Author's note: All characters are copyright their respective creators. I do not own Transformers and I am not
affiliated with Hasbro or Takara, Mainframe or Alliance, nor should any affiliation be inferred, implied or assumed. Enjoy the fic.
Historian's note: "Indeterminate Timeframe" events occur shortly after "Feral Scream", but before "Crossing the Rubicon" or "Master Blaster".
Chapter Three
**Earth, Indeterminate Timeframe
"Has Cheetor reported back yet?" the taller Maximal asked.
"Nope, there's a lot of interference," replied his stocky comrade. "Can't pinpoint
the source."
"Prime," the taller muttered. "I'm going to find him; notify Blackarachnia and
Silverbolt to rendezvous with me at Grid Kathexis in a megacycle." With that, Optimus
Primal sprung to the air, transforming into a grand airjet of orange and blue hues. Pushing
lightly on the thrusters mounted to his boots, he was off into the rainy afternoon.
Rhinox stayed at his post, opening a garbled communications channel to the
scouting eagle-wolf hybrid and his arachnoid counterpart.
"Silverbolt, respond," Rhinox ordered. "Blackarachnia, do you read?" Neither
responded with anything more than unintelligible staticky nonsense. "I repeat: Units
Silverbolt and Blackarachnia, respond."
Naturally there was no answer. Rhinox knew the reason, of course, as did
Optimus Primal and, probably, Blackarachnia and Silverbolt. Steeljaw and Tyrannix had
gone missing a few days before, along with, though the reports from the other side had
been sketchy, two of the Predacons as well, though names were not received from the
"informant" (In reality, Tigatron had pulped the face of Longspot, to retrieve this
information, and only after "undermining" Longspot's capacity to run away).
"Could you be any slower?" Rhinox growled at Teletran-1's uplink, clunking the
side of his terminal with an undignified rhino-grunt.
Finally-- after MUCH cajoling of the link between the two computers-- Rhinox
had his results and was most certainly not pleased. "These have got to be wrong," he
muttered before a blast of crimson-violet light engulfed him, knocking him to the floor and
out of his senses.
***
Silverbolt barked gaily, looping the loops in the air, barrel rolling, making general
pallaver in his freedom.
"Oh, my love, you do not know the wonderous feeling that comes with a set of
wings!" he murred into his commlink, performing another five-point stationary spin.
*/Not a chance you'll see me airborne anytime soon, flyboy...\* the venomous purr
retorted. */We spiders stick to low-altitude acrobatics.\*
"I could always come down there and perform some acrobatics with you," the
Fuzor offered, dipping a bit and banking eastward.
*/Oh you would, woul---\*
Static. Connection broken. No trailer response. No return signal. "My love?"
Silverbolt called, half into the communicator, half into the misty orange aether creeping
across the forest below. He shot himself into a steep dive, using the impetus gravity
offered to boost his rate of descent. With an echoing "Maximize!" and the sound of two
sets of metallic talons rushing along the rock-strewn forest floor, Silverbolt was down,
searching for his love.
He found her, sprawled across a flat boulder, trembling spastically.
"Blackarachnia?" he whispered, but she was too far gone in her tremor to answer.
"Dark venom of my heart, what has happened?"
A gurgling cry rose from Blackarachnia's throat, escalating to a
mech-fluid-curdling shriek as shafts of orange and golden light burst from her shell.
"Blackarachnia?!" Silverbolt gasped, watching his love transform. Chitinous,
techno-organic legs burst from her shoulders, her hourglass-printed abdomen distending
into a livid shade of crimson.
"Silverbolt!" she wailed as she metamorphosed.
Then the light and screaming subsided, and what was left was a very different
looking, extremely weakened Blackarachnia.
A Blackarachnia that was now a Transmetal mark II.
