Optimus was just entering the Axalon when he saw Rhinox working on the computer console. " Why did you call me here?" asked Optimus.

"Take a look at this," said Rhinox "The scanners have detected a meteor shower".

"Is it anything that we should worry about?" asked Optimus a little worried.

"Not really, the meteors are pretty small and will burn up in the atmosphere. It's just that they might knock a few stasis pods out of orbit" explained Rhinox.

"So we should be ready for when this happens," said Optimus "when will this meteor shower happen?"

"In about three hours" replied Rhinox.

"I'll send the others to patrol so they'll be ready" said Optimus.

"Do ya think the Preds found out about this too?" asked Cheetor who was so quiet playing his video game that the other two hardly noticed him.

"I really hope not Cheetor," said Optimus "but they most likely did".

Meanwhile, Tarantulas is in his lair. "Well, well, well. What do we have here?" he said to himself "Looks like a meteor shower, which may even knock a few stasis pods out of the sky. Hehehehe." With that, Tarantulas went to go work on a new invention of his.

About three hours later…

The meteor shower was nearing the stasis pods. Most of the meteors were not very big, about the size of basketballs. The first few passed harmlessly by the pods, but a small few were hit and started to crash down to the planet.

At the Predacon base.

Megatron was enjoying a snooze when Inferno interrupts. "My Queen!" he yells.

Megatron wakes up very annoyed. "What do you want!" growled the angry leader.

"I have detected stasis pods my Queen," said Inferno.

"You mean more than one," said Megatron suddenly forgetting his bad mood. "Where are they headed?"

"Yes, there are two of them. One headed towards Maximal territory and the other headed towards our own" said Inferno.

"Well, this is very good news, yesss…" Megatron turned on his comlink, "Megatron to all Predacons. Report to me immediately. No excuses!"

A few moments later, all the Predacons arrived. All except one. "Where's Tarantulas?" asked Megatron.

The other Predacons just shrugged. "Cursed spider!" he yelled, "Probably up to his old tricks again."

"Can I ask why you called us all here?" asked Blackarachnia who obviously had better things to do.

"Two stasis pods are about to land, one in our territory and the other in the Maximals'. And since there's only two of us, Blackarachnia and myself, who know how to reprogram the pods. Blackarachnia and Inferno, you will go to the pod in our territory while the rest of us will go to the one in the Maximal territory" said Megatron. Inferno knew right away that Megatron wanted him to go with Blackarachnia because he could not trust her and that he wanted Inferno to keep a close eye on her.

The Predacons left the base to go after the pods.

The pods had just entered the atmosphere and where about to crash. Silverbolt, Rattrap, and Dinobot raced to reach the pod in time. They just talked to Optimus on the comlink, he said for them to go to the pod that was heading into their territory, and that he and Cheetor will meet them there. Rattrap had asked what about the other pod. Optimus said it was too risky to go after a pod in Predacon territory.

Silverbolt was ahead of the others since he could fly. Rattrap tried his best in vehicle mode to keep up with him. Dinobot was stuck sitting on top of Rattrap, which he hated.

The pod landed in a jungle area. Silverbolt arrived on the scene not much later with Dinobot and Rattrap behind him. "Yo Bird-Dog! Is it damaged?" said Rattrap as he came up to Silverbolt who was standing next to the pod.

"It does not appear to be damaged," said Silverbolt "what do you think we should do?"

"Well if it's not damaged, then it should activate itself. We just have to look out for Preds in case they decide to drop in" said Rattrap.

"Which they will do, no doubt," said Dinobot.

"Yes, I think we will drop in, and take the pod as well!" said Megatron as he landed and transformed out of flight mode into robot mode. All the other Predacons appeared too, minus Inferno, Tarantulas, and Blackarachnia.

"Oh uh, this ain't good" said Rattrap. The Predacons started to fire on the Maximals who ran to take shelter behind a huge boulder. The Maximals tried to fire back from behind the boulder. "I sure hope that the Boss-Monkey and the Pussy-Cat get here soon"

"Don't worry Rattrap, I'm sure they'll get here soon" assured Silverbolt.

"I really do hope you're right," said Rattrap.

"Will you two shut-up already?!" yelled Dinobot as he shot at the Predacons with his eye-beams "You should be concentrating on fighting the Predacons or else we'll lose this pod too!"

"You don't order me around, Chumper-Face!" said Rattrap. Dinobot growled back at him.

"Now is not the time to start fighting!" said Silverbolt as he shot one of his missiles at the Predacons. The missile managed to hit Waspinator who crashed to the ground.

"Why doezz univerze hate Wazzpinator?" he said before he went into stasis-lock.

"Keep the Maximals busy while I reprogram the pod!" ordered Megatron.

"Sure thing boss!" said Quickstrike in his usual cowboy voice.

Megatron walked over to the pod. "Scanners activated" said a voice that was the pod's computer. It started to scan for life forms.

"I'll have to work fast," said Megatron to himself. He started to type something on the pod's computer but before he could really do anything, Optimus and Cheetor had finally arrived and where now shooting at Megatron. "Slag! Not now!" Megatron returned blows to Optimus and Cheetor. Cheetor got hit and was now crashing to the ground below. Somehow, he managed to land safely.

"Cats always land on their feet," said Cheetor to himself.

Meanwhile Megatron and Optimus where fighting one-on-one. But soon Megatron decided that it was best if they retreat. "Predacons retreat! We still have the other pod!" With that Megatron transformed into flight mode and took off taking the unconscious Waspinator with him. Rampage and Quickstrike followed him on foot.

"Should we go after them Big-Bot?" asked an anxious Cheetor.

"No" replied Optimus.

