Ramulus peeked over the side of a large rock just barely enough so that he could see the entrance to the Ark, with Cheetor and Rattrap on guard. Neither seemed to be paying much attention to anything around them.

 “Got any fives?” Cheetor asked, sitting down on the ground with a few playing cards in his hand.

 “Go fish,” Rattrap replied, chuckling a bit.

 Cheetor cursed under his breath and picked up another card from the deck sitting beside him.

 “Man, Rattrap, I swear you’re cheating. This is the fourteenth card I’ve picked up in a row.”

 “What? Do you think I’m the kind of guy that would sink to cheating? Don’t answer that,” Rattrap replied, putting his hand over Cheetor’s mouth just as the larger Maximal was about to answer.

 Ramulus quickly sank back behind the rock, putting the mouth of his large pulse cannon to his chest as he did so.

 Those idiots, he thought. They can’t even stay on guard when there might be Predacons lurking around. Oh, well. All the easier for me. Here goes nothing...

 Cringing, Ramulus pulled the trigger on his cannon, blasting a small hole in his chest. It normally would have made a loud noise and would have illuminated the area around the Transmetal 2 quite a bit, but his chest muffled both.

 Trying really hard not to yell out in pain, Ramulus then staggered out from behind the rock and headed for Cheetor and Rattrap.

 Cheetor and Rattrap both looked up from their card game and gasped when they saw a large figure staggering toward them from the shadows. Both instinctively drew their guns and pointed them at the creature, who had just now become well illuminated by the lights at the entrance to the Ark.

 Ramulus looked up at them, his face twisted in extreme pain.

 “The...Predacons......”

 Before Ramulus could say another word, he collapsed onto the ground, entering stasis lock almost immediately afterwards.

 Cheetor and Rattrap both looked at each other, then quickly ran toward Ramulus.

 Beastbot stood staring at the Darkside in beast mode, his eye searching around suspiciously for any signs of movement in the night.

 These Predacons are dumber than I thought. I’m only a nanoklick away from the base and I still don’t see anyone on guard duty, Beastbot thought to himself.

 He cautiously stepped toward the base a few more steps, than stopped suddenly, sniffing the air.

 “Energy visor activate.”

 As soon as Beastbot had whispered the command, a small blue visor slid down over his regular eye. He now could see the base shield- only a few feet in front of him!

 “Hmm. Thought so,” Beastbot whispered to himself.

 The fuzor transformed to robot mode and took out a small device that looked somewhat like a small dagger, except that its blade was glowing blue-green. With his energy visor still down over his eye, he took the blade and carefully cut a small, straight line, about as tall as himself, in the shield. He continued cutting until he had created a small doorway in the shield, the energy on the inside of the doorway dissipating as he completed the door. He then converted to beast mode again and stepped carefully through the shield, undetected.

 “Signature damper, activate,” Beastbot commanded.

 His computer then clicked silently for a few moments before replying.

 “Signature dampening successful. Chance of signature detection is 4% of the normal.”

 Beastbot smirked, then continued on toward the base slowly. He was still uncertain if Sentinel had detected him, but he took the chance anyway and walked within shooting range of the defense guns. He stood silently there for a moment, seeing if they would activate. After it was apparent that Sentinel couldn’t detect him, he walked toward a breach made in the ship after it crash-landed on Earth.

 “All right, here we go,” Beastbot whispered to himself. “Stealth cups activate.”

 As soon as he had finished the command, small suction cups popped out under his feet.

 “Camoflauge mode.”

 Beastbot then turned almost completely invisible. The only hint that he was there was that the background behind him was slightly wavy.

 Beastbot then silently tip-toed inside the base and jumped up. His suction pads clamped on to the ceiling, and, after making sure that they stuck to the ceiling properly, crept down the dark hallway in the ship.

 Ramulus cautiously stepped out of the CR chamber, checking over his hands and body to make sure that they were indeed repaired. He then looked up to see the other Maximals staring at him questioningly.

 “Umm, hi. My name’s Ramulus. I came out of a stasis pod and had located your base. I was starting to head toward your base when I got attacked by a few Predacons. Although I managed to get away, I was severely damaged and had barely managed to get as far as I did.”

 The rest of the Maximals then relaxed slightly, obviously relieved that he was definitely a good Maximal. Although Depth Charge had run a few scans on Ramulus while the new Maximal was in the CR chamber to show that his energy signature was a Maximal’s, they still could never be too sure.

 He sounds familiar, Optimus thought, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. Oh well.

 Optimal Optimus stepped in front of the other Maximals and greeted Ramulus with open arms.

 “Welcome to the Maximals, Ramulus. I’m glad to see that you’re doing all right. Come with me, I’ll give you a tour of the base.”

 With that said, Optimus turned around, and, motioning for Ramulus to follow him, trudged out of the room. Ramulus quickly followed.

 This is too easy, Ramulus thought.