***
What had become of Rhinox? Parseltongue wondered, his wraithlike
consciousness bathing itself in the supercharged particle mist that had overtaken the entire
Ark. The thought body drifted to Rhinox's position, skipping across the fallen Decepticon
and Autobot shells that littered the Ark corridors. Certain of these shells he avoided at all
costs when travelling-- Megatron's especially. Primus knows what disgustingly boorish
ideas he could pick up by stepping his toe in a river that stagnant. Soundwave's was not
so bad, probably because of the talent they shared in looking into others' minds.
Starscream made him shudder, not because of his backstabbing and duplicitous past with
Megatron, but just for some of the buffoonish thoughts crammed into his little pin-head.
Enough thinking about his near-dead brethren: Rhinox's mental absence concerned
him. Damn... no connection to the Matrix, Parseltongue cursed, no communication with
Rhinox if he's gone off again. Last time, the day after Primal's "departure" into the
Matrix, Rhinox uploaded his entire consciousness into the Allspark in the form of a false
"spark." Brilliant tactic, Parseltongue thought, and reminded himself to befriend the
Rhino when the time was right. For now...
Rhinox lay unconscious, still functional, but with a similar glow to the others he'd
seen altered. He saw Terrorsaur fall into the lava as he occupied the mind of Tarantulas,
sparkling somewhat, bathed in a blue aura. But Rhinox's glow differed. Chromatically, it
lacked the blue markings of the first phase of "Transmetals," opting for a red tinge. A red
tinge, he pondered, who else had glowed red...
Dinobot... Cheetor... Oh, Primus, another of the second wave! Poor Rhinox. His
mind cast about in the torpid sea of the Allspark, body plummetting into the depths of
what the Rampage Syndrome will claim the moment the mind returns. Parseltongue took
pity on Rhinox, but also noticed something. No mind to occupy the body, no spark to
guide it, meant...
Ambulation. Tangibility. Reality, at long last.
No. Not a chance, he ordered himself, pushing his mind onto Megatron's in
punishment. No way you're hurting Rhinox like that... and putting yourself at the risk of
dying the moment Rhinox's mind returns to his body-- out of the question!
Parseltongue agreed with himself, but still gazed forlornly at the empty shell, just
lying there, ripe for pickings. Almost asking him to bring life to the dead form.
The "Ghost" Seeker's thoughts were sundered when Rhinox's body stirred, and a
familiar warmness flowed into the room. Shimmering and brilliant, an undulating mote of
energy filtered itself through the purplish-green raawhide on Rhinox's chest.
==Welcome back to the land of the living, Rhinox,== Parseltongue muttered
inaudibly into the Maximal tinkerer's aural receptor.
"Good to be back," the hunchbacked Transformer responded. "Parseltongue, ne?"
==Got it in one, Roadbuster.==
Rhinox arched a brow and snorted. "Funny you should mention that,
Copperhead."
==Ah, so you know! How'd you figure it out?==
"Color schemes, for one... his chestplate matches that locked green Seeker's..."
==No wonder you were the Axalon's science officer. You're sharp.==
"Pointy horn, pointy mind," Rhinox chuckled, pinging a finger off the horn
mounted on his shoulder.
==How was the Matrix this time?==
Rhinox's optics narrowed a bit. "I don't think you want to know..." he said, but
continued the story anyway. Parseltongue didn't have to use his telepathy to tell Rhinox
he wanted to know. "Even as a spark, floating around in what amounts to Cybertronian
paradise, some individuals can be extremely uppity. An old Decepticon General-- Liege
Obsidian, I think-- had led a swarm of dead Decepticon and Predacon spirits to the core,
for no good reason. It wasn't as if he could do any damage to a noncorporeal plane of
existance, so he was summarily ignored and flushed out into a new body. I found it kind
of funny."
