~{ Beast Wars Chronicles }~
~{ Confirmation }~
By Eliot Lefebvre

Out of all the forms he had had over the years, this one seemed 
to be the most useful.

It was, of course.  He had tailored it to 97% peak efficiency with 
his personal skills, and estimated it was at least 47.6% more 
efficient than his last body.  And for the planet he had landed on, 
it was perfect.

He shot up another log, balancing perfectly and rocketing into the 
sky.  His paint shone in the sun, and would have provided a 
beautiful photo shot if anyone able to respect the irony in the 
photo, then he crashed down through the treetops and raced 
along the forest floor once again.

Nearby birds and mammals squawked indignantly, annoyed at 
having their rest disturbed by this robot.  He ignored them, and 
sent a series of mental commannds that began reconfiguring his 
body yet again.  Wheels retracted, wings extended, and a small 
transatmospheric craft shot into the sky.

He spied a small lifeform moving towards him.  If looks were any 
indicator, it was a Predacon.  He activated his scanner, just to 
double-check.  Decidedly Predacon.  He sped up and began to 
bring his weapon systems on-line.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Lazorbeak glided low above the trees before the laser fire 
started.

The blasts disturbed his otherwise peaceful thoughts.  Looking 
up, he saw a purple jet diving at, laser fire spewing out of the 
ports.  *Who the slag...* he thought, and spun upwards, laser fire 
roaring away at the jet.

He barely even got off a second pass.  The purple jet turned to 
face Lazorbeak and transformed into a cannon and blasted 
Lazorbeak squarely.  Flaming, Lazorbeak plummeted downwards 
into the forest below.

Lazorbeak transformed and grabbed onto a tree limb, just to 
keep from careening into the ground.  He activated his internal 
coolant system, and the flames on him slowly died down.  He 
looked up where the cannon had been only a minute before.

Only it wasn't a large purple cannon anymore.

It was a large purple robot.

Lazorbeak had noticed a definite pattern of attacks, and dodged 
to the side seconds before the robot oblitherated the ground 
Lazorbeak had been standing.  *Great,* thought Lazorbeak.  *As 
long as I keep dodging every fifteen seconds, I'll live.*  He looked 
up and sprang aside again as the robot blasted away.

"My turn!" called Lazorbeak, and he flipped over his two shoulder 
cannons.  Blasting twice, he then disappeared into the trees.  
Unlike most of the other Predacons, Lazorbeak had spent a great 
deal of time trying to keep himself agile on the ground, where he 
truly shone.  He was not an air warrior, but a ground warrior.

The large purple robot crashed through the trees, blasting with a 
cannon in place of his left hand.  Lazorbeak, from a small 
enclosure, scanned every aspect of the robot he could - size, 
weight, electromagnetic emissions, whatever he could find.  
Halfway through his scan, he managed to pick up a single break 
in his otherwise smooth surface, a burnt-in sigil.

A Decepticon sigil.

*The ancestors of the Predacons,* thought Lazorbeak.  
Obviously, this robot was either a very old Predacon (which 
seemed unlikely, considering that he was attacking an obvious 
Predacon), or he was one of the renegade Decepticons.  
Lazorbeak decided that this was getting far more threatening by 
the minute, and turned to transform and fly away.

Lazorbeak was lifted up by his neck.  "You attempts at escape 
are admirable, but there is a 83% chance that you are unable to 
execute them," said the large robot, more focused on this fact 
then on the fact he was choking Lazorbeak.  "There is a 78% 
chance that you are a potential threat, and a 89% chance that - 
ooof!"

"Stuff it," said Lazorbeak, elbowing the large robot hard.  The 
elbow wasn't very damaging, but the large spike that extended 
back out from it was signifigantly more useful.  The robot 
dropped Lazorbeak in suprise, and Lazorbeak transformed and 
flew off.

"Tactical analysis of opponent was incomplete.  Updating data."  
The large robot reached into his subspace pocket for the parts to 
repair himself as he added everything he had figured out about 
his opponent.  His opponent was escaping; it did not matter.  He 
would have more than enough time to catch him later.

*Don't know why he isn't pursuing,* thought Lazorbeak as he flew 
off, *but I'm not complaining.*  He took a sharp left and headed 
towards the Predacon ship.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

"This time, it's going to be different," said Rattrap as he slid to the 
left.  "I can't lose this time."

Stormcloud blasted where Rattrap had been just scant moments 
before.  "Don't be so sure about that just yet, Rattrap."

"So you think that you're going to win?" asked Rattrap.  He 
flipped a pair of missile racks onto his shoulders and fired twice.  
Stormcloud lept up and transformed into a small car and drove 
off to the left.

"I didn't say that.  I said don't be so sure about that."  Stomcloud 
shot up a ramp and tranformed again in mid-air, this time to a 
large gun.  "NOW I'm saying it," he said.

The first blast burnt away most of what was recognizable.  The 
second reduced whatever was left to trace particles.

MYRIAD DEFEATS LOCKHEED
MERCILESS! 78,000 BONUS POINTS
MYRIAD WINS THE MATCH

Rattrap slammed the controller into the ground.  Hard.  "It seems 
like I get worse, not better," he muttered.  "How many times is 
that?"

Stormcloud pressed a few buttons on a comp pad he had 
nearby.  "With this loss, you have been hacked, mangled, 
destroyed, oblitherated, vaped, melted, shattered, and othewise 
killed by me seven thousand, four hundred twenty-three times.  
Counting total wins."

Rattrap picked up the controller again.  "One more match.  This 
time, let me be Myriad, I think I can get his Merciless! move to 
work."

Stormcloud looked over the comp pad again.  "You said that in 
match #3405... #4569... #4725... #5382... #6676... #6677..."

"No way!  I never try the same trick twice in a row!"

"Not according to this," replied Stormcloud, pressing a few more 
buttons.  "You blamed #6676 on me cheating, and insisted a 
second try on that.  Huh...#0421...#3432...#7011...#4826...
#0008..."

"I get the picture," muttered Rattrap glumly.

Stormcloud punched a few more numbers into the comp pad, 
then sat silent.

"Hey?  Stormcloud?  Big S?  Stormster?  Hello?" prattled 
Razorbeast as he waved his arms in front of Stormcloud's face.

"Wha...oh, yeah, sorry, Razor," muttered Stormcloud 
absentmindedly.

"What's gotten into you?" asked Armordillo.  "Lately, you haven't 
been your normal, hyperintelligent, multi-faceted self."

"Just...thinking about Vixen."

Rattrap slapped himself in the forehead.  "Why don't you try to 
get together with her?  You two are obviously interested in each 
other."

"I just...that is, I feel...in other words, I couldn't..."

"Spit it out," said Razorbeast impatiently.

"I don't KNOW why I don't!  I just can't get the words out!" 
Stormcloud finally exclaimed out of exasperation.

Razorbeast laughed.  "You?  The bot who tries to spend twenty-
four hours of a day inside the computer with no contact with any 
living being?  Has trouble with females?  Now how ever could 
that happen?"

"Sarcasm not appreciated," noted Stormcloud.

"C'mon, we think you can do it," said Armordillo.

Stormcloud looked at him.  "With all undue respect, Armordillo, 
that really doesn't inspire confidence so much as nausea."

Armordillo looked at him, blank-faced.  "What?" he asked.  "I 
didn't get it."

Rattrap patted Stormcloud on the back.  "Stormy, old buddy, old 
pal -"

"Hand.  Off.  Now."

Rattrap quickly withdrew his hand.  "What I'm trying to say is that 
you should go for the gusto.  Get with her.  Y'know...wink wink, 
nudge nudge, say no more, nudge nudge."

Everyone else was looking at Rattrap oddly.

"Do the horizontal polka!  Jump her bones!  Get it on!"

"He's finally lost it," said Armordillo.

"Aw, slag it, just get together with her!" said Rattrap, waving a 
hand dismissively.

Stormcloud began to walk out the door, then stopped and turned 
to face Rattrap.  "Why are you giving me advice?" he asked.

"Yeah, role reversal's a bitch, ain't it?" said Rattrap, smiling.

"That wasn't what I meant," replied Stormcloud.  "The only times 
you do things is when you want to, you don't have a choice, or 
there's some personal gain in it.  So what do you want?"

"Nothing!  I'm doing this out of the goodness of my heart!" 
Rattrap said in mock innocence.

"You told me it was because you were going to hack into the 
system and give yourself access to a shuttle temporarily," said 
Armordillo.  Rattrap elbowed him hard.  "That is to say, I didn't 
just say that - >ooomph< - I mean you didn't hear me - 
>ooomph< - I mean I wish Rattrap would stop elbowing me - 
>ooomph< - I mean that it's a litte late for this now."

Stormcloud walked over to the console and keyed in a small 
subroutine.  "There.  You have access to the Nicodermis for 24 
total hours, after which an alarm will trigger and you will have 
three hours to return it to the shuttlebay."

Rattrap thought for a moment.  "Yeah, that's good, even though 
fifteen will probably do it," he said at length.

Stormcloud sighed.  "I wasn't kidding about the bomb, either," he 
said, and walked out of the room.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Vixen smoothed away the chair and flopped into it.  Seachill was 
in the CR Chamber from the sabotaged arctic base (*Thank you 
so much for that, Iguanus,* she thought to herself), and 
Wingspan was still in the chambers from their all-too-recent 
battle with Primus Trion.  He had taken more damage then the 
other members of Skyking, and that meant the entire gestalt was 
inactive until he recovered.

