Depth Charge was awoken from his nap by Cybershark, who was shaking the manta ray by the shoulder.

 “Wha- *snort* …Hrmm? What is it, Cybershark?” Depth Charge mumbled, still half-asleep.

 “DC, get up already!” Cybershark urged his commander. “We’ve got a bunch of Predacons closing in, and fast!”

 Depth Charge scratched his head and sat up in his hammock, quirking an eyebrow at Cybershark. “Since when can’t you and Claw Jaw handle a few measly Preds? It’s probably just Terrorsaur and that stupid wasp, lost again during some patrol.”

 “You couldn’t be more wrong!” Cybershark quickly responded. Those Preds are getting closer every second, according to the makeshift scanners we erected soon after we arrived back on Earth… “There’s EIGHT Pred signatures coming this way! And the computer can’t recognize ANY of them!”

 “What!?” Depth Charge said, immediately standing up and taking his lamprey-guns out of subspace. “The scanner must be malfunct-“

 Depth Charge was interrupted as a large missile suddenly landed between him and Cybershark, exploding and knocking them several meters away from each other instantly. Rubbing his head, Depth Charge barely got his wits back together before a huge (although comparatively small to him) Transmetal 2 poison arrow frog jumped on top of him, the frog’s oddly sharp claws puncturing Depth Charge’s chestplate armor.

 “You better get ready ta meet your makah, ‘cause here comes Spittor the undertakah!” the Transmetal 2 frog threatened in a deep voice remarkably similar to Mr. T’s.

 Depth Charge merely cocked his eyebrow again at Spittor’s odd, rapping tone of voice before firing one of his discs directly into Spittor’s ugly amphibian visage.

 Grunting, Spittor flew back a few feet, transforming into robot mode as he did so. Landing neatly on his warty feet, Spittor stood up (as best as he could, anyway) and took  a barbed throwing club out of his subspace. Depth Charge noticed that Spittor was even uglier in this mode than in his beast mode, his form so hunchbacked that he couldn’t stand up straight if his life depended on it. His head was nearly a full foot below his upper back, with what seemed like several gold chains hung around his nearly non-existent neck.

 “That’s it, now you’ve made me mad! Get ready to get hurt real bad!”

 So much for his GOOD rhymes, Depth Charge thought as Spittor hurled his throwing club at the manta ray. Of course, if all you did was talk in rhymes, you’d run out of good ones in no time... Depth Charge took out a tail-spear to block the club with, but a shot to his fin from somewhere to his left knocked him off balance, and the club struck him on the side of his right arm, creating a deep gash as the barbs caught on it.

 Wincing, Depth Charge looked up to see who his new assailant was. That barbed club hurt a lot more than it should have… That thought was pushed out of his head as soon as Depth Charge viewed the rather unusual transformer before him.

 The transformer, whose beast mode seemed to be some kind of Transmetal 2 frilled iguana, had an eyepatch fused over one optic, and the tail from his beast mode dragged behind his head as if it were some kind of long ponytail. The frills from his beast mode made a kind of medieval “skirt” for his robot mode, making him look like some kind of pirate Transformer from the high seas.

 And he sounded like one, too.

 “Ha-harr, me buckoes!” the iguana shouted, taking out a throwing missile from subspace, “We’ve got ‘em now!”

 “He’s mine, Iguanus!” a voice thundered from behind Depth Charge. Turning his head, the manta ray saw an odd fusion of an orca whale and an elephant charging at him.

 “In yer dreams, Torca!” Iguanus countered, throwing his missile at the manta ray.

 Thinking quickly, an oddly exhausted Depth Charge leapt out of the way just as the missile was about to impact with him. Torca, who was just about to ram Depth Charge with the huge ivory tusks growing out his mouth, instead skidded as he realized his quarry had changed position. He didn’t stop in time, though- Iguanus’ missile impacted into Torca right as the fuzor skidded to a stop, hurling the odd Transformer into a nearby palm tree.

 “You guys are both wrong!” Spittor replied in his rapping voice, “The manta ray to me belongs!”

 Depth Charge looked up weakly as the Transmetal 2 frog walked up calmly to him. Depth Charge tried to force himself to stand up and fight, but he found out that he couldn't. He felt like all his energy had been drained in just the past few seconds, and it felt like if was completely gone in his… right….arm…

 Looking carefully at his right arm, Depth Charge noticed tiny beads of greenish liquid dripping off of the barbs of the club that was stuck there.

