"... fuel up on energon. Period!"
Dinobot turned in his sleep, tossing fitfully. He hadn't been able to rest the past week or so. His dream program was riddled with nightmares viruses. It had been one big waking nightmare for him as well. Nightscream was of little use, his entire strategy was based on running and hiding. Which, unfortunately, made sense given their current predicament. The fruit was keeping them alive, feeding their beast modes, but neither was able to transform. No command code worked.
Stranger still was the mystery of their beastforms. Nightscream had acquired one on a planet with seemingly no life (despite the tree they both fed on now) and Dinobot had lost his transmetal body, replaced by the flesh and scales of the original Dinobot.
But that was no nightmare program talking now. Were his ears malfunctioning?
Dinobot pushed himself up onto two legs, craning his neck around the corner of his hidey-hole. He'd secured it a few days back, a precaution against the drones that Nightscream said were hunting for them. It would provide temporary shelter until he'd be able to fall back to something more secure.
His reptilian eyes opened wide in shock.
It -was- them.
Optimus Primal. Cheetor. Black Arachnia. Even Rattrap was there. They were all alive but...
... but... something was different. Wrong. Their bodies had changed. Another upgrade? They looked partially organic. A blend of living flesh and electronics. How was such possible?
Another thought occurred. Was it really them?
Dinobot slunk out of view, grateful his dark scales allowed him a measure of camouflage in deep shadows. Only his eyes, a faint yellow glow, were visible, and the only if one was looking for them.
He watched. He observed.
His friends, for it did seem to be them, were changed. Their voices were the same, their beast modes were the same (if altered by the organics) but they seemed subdued and tense. Rattrap, in particular, seemed flighty. Something was terribly wrong.
And then they started eating.
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Dinobot had hidden well back, content to watch and observe for the moment, not wholly convinced everything was well but unsure of how to react to the situation. He'd watched as the Maximals had eaten the fruit. But unlike him and Nightscream, they'd started to act like beasts, squabbling and fighting and content to do nothing but sit and devour more of the precious fruit.
He'd watched as Cheetor and Nightscream spoke in the tunnels. Dinobot was mildly impressed... the younger Cheetor, the ever-eager cub he'd met when he'd first joined the Maximals, would've scarfed down the fruit without thinking. Or just to be the first to do it. It seems he'd learned. Grown up a little.
He also gleaned some important information from their conversation, eavesdropping from the shadows.
Among that information, a name to give his enemy.
Megatron.
And then the Vehicons had come. They'd attacked en masse, hoping to swarm in and overwhelm the Maximals, who were putting up virtually no fight, the fools. Nightscream and Cheetor had tried to drag the fruit away from them, but they were fighting each other now. Optimus Primal and Black Arachnia tackled Nightscream, leaving only the vermin free to munch on his fruit, seemingly oblivious to the impending jet drone taking up position nearby and bringing it's lasers to bear.
Dinobot decided now was as good a time as any to enter the fray.
Now more than ever Dinobot was glad that he'd learned to accept the beast within and utilize it as well as robotic form, as a real weapon. Tigertron's lesson had indeed sunk home that fateful night. Now, he used it to the full, and leapt up with his powerful leg muscles, landing atop of the hovering drone's back and tearing into it with the sharp, elongated claws of his feet, snapping out with his jaws and hanging onto the neck to give him hold while he worked on it's hard metal casing.
"Dinobot!"
Dinobot flung himself clear just as the drone smashed into the ground, landing safely. Cheetor had been the one to give the call, apparently stunned to see him alive. He was in robotic form, a strange blend of humanoid shape and feline features, and was deflecting attacking drone fire with a pair of short curved blades.
"Something's wrong with the fruit! Get them away from the fruit!"
Dinobot nodded, twisting his body and lashing out a long tail to swat the fruit from Rattraps paws. His rodent foil hissed up at him, but Dinobot growled right back, and the poor rat shrunk back, instincts of survival overriding all others.
Cheetor then struck, running full tilt at a most respectable speed, launching himself forward and slicing through the base of the fruit tree, cutting its trunk and bringing it crashing down. It was dead within minutes, and seemed almost to rot away into nothing even faster.
Instantly, the three Maximals infected by the fruit lost the red glow of their eyes and reverted to their true selves, their beast programming receding to the back of their minds. Seeing battle all around them, Optimus Primal and Black Arachnia transformed, giving all the jet drones all they had to give. Rattrap scurried for cover. But the tree's death had an even more catastrophic affect on those without techno-organic bodies.
Nightscream screamed in outrage, horrified his salvation was destroyed, though this paled in comparison to the blast of a jet drone that had snuck up behind him. He went crashing down onto the floor, his body damaged and broken.
Dinobot gave a similar howl as his entire body went haywire, all of the nutrients gained from the fruit seemingly sucked straight from his body with the trees death. He collapsed forward in a heap, twitching and writhing in pain, his body trying to enter stasis but being unable to.