The door hissed open, and Stormcloud walked in.

"What's wrong?" asked Vixen, getting to her feet.

"Nothing, nothing," said Stormcloud, almost defensively.  "I just 
wanted to talk for a little while."

"Why?"

"Do I really need a reason?"

"No."

The two sat down next to each other.  Vixen slumped slightly in 
her chair, while Stormcloud sat straight and erect.  "How is 
everyone recovering?" asked Stormcloud somewhat meekly.

"All right, I guess.  I would've thought that Wingspan would've 
recovered by now."

"Oh."  The two sat silent for a long while.  *Geez, this is stupid.  
I'm acting like I'm only four thousand years old,* thought 
Stormcloud.

At length, he turned to Vixen.  "The main reason I came down 
here was to tell you I-I-I-I-I..." he began shakily.

"You..." said Vixen, making small circular motions with her 
hands.

"I c-c-c-c-c-c-caaaaaaaa..." he continued.

"Spit it out," urged Vixen.

"I caaaaaaarrrrrrr..." he tried again.

"You care..." she said, nodding impatiently.

"I care about you!" he said at length.  "I can't stop thinking about 
you!  I spend my spare time calling up memories of you!  Happy 
now?"

Vixen said nothing for a momen out of suprise.  Then she spoke.  
"You do?  You really do?"

"Yes," he replied.  "Ever since I met you during the gestalt 
project."

She looked at him oddly.  "I feel the same way," she said softly.

He ran his hand up the side of her face.  Touching her...there 
were all the normal sensations there, but something else, too - 
an exhiliration he had never felt before.  Somehow her face 
seemed to carry qualities it never had before.  Her eyes...her 
body...her voice...everything about her seemed to strike another 
chord within him.

They moved closer.  He kissed her once, lightly.  More 
sensations rushed through his body.  "I love you," he said to her 
with a slight smile.

They kissed again, and Stormcloud began to soar where not 
even his beast mode could.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

"Multiple transformation ability.  High-powered weapons, equal to 
the force of Megatron's cannon.  Advanced scanning equipment.  
And all of this under the sigil of a faction that barely exists 
anymore."  Scorponok tossed the report down on the confrence 
table.  "When I first heard about this, I laughed.  Now, quite 
frankly, I'm scared.  This guy is as, if not more, powerful as 
Inferno."

Megatron picked up the report.  "This is not a good thing...unless, 
of course, he really is an archaic Decepticon and he would ally 
with us."

"I think we can safely rule that out since he attacked Lazorbeak," 
replied Scorponok.

"What's more, most of the old Decepticons are with the renegade 
Decepticons, and they aren't at all pleased with how the 
Predacons are running things," added Taratulas.

"So what you're basically telling me is that something with the 
transformations of Sixshot, the speed of Blurr, and the power of 
Bluestreak is coming to kill us all," finished Megatron.

"Yep," replied Scorponok and Taratulas in unison.

Megatron sighed, then grabbed the nearby Waspinator and 
smashed him into the wall.

"Um, sir...why..." stammered Scorponok.

"It's a release," he explained.

"Wazzpinator - >hack< - have to find - >cough< - new line of 
work," stammered Waspinator as an indeterminite fluid hacked 
out of his mandibles.

"If I were you," said Headlock, "I would try and emit a low-power 
energon field around him.  With no beast mode, he may be able 
to hold out for a little while, possibly from an energon absorbtion 
field, but he would wind up going into stasis lock, at which point 
we could easily take him and imprison him."

Megatron glowered.  Actually, he was thinking of a frontal 
assault, hoping to overpower his enemy by sheer numbers.  
Headlock had only been with the Predacons for a few weeks, 
about the same time Juliet came to the Predacons permanently.  
He didn't ACTIVELY try to take the position of leader from 
Megatron, but through his machinations he made Megatron look 
like the subordinate.  No doubt about it, Headlock could become 
a major problem.

"Right," Megatron muttered under his breath.  "I'll have someone 
realign the Soundwave's engines to produce the field."

Headlock nodded.  "Is there anything else you wish me to 
examine, my lord, or am I free to go?"

Megatron nodded.  "Actually, there is.  There seems to be a lava 
geyser directly under the Soundwave.  I was wondering if you 
could think of a solution."  Megatron almost smiled; there wasn't 
really any lava.  He just wanted Headlock not to have the 
solution.

Headlock brought up a holographic map of the Soundwave's 
current location.  "If it were up to me," he said, thinking hard, "I 
would tunnel around these points -" he pointed at eight different 
locations, circling the Soundwave, "- at increasing angles,starting 
at about a 29 degree angle.  That will decrease the pressure 
enoough so that the Soundwave can withstand any eruptions."

Megatron gaped.  He had double-checked with Tarantulas, and 
he was sure that there was no solution.  He wondered if he 
should blame Tarantulas or Headlock.  *Headlock,* he thought, 
and he turned to glare at the Predacon.  "That will be quite 
enough.  You are dimissed."

Headlock nodded and walked out of the room.  From her position 
in the shadows, Blackarachnia smiled.  *Headlock makes 
Megatron feel threatened, because they think on the same wavelength.
I will have to remember that.*

Blackarachnia walked into her quarters.  "How is the construct 
coming?" she asked Drill Bit.

"Just fine," he answered, welding another plate to the massive 
object.

"How would you know?  You don't even know what it is."

"How could I?  You wouldn't tell anyone."

Blackarachnia said nothing - he WAS right.  She walked over to 
Juliet, sitting at a console.  "How are the plans going?"

"Fine," she replied.  "If these schematics you gave me are 
correct, then the alignment I have it at ought to work just fine."

Blackarachnia looked it over.  "Yes, that should be fine."  She 
began walking into her own personal room.

Juliet turned.  "A word, empress?"

Blackarachnia nodded.  "Speak."

"If I could, I would like to preserve Tigatron."

"Why?"

"Personal reasons."

Blackarachnia knew all too well about Juliet's past, so she didn't 
even question it.  "Very well."

Juliet smiled.  Blackarachnia sighed and walked into her own 
room.

Sitting down on her bed, Blackarachnia sighed and stared at her 
small Nightbird figurine.  *What were you like, Nightbird?* she 
wondered for the millionth time.  *You had the leader of the 
Decepticons in your hands.  Did you want the power?  Did you 
truly care about him?  Will I ever have a chance know the truth?*

Her mind drifted away.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Stormcloud was exhausted.  "God, that was exhilerating," he said 
in a gasp.  "Tell me again what exactly it was?"

Vixen smiled.  "It's called Joining.  It basically allows two 
Transformers to interact, sharing their mindwaves with each 
other.  Originally, it was only for reproduction, but with the 
invention of the pleasure interface..."  Stormcloud could finish the 
sentence himself.

He began to get up, and promptly slipped and fell.  He did a quick 
diagnostics check.  "My energon is at unusually low levels," he 
said, puzzled.

"It's the act of Joining," explained Vixen.  "You see, it basically 
does more than the equivalent act of the humans by allowing 
complete interaction between the two praticapants on both a 
physical and mental level."  She rose shakily to her feet and 
handed him an energon crystal.  He accepted, and began to 
recharge.

She sat down next to him.  "When you...said all of that - did you 
really mean it?"

"Of course I did," he replied, fully charged.  "I wouldn't have said 
them if I didn't."

"Then why didn't you say so before?  What incited you?"

"You aren't going to believe this...Rattrap."

She did a double take.  "You're kidding."

"Not at all."

She smiled.  "I'm not sure if this is a sense of humor or 
seriousness, but it's amusing either way."  She finished charging.  
"Rattrap?"

"Yes.  I think we've kind of beaten that routine into the ground 
now, don't you think?"

She nodded and checked at the CR chambers.  "Wingspan 
should be out pretty soon."

Stormcloud smiled.  He had done a lot of design on Magnaboss, 
but Skyking was his pet project, and he had been quite pleased 
with the gestalt's performance.  The members all acknowledged 
him as a sort of "father" to them all - a role he adopted without 
reluctance.  And therefore, he worried about them when they 
were hurt.  Wingspan had him very worried for a little while.

"I've got to get going," said Stormcloud.  He walked over to Vixen 
and kissed her lightly.  "Primal wants a report from his senior 
officers in a couple minutes."

"Best of luck," she called to him as he left.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Rattrap was nearly finished with the pre-flight check.  In a few 
minutes, he would be off.  "Hey, Razorbeast!" he called into his 
comm.  "How's everything on the western front?"

"If the camera's working right," said Razorbeast with a slight hint 
of amusement in his voice, "then I would say Stormcloud and 
Vixen are most definitely getting it on.  Or at least, they did."

Rattrap smiled to himself.  He fused one last joint and rolled out 
from underneath the ship.  "I'm coming on, guys.  Get ready to 
take off."

Razorbeast nodded.  "Prepping takeoff thrusters.  Weapons and 
Nav on-line...all other systems powering up.  Ready for takeoff in 
one minute."

"Where are we going again?" asked Armordillo from the gunner's 
seat.

"You'll know when we get there," replied Rattrap as he walked 
onto the bridge of the ship.  "Take off when we're ready."

Razorbeast nodded.  "Takeoff in five...four...three...two...one..."

The Nicodermis's engines kicked in with a slight hum, then 
roared to life as the docking bay doors opened.  The ship drifted 
along at a low cruising speed until they cleared the docking bay.  
"Initializing full engines.." said Razorbeast as he flipped one last 
switch.

