Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Transformers, or any of the Transformers series.

Note: When I began this I really wanted to make it completely show accurate. but with Armada I'm just not sure I will be able to do that. still I will try. I hope to at least retain the spirit of the Armada cartoon.

Pt 3: Return to Earth.

"So, that's Earth, where you fought the Beast Wars, and where the Great War began. Doesn't look so great," Nightscream said.

"That's right," answered Cheetor. "Brings back lots of memories. Tigatron, Airrazor, Dinobot and Depthcharge all died here. Along with so many memories of Rinox and Optimus."

"I never thought I'd be coming back to this planet again," Rattrap said as their ship approached Earth. "I about had enough of it during the Beast Wars."

"Funny, to me its like I'm going home again." Silverbolt said, "What about you, Beloved?"

"I just think that with our new Techno organic forms, we are going to have a hard time disguising ourselves from the inhabitance," Black Arachnia replied.

"We will have to try and limit our contact with the planet's population," Cheetor said. "And remember, based on the information Rattrap got from Duster, any Transformers we are likely to meet will have a different evolution and history from us. We may have a hard time finding common ground, so we should avoid interacting with them until we have a better grasp of the situation."

They landed their ship without interference, for old time sake, they hid their ship as close to where they had originally crash landed at the start of the Beast Wars as they could, although not much of the landscape was recognizable.

Their landing did not go unobserved. In their moon base, Megatron and his Decepticons watched their sensors as closely as ever, looking for any sign of newly awakened Minicons.

"Megatron!" Demolisher called out. "A new Minicon has just entered the system!"

"A new Minicon? Where is it?"

"Well, it landed in same general area as the Autobot's base."

"Landed? What are you talking about, Demolisher?"

"Is Demolisher seeing things again, Megatron?" Starscream asked, it was what he thought passed as a joke.

"Shut up, Starscream! Demolisher?"

"Well, it entered the system from a warp point way out here, and then landed there," Demolisher answered pointing to the monitor. "Should we go out and get it, Megatron? I could use another Minicon!" Cyclonus asked.

Megatron thought for a few moments. The larger part of him wanted to go out at once and take this new Minicon at once and crush whoever had brought it utterly, but another part of him was curious. Where had this Minicon come from, and who had brought it and why? The answers to those questions could completely change the very nature of the war. Perhaps it would be better to simply wait and see in this case. "No. Leave it alone, but continue tracking the new Minicon's signal. I want to know what this new Minicon and its friends are up to. If they should join with the Autobots, we may have to send for more reinforcements."

****

The red truck, flanked by a yellow sports car and a white SUV slowed to a stop not too far from a river. The doors to the vehicles opened and five kids, along with three minicons climbed out, allowing the truck and two vehicles to transform into their robot modes.

"Woah. are you sure this is the place?" the darker skinned kid asked.

"This is where the Minicon was detected, Carlos." The robot that had been the white SUV said.

"We will just have to look around, and hope the Decepticons didn't beat us to it," said the robot that had been the red truck.

"I bet I find it first!" shouted the robot that had been the yellow sports car, as it ran in a random direction.

"No way, Hot Shot, I'm gonna be the one to find this one!" One of the kids shouted back.

"It will probably be around the river in this valley," the female kid said, "That is where the ground is most likely to be disturbed to activate the Minicon. Activated because of water erosion, or maybe a rockslide."

The boys, followed by the yellow transformer seemed to take that as a challenge to get as wet as they could as they rushed into the knee deep water, while the three Minicons looked at each other and beeped quizzically.

Eventually the search moved away, neither the kids nor the Transformers making any move to double back in their search.

"Well, the camouflage works," Silverbolt said from his perch in a tree. He jumped down to the ground, transforming back to his robot mode in mid air.

"Yeah, and Dustor finally shut down his activation signal," Rattrap said, to which Dustor beeped apologetically. Rattrap transformed into his robot mode, as a metal cheetah walked out from under the wing of their barely noticeable ship.

"I wonder why the Decepticons haven't paid us a visit?" Black Arachnia asked, her spider form descending to the ground on an energy web.

"That's not important now," Cheetor said. "Silverbolt, keep a discrete eye on the Autobots. If possible we need to find out where the Autobot's base is. Rattrap, I need you to head for the nearest city and tap into the humans computer network. Find out what has happened on this world in the last few thousand years. And everyone, stay out of sight." They all nodded, Silverbolt transformed back to his bird mode as he took to the sky and Rattrap began his usual complaining as he rolled on his wheel towards town.

"Hey, Cheetor?" Nightscream called out from the ship. "I think I know how we can find out where the Autobots base is."

Cheetor raised an eyebrow, before transforming to his robot mode and going back into the ship. "Ok. How?"

"Just before we detected the Autobots approaching our landing zone, the ship's computers picked up signs of a Space Bridge in operation. If that was how the Autobots got here, then all we have to do is wait until they return and simply track the Path of the bridge."

"Good. Maybe this will be an easy operation after all."

****

"Sewers. ya gotta love them." Rattrap said as he rolled through the wet smelly tunnels that ran under the city.

Despite his reputation, he didn't much care for the smell, or the razzing he would take from his friends when he went back smelling like the sewer. But the sewers did give him the opportunity to roam the city unnoticed. Well, roam under the city anyway.

And the best part, was that with a little rat know how, he could plug into the cities computer networks without risking detection. All he had to do was find a sewer drain that went under a large important looking building, (He assumed it was important looking anyway) find some cables that were running through the sewer line instead, bite through the outer layer, and make the necessary connections. Still it must really be a cheap looking building, otherwise he was sure the computer cabling would be in a separate tunnel or pipe from the sewage.

Soon all the data of the city, and most of the data of the world was his for the asking. He did a search for Autobots and then Decepticons, then Transformers, and finally he started downloading huge tracks of recent history.

He was amused to find Waspinator parts on display at a museum, identified as unknown fossil remains. While most of the information was downloading, he began to study the information he had pulled on Autobots. The funny thing was that it what was not ancient history seemed to be coming from a personal computer and PDA of a young girl named Alexis.

All in all, he had found a wealth of information that would take him and the other Maximals hours to go through.

****

"Finally," Nightscream exclaimed, "The Autobots have warped back to their base. I have the coordinates."

"We assume its their base," Black Arachnia reminded them.

"Ill go check it out," Nightscream said, before Cheetor could say anything. "It will be easier to remain undetected if just one of us went, and since I found the location."

"Ok, Nightscream," Cheetor said. "Go, just be sure not to get caught or seen."

Nightscream smiled before heading out.

****

Nightscream flew unobserved into a cave opening. It was just a random guess on his part. The space bridge's other point was somewhere in the mountain. He figured he would just keep trying caves until he found something. He hoped it would be the Ark that Cheetor and the others had talked about.

He didn't know if it was the Ark or not, but he soon ran across some sort of crashed ship. He bet Rattrap would have a field day if he could be let loose on all those computers.

From his perch on the roof of the cavern, he watched unnoticed as various Autobots and Human kids came and went about their business. It seemed that there were only five human kids in the base and maybe six Autobots, and a variety of Minicons who more or less seemed free to do as they liked. Unless there were more that simply were not in the base right then, but there wasn't much more he could do.

He transformed, and jumped to the ground once he was sure no one was around, and began making his way back out on foot. But he soon discovered that not only was his way out blocked, but he had been discovered.

For a moment he panicked, not sure which way to jump, or if he should even try to fly. The large transformer blocking his path seemed to realize this because it raised its hands up and said, "Hey, the name is Sideways. Don't worry, I'm on your side."