 I’ve been poisoned! Depth Charge thought weakly as the smirking form of Spittor walked up to him and crushed in the manta ray’s face with his clawed foot.

 Claw Jaw wrestled with a transformer whose beast mode was some kind of prehistoric ammonite. The transformer had called itself Dead End as it terrorized and leaped out of the shallow nearby water, landing on Claw Jaw and pushing the slightly smaller transformer into the sand.

 Finally managing to get one of his tentacles around one of Dead End’s feet, Claw Jaw exerted all his body strength and threw Dead End off of him, back into the water. Dead End’s head clanked into a sharp rock poking slightly above the water level, knocking the ‘bot unconscious.

 Claw Jaw let out an exasperated sigh and stood up quickly, giving himself a once-over for any severe damage. Before he could even finish, he felt two feet latch on painfully to his shoulders and begin to lift him up above the ground.

 “W-what-?” Claw Jaw stammered as he realized what was happening. Now nearly a hundred feet off the ground, Claw Jaw craned his head upwards to see a medium-sized eagle with a hammerhead shark’s head and tail carrying him upwards into the sky.

 “Get a good look, Maximal!” the fuzor said in a feminine voice. “It’ll be your last!”

 She’s going to drop me to my death! Claw Jaw realized as the femme fuzor soared even higher into the midday sky.

 Determined to take the ‘bot with him, Claw Jaw swung his weight around, pivoting his midsection upwards and slamming it into the lower region of the enemy fuzor’s chest.

 “What do you think you’re-?!” the fuzor asked incredulously as the jaw in Claw Jaw’s chest suddenly opened and sunk its fangs into her own chest plate. Any future words were cut off as nearly all her energy was drained into Claw Jaw.

 Using the last of her energy, the eagle/shark fuzor shook Claw Jaw off of her before she her self half-glided, half-plummeted into the shallow surf below.

 Claw Jaw fell to his death satisfied that he had at least been able to take a Predacon with him. If only I knew what the heck was going on….

 Cybershark thrust his attacker into the soil with his claw-arm, instantly activating the rotor at the end. Cybershark couldn’t help but wince as the Predacon, with some kind of Anklyosaurus beast mode, was shredded to bits in front of the shark-bot’s optics, emitting a tortured shriek as he died.

 Unfortunately, Cybershark’s rotor-claw had gotten badly mangled by shredding through the Predacon’s thick armor, rendering it useless. Grunting in frustration, Cybershark took his missile launcher out of subspace with his right hand. He was just about to look around for another Predacon when he felt the sharp sting of machine gun bullets biting into his upper left thigh.

 Turning around, Cybershark saw a Predacon whose beast mode must have been some kind of fusion between a snapping turtle and an alligator. Cybershark fired a missile at the new Predacon, but the fuzor merely blocked it with his huge, sturdy shield mounted on his left arm. The new fuzor seemed about ready to jump on Cybershark, but his optics focused on something behind the Transmetal 2 for an instant and the Predacon grinned.

 Cybershark turned around to face his new attacker, but he was blown back by a missile blast to the face. Groaning and sitting up, Cybershark saw the fuzor and a new Predacon advancing toward him, this one with a polar bear for a beast mode.

 It wasn’t the polar bear Predacon that really caught Cybershark’s attention, however. It was the still corpse of Depth Charge about a hundred yards behind them, and Claw Jaw up in the air nearly half a mile away, apparently committing suicide by sucking the energy out of the Predacon that was carrying him.

 No….. Cybershark’s optics widened in horror as he realized that his only two other comrades were dying.

 Roaring in anger, Cybershark fired missile after missile into his two Predacon attackers. They continued on for a little while under the relentless pounding, but they both soon collapsed under the assault.

 Seeing that the other Predacons, previously occupied by his teammates, were now turning their attention towards him, Cybershark reluctantly transformed into his vehicle mode and flew towards the Maximal base, vowing revenge for Depth Charge’s and Claw Jaw’s deaths… But not now… I’m not about to sacrifice myself uselessly when I’m ridiculously outnumbered…

 Torca walked up next to his commander as he watched the retreating form of Cybershark.

 “Should we go after ‘em, Iguanus?”

 “No, lad,” the Transmetal 2 pirate answered, transforming into his beast mode. “That cursed squid knocked out our group’s only flyer. There’s no way we’ll catch up with ‘em when he’s travelin’ that fast. We’ll get ‘im later.”

 Cheetor looked down at the battles raging below him.

 Well, he didn’t technically look down, because he really wasn’t there. It was just that that was the vantage point that he chose to view the battles from, as he could see the most Transformers at once that way.