A roar came up as a gigantic blast of flame erupted from the bak 
of the shuttle.  Rocketing forward, the ship blasted right through 
the atmosphere as it shot into orbit.

"We have established an orbital pattern," said Razorbeast.

"Duh," said Rattrap.  "What did you do - graduate from the 
Deanna Troi School of Stating Nothing Useful?"

"No, the Rattrap School of Acting Like a Jackass."

"Why, you..."

"Calm down!  We only have 23 hours and 40 minutes left!" 
exclaimed Armordillo.

"He's right.  Razorbeast, set a course for the second moon," 
ordered Rattrap.

"Who made you Prime?" asked Razorbeast.

"Just do it."

Razorbeast muttered something inaudible and set the course.  
The ship's engines kicked in again and the ship rocketed along 
towards the second moon of the planet.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Headlock could feel Blackarachnia's presence before she wanted 
him to.  Within seconds he had his arm-mounted cannon on-line 
and aimed at Blackarachnia.  "You'd better talk fast," he said to 
her.

Blackarachnia was obviously taken somewhat aback.  "I...just 
needed you to give me access to a shuttle."

He lowered his cannon.  "And why, pray tell, would I want to do 
that?"

"Because you want to overthrow Megatron as much as I do."

Headlock laughed.  "God, you are disillusioned.  I really couldn't 
care less if he's in charge.  I will do what I want."

"But Megatron thinks that you want him overthrown."

"He knows that you do, too.  He'll keep us around anyways, 
because the rest of his troops are dumber than a bag of rocks."

"So will you help me or not?"

"I will...but in return for a favor."

"A favor?  Is that all?"  She laughed.  "In that case, what do you 
want?"

"I don't know yet.  I want you to remain in my debt as long as 
possible.  You will owe me a favor, and I will collect on it during 
some point in the future."

"And if when you come to me, what if I refuse?"

"Then I will tell Megatron you were given access to a shuttle 
without his permission."

"He'll trace you to it."

"Not if I use Tarantulas's access."  He punched in a few keys, 
and sure enough, he was on Taratulas's account.  A large picture 
of Blackarachnia was quite litterally sprawled across the desktop.  
"A moment of comprimising morality, from the looks of it."

Blackarachnia glowered.  "Cut it out.  Just give me access."

Headlock smiled slightly and typed in a few more keys.  "There.  
You have access to the Chemosh for 48 hours, after which a 
one-hour timer will activate.  When the countdown ends, it 
explodes."

"Thanks," she said, kissing him on the cheek.  "Maybe that'll help 
you make up your mind."

She walked out of the room.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

He glided along the treetops, searching for a target.  His recent 
loss to the Predacon was highly disappointing, and he decided 
that he would be faster to eleminate his opponent faster this time.  
He was a little worried about what would happen, but not very.

*After all, who was commander of the Decepticons for four 
million years?  Who struck fear into the hearts of Autobots?  Who 
corageously survived Unicron's assault on Cybertron when 
everyone else thought he was dead?  I did!*  He had to remind 
himself every so often.

He spotted some movement in the underbrush.  He scanned 
briefly.  A Maximal, but then again, that was even better.  He 
zoomed down for an assault.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

"Holy slag!" were the first words out of Cheetor's mouth.  The 
next ones were a little more productive.  "Dinobot, get over here!  
We've got a situation here!"

Dinobot sprang out.  "Where?"  He looked up to see the gigantic 
purple jet rushing towards them.  "Ah, an honorable death!" he 
said as he transformed to robot mode.  Slightly in front of him, 
Cheetor did the same.

The purple Decepticon landed on the ground and converted into 
a large panther.  Silently, he began to pace in front of the two 
Maximals.  "What in the world is he doing?" asked Dinobot 
tensely.  "We should attack!"  So saying, he launched himself 
forward, rotor at the ready.

Dinobot was swatted away by the large panther.  Cheetor took 
the momentary advantage and sprang at his opponent, extending 
talons in his fingers and slashing at the large beast.  The panther 
growled and transformed right underneath Cheetor, knocking him 
off.

Shaking his head back into focus, Dinobot looked up to see a 
large purple Decepticon towering over Cheetor.  The Decepticon 
was preparing to blast Cheetor with a cannon on his right arm.  
Lifting his sword, Dinobot gave a battle cry and rushed forward at 
the Decepticon.  The Decepticon swung his cannon-hand up high 
to parry the slash by Dinobot.

Whipping out his rotor, Dinobot swung low at the torso of the 
Decepticon.  This time, the Decepticon flipped Dinobot over.  
Dinobot hit the ground hard, getting the wind knocked out of him.  
Gasping for breath, he barely rolled away from a blast of laser 
fire.

Cheetor regained conciousness.  Looking up, he saw Dinobot 
locked in combat with the large Decepticon.  Grabbing his quasar 
cannon, he aimed and fired twice at the Decepticon.  The shots 
seemed to have no effect - aside from making him angry.  The 
Decepticon turned towards Cheetor and started walking over, 
blasting all the way.

"Bad move," shouted Dinobot as he lept onto the Decepticon's 
back and thrust his sword into the Decepticon's back.  Instead of 
falling over like most opponents would, the Decepticon lifted 
Dinobot off of his back, pulled out the sword, and blasted Dinobot 
in the chest.  Dinobot gave a halfway suprised gasp, then rocket 
backwards into a tree, slumping over.

Cheetor blasted over a nearby tree, collapsing it on the 
Decepticon.  The 'con whirled around and blasted the tree 
asunder before it landed.  Transforming back to panther mode, 
he stalked over towards Cheetor.

And pounced.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Vixen gaped over the two bodies.  "Remind me again where it 
was you found these bodies?" she said.

"As I recall," said Rhinox, "they had been strung up on a radio 
pole by the gaping holes in their chests.  Dinobot's vocal output 
had been rigged to keep saying over and over, 'The Decepticons 
have returned...'"

Skydive shook his head.  "I've never seen anything this brutal in 
my entire career, not even when I was on Earth with the 
Autobots."

"Will you stop talking about that?" snapped Vixen.

Skydive shook his head.

"Any idea who did this?" asked Vixen.

"Probably a former Decepticon commander," said Onslaught 
from a far corner.

"Why do you say commander?" asked Rhinox.

"I used to BE a Decepticon commander, Rhinox.  I know how 
they think.  If I were in this Decepticon's place, I would have 
relished the opportunity.  No, this was not some low-level lackey - 
he knew what he was doing."

"Any idea who it was?" asked Rhinox.

"Well, let me look at the wounds," he replied, examining the two 
of them.

Rhinox raised an eyebrow slightly.  "You guys actually had 
trademark styles to badly damage people?"

"Oh, did we ever.  Mine was to shear off the limbs.  Megatron 
always prefered melting them, though...that's how he was 
nicknamed 'The Slag Maker'."  Onslaught finished the 
examination.  "Oh dear.  This is very, VERY bad."

"Who was it?" asked Rhinox.

"That chest wound is typical of the commander of the 
Cybertronian Decepticons for over four million years."

"Who???" asked Rhinox again.

"His ruthlessness is well known throughout the galaxy, and his 
cold, calculating logic made him one of the most feared 
commanders."

"WHO?" insisted Rhinox.

"His powerful rule was -"

"JUST TELL US WHO IT WAS!!!" bellowed Rhinox.

"Shockwave," said Onslaught, with fearful reverence in his voice.  
It was the first time Rhinox had ever heard him scared.

"Who's Shockwave?" asked Vixen.

"Not a nice guy," replied Skydive.  "He has a full range of 
electromagnetic projection weapons, transforms into a gigantic 
cannon, and is completely ruthless.  I remember him from when I 
was on Earth with the..."

Skydive stopped from a withering glance from Vixen.

"...never mind, you probably know all of that anyway."

"In any event, how is he able to survive without a beast mode?" 
said Rhinox.

"It's been a while since I saw him.  He might have installed an 
energon shield since then," replied Onslaught.

"Energon shield?" asked Rhinox quizzically.

"Fairly cutting-edge technology of the Decepticons when I joined 
the AutoCons, along with the rest of the Combaticons," replied 
Onslaught.  "The idea was to absorb discharged energon into an 
internal power bank.  Useful with all of the energon caches that 
were being destroyed.  Around here, it would be like the energon 
on that floating mountain 24 hours a day."

Rhinox whistled.  "I'd say that puts us knee-deep in slag."

"Say, where's Rattrap?" asked Skydive.  "We could use some 
information from him."

"I...might know," said Vixen sheepishly, remebering what 
Stormcloud had said.  "But it really isn't a problem, is it?"

"No," replied Rhinox.  "How would you know, anyway?"

Vixen thought back to the Joining.  *The best I've had yet, if 
memory serves,* she thought, and she felt herself blush visibly.  
"Umm...does...it...really MATTER how I learned it?  Right?"  She 
could feel herself sheepishly grinning.

Rhinox leaned over to whisper to her.  "You Joined with 
Stormcloud, didn't you?"

She nodded, also rather sheepishly.

"Doesn't matter a bit," said Rhinox aloud.  "We'll just have to wait 
until he gets back, and try to hack in until then."

Vixen thought again of their Joining, and shuddered slightly in 
delightful rememberence.  She discreetly stopped and focused 
her thoughts back onto things like death.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

"Retrothrusters on," announced Razorbeast.  The Nicodermis 
landed softly on the second moon.  "In case you hadn't already 
figured it out, we're here."

