue bird to a lithe metallic warrior. He saw the two protoform shells, glinting in the sunlight of a forest canopy, right ahead of him. "Stormfeather to base. Stormfeather to base."
No answer.
"Stormfeather to Trifecta."
Still static on the comm.
"Of all the slaggin'..." Stormfeather grabbed the two lips of the stasis pods and heaved, exerting his antigravity pods to their maximum output. With a lot of effort, Stormfeather had moved the pods beyond the lip of the forest. "Now let's try... Stormfeather to base. Stormfeather to Trifecta."
--Trifecta.--
"Good... finally. I found the two fallen stasis pods. But there's..." Stormfeather fired a sensor beam from his optic processors. "...Omicron-band radiation surrounding the pod."
--Omicron-band? Oh slag.--
"Why, Rodimus? What's wrong?"
--Those two stasis pods are... well... they're pretty much slagged. The omicron-band radiation has fried the acquisition circuits. I don't think the personality projections will come out quite right, even with an intense infusion of CR energy.--
"You mean these two protoforms are..."
--Feral.--
"There are nine Predacons in the cargo hold right now. They're all off-line until we CR them."
"That's correct, Rhinox," Rodimus replied.
"Then what's to be done?"
"Well, we put a high level security lockout on that door so that no one- Maximal or Predacon- can ever open it."
"The same thing happened to Protofom X, but he escaped," Depthcharge grumbled.
"Is there something you have to offer, Depthcharge?" Optimus requested.
"No lock can keep those Predacons from escaping, no matter how encrypted. All Predacons are sneaky; it's only a matter of time before some sort of backhanded Predacon computer protocol activates and one of them comes out of stasis lock and can 'switch on' the rest... Mark my words."
Depthcharge knew Predacons better than Predacons knew themselves. He'd studied them; learned the intricacies of their twisted sparks. He'd tracked one halfway across the galaxy and back, having had little success until discovering the Predacon known as Rampage on an ancient form of Earth.
As Depthcharge had predicted, almost as if on cue, a glint emerged in one of the Predacon's eyes- a tall green female whose alt-form was probably some sort of fish or amphibian. As the glint, a sickeningly bright metal-green, grew, her cranial unit began to move. In moments, the Predacon was looking forward, scanning the chamber for her compatriots. As more and more subprocessors came online, she rose to her stiletto heeled feet. On her left hand was the cranial unit of her beast form, illuminating itself with two optic sensors. As the light brightened in the hold, this Predacon looked around and saw her eight compatriots sprawled on the deck.
"Which one first..." she muttered. "Naturally..."
She leaned down to an enormous purple Pred, one with three beast crania adorning its torso, and opened its chest cavity.
"Activation matrix... eighty three omicron...," she mumbled, activating various subcommands.
The fallen Predacon's optics brightened quickly as it regained consciousness. It spoke.
"Stiletto..."
"Lord Galvatron," she replied.
"Are all my Predacons present?"
"We certainly are. I have activated you first, Lord Galvatron, to oversee the resuscitation of your legion."
"Excellent."
Galvatron got to his feet, scanning the room for his other eight warriors.
Each of them was present. Each was intact.
"How did the lot of you get deactivated in the first place?" Silverbolt asked from his station, trying to record all the data he could on these newfound friends.
"The Trifecta made landfall right after we arrived here, and immediately after that, we made our base of operations on stable ground," Gatecrasher explained. "Unfortunately, we didn't calculate the fact that the ground was not stable... it didn't occur to us this was not like Cybertron, whose terrain is all strong enough to support everything built upon it. The ground caved in below us, and the ship's engines were damaged. By the time we'd made repairs, the Predacons had gained knowledge of our whereabouts and attacked us, hoping to use the Trifecta to make their escape. That wasn't the case: we're not scientists. We can defend ourselves."
Silverbolt gave Gatecrasher a sideways look; Sir Silverbolt of the Maximals was certainly no scientist. But he allowed the other Maximal to continue.
