“…Nighteye.”

 The Transmetal 2 owl grunted at being interrupted from his observation of the new Maximals’ restoration process.

 “Look, I said I’d tell you when the process is done, Rhinox.”

 “It’s not that, and you know it,” Rhinox sternly stated.

 Nighteye sighed, swiveling around in his chair to face the makeshift Transformer.

 “Look, I CAN’T tell you.”

 “Why? What is so important about Sigma Prime?” Rhinox questioned, his tone bordering on becoming frustrated. “Nothing could possibly be so important now that we can’t know about it. Was Sigma Prime made using a process that has foundations we Cybertronians haven’t even discovered yet? Fine, but tell us that. TELL us so we don’t think you’re hiding something from us. It makes you seem all the less trustworthy.”

 “You’re one to talk about trustworthiness! Here you let Beastbot and Ramulus unofficially join the team, both wanted bounty hunters who almost KILLED Optimus Primal…”

 “….And Megatron,” Rhinox finished. “They were hired for the jobs. Although I certainly don’t respect them or even feel comfortable around them, I know that they don’t have any personal agendas or grudges against us Maximals. Heck, Ramulus WAS a Maximal at one time, if I remember the records correctly. But that’s beside the point, Nighteye. Answer my question. What is so important about Sigma Prime?”

 “I’ve already said I CAN’T tell you.” Nighteye answered, refusing to meet Rhinox’s computer-generated optics. “Look, Rhinox, it’s complicated. All I can say is that Sigma Prime was created for a specific reason. Even though things have obviously not gone as the Vexorans planned, the reason for which he was created will eventually come to fulfillment. But I can’t tell you what he was created for, or it will mess up the process.”

 Rhinox digested this and nodded, but still asked one last question, glaring at Nighteye. “Does it involve any of us coming to harm? Because if it is, I’m going to have to ask you to spill it or leave.”

 Nighteye shook his head. “No, no, nothing like that. In fact, it will probably be beneficial, given the way things are going. But I can’t get any more specific than that, I’m sorry.”

 Rhinox merely grunted and turned, wheeling back towards the other Maximals, who were taking turns being repaired by the CR vats.

 Nighteye sighed and turned back towards the computer screens. Not too much longer until the new Maximals were awakened, now…

 Torca nearly dropped his paintbrush as the door behind him suddenly burst open, admitting Scourge into the small room.

 “Uh-er, Commander Scourge,” Torca stuttered, turning around and saluting his leader as best he could with the paintbrush still in his hand. “What…er…what do you need?”

 “Why is she still so dark-colored?!” Scourge demanded from his subordinate, motioning to the prone form of Airazor on the table in the middle of the room. Fresh dull yellow paint covered portions of her wings, legs, and waist. A spotlight was centered on Airazor’s shell, but the rest of the room was rather darkly lit. “I ordered you to make her look the same as she was before!”

 “Um…er…well, you see…” Torca started.

 A bee transformer Scourge remembered was named Buzzsaw stepped in front of Torca. He looked noticeably calmer in his demeanor than Torca, even when confronted by his commander. Scourge made a mental note to keep an eye on Buzzsaw- soldiers that showed no fear when their superiors were around meant a possible traitor down the road…

“Commander, what Torca is trying to say is that, despite our best efforts, we could not shine up Airazor’s metal enough to make it as bright as if formerly was. The explosion that killed her charred her armor quite a bit, and permanently blackened it a little. We have managed to match her slightly duller paint color, though, and are applying it as we speak.” Buzzsaw calmly set down his paintbrush on the table as he finished.

Scourge growled, giving Airazor a good look at to ensure that the colors did match up. “This is not my first choice, but very well. You WILL tell me in the future before you make such decisions as this, however. Finish her paint job, and then you both are dismissed. Tomorrow get the cranial chamber ready for her A.I. insertion.”

“As you command, sir.” Buzzsaw and Torca saluted as Scourge exited the chambers.

“What a stiff…” Buzzsaw muttered to himself as he resumed painting Airazor’s shins. He didn’t notice the darkness behind him shift slightly.

 “…Uh, Scourge?”

 “…What is it, Brother?” Scourge sighed, rolling his optics as his little brother Scarem caught up with his swift pace down the corridor. He was getting tired of Scarem’s constant questions lately whenever the two were alone.

 “Why are we using Airazor’s shell to create a new warrior? Don’t we need a spark for that?”