He was dying.
Going off-line... permanently.
Dimly, he could make out voices over the chaos of explosions, over the sounds of fried electronics iniside of his head.
"... not strong enough...!" said the voice. Dimly, he recognized it as Cheetor's.
"I won't lose another friend," came the reply.
There was a white light, so bright it overwhelmed all his senses.
And then... nothing.
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White light. As far as the eye could see. A plain of nothingness. Then it was gone, replaced by darkness, so black and deep it was like a well of nothingness. But this darkness was light up by a myriad of lights... stars. No. As he moved closer, he saw they were not stars... they were sparks. Thousands of them... billions. They swirled together like a nebula, and even the universe-weary Predacon warrior was entranced by their beauty.
He knew what it was. Some long-burried memory file all transformers had.
"The Matrix..."
He drifted, floated, into the swirl of lit sparks, passing through them as insubstantially as a ghost. The lights swarmed around before his optics, dancing up and down and in all directions. This was the light he'd seen. The Matrix, the All-Spark. The source of all transformers sparks. From this they were all born. To this they would all one day return to.
But to see it with his own eyes...
... did this mean he was dead?
No...
The voice assailed him from all directions, all inflections. It was everywhere and no where.
Your time has not yet come... prepare to be... reformatted...
Reformatted?
And then Dinobot fell, plunging into the white of the matrix, so bright it overwhelmed him, and again all sensation was lost.
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Systems came back on-line all at once, and Dinobot arose on new feet, taking a hesitant step forward. Then another. Stronger, more confident. He adjusted quickly to the flow of his new body. He felt incredibly strong, stronger than a transmetal form. He could feel energon flow through his body, a body that was equally reptilian flesh and steamlined cybernetics. He was neither machine nor beast, but a blend of both.
His new form was sleeker, thin, and a great deal taller than the previous velociraptor form. His skin was a gleaming black/silver. Black, reptilian scales and silver circuitry, seamlessly blended into a single form. A pair of emerald-green optics lay on either side of his face, and his reptilian snout was filled with silvery, razor-sharp fangs As he moved, his curved, clawed toe made a wicked 'clang' as it tapped the floor.
Dinobot's head swept left and right, but saw the battle was long over.
Nightscream and the other Maximals had mopped up, and the head jet drone was in retreat, cursing out obscenities in Cybertronian. Ever the practical soldier, Dinobot decided then to focus on more immediate concerns.
Like Optimus.
Whatever the great ape had done, it had weakened him greatly. He seemed barely able to draw breath. Whatever he'd done to save Nightscream and himself, it had nearly cost Optimus Primal his life in the process. Noble. Foolish, but noble.
"You... you must lead them, Cheetor..." said the great ape, a hand on the cheetah's shoulder. "Until I can recover."
"I... I'm not ready, big bot..."
"Yes, you are... you were... you were right to trust your instincts, Cheetor..." he whispered. And then, his optics rolled back into his head, and Optimus Primal went into stasis. Only the shallow, slow intake of breath indicated he was still operational.
Cheetor hesitated... but only for a moment. "Get a stretcher. We're moving out."
Dinobot's jaw opened, but almost half a moment later he snapped it shut again. There was no arguing with Cheetor at the moment. Not this new Cheetor. He knew the situation better than Dinobot anyway. For now, he would have to continue in a lesser role. So he worked with Black Arachnia to rig up a harness with her webs. And then he took point, being their biggest and strongest beast enabled him to carry Optimus with little trouble. Cheetor and Black Arachnia took up positions on either side to ensure their fallen leader did not slip off the stretcher. Rattrap and Nightscream brought up the rear.
"There seems to be a great deal to fill me in on," he said as he carried Optimus along.
Reunited once more, the Maximals made their way into the labyrinth off Cybertron's tunnels.
Dinobot walked amongst them once more. A reborn warrior.
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Author's Notes:
Next time: When Rattrap betrays his comrades, Dinobot seeks out his old friend to redeem them both.
Fanboyimus Prime: Some elements of Beast Machines I enjoyed, so don't expect things to be totally different.
MajesticBurn: His deaths... both of them... were poetic... but I prefer Dinobot alive too. He's a strong influence on the Beast Wars universe.
Josh84: Chapters are coming slower these days than usual but they'll keep coming, I promise.
Benny2000: Quite right you are.
Master Solo: You're thinking of the techno-organic forms, no doubt, but yes, Dinobot gets one too, as you can see.
Neko-gal28: Thank you.
YearoftheCat: Oh don't get me wrong, it had it's moments, otherwise I'd do an "extended" Beast Wars or something instead.
Brian: I don't know the toys, so sorry. I was hoping to slip in Inferno, one of my fav villains, but can't find a suitable way.