"And the assault came. The Predacons made the simple mistake of attacking the bridge. Rodimus rerouted command controls to our engineering section so the Predacons couldn't take control. By the time they'd defeated all the bridge Maximals and discovered the ruse, we'd been able to secure the engineering section. The firefight that ensued deactivated us all."
Gatecrasher looked at the floor. Silverbolt was shifting in his seat as Rhinox typed the story the bear related. As the final words came out of Gatecrasher's mouth, the sound of an exploding bulkhead rocked the base. Depthcharge smirked and cocked his cybershark-blaster.
--Maximals... assemble at the Level 2 hold!-- Optimus's voice sounded from the loudspeaker. --Intruder alert!--
Rushing down the corridor, Depthcharge, Gatecrasher, Silverbolt and Rattrap were joined by the speeding form of Blurr, and in his wake, Scarlet and Blackarachnia, struggling to keep up.
"Optimus," Silverbolt said. "Depthcharge, Gatecrasher, Rattrap, Blurr, Scarlet and Blackarachnia are en route to the hold."
--Well hurry it up, Maximals! We can't hold these creeps forever.--
The firefight lasted for several minutes before Rattrap proposed a new strategy. The Maximals were hurting: Stormfeather, Cheetor, Steeljaw and Springer had been taken offline by random blasts of energy, but the Predacons were still holding their ground quite adeptly. These were obviously not the bumbling Predacons Megatron had taken with him. Though the Preds were outnumbered more than 2 to 1, they had succeeded in holding back their captors.
"Optimus!" Rattrap shouted. "If we keep this up for much
"Do you *SHRAP!* have a better alternative, Rattrap?" Optimus replied over the gunfire.
"I *KAPOW!* do!" Rattrap ducked and Optimus followed him down, as the rat related his new stratagem. "A long time ago, on Earth, certain forces used a system of appeasement to lower casualties. I say *KABOOM!* we give 'em Poland!"
Optimus cocked an eyebrow at Rattrap's obscure analogy but the point was made.
"Maximals!" he shouted to the assemblage. "Cease fire!"
Rattrap extended his telescopic tail with a white flag attached to signal the Maximals' surrender. Optimus rose to his feet, shielding himself with his gauntlets, and boomed a message.
"Predacons, I propose a cease-fire!"
Galvatron waved at his troops to lower their weapons.
"Your words shall be heard, Maximal!" he called. "But make them fast lest my trigger finger become itchy." Galvatron was not his triggerhappy Predacon brother.
"I would like to propose a non-agression pact; you and your legion shall be given free run of this planet and its resources provided you agree to two conditions. First, you must leave all sentient life on this planet, including all Cybertronians, in peace. Second, you do not set foot in the Demilitarized Zone, indicated as Grid Vortex." Optimus stood fast, yet his spark trembled before the sheer power of the unmistakably deadly Galvatron.
Galvatron looked at his soldiers and smirked.
"We agree," he replied. Depthcharge looked at Galvatron, knowing this Cybertronian could not be trusted.
As the Predacons filed out of the base, and even at gunpoint and with their optical sensors inactive so as not to betray any Maximal secrets, Depthcharge was uneasy. He had tangled with Galvatron- and his elite branch of assassins- before, and almost didn't survive.
Protofom X was in Cybertron's sector of space... though Depthcharge could not get a clear lock on his position. Stellar radiation had severely impaired the Starsea's sensor capabilities, and X's spark signature was mixed in with the billions of other Cybertronian sparks. But Depthcharge could bet credit chips to energon cubes that X had fallen in with some unsavory characters. As the Starsea entered Cybertronian orbit, a communication crackled over the speakers.
--Starsea, come in.--
It was Prophecy, one of Depthcharge's contacts on the homeworld.
"Starsea here. Any news on X's whereabouts?" Depthcharge inquired.