==Obsidian was a jerk. Always trying to grab for power... I think Megatron got
fed up and blasted him a few weeks before the Ark launch.==
"I wouldn't be surprised." By now, Rhinox had sunk to a sitting position on the
floor, legs crossed, listening intently to Parseltongue's words, trying, in his mind's eye, to
locate the source of the thoughts. For naught, of course, since Parseltongue's ethereal
consciousness had no form or focus; all the words, all the images, originated at the lain flat
jet body in another chamber. "Tin grin over there seemed to be the kind that would shoot
first and give orders second--"
==Don't get 'The Overlord' wrong,== Parsel snickered. ==He had grand ideas,
but his reach usually exceeded his grasp. This time, though, it looked to be a success.
Don't tell me if he failed, it'd probably rip the time-space continuum to shreds.==
Rhinox laughed out loud, his chuckle echoing around in the vacant control room.
"Got any more hilarious war stories?"
==Yes, but we're saving them. You have company arriving.==
"I do?"
==Yep... Mayhem and Copperhead, arriving at the front gate as we speak... I
asked them here. Don't hurt Copper, he's turned over a new leaf.==
"I'll believe that when I see it," the rhino grunted, straining to his feet under the
bulk of the new form. "Slot, could... urg... the Vok... grrnt... have built the... by Primus...
new bodies... gah!... any heavier?" Finally on his feet, Rhinox shakily made a few steps
forward, his massive hooflike toes slamming against the floor with every step.
The silver blast doors screeched open, admitting the Autobot sized dragon and his
human-proportioned counterpart. Rhinox, not particularly pleased to see Copperhead, but
humoring his newfound friend in Parseltongue, welcomed them both in.
"Tyrannix, that you?"
Mayhem nodded. "He's called Mayhem now," Copperhead interjected.
"Call me what you will, I shall answer."
"I see you're not the bot you used to be, big guy," Rhinox quipped.
"Neither are you."
He'd gone from cheerful, flying Copperhead all this way mere minutes beforehand,
to this morose figure that stood before Rhinox now... and Rhinox knew it. He had that
bipolar aura about him.
Rampage's Curse again, no doubt.
"Steeljaw, what of him?"
Tyrannix shook his head. "Alive, but missing, to be certain. No worries. He can
and will fight his way back if he needs to."
"And the second Predacon?"
"If she's dead," Copperhead sneered, "it'll be an improvement."
"No, she's not dead either," Rhinox retorted. "I was the only one coming in from
this temporal nexus." The second part Rhinox said to himself.
"Temporal nexus?" Copperhead asked, intrigued.
"Your sparks are all tagged with an atemporal code, from the moment of their
extrusion from Vector Sigma to the instant they're shot back into the Matrix-- instantly
recognizable as from the era you were born or re-born. The great Allspark accounts for
timetravel in its construction." Amazed still at a construct he'd been studying for quite
some time, Rhinox chuckled. "Wondrous device, the Matrix."
Copperhead's eyes flashed violet a moment. "Heads up-- Birddog and legs are
back."
Rhinox sprung into action, pressing the blastdoor actuator again. "Welcome ba--"
He looked at Blackarachnia's prone form lying in Silverbolt's arms. "Not her, too. Tyr,
amp up the CR chamber. Copperhead, stay put. Silverbolt, follow me."
The pandemonium that ensued shuffled Copperhead to a far wall, near the entrance
to the Ark itself. "Just... stay put," he told himself, sliding down to a seat.
==Hi there.==
Copperhead blinked.
==You alive in there, snakey?==
Another blink, as if to drive the presence he knew he was not imagining, away.
==Oh come now... You can hear me.==
==I don't WANT to hear you. It freaked me out when you first spoke to me, and
I fear for temporal stability if we keep this up.== The imprint of Copperhead's face within
Parseltongue's mind bore a stern, disgusted expression. ==Leave me alone and go back
into stasis lock.==
A pause.
==Can't. Already am-- this is pretty much my dreaming. Too bad it affects others
as well.==
==Then stop dreaming!==
==I told you, I can't. You'll have to deal with this until either I come out of stasis
lock or you leave the planet. I'd prefer the former... you make good company.==
Another pause as Copperhead considered, expertly shielding his mind from
Parseltongue's "dreamwalk".
