Rampage sat leaning against the wall of the Darkside lab as he watched the other Predacons welcoming the new Megatron back. He narrowed his eyes. Unnoticed by the other Predacons, he transformed to beast mode and crept out of the room.

 I hate Megatron, was all he could think as he walked on his six skinny legs into the command center. I can’t believe I was stupid enough to have let my guard down that day. He was, of course, referring to that day almost a year ago when Megatron had taken his spark out of his body and put it in a small container. Whenever Rampage wouldn’t obey Megatron, Megatron had simply pressed on the container, partially crushing Rampage’s spark as long as he deemed necessary. This had caused more than twice the amount of pain as a human heart attack to Rampage.

 Things were made even worse when Megatron, without Rampage’s consent, took the transmetal crab’s spark and put it inside of a sparkless protoform, creating Transmetal 2 Dinobot. Megatron still left a small piece of Rampage’s spark in his container, but only enough to keep Rampage fully functional. It was obvious he thought Rampage was too valuable an asset to lose.

 An asset, thought Rampage. That’s all I am to him. I am more powerful than him, and he knows it. I am more powerful than anyone on this useless ball of rock and dirt. I would never have thought in my wildest dreams before I came here that I , Rampage, would be used as a pawn is some scum’s game.

 An idea suddenly popped into Rampage’s head. This was the first time since he had known Megatron that he had been unable to keep Rampage’s spark close by. It must still be on the command chair. Those idiots working for Megatron would never have thought to bring it with them. If he was going to take his spark back, it had to be now.

 He quickly transformed to robot mode and stepped on a hover pad, riding it like a surfboard to the center of the command center, where Megatron’s empty command chair was. He immediately began ripping out everything around the chair, all the monitors, holoprojectors, and various other technological contraptions.

 A few minutes later, Rampage had found it.

 Megatron was a clever one, hiding it under a sealed panel covering one of the arm rests on the chair. Unfortunately, he was not clever enough.

 After Rampage had smashed a control panel nearby, he had heard a faint sound of metal brushing against metal and turned back around to the chair. A panel had slid open, revealing a small storage area with Rampage’s spark container inside it. Rampage hesitated for a second after seeing it, as if touching his spark might cause it to explode, then reached out and grabbed it. He grinned as part of his chest peeled back to reveal the circuitry underneath, and he placed his spark inside.

 The welcoming back of Megatron had just died down when Dinobot, in mid-sentence of welcoming back Megatron for the final time, instantly and unexpectantly went offline and slumped to the floor. Everyone turned to him suddenly, it all happening so suddenly that they were speechless for a second, as well as confused. As quickly as he had gone offline, Dinobot went back online, his eyes flickering for a moment before doing so. He stood up and looked around at all the other Predacons minus Rampage, who were still staring at him.

 Dinobot only needed to say one quick word.

 “Die.”

 He fired his laser beam at Waspinator, who was in front of the exit, making a hole through the abused wasp’s chest. The Predacon dunce instantly slumped to the floor.

 The other Predacons just stared in disbelief at Dinobot for a second, then opened fire on Dinobot. Dinobot was very good when it came to battle, however, and managed to dodge it all, escaping out the door, with the rest of the Predacons following close behind.

 Rampage, robot mode, was just about to exit the Predacon base when he saw Dinobot round a corner, nearing him, followed a few seconds later a group of other Predacons. Rampage instinctively drew his gun, but put it back slowly as he saw Dinobot being fired at.

 “Master!” was all Dinobot cried out, reaching his clawed hand out for Rampage.

 Rampage stared in confusion at the nearing Transmetal 2 for a second, then it all clicked within his mind.

 When Megatron had control of the rest of his spark, Dinobot followed Megatron. Now that Rampage had his spark under his control once again, Dinobot followed him.

 Without asking any questions, Rampage motioned for Dinobot to follow him, running out of the Darkside as he did so.

 Slag, was all Rampage thought as he looked at the blue shield surrounding the Predacon ship. He had forgotten that they had acquired Sentinel recently.

 Rampage turned back to Dinobot, who had just not appeared out of the entrance.

 “Hold them back, Dinobot, I’ll get this shield down.”

 Dinobot nodded and began firing his laser eye at the group of Predacons closing in on them, knocking out Quickstrike, but doing little other damage.

 Rampage quickly took out his triple-barrel cannon and started blasting away at the shield about seven meters in front of them. Within a matter of seconds, he had destroyed it. He then turned to Dinobot.

 “Come, Dinobot. We will deal with these idiots later.”

 With that, both transformed to beast mode and ran off, while the Predacons, close behind, stood by the base and fired their weapons at them. Most of the beams missed the two rebels completely.