 He actually was viewing four battles at once, but he wasn’t distracted by any one of them so much that he didn’t know what was happening in the other three in detail.

 It was a pretty weird feeling, to have one’s complete attention focused on several different things at once, but then again, one got used to weird feelings after one’s death.

 Oh, Cheetor had been dead for a while, now. He had gotten over the initial shock of having passed on to the Matrix. Taran had extinguished Cheetor’s spark about a megacycle or so after the twisted Vexoran had begun operating on Cheetor’s mutating exostructure.

 Cheetor sighed as he watched all the carnage happening below. Rampage and the other two members of his team had been caught completely by surprise, as the Predacons that had attacked them had done so while Rampage and Dinobot Transmetal 2 were recharging. They had destroyed Crossfire before she had even had a chance to get out a word to her other two comrades that they were being attacked. The attacking Predacons had known beforehand that Rampage and Dinobot Transmetal 2 were indestructible- after all, Scourge had known all there was to know about the physical characteristics of the various transformers, being a Vexoran who had overseen many of the experiments performed on them. Thus, the Predacons had pretty much beaten up on Rampage and his half-brother until the two had been knocked out pretty badly. Then they had dragged the two survivors off towards the Predacon ship.

 Beastbot and Ramulus, both being pretty good at stealth, had managed to escape from their Predacon pursuers, but they were both heavily damaged. They were slowly but surely making their way towards the Maximal base.

 Of course, Cheetor had already known what had happened at Depth Charge’s makeshift base and the Maximal’s base. The fight at Depth Charge’s base had been short and sweet. At least Claw Jaw and Depth Charge had died quickly, Cheetor thought.

 Cybershark had taken off towards the Maximal base some time ago, but the two different bases were relatively far apart, and he still had a while to go.

 The Maximals themselves were in the most dire situation of all, however. Even though the Maximals were doing pretty good, all things considered, it was only a matter of time before the Predacons overwhelmed them. One Predacon had already killed Airazor by taking out her flight systems and causing her to crash into the ground from several thousand feet up. It was obvious that the other Maximals weren’t far behind her.

 Cheetor wanted his views of the battle to disappear, so they did. Cheetor just didn’t feel like watching that carnage anymore.

 It was different than he had thought it would be, the Matrix. Cheetor had expected it to be a mysterious nothingness, only broken by the occasional dead Transformer’s spark. Instead, it was like a never-ending, cloudy room- the floor and the ceiling seemed to just be rolling blankets of clouds, and one’s visibility was very limited because of the high “humidity”- Cheetor could only see about ten feet or so in front of him. One also didn’t have “ethereal” forms as he expected- instead, one projected how one would prefer to look. Cheetor was in his Transmetal form, as he had always liked that one the best. It was the only one of his forms that had allowed him to fly, after all. Cheetor had also found out that, although one could “feel” one’s feet on the ground and one could “feel” others, there was no pain in the Matrix. It sort of made sense, now that he had thought about it. Since his form was only as he wanted it to be, if he didn't WANT there to be pain, there wouldn’t be.

 Cheetor was startled out of his thoughts as he saw someone walk up to him in the fog.

 “Dinobot!?”

 The raptor-bot nodded his head.

 “But… you’re alive! How can you be here?”

 “The form created by the Vexorans was merely a clone of me, Cheetor. An exact clone in every way- even I could not have told the difference. Remember that no mortal, not even the Vexorans, is powerful enough to create true life out of nothing.”

 Cheetor merely stood in silence, mulling over what he had just heard.

 “How goes the battle?” Dinobot asked, changing the subject.

 “As expected. We’re losing, big time.”

 Dinobot chuckled. “I know. I just spoke with Depth Charge a few minutes ago.”

 Cheetor quirked an eyebrow at Dinobot’s odd response. “What’s so funny?”

 Dinobot’s expression merely turned serious again. “You don’t know?”

 “Know what!?”

 “Taran has finished rebuilding your body.”

 “So? The last thing I want to do is check back on that creep after all he’s done to me.”

 “But he’s planning to use it against the Predacons.”

 “What!? Why? Why would he help us?”

 “Because, Cheetor, even though Taran is a detestable individual, he admires the Transformer race as a whole. He does not want to see us all exterminated, especially at the hands of his kind. So, he plans to help the Maximals retreat, if for nothing else than to stop Scourge.”

 “You know we would never retreat. Rhinox’ll stick it out to the end.”

