Waspinator shrieked as the huge cerberus’ third head lunged at him, Waspinator barely managing to dodge the surprisingly fast canine.

 “Wazzzpinator doez not want to die today!” Waspinator shrieked. “Wazzzpinator haz planzz!”

 “STOP!” A voice cried out amongst the battling Transformers. “BRUTICUS, STAND DOWN! ACTIVATION CODE NIGHTEYE!”

 The huge monster suddenly stopped its roaring, biting, and slashing, all three of its heads immediately turning towards an uncertain Nighteye.

 The left head emotionlessly let its mouth open and dropped Rattrap, the Maximal making a small yelp as his mangled shell hit the ground.

 “State passcode,” the left head rumbled. Its voice was extremely monotone, almost like one would expect to hear from a ship’s computer, and not from a form such as this. It also had a definite metallic twang to it.

 “XYW8-HIW,” Nighteye stated, his voice still wavering a little from having all six of the monster’s eyes stare him down.

 “Passcode accepted,” the left head stated emotionlessly. The center head immediately dropped Rhinox, who seemed to be all right, albeit he was missing one of his chain-gun arms. The beast’s large, three-foot-long claws quickly retracted back into his paws, and it suddenly transformed, into a huge metallic humanoid with four arms and three heads.

 “W-what did you do!?” Ramulus said to Nighteye, neither of their optics leaving the beast’s form.

 “I gave it the ‘stand down’ passcode,” Nighteye replied, loud enough for the rest of the Maximals to hear.

 “’Stand down’? What, is this… thing… some kind of guard or something?” Beastbot questioned.

 “Er… yes,” Nighteye stated. “But…”

 “Why didn’t you tell us about this before!?” Dinobot asked, enraged, but careful enough not to show it too much because of the huge monstrosity towering over them all…

 “…To be honest, I didn’t know it was anywhere near here.”

 “Explain,” Dinobot growled.

 “About a year or so ago, we Vexorans, determined not to let you all succeed in destroying this area of the planet with your battles, decided to, in essence, create our own Transformers to defend this world if need be. Obviously, since our ‘moon’ didn’t destroy you, we hoped that maybe more of your own kind, loyal to us, of course, would be able to get ‘down and dirty’, so to speak, and finish the job that the planet-destroyer couldn’t. Before we cloned Prowl, Ironhide, and Grimlock- those were our later experiments- we had set up a facility here, underground, to create our Transformers. We created about five or so, I think, but for some reason, the experiments were cancelled. Some flaw in the design, or something, I’m not sure- I wasn’t directly involved with the experiments, I only heard about them secondhand. Anyway, we left Bruticus here- our first ‘Transformer’ creation- behind to guard the underground site, in case we ever needed it again. After cloning Prowl, Ironhide, and Grimlock, we realized we were getting pretty close to creating our own brand-new transformers without any flaws, but, of course, then we abducted you all…” Nighteye trailed off.

 “But if you weren’t directly involved in the project, then how come you know Bruticus’ passcode?” Ramulus asked.

 “Nearly every Vexoran on that ship you all destroyed knew the passcode. You never know who was going to need it in the future, given how you all were going at it…”

 Dinobot merely growled again.

 “If you know about Prowl, mahself, and Grimlock,” Ironhide said, “then what about Sig-“

 “Look, we’ll have time for more answers later,” Nighteye said, suddenly irritated. “Back at the site that Bruticus is guarding are our equivalent of CR vats. They’ll help repair those of you who are damaged. Now, let’s gather up the injured and go! Bruticus, lead us to the site!”

 Rhinox frowned at this, but motioned for the battered Maximals to follow Bruticus, who had already turned and was plodding down farther into the cave.

 Dinobot picked up Rattrap’s unconscious form (after making sure to kick it a little) and brought up the rear of the party.

 “Wakey, wakey!” Tigerhawk heard a voice snicker. Then he felt something scorching prod at his chest.

 Activating his optics, Tigerhawk lifted his head up drowsily and tried to move- only to discover that he was chained to a wall of the former Maximal base by his hands, wings, and feet.

 Tigerhawk’s optics finally managed to focus on the figure in front of him.

 He immediately wished they hadn’t.