==Aren't you a bit disgusted,== Copper started after a moment, ==that I've fallen
in love with a Maximal?==
A brief pause later, and the answer was a gleeful ==No!==
==Why not?== the organic asked.
==Simply put, it's none of my business... in the two or so million solar cycles
between our presents, I know I'll have changed dramatically. Who doesn't after a couple
of eons, y'know? So he's an Autobot descended Convoy? I don't particularly care... I
care that I'm happy now in whatever Primus hath wrought. What I'm not happy about is
the fact you don't remember this conversation when you were in my place...==
Copperhead smirked. ==Who's to say I don't?== he retorted.
Parseltongue did not argue. ==Damn logic== was the only response for a few
cycles.
"She's going to be fine," Rhinox reported, patting Silverbolt on the arm. Copper
stood again, dusting himself off, and joined the throng. "Nothing to worry about, really--
the healing factor should maintain her right now, and once she gets out, she'll be as good
as new. Hopefully, her mind won't be as adversely affected."
"Yes... hopefully. May I?" the birddog asked, moving toward the lone CR tank.
"Be my guest," Rhinox replied, stepping to the side.
The hissing of the released coolant and the rising door admitted a low slung
metallic spider into the chamber.
"What's everyone looking at?" she demanded, in a tone Silverbolt recognized as
playful.
"You... are more beautiful than before!" Bolt sighed, kneeling at her side. "It is
good to see you well."
"Well?" the mandibles mounted on her small head clicked. "I feel like the Nemesis
just plowed headlong into me, and you say I'm well?!" The octet of optics narrowed in
unison, then widened again. "I feel great!" After a moment, Blackarachnia belted out a
shrill soprano "Maximize!" and leapt to a transformed state. "I look even better... I must
say it's an improvement." She flung her arms around Silverbolt and kissed him with her
newly rebuilt lips. The kiss lasted a good fifteen cycles, as the assemblage gawked at the
two. "Stop yer starin'," she chuckled, releasing Silverbolt and looking around.
Rhinox stood next to Tyrannix, the two TM2s stark opposites in color and size.
She sized them both up approvingly. Rhinox's beast form head rested as his shoulder
armor, twin horns driven out like nails at odd angles. Tyrannix had what appeared to be a
bazooka slung over his right shoulder, with a dragon-head shaped barrel. Her eyes then
fell on Copperhead, and she sneered.
"I never liked you," she chuckled. "But we'll work something out. We're all of us
Maximals now, no?"
Copperhead was flabberghasted. Everything was screwed up. Blackarachnia,
working things out? Rhinox, old friends with a Decepticon ghost? What next, Megatron
trying to steal Megatron's spark?
***
A driving beat, complex melody, and heavy-- HEAVY-- bass, set the mood for the
afternoon. It was like a class reunion in the Maximal base, as Pantera had reached the
shelter a few megacycles behind Cheetor, Nari, and Blancwulf.
Then, Tigatron, ridden by the lithe avian femme Airazor, appeared out the blue to
commiserate on the whole situation of the Beast Wars-- the ups and downs, highs and
lows-- with Optimus and to impart some of the tactical data he'd gathered from the field.
Blancwulf had broken out the boombox and cranked up the tunes, as was her
wont, to an obscure Terran group (Is there any other kind? the others often wondered) by
the name of Daft Punk.
"Wasn't their best CD, but the only one I could get my hands on," she grinned,
pulling Cheetor close for what she termed 'freakin'.' The cat's eyes widened in
Blancwulf's fallen inhibitions, as she ground her skidplate against his leg, but he made very
little protest.
The rest were amused to the point of riotous laughter by Blancwulf's Terranisms,
but not everyone was cheerful.
Optimus Primal, for example, was disturbed.
"I have always said that all are welcome here," he said to Copperhead, Mayhem,
and Rhinox in the privacy of his quarters, "and I have made that fact clear by allowing
Blackarachnia into the fold. But her situation is different from yours."