--Negative. Our scanners have been worth exactly slag lately, what with this stellar radiation cloud. I can't even get a positive lock on your position. Looks like you'll have to locate X the old fashioned way.--
Depthcharge looked at his control panel in dismay. He was approaching Cybertron's upper orbit- or was he? Slagging scanners- and the Starsea's scanners were indeed failing on him. DC looked out the viewport, something a modern pilot would never have to do, what with computer aided guidance systems, to see the surface of Cybertron looming below him, a large grey plain getting larger and larger by the nanoclick. "This is Starsea to Iacon Base. Do you read me?" DC said into his mic.
--Affirmative, Starsea. Looks like your ::crackle:: cut through the energon interference. The interference is ::crackle:: pretty heavy, but ::crackle:: can read you. Try boosting your signal gain ::crackle:: we'll see ::crackle crackle static::--
"Iacon Base, repeat," Depthcharge called into the mic.
No response. The Starsea zipped downward toward Cybertron's surface, toward Iacon base. Something was wrong down there, and Depthcharge knew he was going to be the one to fix it.
Starsea soared across the Cybertronian Plain- a great metal field hundreds of kilometers long- on a course to enter Iacon. His speed registered at three hundred clicks per minute, but it was decreasing rapidly as he made planetfall. In a few moments, he was right outside the Iacon's major docking bay. "Computer, remote open protocol D-C-Alpha," Depthcharge ordered. The large hangar door ground open, opening like a big X, four pointed segments moving outward, as the Starsea moved forward.
"This is not good."
Depthcharge leapt out of the Starsea's cockpit onto the floor of the hangar and immediately the acrid odor of slag and burnt metal registered with his olfactory sensors. His optics registered a small amount of distortion from a high heat level and a trace amount of smoke and particulate debris in the air. Depthcharge drew his tail sword and his cyber-shark missile launcher. This might be messy...
"Hello?!" D.C. called down the corridor. No answer... Something was wrong. He clanked down the hall a bit further before hearing metal scraping against metal in agony: a Cybertron was severely injured. Depthcharge flung open one of the storage bay doors at the side of the hallway and saw...
"Lightfoot?!" A small, young female Maximal cowered in the dim room.
"Don't let him get me! Don't let him get me!" she shouted and rose, brandishing her blaster cannon. "Lightfoot, be calm!" She didn't listen and kept training the cannon on
Depthcharge's head. "Don't let WHO get you?!"
"X... murderer... on the loose... he's... BEHIND YOU!"
Depthcharge spun around, aiming his blaster down the length of the hallway, but saw nothing. Immediately a scalding sensation overcame his lower back, like he'd...
...been shot in the back. Smoke wafted from the barrel of Lightfoot's cannon. "What did you do?"
"X can't get any of us alive," she babbled, crouching again, pulling her knees up to her chest."
As Depthcharge sunk to his knees, blast hole seething mech fluid, acrid smoke rising from the gaping wound, he thought about how X would pay for making his Lightfoot- his own daughter- hurt.
Depthcharge's optics went dark as the silence of stasis lock overcame him.
Light flickered into his optics. His aural and olfactory receptors kicked in- faintly at first but as his spark re-ignited his systems out of stasis lock, he registered the sound of shrieking Cybertronians and the sound of speech and the smell of burning mech fluid. Torture. He was in a torture chamber. Looking around, he saw that he was still in Iacon base: burnt and scarred Maximal and Autobot sigils were on the walls, many slashed or marked with graffiti.
As Depthcharge returned to consciousness, he saw the dim form of something quite large hovering above him.
"Wakey wakey, Depthcharge!" it said in a cackling his he recognized as only one 'bot: Protoform X. "Welcome back to the land of the living, Dorkcharge."
"X!" Depthcharge shouted, but he found his vocoder had been disabled. All that came out was the clicking of his mandibles. And his arms were bound.
Now, Depthcharge was a brilliant tactical mind. He'd chased Protoform X across the galaxy and back many times, and in his travels, he learned how X operated. Something in the past- Depthcharge's central processor was still reasserting itself so D.C. couldn't quite remember what- had sparked the violent behavior of this murderous Cybertronian. He blamed Depthcharge for something and decided to strike out at him in whatever manner possible.