 Scourge sighed. “Sometimes, Brother, your idiocy amazes me. We Vexorans have had A.I. programming that rivals actual intelligence for years now. Heck, even the Transformers’ A.I. programming is nearly as sophisticated as ours is. It won’t be much of a stretch to convince the other Predacons that I invented a slightly more advanced A.I. system than they already have.

 “As for why we’re using Airazor’s shell, it makes perfect sense if you actually think about it. Once we finish replacing her cranial chamber with basic Predacon core programming- with a few modifications, of course, to ensure that she does not completely develop her own individual personality capable of rebellion- we can have her “return” to the Maximals. They’ll be completely unaware that they have a spy within their midst the whole time- until she leads them into a trap, and then it will be too late.”

 “But why use her that way, Scourge? I mean, we already have more than enough warriors to defeat the Maximals.”

 “A wise leader always plans for the worst, Scarem,” Scourge replied. “After all, we didn’t manage to defeat the Maximals the last time, although I’d hardly call the battle a loss. Regardless, it would be most beneficial to me to get the Maximals right where I want them, and THEN unleash my army’s full fury on them. Now, if you’ll excuse- huh?”

 Scourge and Scarem quickly turned around as they heard a shriek come from the room that was holding Airazor’s form, followed by the sounds of battle. Both former Vexorans glanced at each other quickly, then ran towards the room.

 “All available Predacons, converge in corridor G!” Scourge yelled into his commlink. “An intruder is present!”

 Buzzsaw didn’t notice the large camouflaged mecha-cheetah until one misplaced paw echoed loud enough for him to hear.

 “Wha- who’s- GWHA!”

 As soon as Buzzsaw had twirled around to face Taran, the mecha-cheetah had pounced on him, deactivating his camouflage, since there was really no point to it now…

 Torca, on the other side of Airazor’s shell, immediately took out his gun, but Taran had already managed to claw Buzzsaw’s head off in that split second. Torca immediately growled and fired at Taran, but the Vexoran-infested Cheetor shell was far too fast, easily dodging the shot and the follow-up blasts. Taran quickly transformed into his robot mode, slapping Torca’s gun away from him in an instant.

 “Y-you won’t get away wi-with this!” Torca said nervously, glancing back and forth between his gun lying on the floor and Taran.

 Taran just laughed sadistically, in a tone that didn’t look right at all coming out of Cheetor’s mouth. “Do you know how many times I’ve heard that? And yet, here I am!” Taran chuckled again, quickly decapitating Torca.

 The sound of the door behind him sliding open caused Taran to turn. Standing in the doorway were Scourge and Scarem, both stunned to find Taran here, near the center of the base. Both quickly regained their composure, however.

 “Why, you-!” Scourge started, cutting himself off in mid-sentence in anger and hurling a pestilence missile at Taran. Taran quickly dodged the projectile, which exploded on the back wall, crumbling the impact area into dust in an instant.

 Scarem lunged at Taran, who dodged the Vexoran-turned-Predacon’s scythe blades and kicked him into the wall. Before Scarem could recover, Taran unsheathed one of his blades and pressed it against Scarem’s neck. Seeing his imminent demise if he resumed attacking, Scarem slowly put up his arm-scythes in surrender.

 “Now… let’s talk!” Taran said, keeping half an optic on both Scarem and Scourge to ensure neither made any sudden moves.

 “If it were any other Predacon…” Scourge growled, sheathing his remaining pestilence missile, “…I promise you that your head would be blown off anyway, Taran. But because it is not only a Vexoran, but my brother… what do you want?”

 “Why, merely safe passage out of here,” Taran chuckled as he heard several other Predacons running down the hall to stand behind Scourge, ready to engage if the order was given. “It seems one of your bumbling minions actually did something right, discovering me spying on you, even with my camouflage activated. They’re still as pathetic as ever at fighting, however.”

 Scourge scowled and motioned for the other Predacons to lower their weapons. Scourge sighed, mumbling, “Fine. Follow me, and I’ll lead you out.”

 Taran chuckled to himself and followed Scourge out of the room and down the hallway, the reinforcement Predacons eyeing him warily.

 As they crossed the first hallway intersection on the way out, though, Scourge, suddenly and without warning, yelled, “Computer, engage security net!”

 Completely taken by surprise, Taran was unable to react before a criss-crossing of electric currents suddenly shot out of the walls, floor, and ceiling, intersecting directly in his form. Shrieking in pain, Taran doubled over onto his knees as the electric current surged through him. After a few more torturous seconds, the “security net” shut itself off, and Taran collapsed onto the floor in a smoking heap, moaning.