"Duh, pighead," replied Rattrap.  He walked over to the htach and 
opened it, then stepped out as the plank slowly lowered.  "Now, 
let's get cracking."

"What are you doing?" asked Armordillo tenatively.

"Looking for energon materials," replied Rattrap, converting to rat 
mode and sniffing around.

"Errr...don't you mean energon CRYSTALS?" asked Armordillo, 
also transforming and landing clumsily on the ground.

"No, I mean materials," replied Rattrap.  "See, before energon 
was found to exist in a stable - well, relatively speaking - 
crystaline form, we compiled various energy sources to form 
energon cubes.  Crude, but very effective, both as nourishment 
and -" at this point he smirked maliciously "- weapons."

"And you know how to make these?" asked Razorbeast, 
remaining in robot mode.

"You got that right," he replied.  "Soundwave showed it to me 
back when we were still kickin' it in Vilnacron.  Man, those were 
the days - pillage a little here, plunder a little there, and you've 
got it made.  At least, as long as Megs didn't catch you goofing 
off, in which case the days were far from good."

"I think I found something!" exclaimed Armordillo.  He rushed 
over, arms full of small shining rocks.

"Yeah, you found something all right," said Razorbeast, his voice 
dripping with cynicism.  "They're called rocks.  Y'know, the little 
hard things that are inside your skull."

"No, no, no!  My scans showed trace elements of uranium."  He 
looked at Rattrap expectantly.  "That is GOOD, isn't it?"

"Yes and no," replied Rattrap.  "Uranium's a great way to make 
energon cubes, but it's not a very good idea to keep around your 
beast mode - it really messes up organics.  Put it in the hold - 
that's lead-coated."

Armordillo nodded and walked into the ship.

"Hell-o!  My scans are reading so much energon nearby, it 
makes the Plasma Energy Chamber look like a battery!"  
Razorbeast double-checked his scan.  "Yup, no doubt about it.  
North by northwest."

Rattrap nodded and scurried off in that direction, Razorbeast 
close behind.  The two of them crouched down behind a large 
outcropping of rock, and peered out.

"By Primus!" exclaimed Razorbeast.  "Who the slag is that robot?  
And what in the world is that thing towering over them?"

"I don't know," replied Rattrap.  "But I'm not putting any money on 
it being a good thing."

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

"Are these schematics as you specified?" asked Blackarachnia of 
the large robot in front of her.

Shockwave gave them a once-over.  "Yes.  The structures is 
98.4% correct, and will operate at 99.2% efficiency."

Blackarachnia smiled and cocked her head in suprise.  "Really?  
They did that well?  In that case, I'll have to be a little more 
lenient."  She thought for a moment on the decision.  "Nah."

"Humor not registered," said Shockwave, examining the towering 
structure again.  "Is payment prepared for this?"

Blackarachnia nodded, and she handed him a small subspace 
access device.  "This pocket has all the parts you requested.  
Also, any Maximals that fall are yours to do with as you wish."

Although Shockwave's face was not able to display any emotion, 
he seemed to smile.  "You are quite compotent, Blackarachnia.  
Perhaps it is logical that you rule the Predacons."

"It most certainly is," she replied.

Shockwave nodded and transformed to a small flying craft.  He 
hovered into the sky and then kicked in his engines, racing back 
towards the planet.

"You don't actually trust him, do you?" asked Terrorsaur from 
near the structure.

"I don't trust you, either," she replied.  "Trust is not the issue, only 
if you think you can get what you want without any risk to 
yourself."

She paused for a moment.  "Prepare to engage the device," she 
told Manterror.  He nodded and began working the controls.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

"Not good.  Notgoodnotgoodnotgood," muttered Rattrap as he 
raced back to the Nicodermis.  He had to contact somebody.  But 
who?  If he called up the main ship, then Primal would know 
about how he took the shuttle - not a good thing.  There really 
was only one person he could radio.  He flipped on the comm 
and adjusted the antenna to aim the signal where he wanted.

"Rattrap to Stormcloud, Rattrap to Stormcloud.  We're on the 
second moon, and there are a bunch of Predacons around that 
look like they're about to cause trouble.  And I don't mean normal 
trouble that they cause all the time.  I mean T-R-O-U-B-L-E.  Get 
up here as fast as you can, 'cause we're probably gonna get our 
asses kicked pretty damn soon."

He turned the comm on to repeat.  Then, he sat down and did 
the only thing he could.

Wait.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

"So, you're saying he's up there about to get his butt kicked," said 
Rhinox.

"Yeah.  I still can't believe that I actually felt his advice was worth 
giving him access to a shuttle."  Stormcloud looked at Vixen.  
"Not that the results were regretable, mind you."

"Mmm," replied Vixen.

"So let's get going!" said Windrider.  In his exuberance, his talons 
punched right through the table they all were sitting at.

"I'm afraid it's not that easy," said Skyfall.  The usually-silent 
member of the Aeriomals continued on.  "We'd have to file a 
flight plan, and have shuttle access.  I doubt that Stormcloud 
could do it again without looking suspicious."  Skyfall slammed 
his fist into the table.  "This is ridiculous.  Even when I was 
infused with Nucleon I could still fly past the atmosphere.  Now 
these damned organics keep us stuck here, just like Nucleon 
stuck me on the ground!"

"Calm down," said Wingspan.  He respected Skyfall - he was 
among the older of them, and he was also a brilliant engineer 
and tactician.  He just had a tendency to get angry very quickly 
when his primary love, flying, was denied of him.  "I'm sure we 
can figure out a logical way out of this."

"I can think of one," said Stormcloud.  "I'll have to get in again."

Everybody looked at him.

"I'll give myself access to a runabout, not a shuttle.  Those are 
bigger, and they aren't used often, so I probably won't have to 
worry as much as with a shuttle."

"But what if you get caught..." said Vixen, fear in her voice.

"We'll deal with that roadblock when we get there," he replied.  
"Rattrap is my friend, and we might all be in danger here."  He 
sat down at the computer and began to access the shuttle 
registry.

A few tense moments seemed to get stretched out over decades.  
Then, Stormcloud turned off the computer.  "We have access to 
the Defiant," he said.

Rhinox nodded.  "In that case, everyone to the Defiant," he 
ordered.

The troops all filed out.  Before Stormcloud left, however, Rhinox 
grabbed his shoulder.  "Are you sure you know what you're 
doing?" he asked.  "You're putting a lot on the line by bringing 
such a small entourage."

Stormcloud turned to Rhinox.  "I know how much I'm risking.  I 
just also know that I started this, and I'm obligated to finish it."

The two said nothing more, just walked out towards the Defiant.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

"The device is almost fully powered, empress," said Manterror 
from the control panels.

"Perfect," she said.  "Tell me when it's fully powered.  Then we'll 
see what this baby can really do."

Nearby, Rattrap was liking the position he was in less and less.  
"This is terrible.  If we stay here, they'll find us sooner or later and 
kill us.  If we take off, they'll aim that device at us and kill us.  
Let's face it, we're going to die."

"Will you quit whining?" snapped Razorbeast.  "You're starting to 
sound like Dead End."

"I worked with him long enough.  He grows on you eventually."

Armordillo walked out of the cargo bay.  "No luck.  We don't have 
a single decent weapon on the ship.  Aside from what we already 
have, of course."

Rattrap slammed his fist into the keyboard in front of him.  "Why 
couldn't you have told me that we have a bunch of fully automatic 
rail guns back there that could take out a fully-armed cruiser?"

Armordillo shrugged.  "Mainly because we don't."

"Did you get through to Stormcloud?" asked Razorbeast.

"I sure hope so," said Rattrap.  "Because otherwise we're all 
going to wind up looking like Primus Trion."

"The device is fully powered," said Manterror at last.

The smile on Blackarachnia's face went from one side to the 
other.  "Excellent.  Fire on that patch of ground 40 klicks away."

Manterror nodded and fired the turrets.  The blast hit the patch 
and it boiled away.

"How hot was that blast?" she asked him.

Manterror checked the computer.  "Over 300 degrees Celcius," 
he replied.

"Wazzzpinator want to know what spider-bottess has planned," 
said Waspinator.

"It should be obvious by now," replied Blackarachnia.  "Aside 
from being just a great weapon, it can also scramble robot 
circuitry.  If we were to take a blast from up here, we could 
scramble circuitry of all of the Maximals."

"What about the Predacons?" asked Terrorsaur.

"Aside from us, they'll probably get scrambled, too.  A waste, in 
some cases, such as Inferno and Tarantulas.  But, mustn't 
complain."

"We really are going to die," moaned Rattrap.

"Not just yet," said Stormcloud as he walked into the shuttle.

"Stormcloud!" exclaimed Armordillo.  "Did you see what that thing 
just did?"

"Yes," he said.  "Rhinox, Vixen, and the Aeriomals came with me.  
We're going to try and destroy it."  He turned to his comm.  "I 
found them.  You can start the assault."

Rhinox heard the go-ahead, and waved on the others.  Vixen 
hung back, but the Aeriomals and he charged forward.  Rhinox 
slung out his chain gun from subspace and started blasting away.  
Waspinator began to avoid it, but fell short of that intention as he 
was blown back by the powerful gun.

With her assault rifle slung behind her back, Cloudspin jumped 
forward and fired off her razor-disk launcher.  Terrorsaur nimbly 
dodged the disks, and Cloudspin had to roll to the side to avoid 
getting blown away.  She fired another disk at his gun, knocking it 
away, then blasted a few more that embedded themselves in his 
chest.