 Just then, Megatron walked out and stood, frowning, at the place where Rampage and Dinobot had disappeared over the horizon. Scavenger turned and saluted to his leader stiffly.

 “Royalty, shall I follow the traitors to our colony?”

 “Yes, Scavenger, but stay out of sight. I want to see what those two  are up to, yes...”

 Prometheus was in Terrorsaur’s old quarters again, talking to a gold visage of Unicron projected on one of the blank walls. The visage of Unicron spoke first.

 “As usual, all is going according to plan. Excellent job, Prometheus.”

 “I trust that you are going to initiate the next phase of the plan, am I correct?”

 “Yes. Good job. You will be rewarded when you return. Farewe-”

 “Excuse me, Unicron, but before you leave, I must ask you; are you going to be jumping insystem soon?”

 “Yes, within a standard Terran month.”

 “Good. I tire of these simpletons. What of the falcon and the snow tiger?”

 “We have dismantled the snow tiger and stored his spark somewhere else for the time being while we examine what makes this species tick. The falcon we have been conducting experiments on for the past few days now. She continues to be rebellious.”

 “Well, she shall learn soon enough that she cannot escape. Farewell, Unicron.”

 “Farewell.”

 Rampage and Dinobot were crossing over a sand dune in sector Omega when they saw a medium-sized stasis pod a few meters away, half of it lodged under a small pile of sand.

 Dinobot was the first to notice it.

 “Look, Master, a stasis pod!”

 “Yes, I see it.”

 Rampage lumbered over to the stasis pod and transformed to robot mode, Dinobot following suit soon after.

 Rampage stroked his chin as he tried to figure out what all these buttons did.

 “Hmm....how does this work again? Oh, yes....”

 Rampage pressed a few buttons and stepped back as the pod did its thing.

 “Predacon programming accepted......scanning for compatible life forms,” the pod’s computer stated as a scanner popped out of the pod and began to sweep the area.

 “Compatible life form found.....data tracks not recoverable....converting protoform....protoform converted.....initiating activation sequence.....activation sequence complete.”

 The scanner went back into the pod as the hatch opened and a medium-sized, red mantis-like creature with no pincers crawled out. It looked around, taking in the scene before it.

 Dinobot looked at the creature, confused.

 “Master, what in the name in the Pit is that?”

 Rampage glanced toward Dinobot disgustedly, then answered.

 “It’s an insect called a bee killer, you idiot. It’s not one of Terra’s most famous insects, but still is quite formidable against bees.”

 Dinobot was about to answer, but then the bee killer spoke in an extremely high-pitched voice.

 “Maximals!? Die! Crossfire, terrorize!”

 The Predacon made clicking sounds as she transformed into robot mode. Her insect head folded down onto her chest to reveal her robot head. Legs folded out from her underside, and her wings rotated to point upward. Her insect legs folded out to her sides to reveal her robot arms connected to them.

 Her face looked remarkably like the original Inferno’s, except for a few major differences. She still had the demonic grin as well as the jutting chin and sharp teeth, but she had a small third eye, which was black as midnight, in the middle of her forehead. Large antennae also stuck out of the top of her head. She had a slim waist, legs, and upper arms, but her lower arms were oddly bulky, with two finger-like claws on the ends of them. Rampage guessed she was a few inches taller than Cheetor.

 Before Rampage or Dinobot could react, she quickly shrieked out another word.

 “Battle mode!”

 As soon as she said the word to begin her third transformation sequence, the bulky parts of her two arms rotated on her elbows and slid forward, her left arm revealing a missle launcher with four red-colored missles, and her right arm revealing a large, round hole in the center. It wasn’t apparent what would come out of it. A long, thin tube poked itself out of her mouth, and, on her third eye, a red targeting reticle appeared.

 “Idiot! We’re not-”

 Crossfire ignored Rampage, her eyes narrowing as her third eye targeted the transmetal crab.

 “Targeted,” stated Crossfire’s computer as a burst of flame came out of the tube in her mouth, scorching Rampage’s right arm.

 “Master! Get down! I will take care of her!” yelled Dinobot as he fired his laser eye at Crossfire, knicking her, but otherwise doing no damage.

 Rampage pushed Dinobot down, pulling out his missle launcher at the same time.

 “No, Dinobot. I want her on my side, not on that fool Megatron’s.”

 Rampage turned toward, her, a peaceful look on his face, but his hand was still clutching his missle launcher.

 “Crossfire, I’m not a Ma-”

 “Silence, Maximal!” yelled Crossfire as she fired two missles from her launcher at Rampage, almost point blank.

 Rampage prepared for impact as the missles hit him. He expected to be blown back several feet, but, to his surprise, they didn’t seem to do any damage.

 “What the-” muttered Rampage, his temper finally overtaking  his common sense.