One of his first crimes was to destroy the colony on Varria, where Depthcharge grew up. His father, mother, and family- all dead, one with the Matrix, slagged to a point where no amount of C.R. could restore them. Then, attacks on other colonies- where Depthcharge had trained. Finally, Depthcharge followed X to Cybertron, where he walked in as X had finished cutting the main processor pathways of his own wife, Maximal Enforcer Pinionfire. It had been through an incredible twist of fate that Pinionfire and Depthcharge's daughter Lightfoot had been away to be spared X's rampage. Then he moved on to Space Station Rugby, which was the final assault that catapulted Depthcharge's anger to its highest level.
But now... now Lightfoot had been injured- severely- and Depthcharge had fallen into X's claws. Things were not good... soon, Depthcharge thought, he'd be one with the Matrix... and he'd send X and his noxious spark to the Pit to suffer for infinity.
"Now don't go falling asleep on me again," X sneered and Depthcharge felt an agonizing surge of electricity course through his endo-frame. "I want you to feel this. And, I'd like you to meet someone."
He heard the sound of another being moving closer, but couldn't make out who it was until its face appeared above him. Galvatron, Depthcharge growled internally.
"Good morning, Maximal," Galvatron smiled, and lowered a sparking, humming energon knife downward.
Needless to say, Depthcharge escaped, like he'd escaped time and time again in the years before. He'd even kept most of his body in the process, suffering only a shattered wing strut (with matching missing fin). But there was one thing Depthcharge did not escape with: his daughter. He didn't know if she'd survived or if she'd fallen to the wiles of Protoform X and Galvatron. What had happened to her after he'd escaped?
"Bring it on, slagtits," Lightfoot spat, circling the room with Stiletto facing her.
"Good one, Light-weight," the Pred spat. "Let's do this!"
Lightfoot sprung forward, clawing at Stiletto's faceplate. The two tumbled for a few meters before splashing into the deep sub-aquatic transit pool. They sunk like stones to the bottom, a curtain of bubbles obscuring each other from view. As the bubbles cleared, Lightfoot felt a rumbling around her- a transport was rapidly approaching. Immediately, Lightfoot converted to beast mode- a lithe grey-colored Stingray- and shot out of the path of the oncoming transport. Stiletto wasn't so swift: as she leapt upward, transforming, the transport slammed into her midsection, crumpling her legs as it made contact with the outer wall of the terminal. Stiletto, ingenious as always, produced a laser cutter and freed herself from being pinned. Fortunately for the barracuda, her legs were still operable, and she leapt after her quarry, shifting from 'bot to beast with a diver's grace. But as she swam forward, a shadowy force slammed into the fish's snout: Lightfoot had used her powers of stealth to blindside her opponent.
"This is for my mother!" Lightfoot shouted, landing a powerful blow to Stiletto's face. Stiletto shuddered beneath her enemy's elegant yet surprisingly powerful fists.
"This is for my father!" she shouted, bubbles forming around her fist as she pounded Stiletto again.
"This... is for Varria!" Lightfoot exclaimed as she landed a final blow to Stiletto's chops. Lightfoot looked at her enemy with cold fury in her optics as Stiletto's cranial unit crumpled and separated itself from her body.
Leaving the Predacon lifeless on the floor of the underwater terminal, Lightfoot leapt out of the pit and made her way out of the complex, secure in the knowledge that her revenge had been taken- a sign had been left for X and Galvatron.
"We've got an incoming transwarp signature," Gatecrasher said. Rhinox tromped over, looking at the viewscreen.
"What in the mother of slag is that?" he asked.
Depthcharge took a look at the screen and, if he could with that permanent frown of his, smiled. "Lightfoot?" he whispered.
"What's that, Depthcharge?" Gatecrasher asked.
"It's Lightfoot. She's come back to me."