 Standing in front of them was the hideous lionfish/bee fuzor he had fought earlier, apparently repaired. The fuzor was laughing a bit, poking at Tigerhawk with a heated iron prod. Luckily, Tigerhawk’s pain receptors in that area were offline- but he wasn’t about to let the fuzor know that…

 Faking a groan of pain, Tigerhawk immediately strained against the chains to try to reach the fuzor- only to fail, of course.

 “Heheheheh! Struggle all you like, whitey. ‘S fun to watch.”

 “What would be fun to watch is me tearing you apart once I get free of these chains,” Tigerhawk retorted, his head still weaving a bit from the light-headedness he had had ever since he woke up. Then, he suddenly remembered as he cleared his head- he had been shot down by a couple of Predacons in the canyon, after trying to rescue Airazor’s dead shell from destruction! Apparently, the Predacons had captured him and chained him up here. Quickly glancing around in the dark using infrared, Tigerhawk saw the unconscious (but repaired) forms of Prowl, Gryphtron, and Silverbolt chained up next to him.

 Where is Airazor’s shell? Oh, no… Please, no…

 “Oooo, nice one,” the fuzor replied back, poking Tigerhawk again with his prod. “I’ll be laughing a lot more, though, once the boss starts terminating you one molecule at a time.”

 “Just let him try,” Tigerhawk growled, just before the door to the makeshift “dungeon” opened, letting in light that momentarily blinded Tigerhawk’s optics, he was so used to the dark room.

 “Hey, Injector,” the Predacon said, walking into the room, “You’re needed up in the main command center.”

 “Oh, and I was having so much fun…” Injector frowned, dropping the prod he was carrying and following the other Predacon on the way out.

 Tigerhawk lowered his head as the door closed, leaving him in almost complete darkness.

 Why did I try to save Airazor’s shell… she was already dead…I just wanted to give her a proper burial…. But now I’ve managed to get us all killed…

 Tigerhawk turned off his optics, for he felt that even though he was a mechanical being, he would have wept if he had kept them on any longer.

 “Hey, Nighteye?”

 “What is it, Beastbot?” Nighteye replied, showing a bit of annoyance at being disturbed from his train of thought as they all followed Bruticus deeper into the caves.

 “What IS Bruticus, anyway?” Beastbot asked. “I mean, he’s obviously robotic, and he transforms, but- he seems to not have any personality of his own.”

 “I already told you, Beastbot. He’s a guard. His main function is to protect the site we’ll soon be arriving at. However, you are right in assuming that he’s not a Transformer, at least on the inside. He was built without any individual spark of his own, and as such doesn’t have any inherent personality. The Vexorans who programmed him included just the basic knowledge needed to guard the site and little else…. Well, we’re here.”

 Beastbot turned from his conversation with Nighteye to look at the site they had just entered. He gasped in amazement. The passageway they had all been traveling in opened up into an absolutely immense underground cavern, the stalactite-filled ceiling nearly a mile above. The cavern went on for at least a quarter of a mile straight ahead, as well, and extended to the right and left a good mile or so. The entire cavern was also lighted by an undetectable source, so the Transformers didn’t have to use their infrared vision to see anymore.

 The floor of the cavern was what was really astounding, however. Amidst the clutter of stalagmites and small pools of clear water was a definite path cut through it all. In the center of the cavern was a large clearing, with what looked something like a metallic Aztec pyramid in it. A glowing green half-sphere- presumably a shield- covered the pyramid, protecting it from intruders.

 “The Vexorans… did all this?” Beastbot gaped.

 “Of course,” Nighteye replied, continuing on behind Bruticus, both unfazed by the sight. “What, you think we couldn’t do something like this after building a spaceship several miles long?”

 “Point taken.”

 About ten minutes later, all the Transformers had descended to the clearing outside the Aztec-pyramid-like structure.

 “Bruticus,” Nighteye stated, the huge beast immediately perking up when it heard its name called. “Deactivate the shield.”

 “Affirmative,” Bruticus’ middle robot head droned, this head’s voice with a deep, growling tone to it. The shield immediately flickered and died, and the Transformers walked up and into the entryway located in the bottom of the pyramid.

 Cybershark immediately piped up, an idea forming in his CPU. “Hey, you said there were a few more Transformers you guys made before this place was abandoned, right?”

 “That’s correct…” Nighteye replied, already knowing what Cybershark was going to say next.

 “Well, why don’t we activate these guys, now that we’re here? After all, with the situation going on topside, it’s not like we couldn’t use the extra troops.”