 “RAHHHHHRRR!”

 He fired a missle at Crossfire, who nimbly dodged it.

 “You’ll pay for that, you-”

 Rampage’s computer cut him off.

 “Warning. Stasis lock imminent. Missles caused heat sinks to malfunction. Firing of weapon caused overheating problem. Warning.”

 Rampage could only stare at himself as steam started to come out of his joints, then he collapsed on the ground, in stasis lock. Crossfire grinned.

 “MASTER!” yelled Dinobot, quickly focusing on Crossfire and charging up his laser eye. He aborted it and ducked when he saw Crossfire launch a few fireballs at him from her other arm. He barely dodged them.

 “Crossfire!”

 Crossfire narrowed her eyes even more as she turned to Dinobot and sneered.

 “I play no more games, Maximal. Surrender or be destroyed.”

 “WE ARE NOT MAXIMALS!”

 Crossfire looked at him in surprise for a moment, then doubt.

 “We shall see if you are telling the truth. Computer, run scan on signature: Dinobot.”

 Crossfire’s computer spoke up a few moments later.

 “Unit: Dinobot’s energy signature matches that of Predacon.”

 Crossfire quickly realized what she had done, and returned to her normal robot mode.

 “I..am...sorry. I did not know what a Predacon looked like. I will join you to ensure to you that I did not mean for this to happen.”

 Dinobot sneered suspiciously, then reluctantly agreed.

 “Very well. Master wanted that. But be warned, we will not tolerate any more attacks.”

 “Agreed.”

 “Good. Now, help me drag Master somewhere where he will be protected while he heals.”

 Scavenger watched all this from behind a nearby sand dune in ant mode.

 “The royalty must know of this at once!”

 With that, he transformed to vehicle mode and rolled off toward the Predacon base.

 “Blast!”

 Megatron struck the arm of his command chair with his scaly green fist, leaving a small impression on the chair in its wake.

 “First that scheeming spider betrays us for the Maximals, and now this! No wonder we haven’t won the Beast Wars yet!”

 Scavenger, standing beside Megatron, nodded in agreement.

 “Say the word, my queen, and they shall all be destroyed!”

 “I don’t have the forces right now to deal with Rampage...we’ll have to wait until later. And-” -at this point he struck Scavenger a backhanded blow in the head- “-if I hear you call me that one more time, I will rip out your vocal circuits! Understood?!”

 “Yes, my- royalty.”

 Megatron then suddenly changed his expression from one of anger to one of intrigue.

 “Scavenger?”

 Scavenger was almost afraid to answer.

 “Ye-yes, royalty?”

 “Why did we not detect that stasis pod?”

 “Well, I- I am not sure, royalty.”

 “Hmmmm....computer, replay scan of area around stasis pod cache, 30 cycles ago.”

 “Acknowledged.”

 The main screen that was displaying a rotating Predacon symbol immediately changed to show a low-definition infared image of the area around the alien shield. A few minutes later, just as Megatron was about to turn the replay off, the shield flickered for a nanosecond, then continued on as normal.

 Megatron stopped fiddling with a yo-yo he had pulled out from a storage compartment nearby and stared at the computer screen, narrowing his eyes. Nothing else happened.

 “Computer, replay last ten seconds. Slow motion.”

 “Acknowledged.”

 Again, Megatron had to wait for a few seconds, but, then, the shield again flickered off as before, this time more slowly. One of the stasis pods in the shield almost instantly disappeared, and the shield flickered on again.

 Megatron stopped the replay, then turned around in his chair to face Scavenger.

 “Scavenger, do you know what this means?”

 Scavenger, with his extremely limited imagination, stared in confusion at his leader.

 “You idiot, it means that the aliens planned all this out! This is what they meant to happen! They meant to somehow keep us from finding that stasis pod! We must find some way to teleport those stasis pods to our base without those aliens noticing, yes. Come. You, me, and Quickstrike are all going to Sector Pi. And bring shovels, yes....”

 Rampage, crab mode, woke up and walked out of the shade of the palm trees and watched Crossfire, robot mode, sleeping under a nearby tree, and Dinobot, robot mode, looking at his leader worriedly.

 “Master, are you all right?”

 “Yes, I’m fine. We are indestructible, remember? It’s just a matter of time before our bodies heal.”

 Dinobot nodded in agreement and pointed towards the slumbering form of Crossfire.

 “That is true. On another note, I have convinced Crossfire to join our ranks.”

 Rampage transformed to robot mode and smirked.

 “Good, good. We still don’t have enough soldiers to lead an attack on the Predacon base, but at this rate, we soon will. And then fear will strike their hearts whenever they hear the name of Rampage! Hahahahoooooh!”

THE END

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