 Scourge laughed and walked back to Taran’s form, kicking it once in spite. “Did you honestly think you get out of here that easily? Looks like someone’s done his fair share of overestimating, hmmm? Spittor, Bonecrusher- take our esteemed guest to the prison hold. I’ll be with you shortly to secure to special electro-bonds needed to ensure our prisoner doesn’t escape.”

 The aforementioned Predacons hurried over to the burnt heap named Taran and dragged it down the hallway, smirking to themselves as they “accidentally” banged Taran’s head on a wall in the process.

 Scourge just laughed again and walked back towards the room with Airazor’s shell in it, calling Injector and Snapper to come with him and help clean up the mess made by Buzzsaw and Torca.

 Rhinox smiled at the new recruits, who were mingling among the rest of the Maximals presently. Although, like Grimlock, the new “Dinobots” weren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer, and they all had the same speech impediments that the old Dinobots had, they were certainly much-needed warriors.

 The brown-and-red triceratops that had identified himself as Triceradon was currently laughing at a joke Grimlock had just made. Triceradon was a very stocky, “beefy” transformer, with a slight Scottish accent. He had a small, deep red face with a helmet resembling a Triceratops’ head around it. He seemed to be the most light-hearted of the new Dinobots, although it looked like he could become a very formidable warrior when needed.

 The yellow, green, and blue archaeopteryx was standing by himself in a corner of he room, just staring pensively at the rest of the Maximals talking amongst themselves. Despite his similar speech impediment, the archaeopteryx- who called himself Airraptor- was almost the polar opposite of Triceradon. He tended to not talk very much, and his slender build suggested that he was better suited for long-range, rather than hand-to-hand, combat. He also was a very serious individual, and seemed to be deep in thought nearly all the time.

 The green-and-yellow pachycephalosaurus, who called himself Dinotron, was talking amongst Beastbot and Ramulus, fascinated at their stories of the various missions they had dealt with back on Cybertron. He seemed to be the youngest of the group, both in his attitude towards everything and by his voice. He almost reminded Rhinox of Cheetor before the Transmetal II upgrade, if it wasn’t for Dinotron’s almost unhealthy fascination with weapons and battling.

 The brown-and-blue stegosaurus, which was named Striker, was playing a game of Cyber-poker that Rattrap had stored in his subspace. He was losing to the aforementioned Maximal, who bragged that he was the “best poker player in all of Cybertropolis” as Striker reluctantly plunked another couple of his energon chips onto Rattrap’s already huge pile. Striker had a serious attitude about him, but he had an odd attitude of laughing at something funny very loudly and then stopping abruptly, immediately adopting his serious demeanor again as if he hoped no one had caught his little outburst. Very odd… but then again, so was Grimlock…

 Rhinox shook himself out of his thoughts and rolled over to Nighteye, who was sitting by himself, doing a thorough examination of the essential computer systems throughout the “pyramid” to ensure that everything was functioning properly.

 “How’s everything looking, Nighteye?”

 Nighteye sighed and swiveled around in his chair to face Rhinox.

 “Unfortunately, Rhinox, I’ve double-checked. All of the weapon defense systems used for this site were all disabled when it was abandoned, and I’ve no idea how to get them back up and working again.”

 Rhinox glanced around the immediate area, apparently looking for something on the console.

 “Nighteye? Do you know if there’s an interface plug on this console?”

 “Why would- … oh, I see. Um, I think there’s one on the far end.”

 “Alright, let me see if I can take a crack at this,” Rhinox said, moving over to the end of the computer console and inserting his interface cord into the plug. His television-like “head” immediately blacked out, and his visage shifted to any monitors on the console that weren’t currently displaying information.

 “Hmmmm…yep, you’re right,” Rhinox admitted to Nighteye, apparently going through the system’s files at a rate of hundreds per minute. Now that he was plugged into the machine, he could decode the Vexoran code into his own language. “There’s no way to reactivate the weapons here. Your friends did a pretty good job of disarming the place…. Hey, wait a second… It says here that these protoforms weren’t automatically Maximals to begin with… they were all created as neutral, then exposed to an intense data feed that altered their programming to that of a Maximal’s.” Rhinox immediately pulled up the relevant to the monitor in front of Nighteye so that the former Vexoran could look it over.

 “Herm… learn something new everyday,” Nighteye said, skimming through the document. “Why does it matter, though?”