Stunned by the furious assault, Wingspan was off-balance as 
Bloodclot stabbed frenetically with his blade arms.  Finally 
ducking down, he gave a low sweep kick, then lashed out his 
whip and snapped off a pair of Bloodclot's blade arms.  The large 
mosquito began approaching Wingspan again, and Winspan 
shattered Bloodclot's optics, then knocked him out with at a 
sharp crack of his whip.

Skyfall was still angry that he had had to take a shuttle, and he 
was more than happy to take out his anger on Juliet.  She was a 
defector, anyways.  He fitted his two t'a'ch'nys onto his hands, 
and punched furiously at her.  She brought up the blade on her 
arm to try and stop him, but he continued venting his anger on 
her and her blade snapped.  She fell to the ground, dents 
covering her body.

Windrider had never actually met Manterror, but it was something 
he had looked forward to.  Rushing forward, he slashed his 
talons in a deadly arc, but Manterror brought up his large claws 
before Windrider could thrust.  The two remained locked for a 
few moments, the Windrider tripped Manterror and stabbed his 
talons through his chest.  Manterror convulsed once and then fell 
to the ground.

Drill Bit stabbed his drill at Skydive's head.  Skydive could feel the 
thing vibrate as it swished past his head.  His combat experience 
was not for nothing, however, and he grabbed Drill Bit's arm, 
then flipped him over and onto the ground.  Drill Bit began to get 
up, but Skydive used an old trick the humans had taught him to 
keep him down.  He elbowed him in the groin.

Blackarachnia could see that this strategy was not working at all.  
She lunged over to the control panel of the large weapon and 
trained it at the coordinates of the Axalon.  "All of you stop or I 
destroy the Axalon!" she called out.

The Maximals froze in their tracks.  The five that hadn't attacked 
ducked behind the same outcropping Rattrap had hidden behind 
at first, while the others tossed down their weapons.  The 
Predacons grabbed them and restrained them.

Blackarachnia stood over them.  "You know...just on a whim...I 
think I'll destroy the Axalon anyways!"  She smiled even more as 
Rhinox tried to lunge forward, then walked over to the control 
panel and turned on the beam.

Vixen saw the beam begin to fire.  "I have to disrupt the beam!" 
she hissed, and sprang forward.

"Vixen!  Don't!" called out Stormcloud.  Vixen barely heard him.  
She was already moving too fast, springing towards the beam.  
She had no time to think of how to disrupt the beam, only to act 
upon the one idea that she knew would work.

Stormcloud watched with horror as Vixen hurled herself into the 
beam.  He watched as she withered for an instant, and then 
disappeared, no longer enough of her left to even leave debris.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOO!!!!!" he screamed, in a scream of anger, sadness, and 
loss all at once.  Vixen was gone.  Dead.  She had died.  Another 
person he cared about was gone.

White-hot rage burned in his eyes.  He barely noticed 
Blackarachnia, trying to figure out what affected the beam.  He 
grabbed Rhinox's gun from the ground and blasted through all of 
the Predacons, then trained his fire on the huge device, blasting 
it apart.

"Transport!" called Blackarachnia, and the Predacons began to 
teleport back to the planet.

"Not without me you don't!" he growled, throwing himself into the 
teleportation rift after them.

Rhinox stood up after being untied by Rattrap.  "We need to go 
after him," said Rhinox.

"Yeah," agreed Rattrap as he untied Windrider.  "I guess I'm sort 
of responsible, advising him to get together with her in the first 
place."

"It's a moot point now," said Rhinox.  "We have to pull him out 
from there before we wind up with two casualties."

The shuttles took off scant minutes later, both headed for the 
same place.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Blackarachnia saw the Maximal hurl himself into the rift after her 
only by the time it was too late to do anything about it.  She 
decided to resolve that some time in the future as the chain gun 
blasted her with holes.

Stormcloud's anger was out of control.  First, it happened on 
Cybertron.  Now, it happens here.  Would he ever stop 
destroying those he cared about?  At least this way others would 
have a chance to live.

He barely noticed where he was going, or who he was blasting.  
His mind barely connected name with face before he had a new 
target.  Lazorbeak, Ramhorn, Razorclaw, Powerpinch... he could 
barely remember any more.

Perhaps he knew what he was doing on a subconcious level, 
perhaps it was just luck.  In any event, he knew he had gone to 
the command room.  Inferno and Scorponok were there, along 
with Tarantulas - he barely thought about it.  He blasted them like 
all the others.

Megatron, however, was ready.  Springing away, he grabbed the 
chain gun and snapped it in two.  Nothing daunted, Stormcloud 
whipped out his lightning gun and missile launcher, firing awayy.  
Megatron grabbed Stormcloud around the neck with his T-Rex 
hand.

"Wait... now I recognize you," said Megatron, a sadistic smile on 
his face.  "You're the idiot who tried to stop me from injuring that 
female.  I still owe you a great deal of pain from then - urrk!"

Withdrawing the sharp metal shard from Megatron's flank, 
Stormcloud struggled free of the massive hand and picked up his 
lightning gun.  Disabling the safegaurds built into it, he fired at 
Megatron.  The gun was consumed the electricity that lanced out 
to strike Megatron.  Megatron was hurled across the room.

Stormcloud leaped forward, but Megatron brought up his 
massive scissor hand and knocked him away.  "You seem to 
have more motivation then before," said Megatron in a 
patronizing tone.  "What could it be?"

"You KILLED her!" he bellowed, launching himself into a flying 
kick.  Megatron nimbly dodged do the side and slammed him into 
the ground.

"I suppose I did," replied Megatron.  "Headlock!  Transquito!  
Retrax!  Any other Predacons!  Destroy this Maximal!"

The Predacons rushed in.  Stormcloud didn't even hesitate to 
greet their charge.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

"This is REALLY bad," said Rattrap, looking at the huge series of 
holes that Stormcloud had blasted in the wall.  Manterror's body 
slumped against the wall.  "I'd almost LIKE to see what would 
happen to Megatron at this point."

"Quit slacking, Rattrap," said Windrider as he slashed into the 
Soundwave with his talons.  "We need to figure out where 
Stormcloud went."

"Not a problem," said Rattrap, gesturing at the long lineup of 
damaged Predacons.  "He might as well have left a sign: 
'Welcome to the Soundwave.  To find Stormcloud, follow the path 
of dead bodies.'"

"This isn't a joke," said Rhinox as he burst in.  "Stormcloud is a 
scientist, not a warrior, by trade.  Even with my cannon, he won't 
last very long."

The group of Maximals headed along the long trail of bodies, 
Rattrap whispering "This is not good" all the way.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Stormcloud fired another missile at Transquito, but forgot to pay 
attention to Retrax, who hit him in his ball mode.  Twisting 
around, Stormcloud dug his lightning gun's prongs into Retrax 
and fired.  He didn't even bother to leap away as the electricity 
encircled Retrax, illuminating him.  Transquito had gotten back 
up, and grabbed Stormcloud put him in a headlock.  Stormcloud 
grabbed one of Transquito's arms and snapped it, then kicked 
him into the convulsing Retrax.  Headlock had stayed to one side 
up until now, but he raised his arm cannon and blasted at 
Stormcloud.  Stormcloud transformed and climbed high, then 
dived at Headlock, knocking him into a wall.

"Enough," said Megatron angrily.  He leveled his cannon and 
blasted Stormcloud in the shoulder, shearing it off entirely.  
Stormcloud smashed into the wall, and Megatron leveled his 
cannon at Stormcloud's head.  A twisted smile crossed 
Stormcloud's face as he prepared to rejoin Vixen in Inferno -

"Always saving your tail!" shouted Rattrap as he pulled 
Stormcloud away from the blast.  Well, sort of away - 
Stormcloud's left leg was sheared off.  But it wasn't death.  
Megatron began to fire again, but Rhinox charged forward in 
beast mode and knocked him away.

"Retreat!" called Rhinox.

"Don't have to tell me twice!" shouted Rattrap.  Stormcloud 
seemed to be comatose or just not responding.  *Slag,* thought 
Rattrap, and he dragged Stormcloud out.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Rattrap looked out of the porthole nearest to him.  He could see 
Stormcloud standing on the cliff, singing the Cybertronian Song 
of the Dead.  "How long has he been out there?" he asked.

"Four hours," replied Rhinox.  "He's only halfway through the first 
verse."

"What?"

"The Song of the Dead has varying degrees.  He's singing the full 
version, which takes over twenty-four hours."

Rattrap listened to the haunting melody.  He slumped into a 
chair.  "It's my fault," he said.

"Why do you say that?"

"If I hadn't called you guys up there, Vixen would still be alive."

Rhinox gaped.  "You actually blame yourself?  Rattrap, Vixen 
made her choice.  If you hadn't been up there to call us, we 
would all be dead now."

"Yeah, but at least Stormcloud and Vixen would die together."

Rhinox put a hand on his shoulder.  "It isn't your fault, Rattrap."

Rattrap looked out the window.  "Yeah..."

"What?"

"I'm just worried that we might have lost Stormcloud too."

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Blackarachnia was suprised the failure went so well.

When she and the rest of her entourage were found, Megatron 
assumed they were damaged by the rampaging Stormcloud.  
Therefore, they were put in the CR chambers and allowed to 
regenerate.  When they came to, Megatron had no idea where 
they had been, and they weren't even on his list of suspects.