 Beastbot entered the Predacon command center, practically invisible and hanging upside down from the ceiling above. Without making a sound, he crept down to the ground and retracted his stealth pads back into his feet. After checking that the map Tarantulas had given him earlier of the Darkside was indeed accurate, and that this was the command center, he quickly put the map away and saw Scavenger, back ramrod straight, patrolling the edges of the room, looking for anything that might threaten his royalty. Beastbot sank back into the hallway just enough so that he wouldn’t get in the way of Scavenger when the Predacon passed by. A few moments later, as Scavenger marched on by the hallway entrance, Beastbot quickly grabbed Scavenger’s head. Before Scavenger could even utter a sound, Beastbot pulled the head cleanly off with his sharp velociraptor claws and laid the head gently on the floor beside him. Just as the rest of Scavenger’s limp body was about to clatter to the ground, Beastbot quickly caught it and laid it down gently so it wouldn’t make any noise. After that was done, he silently transformed to robot mode and walked onto one of the hover platforms and made his way to the sleeping form of Megatron in the center of the command center. A large shadow, in the shape of a rhino, watched him silently from the hallway entrance behind Beastbot as the fuzor did so.

 “..and here’s your quarters, Ramulus. I hope everything’s okay, we didn’t really have much time to fix it up,” Optimus said, gesturing Ramulus into his moderately sized quarters.

 “Oh, it’s fine, Optimus,” Ramulus said, taking a storage tank from his subspace and fitting it into his arm behind his back. He did all this whie facing Optimus. “I just need to ask one more thing of you.”

 “What’s that, Ramulus?”

 “I just wondered if you....could die.”

 “What the..”

 Before Optimus could say any more, Ramulus unsheathed his small spikes on the ends of his hands and plunged them into Optimus’ right leg. Within a second, all the power running through Optimus’ circuits had been transferred into Ramulus’ small storage tank, now completely full. Ramulus then chuckled quietly and took his spikes out of Optimus, retracted them into his hands, and unhooked his storage tank, putting it back into his subspace. Then, he took two of Waspinator’s wings that he had knicked off earlier and laid them by Optimus’ body. He then peeked out into the hallway, and, after making sure that no one else was around, walked casually out of the hallway. Optimus’ eyes did one final flicker and then faded out for the last time.

 Beastbot, on a small hover pad, flew over to where Megatron was peacefully slumbering in the middle on the command center. He quietly tapped Megatron on the shoulder. Megatron’s eyes flickered for a second as he woke up, and he turned to Beastbot, surprise etched into his face.

 “I hope you had a nice rule, Megatron. See you where all are one,” Beastbot said quickly as his eye started to glow bright red.

 Before Megatron could react, Beastbot shot a small laser disk from his eye, cutting Megatron’s head neatly off the rest of his body. He then took out his laser gun and continually blasted at Megatron’s limp body and appendages, knocked one, then both, of his arms off. He continued firing, knocking off both of Megatron’s legs as well. After seeing that Megatron was indeed dead, he put his laser gun back into his subspace and quickly exited the room, leaving the battered bodies of Scavenger and Megatron behind.

 Ramulus strode out of the Ark, looking behind once and a while to make sure no one had discovered Optimus and had come out to attack him yet. Cheetor and Rattrap briefly looked up from their card game that they were playing at the entrance to the base.

 “Eh, where ya goin’, Big Ram?”

 Ramulus looked down at Rattrap while taking his pulse cannon from his subspace.

 “Out for a little stroll. See you when I see you.”

 That said, Ramulus threw his pulse cannon into the air while barking out the command, “Pulse cannon; hovercraft mode.” His pulse cannon, in midair, expanded its horns into what looked like a hoverboard with a small gun in the middle. As it came rushing toward the ground, Ramulus jumped up and landed on it. He then maneuvered the craft like a surfboard out into the night air, leaving Cheetor and Rattrap to their interrupted card game.

 Dinobot Transmetal 2 strode down the hallway in robot mode to the command center for his early morning report. All was quiet on the battle front, but Dinobot was programmed to obey Megatron’s orders, and obeying Megatron’s orders is what he would do, even if he could see no reason for doing so.

 As he entered the command center, he took one look around and gasped.

 Scavenger was lying on the floor with his head torn off. The rest of his body, however, was undamaged. Megatron was not nearly so lucky. His head had been cut off as well, but the rest of his body was damaged beyond repair. Broken wires were everywhere, and all four of his appendages were broken off, and were nowhere to be seen. They had fallen in the lava below after they were shot off Megatron. Mech fluid was dripping from a large gaping hole in Megatron’s chest.

 “NOOOOO!” cried Dinobot as he hurriedly stepped up on a hover pad and flew over to the command chair where Megatron’s body was resting.

 Cheetor had discovered Optimus’ unconscious body a few hours before dawn, while checking to see if Ramulus had come back from his stroll yet. What he had found instead was a seemingly undamaged Optimus lying on the ground, limp. Upon closer examination, he made out two small holes in Optimus’ leg.

 Waspinator, was all Cheetor thought as he ran to get help from the others. His wings were right there at the scene of the crime. If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll get him for hurting Bigbot like this.