"Who's Lightfoot?" Rhinox asked him. Depthcharge didn't answer, instead transforming to starhopper mode and jetting out of the base.
"What's his deal?"
"Lightfoot... Computer, show information on Maximal designation Lightfoot."
--Working... Lightfoot: Maximal tactician. Last Posting: Cybertron. Lost in battle stardate 001521.004 on personal starhopper Pinnacle. Whereabouts unknown.--
"Cross-reference Lightfoot with Maximal designation Depthcharge."
--Working... Lightfoot, Maximal tactician, is daughter to Maximal tracker Depthcharge. Depthcharge was born on planet Varria, transferred to Rugby Colony...--
"End report," Rhinox said. "So Depthcharge is after his daughter? How'd she get here?"
"Who knows," Gatecrasher said, "but it may mean she's here to help."
Rhinox looked at his new friend Gatecrasher and sighed. "If I know Depthcharge and anyone associated with him, there's more to this than meets the eye."
Gatecrasher began to remark, but as he saw the clarity of Rhinox's logic, he stopped and nodded.
Optimus sat in his quarters, contemplating this new situation when his doorchime sounded.
"Enter," he said, and as the door slid open, Rodimus Primal entered. "Hello, Rodimus. What can I do for you?" Optimal Optimus asked.
"I've been looking around the base, and I have a few questions."
"Go ahead."
"Are we in front of what I think we're in front of?"
"Yes. If you go through the secured blastdoors, you will find the stasis-locked bodies of Optimus Prime, Starscream, Megatron and the Autobots and Decepticons. You are onboard the Ark."
"I find it a bit incredible..."
"...overwhelming..."
"...awe inspiring..."
"...absolutely one hundred percent humbling?" Optimus finished. Something glowed in Rodimus's optics. He was where he should be.
"When we crashlanded here, we had no idea that this was Earth- after all, the planet had two moons and the continental arrangement was totally off for this period of time. However, a few megacycles ago, during an attack by a race of aliens known as the Vok, the secondary moon was destroyed," Optimus said, almost cringing at the thought of what he'd gone through destroying the moon, "and the planetary structure was rearranged to its current and future configuration. Immediately afterward, the Beast Wars commenced anew."
"I see... and when was the Ark discovered?"
"A few months ago, as you possibly know, a Quantum Surge created when the Vok Planetkiller was destroyed, entered Cybertronian space... following on the tail of the surge, a temporal wavefront emerged near Cybertronian space, alerting the Predacon High Command's Tripredicus Council. Triangulating our location, the Predacons sent a reformatted Decepticon warrior- Ravage- to finally apprehend Megatron. Unfortunately, his mission was not as it seemed, and he and his transwarp-capable starship were destroyed. However, in the battle, the Ark was uncovered by Blackarachnia and Silverbolt. Megatron, in an attempt to win the Beast Wars once and for all, tried to destroy Optimus Prime. He almost succeeded but quick repairs by Rhinox restored Optimus Prime's body, while I took on the Matrix of Leadership and Optimus Prime's own spark. As Orion Pax became Optimus Prime and he who you are named for became Rodimus Prime, I became 'Optimal' Optimus Primal."
"Thanks for the history lesson, Primal," Rodimus smiled. "So, if the Ark is here... where's the Nemesis?"
"Good question. From what I know, it's still in its place at the bottom of the Thalassan ocean. We're not sure. But if I know Megatron and his cronies, it won't be long until they make a gambit for the Nemesis as well. We're here to stop it from happening."
"I understand. And who are these Vok?"
"I assume you've met my lieutenant, Tigerhawk?" Primal asked.
"Yes. A very powerful warrior, him. It would be an honor to battle alongside such a tremendous force."
"Indeed. He is the product of a Vok attempt to 'reset' this... experiment... they're running with prehistoric Earth. He destroyed the Predacon base-ship Darkside, obliterated Tarantulas, and was recently given the combined sparks of my two old friends Airazor and Tigatron. He is the only Transmetallized Fuzor in the Beast Wars."