 “I… I just have an idea…” Rhinox said, something obviously percolating within his neural processor. “I have to see if it’s going to work, though. I’ll be going through these files for a while, if you don’t mind.”

 “Not at all,” Nighteye replied, getting up and stretching. “I’m going to go to bed, though. It’s been a loooong day. Just don’t stay in there too long, Rhinox- remember, this console wasn’t designed to interface with an intelligent being like yourself. I don’t know if it will hold up to your ‘intrusion’ for very long.”

 “Mmmhmm…” Rhinox muttered, apparently already engaged in whatever he was searching for.

 “Fire up the core processor.”

 “Activating… now!”

 “Switch on the electron feed.”

 “Electron feed’s activated.”

 “Good. Begin powering up the neural network.”

 “Affirmative. It’ll take a few minutes to complete, though.”

 “Proceed,” Scourge said, turning his attention from Flashfire to Taran, who was chained to the wall of the laboratory of the Predacon base. A special electronic device was also attached to Taran’s midsection to ensure that his Vexoran gel-like body didn’t ooze out of the shell and escape. “You’re so lucky, Taran, to be able to see my greatest creation born right before your eyes.”

 “Only to have you kill me right afterwards,” Taran spat. He couldn’t help but watch with interest though as the Transmetal panther named Flashfire activated Airazor’s various instruments, slowly bringing an old dead shell back to life. Taran took a small bit of consolation in the fact that he had long ago considered Blackarachnia his “greatest creation” as well, only to have it bite him in the butt later. Hopefully, a similar outcome would happen with Airazor, here…

 “Details, details, details,” Scourge laughed, patting Taran’s head in a way that made the chained Vexoran fume with anger. “Oh, look- she’s awakening.”

 The reborn Airazor sat up, moaning slightly and shaking her head, trying to clear her neural processor.

 “What… what happened?” Airazor mumbled, standing up and scratching her head, taking in her surroundings. “Who… who am I?”

 “You?” Scourge chuckled. “You are Eclipse, and I am Scourge, your master.”

 “Y-yes… Scourge… yes, I somehow… know… that you are my leader,” the dark mockery of Airazor named Eclipse said, slowly becoming more and more sure of herself as she finished her sentence.

 “Good, your A.I. seems to check out fine,” Scourge said, lifting up Eclipse’s chin so that her eyes met his. “I have a mission for you, Eclipse. During the time that you are carrying out this task, I want you to adopt the alias ‘Airazor’….” Scourge glanced back to Taran, as if he suddenly remembered the traitor Vexoran. Turning back to Eclipse, he continued, “Wait just one moment, Eclipse. I have to… take care of something, first.”

 Smirking triumphantly, Scourge pulled out a pestilence missile from his back and waved it in front of Taran’s face. “Any last words, traitor?”

 “None that I’d want our newborn creation here to overhear,” Taran said sarcastically, glaring at Scourge with intense hatred.

 “Alright, then. So long, Taran,” Scourge said, smiling as he threw the missile directly at the helpless Vexoran.

 Tigerhawk winced as the cell door swung open, fearing yet another beating.

 Primus, why don’t they just get it over with…

 “Hey, Stripes,” a familiar voice whispered, Tigerhawk’s “ears” immediately perking up as the winged shape crept towards him, inserting a lock into his manacles and undoing them one by one.

 “Airazor!?” Tigerhawk was so stunned, he almost cried out in happiness before he remembered that any loud noise could give away what was happening.

 “In the metal,” Airazor grinned, undoing Tigerhawk’s last manacle and slinging her arm under the weary Transmetal 2 fuzor to help support him.

 “But-but-but how are you still alive?! How did you get past the guards? What happened to your paint-“

 “Look, I’ll explain all that later,” Airazor whispered, quickly helping Tigerhawk to the entryway and sticking her head out of the cell, making sure none of the guards were nearby. Of course they’re not, Airazor/Eclipse thought to herself smugly. They’ve mostly been cleared out of the area, except for a lucky few who got the job of playing dead in the hallway… “Right now, I’ve got to get us out of here and back to the Maximal base. Where are they located, right now, anyway?”

 Despite the bad shape he was in, Tigerhawk grinned and walked with Airazor down the corridor, empty except for the occasional “stasis locked” guard. “They mentioned a cave system in the canyon… I’ll show you once we get out of here…”

 Airazor just smirked inwardly, nodded, and helped the limping Tigerhawk down the hallway.

The End

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