 Now, as Depth Charge and Rattrap helped Cheetor hook Optimus up to a large machine in the command center while Blackarachnia was analyzing the offline Maximal leader at the control panel, everyone was silent, even Depth Charge. Silverbolt was standing silently nearby Blackarachnia.

 Blackarachnia pressed a few quick buttons before being the first one to speak.

 “His spark is still online, but barely. His body is completely drained of energy. Within a few hours, he’ll be permanently dead. Unless you all just happen to have a sparkless protoform around here to transfer his spark into, I’m afraid he’s a goner.”

 Cheetor held back tears as he answered.

 “We don’t have any blank stasis pods around here. I know where one is, but by the time I get it and bring it back, it’ll already be too late.”

 The rest of the Maximals held back tears as well as they realized the inevitable.

 Prometheus entered Terrorsaur’s old quarters in robot mode, and silently closed the door behind him.

 After making sure that no one had seen him come into these quarters, a small fleshy tentacle slithered out of his left optic, with a small device materializing on it as it did. Prometheus quickly pushed the device, causing a large screen to materialize on the wall. A gold visage of Unicron was on the screen. It immediately spoke.

 “Are things going as planned?”

 “Yes, Tara- er, Unicron.”

 “Good. We will initiate Program ^G*2B.”

 With that, the screen quietly dematerialized and the small tentacle wriggled itself back into Prometheus’ optic.

 Waspinator and the recently repaired Scavenger hooked up Megatron’s battered body to a large anaylzing machine as Dinobot manipulated a few buttons on a control panel nearby. Rampage stood nearby in robot mode, arms folded across his chest, snickering silently.

 “So, this tyrant finally get what he deserves, hmm?” Rampage sarcastically asked as he leaned against a wall behind him.

 Dinobot turned around quickly, eyes full of rage.

 “Silence, Rampage.  I have no time for your yammering now. Megatron is almost dead, and we have no sparkless protoform nearby to-”

 A beep interrupted Dinobot as he was scolding Rampage.

 “Stasis pod detected four meters from Predacon base. Protoform has no spark,” the computer stated.

 “What the..?” Dinobot said, him and all the other online Predacons in the room turning their heads toward the main screen.

 “This is too good to be true!” Dinobot grinned. “Waspinator and Scavenger, fetch that protoform. We have work to do...”

 The Maximals were being all too silent when a beep sounded on the command console.

 “Stasis pod detected four meters from Maximal base. Protoform has no spark,” the computer said.

 All the Maximals quickly diverted their attention from Optimus to the command console.

 “What...?” Blackarachnia stammered, turning around in her seat. “Depth Charge, you’re the biggest. Get that stasis pod.”

 Depth Charge, stunned by the sudden change in events, ran out of the Ark, saying nothing.

  The rest of the Maximals grinned as they turned back to Optimus.

 The Predacons, meanwhile, had hooked up the stasis pod to Megatron’s body. Dinobot stood at the controls, punching in a few commands.

 “How long until Megatron’s spark goes offline?”

 “1.9 Terra minutes,” the computer responded.

 “Then we have no time. Computer, begin transformation of spark from Unit: Megatron to new protoform!”

 “Acknowledged.”

 For the next thirty seconds, all the Predacons held their breath as the computer transferred the spark from Megatron’s body into the protoform. 10% complete, 35%, 50%......

 A few moments later, after the transfer was announced successful by the computer, a large crocodile emerged from the stasis pod.

 “Megatron, terrorize!”

 The crocodile seemed to fold in on itself as levers flipped and folded in to reveal the new Megatron, about the same size as he was before. His head looked about the same, but his body was very different, being almost entirely green and gold.

 All the Predacons, with the exception of Rampage and Tarantulas, who had just entered the room, cheered.

 Meanwhile, the Maximals were doing the same thing to Optimus. As the computer displayed how much of Optimus’ spark was transferred into the protoform, all the Maximals waited, their stomachs churning. Finally, the computer announced the transfer successful, and a large gray bat hopped out of the stasis pod.

 “Optimus Primal, maximize!”

 The bat transformed into the new Optimus, about the same size as the original one, with large wings extending from his gray and blue body.

 The rest of the Maximals all rushed up to talk to their leader about what had happened since he last became unconscious, all of them starting to talk at once.

 Beastbot and Ramulus were relaxing at their base in robot mode when Tarantulas drove up to the base in vehicle mode. Both of the bounty hunters stood up as Tarantulas converted to robot mode.

 Ramulus was the one who spoke first.

 “Find our job satisfactory, Tarantulas?”

 Tarantulas almost screamed his answer.

 “No, you idiots! Megatron still lives! The other Predacons found a sparkless protoform and transferred his spark to it! I want my ENERGON BACK!”

 “Sorry, no refunds,” replied Beastbot as he fired a laser disk into Tarantulas, knocking the Predacon into stasis lock. Both of the bounty hunters then snickered as they dragged Tarantulas out of their crude fortress.

THE END

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