She laughed aloud.  She really should be in charge.  Here she 
had tried to destroy him, and he had let them regenerate and 
gave them energon.  *Nothing should be that easy,* she thought 
to herself.

But it had been.  And, while things didn't work out exactly as she 
wanted them to, it was close enough.  She smiled as she walked 
into her quarters.

"Everybody okay in here?" she asked with a slight bounce in her voice.

Juliet nodded.  "We're all in decent shape.  The CR Chambers 
regenerated us to full strength."

Waspinator flew over.  "Plan failed.  Spider-bottess can slam 
Wazzzpinator into wall now."

Blackarachnia laughed again.  "No, Waspinator, things actually 
went well.  Better than I expected, anyways.  I'm not going to 
slam you into the wall."

"Umm...you mean you aren't angry about losing the device?" 
asked Terrorsaur cautiously.

"Oh, I'm pissed to hell about that," she replied, still smiling.  "But 
instead of getting chased down by Megatron and punished, we 
get repaired, and we get credit for being the first to go down.  I 
really have to be leader soon; Megatron will never keep us alive."

"You're speaking my language," said Terrorsaur, smiling.

Blackarachnia smiled too, but not for the same reason.  She 
hadn't told any of them, but the device was really small potatoes.  
Her real ace in the hole was still there, safe and sound.  She 
didn't need it yet, but fairly soon, she would use it.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Shockwave sat down at the large chair in his small alcove that 
had been set up.  Fitting his turret into a small slot, he began to 
operate the computer at lightning speed, typing and calculating at 
a ridiculous speed.

He had a great deal of things to add.  It seemed as if the most 
logical Maximal in the group, Stormcloud, had gone into an 
emotional rage when a female apparently died.  It seemed as if 
none of them had any emotional control.  Odd.

There was a 95% chance that he would have to destroy them all 
very soon.  But first, he wanted to test them.  He knew there were 
a high probability (97%) that the process of organics increased 
energon efficiently signifigantly (83%).  Also, some of the 
weaponry had a fairly large (78%) chance of being powerful 
enough to be useful to increase his power signifigantly (85%).

What was more, he finally had a subject to find everything out on.  
He leaned back.  All things considered, he was in a logically very 
good position.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Razorbeast and Armordillo walked into the room where Rattrap 
sat, staring out at Stormcloud.  "Kid, what's wrong?" asked 
Razorbeast.  "You've been sitting out here since we got back."

Rattrap turned to face them.  "I...don't really KNOW what's 
wrong.  Stormcloud IS my friend, but somehow...I feel as if this is 
all my fault."

Armordillo looked out the porthole where Rattrap was looking out.  
"Wow.  How long has he been out there?"

"Fourteen hours," replied Rattrap glumly.

Razorbeast whistled.  "So he's paying his respects to Vixen.  So?  
There's nothing unusual about that."

"It isn't that," replied Rattrap.  "When we got back, Stormcloud 
sounded...odd."

"Stormcloud always sounds odd," said Armordillo, somewhat 
confused.

"I mean ODD-odd."  Rattrap turned to the two of them.  "He was 
saying all sorts of stuff that sounded like he had completely 
wigged out.  He started sounding more like...Tigatron."

Razorbeast stepped back.  "That's bad."  He stopped and 
rethought that.  "Not to tarnish Tigatron's reputation, that is."

"I know what you mean," replied Rattrap.  "But...I just hate feeling 
like I pushed him over the edge due to my own greed."

"That doesn't sound like the philosophy of a former trooper of 
Megatron," said Razorbeast.

"I know.  Never did make a great Decepticon - come to think of it, 
didn't do very well as a Maximal, either.  Maybe I should've 
stayed a Neutral."

"So what do you want to do about this?"

"I don't know," said Rattrap.  "I just..hate feeling like I'm the 
person who called Stormcloud into a deathtrap."  He looked out 
again.  "I have to find a way to help him.  Otherwise, we might not 
have just lost Vixen in that battle."

All three of them stared out at Stormcloud, not knowing what to 
hope for.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Rattrap beeped into Stormcloud's quarters.  "Umm...Stormcloud?  
It's me, Rattrap.  Just wanted to talk."

The door slid open, and Rattrap walked in.  "Listen," he said, "I've 
got something I need to -"

"Shh," said Stormcloud.  "I'm listening to this."

Rattrap turned and saw the small recording device.  It was 
spitting out some Earthern play.  He sat down and listened to it 
for a moment.

~Go, get thee hence, for I will not away.  What's here?  A cup 
closed in my true love's hand?  Poison, I see, hath been his 
timeless end. --- O churl, drunk all, and left no friendly drop to 
help me after!  I will kiss thy lips.  Haply some poison yet doth 
hang on them, to make me die with a restorative.  Thy lips are 
warm!~

~Lead, boy.  Which way?~

~Yea, noise?  Then I'll be brief.  O, happy dagger, this is thy 
sheath.  Rust there, and let me die.~

Rattrap reached over and clicked off the recorder.  "Stormcloud, 
dude.  You have GOT to cheer up."

Stormcloud slumped over in his chair.  "I can't.  Everywhere I go, 
everything I see - it's her."

Rattrap slouched in a chair next to him.  "Yeah, well, the same 
thing happens when I eat something that doesn't agree with me 
for about a week.  The point is, life goes on."

"No it doesn't," replied Stormcloud.  "I can't get over her."

"Why do you miss her so much?  Who does she remind you of?"

"Why do think that she reminded me of someone?"

"Umm...because you feel like you're not only losing her, you're 
also losing the other person all over again, and you just can't deal 
with that much loss?"

Stormcloud looked at Rattrap.  "Since when are you a 
psychologist?"

Rattrap shrugged.  "I picked up a few things."

Stormcloud put his head in his hands for a moment.  Then, he 
looked up.  "Did I ever tell you about my sister, Rattrap?"

"No," said Rattrap, leaning back.  "Tell me all about it now."

"Well, it happened on Cybertron..."

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

[BEGIN FLASHBACK]

Stormcloud laughed heartily as Longtooth proceeded to balance 
a fifth crystal on the tip of his nose.  "At this rate, you'll look like 
the middle of Crystal City within the hour!" he said, laughing.

"What's left of it, anyways," said Longtooth.  The effort of talking 
and balancing at the same time did not work well, and the 
crystals and Longtooth both fell to the ground in a pile of robot 
and crystal.

Seated across the room, Chaseplane laughed.  It sounded 
almost like Stormcloud's, but lighter, more airy.  "You better not 
have damaged my quadrolithium, Longtooth, or I will make you 
very, very sorry."

Longtooth picked up the quadrolithium that he had removed from 
Chaseplane's pistol.  "Nope, not even a scratch," he said, giving 
it back to the yellow-grey female.

Chaseplane took the crystal and replaced it inside her pistol.  
"Thank you," she said.  She turned to Stormcloud.  "Where are 
Retrograde and Breakneck?" she asked her brother.

The brown-gold robot turned away from the console to face 
Chaseplane.  "They went out to run a few errands."

"Correction: We're back," said Retrograde in his small hovercar 
mode.  He unfolded into robot mode and drew out several large 
containers of energon.  "We would have been back sooner, but 
Breakneck had to live up to his name and take out some 
Decepticons."

Lumbering in, with smoking patches covering his body and 
smoke pouring out of his back mounted turrets and many other 
weapons, Breakneck proved Retrograde entirely right.  "Wee-ha!  
That was some hot slag out there, wasn't it, Retrograde?"

Retrograde narrowed his eyes at Breakneck.  "Yes, it was.  Just, 
remind me, which was the entertaining part: when I almost got 
run through by the Seeker, or when you blew up the entire 
warehouse?"

The expression on Breakneck's face resembled that of a kid 
caught with his hand in the cookie jar.  "Aww, but they deserved 
it!  Besides, nobody got hurt."

"Nobody that was sentient, anyways," scowled Retrograde.  He 
turned back to Stormcloud.  "You almost finished with that 
program?"

"Finished enough," said Stormcloud.

"Does this mean you haven't checked everything?  We'll all die!"

Chaseplane laughed.  "You worry too much, Retrograde.  Let's 
just head out and relax."  She gestured at the containers of 
energon.  "That should be more than enough for Spanwing's 
party."

Stormcloud nodded, and he and Chaseplane both folded into 
nearly identical sweep-winged jets (although Chaseplane's was 
slightly more slender) and flew off.  Longtooth turned into a large 
truck, and Breakneck into a large tank.  Retrograde sighed and 
shook his head, then folded back into hovercar mode, shoving 
the containers into subspace, and racing after the others.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*


Stormcloud and Longtooth sat outside of the main entrance, with 
Stormcloud jacked into the computer system, feeding his 
program into it.  "Hurry!" hissed Longtooth.  "The Decepticons 
might find us!"

"Will you shut up?" asked Stormcloud.  "With that much noise, 
they certainly will find us."  He withdrew from the computer.  
"Done.  Give the others the go-ahead."

Longtooth nodded and turned on his wrist comm.  "Go ahead," 
he said, and flipped it off.

Weapons drawn, Stormcloud and Longtooth went into the main 
chamber.  No alarms sounded, no wailing klaxons, no flashing 
lights.  Stormcould sent a quick signal to Chaseplane and 
Spanwing.

The two fliers swooped in through the porthole in the ceiling and 
unfolded, Chaseplane into a slender female and Spanwing into a 
slender male.  "it looks like everything's okay to me," said 
Spanwing in his soft, barely audible voice.