 “Not if Nighteye gets to deliver his message…”

 Scourge looked up just as Nighteye pounced on him.

 “SCOURGE!” Nighteye howled, punching his prey hard in the face.

 “Nighteye?!” Scourge asked incredulously, only slightly fazed by the hit.

 “The one and only,” Nighteye grinned as he activated his laser-optic, scorching Scourge’s chest.

 “I guess I’ll just have to finish what I started!” Scourge said, grunting as he took the hit.

 Kicking off Nighteye with his powerful, oddly shaped legs, Scourge immediately took out a pestilence missile- only to have it shot away.

 “You aren’t going to get rid of me that easily!” Nighteye said, his laser optic now trained on Scourge’s forehead.

 “Heck if I won’t!” Scourge yelled, ducking as Nighteye discharged another laser blast and tackling the Transmetal 2 owl at the knees. Both the former Vexorans fell, Scourge landing on top of the slightly smaller (but bulkier) Nighteye. Scourge quickly raised his fist and struck Nighteye’s laser optic before he could fire again, shattering it.

 Scourge laughed as he took out another pestilence missile and aimed it at Nighteye’s face.

 Just as Scourge was about to throw his projectile at Nighteye, a large, curved sword suddenly blocked the throw, deflecting the missile away from the battlefield.

 “W-wha-?” Scourge stuttered, looking up at this new opponent.

 Scourge vaguely recognized the enemy as Cheetor after he had been mutated a bit into an Ultrametal- but his design and coloration were a little different. Cheetor’s head was very sloped, and the head was, in fact, longer than it was tall. He also had very human-like features on his face now, albeit a bit more feline.

 Cheetor’s body was vastly different than it had been before. His metal gray legs were now much longer than they had been proportionally, and they were bent backwards at the knee, like Scourge’s legs. Cheetor also had a sleek, armored main body with a glassy-orange chestplate. His arms were mostly black but had some orange spots near the shoulders. His hands were more claws than hands, yet they were a bit smaller than they had been in Cheetor’s Transmetal 2 form.

 “Go. Away.” Cheetor said, obviously ticked. Scourge was nearly struck speechless by Cheetor’s speech- it sounded exactly like Taran’s!

 “Taran?!” Scourge asked, stepping up off of Nighteye, but still on his guard. “How did you-?”

 “That’s not for you to know,” Cheetor/Taran replied mischievously, chuckling a little. “Now go away. Now. You will NOT destroy all of these Transformers!”

 “We’ll just see about that!!” Scourge retorted, quickly firing a pestilence missile at Cheetor/Taran.

 Taran merely flinched under the assault. The missile did nothing to him at all!

 Scourge stepped back a few feet when he saw this.

 “You- you can’t still be alive! NOTHING can survive my pestilence missiles!”

 “Nothing… except my Ultrametal armor.” Taran chuckled, transforming into his mecha-cheetah mode as he pounced on Scourge.

 “Noooooo!” Scourge yelled in exasperation as Taran’s claws started shredding through his outer armor. “Somebody!! Get this thing OFF me!”

 A few nearby troops, occupied with a few other Maximals, immediately stopped attacking and turned to help their leaders, leaving the severely damaged forms of Rattrap, Gryphtron, and Dinobot behind.

 “Nighteye!” Taran hurriedly spoke as he transformed back into his robot mode turned to defend himself, “Contact Rhinox! Tell him and the other Maximals to retreat!”

 “We’ll NEVER retreat!” yelled Sigma Prime, who was battling with Scarem a couple dozen yards away. “If we give up- *grunt* - they’ll just destroy the Ark, and we’ll all cease to exist!”

 As if demonstrating his point, Sigma Prime dealt a heavy uppercut to Scarem’s jaw, knocking the smaller Predacon senseless. Hurrying over to Nighteye and the struggling form of Taran, Sigma Prime cocked his gun and aimed it at another nearby Predacon.

 “No, you fool!” Taran said, slicing a black-and-red Transmetal panther nearly in half, “Scourge doesn’t WANT the Ark! Destroying the Transformers inside there would cause a great rift in the time stream, and you KNOW none of the other Vexorans want that! RETREAT NOW WHILE YOU STILL CAN!!”

 “But-“ Sigma Prime started, but stopped when he glanced at the various Maximals still fighting. Nearly all of them were severely injured, and the few left that weren’t were running low on energy. If they were going to survive, they had to retreat now.

 Sighing, Sigma activated his comlink and hurriedly started talking to Rhinox as Nighteye covered for him.

Back to Beastbot's Fanfiction Index