"But the other pod!" protested Cheetor.

"Most of us are injured, it would be suicide to go after it now" said Optimus.

Just then the pod's computer beeped "Scanning and replication complete, protoform may emerge". The pod hatch opened and a black panther emerged.

"Oh great! Another feline!" complained Rattrap.

"Greetings, I'm Optimus Primal," Optimus introduced himself "and you?"

"I'm Chatalia," said the black panther in a female voice. Cheetor, realizing that it was a female, started to make a stupid grin.

"Hey kid, you don't have to start drooling now!" said Rattrap.

Optimus rolled his eyes (or at least the closest thing he had to eyes). "Welcome to the Maximals Chatalia. Don't mind Rattrap, he just has a major attitude problem" he said.

"So I see," said Chatalia.

"I guess we should head to base now," said Optimus. And with that the Maximals headed towards the Axalon.

"Don't think of trying any tricks She-Spider! The royalty will not tolerate it!" said Inferno.

"Don't bother me! Can't you see that this is hard work? I don't need you nagging at me every two minuets!" said Blackarachnia angrily. She was reprogramming the pod into a Predacon, but it was going really slow because that idiot Inferno kept bothering her. She knew Megatron did not trust her, but come on! Give her a break! Even Tarantulas didn't deserve this. Speaking of Tarantulas… She wondered what he was up to now. Probably working on one of his plans to overthrow Megatron, she thought to herself. "There! Finished" she said.

The pod's computer went on. "New programming accepted. Scanners activated" the scanners scanned for life forms. "Scanning and replication complete. Protoform may emerge" said the computer.

"It'll probably be another insect," said Blackarachnia.

"No matter, it will serve the colony, that is what matters," said Inferno.

What emerged from the pod, was an insect. A dragonfly to be exact.

"State your name!" ordered Inferno.

"Okay," said the dragonfly as it stopped to think for a minuet for a name " I guess I'll call myself Jetstorm! Fast as a jet, and I make a storm everywhere I go!"(yeah I know, it sounds corny!)

"And you are a Predacon?" asked Inferno.

"Predacon I be" replied Jetstorm.

"Good, so you are loyal to the royalty," said Inferno.

"Huh?" Jetstorm looked puzzled.

"Don't mind him, his identity circuits were damaged when his pod crashed here. So he thinks he's a real ant" explained Blackarachnia.

"Hello!" said Jetstorm as he just noticed a beautiful female there "Why don't you hook up with me baby?" he said trying to sound impressive. Unfortunately, it did not work.

"Get a life you loser!" said Blackarachnia.

Just as Jetstorm was about to reply, Megatron arrived.

"Ah, I see you got the new Predacon on-line, this is very good, yesss" said Megatron.

"Yes my Queen, the new Predacon is functional," said Inferno doing his famous salute. Jetstorm, hearing Inferno call Megatron "Queen" started to laugh his head off. He thought it was just the funniest thing ever!

"Shut up! I will not tolerate this!" said Megatron who was now very angry with Jetstorm for laughing at him.

"Hahahahaha" Jetstorm was still laughing, "It's just so funny! I mean, what did you do, get a sex change or something! Hahahaha!"

With that, Megatron fired at Jetstorm with his tail gun.

"Alright, alright!" said Jetstorm who now stopped laughing, "I get the point, you don't have to spaz out!"

"That's better. Inferno, I want you and the new Predacon to go search for Tarantulas. When you find him, I want you to bring him to me. Understand?" said Megatron.

"Yes my Queen!" said Inferno, saluting again. Jetstorm was about to laugh, but when Megatron shot him an angry glance, he decided it better not to. So Jetstorm and Inferno left in search of Tarantulas while the rest of the Predacons returned to base.

Back at the Maximal base, Chatalia was getting the grand tour. She was also introduced to all the other Maximals. At the same time she was being introduced to the others, she was checking them all out. So far, these were her results: Optimus and Rhinox, too old for her. Rattrap, annoying little shit-head. Cheetor, cute and nice. Silverbolt, cute and nice… but, he was just a little too naïve for her liking. Dinobot, good looking, but way too crabby! So she made up her mind on Cheetor. Which was good because she could tell that he was checking her out too.

"So," said Optimus interrupting her thoughts, "do you have any questions?"

"Not really," replied Chatalia, "except, would you guys happen to have any CDs of 90's Earth music?"

"Actually, Cheetor has a bunch of CDs of Earth music, but I'm not sure if it's 90's" said Optimus.

"Yeah, but it's more late 90's. You know, stuff like: Backstreet Boys, Brandy, All Saints, and so on" said Cheetor.

"I love Backstreet Boys! Nick Carter is pretty good looking for a human too!" exclaimed Chatalia, "Tell me why, ain't nothing but a heartache, tell me why, ain't nothing but a mistake…" Chatalia started to sing.

"Please don't sing that song!" said Rattrap; "It's bad enough Cheets keeps playing that song over and over again!"

"Tell me why…" Chatalia started to sing again just to drive Rattrap crazy. The other Maximals just laughed!

Tarantulas was pretty pleased with himself. He knew that no one, other than himself, would ever know that there was a third pod. The reason that neither the Maximals nor the Predacons had detected it was because of his jamming device. He had build it before when he discovered the meteor shower thing, so that he could reprogram his own Predacon so it would be loyal to him only. He had just finished the reprogramming and was now waiting for his new Predacon to emerge. The pod lid opened to reveal a bright green praying mantis. "Hahahahaha" he laughed.

"Manterra," said the female mantis, "TERRORIZE!!!!"

I hope you enjoyed this story. You can e-mail your comments to Kitty_1322@yahoo.com. Next story in my series, "Choices are Never Easy".