"It's supposed to LOOK that way," said Longtooth.  "The question 
is whether or not it actually is that way."  He stalked slowly down 
a corridor.

A Seeker, apparently napping, abruptly woke up with the sound 
of footfalls.  He glanced at the four, saw the Maximal symbol on 
Longtooth's chest, and began to get up, heading towards a 
comm.  Chaseplane flipped her assault cannons onto her 
shoulders and blew through the Seeker's head, melting his 
internal circuitry instantly.

"A little ruthless, sister?" asked Stormcloud.

Chaseplane shrugged.  "I had to stop him before he reached the 
comm.  Ruthlessness had nothing to do with it."

Stormcloud shrugged as well.  Thundercracker had been one of 
their creators, and while he was an Autobot at the time, some of 
that old Decepticon ideaology had slipped into his second 
creation more then his first.

Spanwing jolted out of a trance.  "i've been probing their 
defenses.  it doesn't look like we should have too much trouble 
here.  there are a couple of gaurds down this hallway, but that's 
all i found."


Stormcloud nodded.  He flipped on his comm to the other four 
members.  "Retrograde, come in.  How are you guys 
proceeding?"

Retrograde's face appeared on the monitor.  "We're here.  It 
looks like most of the troops are recharging at this point.  
Wireguide scanned ahead for a few feet - the place is practically 
empty.  I'd say we could be at the rendevous point in maybe ten 
minutes."

Stormcloud nodded into the comm.  "We'll meet you there."  
Retrograde nodded and winked out.

Stormcloud turned back to the assembled Maximals.  "We've got 
about ten minutes," he said to them.  "Let's get a move on."

They all nodded.  Longtooth switched to his 3rd mode, and the 
others folded into their normal jet modes.  They all rocketed 
down the corridor.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Wireguide and Spanwing finally disconnected from each other, 
their scan completed.  "So, what is it that you found?" asked 
Triplane.

"A dark and cavernous passage / Stretches out before thee / 
Take thy hand in mine and be unafraid / For no threats therin lie," 
replied Wireguide.

"Which means?"

"nothing there.  this place is empty as a quintesson bathouse," 
replied Spanwing.  He may have been barely audible, but at least 
it was understandable.

Stormcloud rubbed his chin.  *This has been too easy,* thought 
Stormcloud to himself.  He looked at a discolored patch on the 
wall, and synapses began to fire in his brain...

"Get down!" he called to all assembled as a large patch blew 
away and Sweeps poured out.  Instantly, the group whipped out 
their weapons and began firing.

Triplane took out his plane laser from his subspace posket and 
shot out the long stretches of energy, ripping through several 
Sweeps.  One Sweep managed to fold into hovercar mode and 
avoid the wave.  Triplane opened a hatch on his upper arm, and 
a cannon rotated out, blasting at the transformed Sweep.  The 
Sweep erupted into flames, but it took Triplanes attention away 
from his sides.  On Triplane's left side, a Sweep slashed deep 
into his flank, severing multiple wires.  Triplane growled and 
grabbed the Sweep by the throat, smashing him into a wall.

Another pair of Sweeps moved in on Triplane in a pincer 
maneuver.  Triplane lept up, leaking lubricant from his side, and 
transformed into a wide-based car, turrets switching to attach on 
top.  The car zoomed under one of the Sweeps, disrupting the 
hover device underneath the car and making it flip over, 
smashing into the floor from lack of balance.  The other one 
transformed to robot mode and landed on Triplane, picking up a 
shard of metal to stab through Triplane.  Triplane transformed 
underneath the robot, throwing him off.  The Sweep may have 
been tossed off, but he still had the shard, and with one smooth 
toss he hurled it into Triplane's side, snapping a multitude of 
servos.  Triplane backed off, convulsing, and the Sweep 
smashed Triplane's head against the floor.  The body twitched 
once, then stopped entirely.

Wireguide saw his teamate's demise, and did not feel it bode well 
for his own future.  "As I walk through the valley of the shadow of 
death / an icy hand gripped all around me / the sky dark 
o'erhead, and the vultures circling / I prayed to god my future 
would be assured," he muttered to himself as he launched one of 
his pinpoint missiles at a pair of Sweeps.  One of them exploded 
instantly, as the target, and the other was ripped into on his side 
by fragments, then spun out of control.  Wireguide flipped over 
the dented bodies, then landed on a Sweep and picked up a 
shard of metal, then stabbed it through the main sensor array, 
which became the head in robot mode.  The Sweep almost gave 
strangled cry, then plowed into the wall, ripping in half from the 
force of impact.  The two halves fell to the ground, still sparking.

Sweeps began to circle around Wireguide, taking an occasional 
shot.  Wireguide sensed a larger plan being worked on, and 
bounded forward, transforming into a large missile bank.  The 
Sweeps turned around to change their trajectory, but fell short as 
Wireguide unleashed more of his missiles.  However, he was too 
late to save himself - Sweeps that had been gathering behind 
him lunged forward, assaulting him with a multitude of weapons.  
Nobody ever saw Wireguide's actual demise.

"this is bad.  this is very bad," said Spanwing, slicing through a 
large Sweep.  "i think you guys had better get out of here fast."

"What about you?" asked Stormcloud.

A Sweep smashed a large spike through Spanwing's chest.  
"there's your answer," he replied as he was pulled backwards 
into the mass of Sweeps.

The remaining five Maximals began backing away from the battle 
zone, blasting where they could.  "I thought you set up the 
program to detect any Decepticons!" called out Retrograde to 
Stormcloud.

"I didn't bother with a few of them!  I figured Sweeps wouldn't be 
here!"

Longtooth's head exploded into a mass of metal and fiberglass 
shards.  His body toppled forward, lifeless.  "Well, they were!  
Now we've got to get the hell out of here!" said Chaseplane, 
grimly firing another round at the Sweeps.

They had finally reached the doorway.  "Get out!" shouted 
Retrograde, shoving them into the hallway.  A blast from a 
Sweep sent him sliding away in flames until he hit the wall, where 
he exploded.

"You two get out!  I'll try to stall them!" said Breakneck.

"Breakneck..." began Chaseplane.

He shoved them towards the exit, then leaped into the fray.  
Stormcloud and Chaseplane folded into jet mode and flew off, 
hearing the battle cries of Breakneck far down the hallway.

Three Sweeps chased behind the brother and sister duo.  "This 
isn't good!" shouted Stormcloud as a laser blast whizzed past his 
head.  He pushed his thrusters harder, flying faster than ever.  
Chaseplane began to do the same, but her engines ran out of 
fuel, and she had to skid to a halt.  Stormcloud whirled around to 
aid her.

"Run!" she called to him.  Then an array of laser blasts blew her 
into a thousand flaming metal shards.

"NOOOOOOO!!!" cried Stormcloud.  Anger clouded his 
judgement, and he raced towards the three Sweeps.  He 
grabbed one of their heads and crushed it in his hand, then 
smashed the body into one of the other Sweeps.  He lunged for 
the third and thrust his hand through the Sweep's faceplate, 
ripping out its brain circuitry.

He stopped.  Somehow, he felt no remorse, no joy...nothing.  All 
he felt was hollow.

He picked up one of the pieces of his sister.  Then, he flew out of 
the base, quietly sobbing.

[END FLASHBACK]

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Rattrap sat silently as Stormcloud finished his story.  "I had that 
shard crafted into a figurine of her," Stormcloud said, gesturing 
towards a small statuette on his shelf.  "It's always reminded me 
that I let someone down before.  I promised myself and her that I 
wouldn't fail again."  He bowed his head and clenched his fist 
tightly.

Rattrap had nothing to say for a few minutes.  "Stormcloud, it 
wasn''t your fault -"

"Shove it," replied Stormcloud.  "It was my fault then, and it's my 
fault now.  So don't try to feed me some load of slag like 'It's not 
your fault, Stormcloud' or 'Don't blame yourself'.  I thought that I 
could finally do things right here."  He transformed to falcon 
mode and perched on the windowsill.  "I was wrong."  He dove 
out, then flapped off into the sky.

Rattrap looked after him.  *This bites,* he thought to himself.  
*For once in my life, I really care about something, and I don't 
have a plan to solve it.*

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Pain.

It was the only thing she could recognize.

She tried to think.  *Who am I?  Why am I here?  What 
happened?*  She couldn't remember.  It's hard to remember 
something when your body is being flodded with so much pain 
that it actually becomes a physical object, flodded with types of 
pain you didn't even realize existed.

So much pain that she couldn't even think to scream.

*FOCUS!* she thought to herself.  She pushed all the pain she 
could out of her mind, bringing it down to about a drive-someone-
insane level.  At least, enough to scream.  She screamed until 
she was hoarse, then finally managed to exercise enough self-
control to think.  Sort of.

*Maximals.*  That was something.  She wasn't entirely sure what 
it was, but it was something.  Then she lost control over the 
insurgance of pain and returned to complete incoherency.

"You've awoken."  A voice.  Something to focus on.  She 
recognized it, but she didn't know from where.  Then again, she 
didn't who SHE was, so it didn't suprise her that she couldn't 
remember the voice.

"Can you speak?" the voice asked.

"K...k...k...k...k...k...k..." she said.  *Not very good,* she thought.

"Perhaps slightly less pain, then," said the voice.

Clarity began to emerge.  She managed to open her eyes.  She 
saw a large purple robot in front of her, with one hand on a dial, 
and one out of sight.  "Wwwwwhhhhhhooooooo aaaaammmm 
IIIIIIIIIII?" she managed to drawl out.