"I see," Rodimus replied.
"He is also the result of the only time the Vok have physically and actively taken a part in our affairs."
"And what are we to do about the Predacons?"
"I'm rethinking the strategy Rattrap proposed. I don't think appeasement will stop them. If they meet up with Megatron and his band of Predacons, we may have unleashed an immense firestorm... The Beast Wars have again changed. We must be ready at any time for what they give us."
By this time, Optimus and Rodimus had entered the main command center.
"Maximals," Optimus began. "A new threat has arisen in the Beast Wars. It's time for us to act... Maximals, transform and move out."
High above the surface of the planet, Depthcharge skimmed along the ionosphere, waiting for the starhopper to enter the planet's atmosphere. Suddenly, through a cloud of ion radiation, a starhopper- the Pinnacle, finally, after all these years- appeared.
"Welcome home, little bot," Depthcharge radioed.
--Daddy?-- came the response.
"Lightfoot! It's you after all this time."
The starhopper and the Maximal began descending toward the planet surface. In a scirocco of dust, the Starhopper landed as Depthcharge transformed to robot mode. Out hopped a lithe femmebot, grey and brown in color. She rushed over to the larger bot and hugged him.
"Dad!" she said, holding him tightly.
"Lightfoot... it's been so long."
"I'm so sorry, Dad... I lost X in the Daikun Nebula... that was months ago."
"Don't worry, little bot, you have not failed. He's been here the entire time. I've been tracking the beast... and he's not alone."
"What?" Lightfoot gasped, not yet fully understanding the entire situation.
"There are Predacons here. A great number of them, as of yesterday," Depthcharge said. "They are lead by Megatron, but are currently in disarray after Tigerhawk," Depthcharge paused, his voice taking on a gloating tone, "'visited' their base." The fishbot did that semi-smile again- for anyone who hadn't seen a bot of that configuration before, it would seem sort of disturbing.
"So the Preds have taken X on as one of their number?"
"In a devious manner, yeah," Charge replied. "Megatron cut out part of his spark and has it in this torture device to control him."
"Sounds like Megatron's a bowl of cherries to be around."
Depthcharge remained silent for a minute. "Why are you here?"
"Looking for you, Dad," she said. "I tracked your energy signature back to Rugby where it just... ended. As I turned the Pinnacle around to warp home to Cybertron, the scanners registered an immense temporal disruption. Before the Ion Engines got a chance to kick in, I had disrupted the event horizon and was being pulled in. I prayed to Primus for salvation and kissed my posterior plating goodbye. Then everything went dark. When I regained my composure, the computer registered two interesting things: it told me X was nearby. It also told me you were here, too. Maybe your spark harmonic signature put a... a wedge... in the time portal... keeping it in one place for a while."
"Knowing the stuff that's been going on here, anything's possible."
"Well," Lightfoot asked, "aren't you going to ask me something?"
"No."
Lightfoot looked at her father with a cold glimmer in her eyes.
"You didn't want to know something about... say, my past?"
"Lightfoot," Depthcharge said, turning to face her. "Where you were and what you did in the years we've been separated is your business. If I wanted to know--"
"I met someone. I- we- have a child. He's on Cybertron--"
"--what you'd been up to... a child?"
"Yes. He's three. His name is Dynamo." Lightfoot brought out a small holoproj and invoked it. The image of a small Cybertronian child appeared. He was orange and white in color, and then the image shifted into a small seahorse. The boy was a Maximal!
"You mean I have a grandson?" Charge asked.
"Yes. Firedare and I were married three and a half teracycles ago. Dynamo was born not long after."
"You married that hotheaded Autobot?"
"I was surprised as you were when he asked me, believe me. But the offer was too good to refuse. I love him very much, he loves me, and we're both happy with our stations. I only wonder if Dynamo and Firedare are all right back on Cybertron."
That's all there is and I am not writing any more. Every character in this story has evolved past the point which they appear.