 “Cybershark, are you sure that’s wise?” Rhinox asked before Nighteye could reply. “Remember, these Transformers were abandoned, for some reason. There may be something fatally wrong with them.”

 “Well, isn’t it at least worth checking out?” Cybershark questioned.

 “You’re absolutely right- it’s worth a shot,” Nighteye replied as the Transformers reached the end of the relatively narrow entrance hall. So far, the Transformers had seen just metallic steel walls on all sides- nothing special. As they entered the main room, however- which, by the looks of it, occupied most of the inside of the pyramid- things certainly got more interesting.

 For one, the walls were now a bit of a shiny bronze color. There were also four noticeable figures suspended in four different tanks on the opposite wall. All four figures were immersed in a sort of bubbly green fluid, with several wires and pins inserted into different parts of their bodies. The wires connected the Transformers’ bodies to a bunch of nearby computers and monitor screens. There were also several circular vats in the ground on the right side of the large room, very similar in their appearance to the CR vats found in the Predacon base. On the left wall, a doorway led into another room.

 The assorted Maximals went up to the four tanks, peering inside each of them at the figures within, curious to see what these “failed” Transformers looked like.

 Surprisingly, they all looked like normal, pre-Transmetal animal Transformers. The first tank held a tall, stoic Transformer whose alt mode was obviously a pachycephalosaurus. He was mostly green, yellow, and black, with a bit of red on his face. His overall structure was similar to Dinobot’s, with feet-claws for hands, and the dinosaur head situated at the center of the chest.

 The second tank held a short, stocky Transformer with a face so red he almost looked like he was permanently flushed. His left hand ended in a large triceratops head, and his right had what looked like the back of the triceratops hanging off of it.

 The third tank had a Transformer in it that obviously had an alt mode of a stegosaurus, judging from all the orange plates on him. His face was very reminiscent of an Aztec Indian’s (coincidence?), but obviously with a robotic flavor. The Transformer had a “ponytail” coming out of the back of his head. It had most of the stegosaurus plates attached to it, looking like some kind of odd hair ties.

 The fourth and final tank held a medium-sized, slim Transformer whose alt mode seemed to be that of an archaeoptryx. The wings of the beast mode were pulled across his chest in a “cape” look, and his right hand ended in his beast mode head. His robot head was reminiscent of Silverbolt’s when he was a fuzor, although it was yellow and red as opposed to Silverbolt’s gray and black.

 “Dinobots!” Grimlock exclaimed suddenly, after realizing that all of the Transformers in the tanks had dinosaur (or dinosaur-related) alt modes.

 “..Hrrm?” Dinobot growled, turning his face away from the tank to peer at Grimlock questioningly. “What do you want?”

 “No, not Dinobot!” Grimlock replied, “DinoBOTS! These ‘bots in tank are all Dinobots! Must be Slag, Snarl, Sludge, and Swoop, upgraded to Maximals!”

 “No, I’m afraid not,” Nighteye said. “Although I wasn’t too familiar with this project, I would have been aware of any deliberate cloning or upgrades of past Transformers. Whoever these prototype Transformers are, they’re not your old Dinobots.”

 “Well….” Grimlock muttered, obviously disappointed by the news, “….Me still think they Dinobots…”

 “Well, what are we waiting for?” Cybershark anxiously asked. “Let’s fire up these puppies!”

 “…AFTER we examine their records to see if they have any irreversible flaws,” Nighteye replied, walking over to one of the nearby monitors and booting it up.

 “What could they have that could be THAT bad?” Cybershark asked.

 “The shark has a point,” Dinobot added. “No matter what flaws these ‘bots have, they could not possibly be worse then…*snarl*…Rattrap. And yet, we use him to bolster our ranks…”

 “That’s enough, Dinobot,” Rhinox reprimanded. “And speaking of Rattrap, you, Sigma, and you, Ironhide, take any stasis-locked Maximals and deposit them in those CR vats over there. We need to get them up and running as soon as possible.”

 Ironhide and Sigma Prime complied, taken the different shattered Maximals over to the CR vats while Nighteye got through several of the computer’s password-coded security systems. After just a few minutes, all of the stasis-locked Maximals were being repaired, and Nighteye was pulling up some information on the Transformer specimens within the tanks.

 “Hmmm…interesting…” Nighteye muttered as he read through information in Vexoran displayed on the screen.