Copperhead made a motion to speak, but Primal cut him off. "Hear me out on
this; I'd like to finish what I say before you object."
The snake nodded and fell silent again, though he knew Primal's words almost as
intimately as Primal knew them.
"You assaulted two of the most valued members of my crew; one of them is still
unaccounted for. You made an attempt to obliterate every Maximal on this planet with
extreme and unstoppable force--"
"--and in Copperhead's defense, they failed!" Rhinox interjected. "The bomb
wasn't even--"
"Quiet, Rhinox!" Optimus barked, in a tone that stopped the gruff Maximal
instantly. "Regardless of the device's failure, the intention was there. Pending
investigation regardng the true nature of the machine, I request that you stay within the
confines of Maximal Base; the moment you are exhonerated-- if that happens-- you shall
be inducted fully into the Maximals."
Copperhead nodded. No argument, just a short, low nod.
"What about me, Commander Primal?"
"You've been through a lot, Tyrannix; you require rest and recuperation. You are
relieved of active duty for the time being, until you're feeling one hundred percent. Relax
for a while; the war isn't going anywhere."
Tyrannix nodded, the gold and silver Prime-styled helmet hiding the fearfulness
and uncertainty he'd been feeling lo, these last few days. "I understand," was the grave
reply.
"You're of little use to us when you're not yourself, Tyrannix; you'd be of even
less use if your apparent malaise led you to an ignoble end." Primal's gaze turned to
Rhinox. "You two are dismissed; but don't stray far, I have assignments for both of you."
Taking Copperhead's lead, Mayhem slunk out of Primal's chambers. Alone, Primal
looked at Rhinox and chortled.
"You look... different."
Rhinox grinned. "I feel like I could take on the Tripredacus Council and all their
agents single handed."
"Glad to hear it... I understand you've been talking to ghosts?"
He chuckled a bit, and replied. "Just Parseltongue... we've been having dialogue
for a few weeks now. I used his consciousness as an anchor when I wanted to come back
from the Matrix."
"I see... put a stop to it, hmm?"
"You're kidding?" Rhinox's smile fell flat.
"Why would I joke about this? He's a Decepticon, in stasis, aboard the Ark. He
could get ahold of tactical secrets and use them against us, before we're even born. It's
bad enough what Cheetor and Dinobot did to the humans; the timeline must be
preserved." By now, Rhinox noted, he was pounding a fist into his open palm for effect.
That unerringly meant Primal's word was law.
Rhinox hated-- HATED-- when superior logic prevailed over lesser logic.
"Whatever you say, Optimus..." he grumbled, trundling out of the makeshift
office/quarters.
The mood in the grand room dropped by a factor of what had to be a thousand
when the three Transmetals walked in, shoulders low, demeanors all soured.
"Who put scraplets in your energon goodies?" Blancwulf asked, suffering an elbow
jab to the side from her sister a moment later.
Rhinox was silent. Mayhem was silent. Copperhead was passively screaming
profanities into everyone's minds, except Primal's. The lighthearted response from Inuarai
made Copper smile. "You dork, Primal always makes dunderheaded decisions, right
Mamacat?"
Pantera was not pleased. "This is no laughing matter... Predacons of his kind have
no place among the Maximals."
"Mamacat, remember what you sai--"
"Blancwulf, close your snout before something you really regret exits it." Tera's
lips had narrowed to a single black slit on her chin that appeared to be cut there with an
energon blade. Her hue, normally a silvery blue, had gone totally pale, casting an
impression of off-white to all at one angle, angry, boiling electric blue to another. With a
whirr of the servos in her leg, Pantera stalked out of the grand room and into the corridor.
"Musta hit a nerve," Copperhead quipped snidely. "Musta hit it really deep..."
"That wasn't funny," Nari responded, mimicking her caretaker's rage (though
nowhere near as intense), and ran to follow Pantera.