 “What is it?” Cybershark asked.

 “It says here that the ‘fatal’ flaws these Transformers had was in their intelligence systems. Apparently, at the time that they were created, the Vexorans here simply weren’t able to artificially program a level of intelligence into them high enough to validate their activation. When tested, they, among other things, failed to show enough insight to devise battle strategies, and their speech was inherently flawed.”

 Ramulus chuckled at the irony. “So you’re saying that these ‘new’ Dinobots are essentially as intelligent as the ‘old’ Dinobots?”

 “Hey!” Grimlock angrily responded, “Old Dinobots not stupid! Ramulus is one who is stupid! Me Grimlock have no speech problems!”

 “If you say so,” Ramulus shrugged, smirking.

 Grimlock growled menacingly.

 “Regardless, we can handle a relatively small problem like that, as desperate as we are for extra troops,” Rhinox stated, ignoring Ramulus and Grimlock’s ensuing argument. “Go ahead and activate them.”

 “Okay,” Nighteye replied, entering in a few quick commands for the computer to do so. “It’ll take a couple- HEY, SHUT UP, YOU GUYS! I CAN HARDLY HEAR MYSELF THINK OVER YOUR ARGUING! Anyway, it’ll take a couple megacycles for the computer to bring them out of such a prolonged stasis. I’ll tell you when they’re ready.”

 “Thanks,” Rhinox said appreciatively, heading over to the CR vats himself to repair his missing appendage.

 Waspinator shook his head as he watched Ramulus and Grimlock’s argument, which had quickly turned into a shouting match.

“Hmph. Dalmatian-bot pathetic. Even Wazzzpinator acknowledgezz that he has zzzpeech problem.”

 Scourge smiled as he closed the door behind him, drowning out Rampage’s continuous threats.

 Rampage was such a delightful creature, especially when chained to a wall. He was even more delightful when part of his own spark was being removed again- against his will, of course- and being transplanted into Megatron’s old “spark box” for safekeeping. Dinobot Transmetal 2, the mindless lackey that he was, was being thoroughly reprogrammed to be loyal to Scourge and his troops. Once finished, Dinobot Transmetal 2- who Scourge had renamed Scythe to avoid any confusion- would have free reign over Rampage’s indestructible spark again. Scourge was slagged if he was going to lose such a valuable soldier as Rampage before the Beast Wars were over.

 In addition to the abduction of Rampage, things were going very well lately. True, they could have gone better- the Maximals could have been completely wiped out by now- but, if Scourge had learned anything from his experience, it was to expect something between the best and the worst that could happen and plan accordingly.

 Despite overwhelming odds, the Maximals had escaped from their base, but they were now trapped in some underground cavern with nowhere else to go. He had several of the still-functioning Predacons survey the area around where the blocked-in cave opening was, and there were only a few other caves nearby, none of which were alternate entrances to the same tunnel system. It was only a matter of repairing the Predacons that were damaged in the previous battle and then leading a full-scale assault into the cave, with the Maximals- many of whom were already seriously damaged- having absolutely nowhere to run this time.

 And, despite many being knocked into stasis lock, only a few Predacons were outright killed during the earlier attack. Besides the example made of Bantor, only a couple of Transformers named Noctorro, Manterror, and Buzzclaw were destroyed.

 Buzzclaw. Scourge laughed a bit at remembering the pathetic Transformer he had had a brief glance at when he had assumed command of the Predacons. Such a tiny, weaponless weakling. No wonder he had been killed in the battle. Buzzclaw’s only true function was originally to be a host to Prometheus. And now that Prometheus was dead, the fuzor had outlived his usefulness.

 So had several of the Maximals, as well. Scourge was very pleased when he had heard that Airazor had been killed, and even more so when his troops hauled in the unconscious forms of Tigerhawk, Prowl, Silverbolt, and Gryphtron. Soon they would be dead as well, but Scourge wanted to have a little fun with them first.

 They had not forgotten about Airazor’s shell, however. Scourge unlocked a high-security door in an adjacent hallway in the Predacon base and entered, smiling as he saw Airazor’s battered form on an examination table in the middle of the room. Two of his troops- Spittor and Armordillo, he believed were their names- were hard at work on Airazor’s shell, modifying this, repairing that, etcetera, etcetera.

 Scourge chuckled. Things were going very well indeed.

The End

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