"Good enough," he said.  "Do you remember who you are?"

"Nnnnnnnnnnn..."  She stopped trying to talk and simply shook 
her head.  That didn't work well either, but it was the best she 
could do.

"Even better," said the robot.  "Do you remember anything?"

Shake.

"Hmm.  Are you suggesting that I turn down the pain even 
more?"

She nodded.  Well, she tried to nod, but she couldn't.  All she 
could do was tilt her head forward slightly.

"Very well."  He turned the dial down even more.

Clarity emerged.  It was a dull, murky clarity, but it was a clarity.  
She at least could see now.

"Can you speak?"

"Yeess," she said.  *Not easily, but I can,* she thought to herself.

"Hmm.  Able to think semi-clearly at only 85% power," said the 
robot.  He looked at her.  "We will continue this tomorrow," he 
said, and he exited the room.

She lay there, eventually drifiting into blissful unconsiousness.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

"Sneaking into a former teammate's quarters, Rattrap?" asked 
Headlock with a slight grin on his face.  "You didn't actually 
expect me to fall for it?"

Rattrap stepped out of the shadows, smirking.  "No, I didn't.  
Would've liked you to, but I certainly didn't expect it."

Headlock laughed and sat down at his computer chair.  "I 
suppose you're here to redeem that favor I still owe you?"

"You owe me at least three favors," replied Rattrap.

"No, I don't.  I managed to pay back the favor on Signus V when I 
saved your tail at the audience."

"*Who* saved *who's* tail?" asked Rattrap, raising an eyebrow.  
"I pulled you away from that angry mob, didn't I?"

"I forgot about that," muttered Headlock.  "But, in any case, it 
doesn't really matter; I owe you at least one favor."

"For once, we agree," said Rattrap.  "And what I want is 
information."

"So what else is new?" asked Headlock.  "You ALWAYS redeem 
favors for information."

"That's because you always have information to hide."

Headlock waved his hand dismissively.  "It's not important.  What 
do you want to know?"

"If Vixen is still alive," replied Rattrap.

"Why?  She most certainly isn't with you.  Heck, let's face it, the 
last woman that was with you was that whore on Fynarit III -"

"I know that she isn't with me.  She's with a close friend."

"Ah."  Headlock began typing into his computer.  "How was she 
killed?"

"By that...THING Blackarachnia had."

Headlock raised an eyebrow.  "You're kidding, right?"

"No.  I saw her die."

"You saw her disappear," replied Headlock.  "You didn't see her 
die."

"Explain," said Rattrap.

"Well, Shockwave wanted to run some tests on one of us.  Now, 
needless to say, volunteers weren't exactly lining up.  So, 
Blackarachnia agreed that she would contain a teleportation 
beam inside of the main beam, teleporting any robots she hit to 
him."

Rattrap's face lit up.  "So she's alive?"

"Maybe," replied Headlock.  "I have no idea what Shockwave is 
doing to her.  He might have killed her and performed an 
autopsy."

"When he could leave her alive to toy with later?  That doesn't 
sound like the Shockwave I know," said Rattrap.

"How would you know?  You never met Shockwave."

"Alright, it doesn't sound like the Shockwave I know OF.  The 
point is, he has urges, most likely, and even if not, he's certainly 
sadistic as hell.  No, even if wasn't going to screw her, he'd keep 
her around.  He'd rather test her first, then slowly and agonizingly 
kill her."

"Then where would screwing her come in?"

"Injuring someone's psyche counts as agony."

"Point," replied Headlock.  "In any event, I have done your favor, 
and therefore you have no more reason to be here.  I would 
recommend you leave before I am forced to destroy you as a 
Maximal spy."

"You wouldn't hurt an old buddy," said Rattrap, half-serious.

"You know damn well I would without a moment's thought," 
Headlock replied.  "Now go."

Rattrap nodded.  "Until next time," he said, then slipped into the 
shadows.  Headlock chuckled slightly to himself, then returned to 
the computer.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Blackarachnia slipped silently among the crags, her spider form 
scuttling along easily.  At the moment, she was the size of an 
ordinary spider, so the Soundwave's security cams were not 
noticing her.  Which was just as well, considering that where she 
was going would not exactly meet with Megatron's approval.

Stopping outside of the small cave, she silently transformed to 
robot mode.  As her body unfolded, internal generators shunted 
her stored mass back out of subspace, bringing her to full size.  
At first, she had trouble getting used to size-changing.  Now, it 
was almost second nature.

She stepped into the cave.  "W-w-w-what are you doing here?!?" 
said Arachnid shakily, his missile launcher pointed at her.  The 
third spider of the group, both Blackarachnia and Tarantulas 
were a little disappointed with him.  Unlike the two of them, both 
of whom were crafty and intelligent, Arachnid was far more duty-
oriented, and much more like Inferno then anyone would have 
liked.

"I'm here to see Tarantulas!" she hissed at him.  "You know who I 
am, I know who I am, and Tarantulas knows who I am.  Is the 
grandstanding really nessecary?"

Arachnid stepped aside, still wavering with his grip.  "D-d-d-d-
don't try to pull a f-f-f-fast one on Tarantulas, or I-I-I-I-I-I'll take 
you d-d-d-d-d-down!"

Blackarachnia rolled her eyes.  "Arachnid, you can barely shoot a 
training droid.  You'll have to become much more ruthless if you 
expect me to be afraid of you."  She shot the green-brown 
Predacon a threatening glance, then proceeded into Tarantulas' 
main room.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

"Oh...Tarantulas...you're so cute...and smart...and charming..."

"So what are you getting at?"

"I want you SOOOOOO badly..."

"Happy to comply."

"Oh, thank you...mmmm....oooh...."

Tarantulas quivered with delight.

"Tarantulas?  What in Inferno are you doing?" asked 
Blackarachnia, watching Tarantulas huddled over a computer 
console.  Vaguely, she thought she heard a "You like that, don't 
you?" and her own voice say "Oooooh, yes...".

Tarantulas abruptly turned off the computer and stood up 
hurriedly.  "Nothing, not doing anything, certainly not fantasizing 
about you, negative negative negative, why do you ask, what is 
this, an interrogation?!?!?"

Blackarachnia smiled.  "I'm flattered.  Not aroused, of course, but 
flattered anyways."

"Why did you come?" he asked.  "If all you wanted was to tease 
me, you could certainly find other people to tease."

"True enough," she said.  "But no, I needed your technical 
expertise."

"Then why didn't you go to Scorponok?" he asked.

"That groveling arachnid?  I'm insulted to even be in the same 
class of the animal kingdom as him."  She walked over to him 
and placed a claw on his shoulder.  "Besides, you're much 
sexier."  *THAT ought to give him something to fantasize about,*  
she thought to herself.

"Hmhmhm...I mean, what do you need me to do?" he asked.

She reached into her subspace pocket and withdrew two objects.  
One was a small box, flat on one side, and slightly curved on the 
other.  On the sides were small black cylinders, lens at one end 
and cables hooking up to the main box on the other end.  The 
other object was a long, narrow staff, with small gooves spaced 
evenly apart.  The only break from the pattern was a small 
button, only barely raised from the surface.

"Which one?" asked Tarantulas.

"Both, actually," she replied.  "But first off, the staff.  What the 
slag IS it?"

Tarantulas took the staff and looked it over.  Tenatively, he 
pressed the button.  The staff seemed to split in over a dozen 
places, flipping open in section inbetween the grooves.  The 
sections rotated in various different directions, projecting a 
mesmerizing pattern on the wall.  "Amazing..." he said.

"I KNOW that!" said Blackarachnia, pressing the button again 
and shutting it off.  "WASPINATOR could have figured that out!  I 
want you to tell me WHAT it is!"

"Honestly?  I have no idea.  I know that it's of alien origin, most 
likely the ones who created our little, shall we say, staging 
ground, most likely a gate-opening device or some such, but past 
that I'm stumped."

"So basically it could be a motorized back-scratcher just as 
easily."

"Well, not really...those aliens don't HAVE backs, remember?"

"You KNOW what I meant."

"Quite."  He put the staff down.

"And what of this one?" asked Blackarachnia, handing him the 
black box.

He inspected it.  "It looks vaguely like a device I once saw on 
Cybertron in the university.  However, I only saw what was left of 
it.  This is the first one I've seen intact."

"What is it?"

"We never figured that out entirely.  We did find that it could 
teleport matter -"

"I already figured THAT out."

"- and project stasis fields.  On the other hand, only one of the 
lenses on THAT one was functioning."  He handed her back the 
device.  "Where did you get all of -"

"It's unimportant," snapped Blackarachnia.  She grabbed the 
devices and shoved them back into subspace.  "Now, on a more 
obvious note, I have one other thing I want you to do.  
Remember the magna-pulse generator that you have rigged up?"

He looked at her, shocked.  Well, it was hard to tell - his face had 
no real mouth to speak of, so it wasn't exactly hanging open in 
amazement.  "How-how-how did you know about that?" he 
asked, shocked.

"Oh, please.  It wasn't all that hard to figure out.  Do you still have 
it or don't you?"

"Yes," he replied sheepishly.

"Perfect.  I need you to make that portable."

"Why?"

She smiled at him seductively.  "It doens't really matter, does it?" 
she asked.

He shook his head.  "No.  I'll get it to you in five hours."

"Perfect."  She kissed him lightly, then walked out of the room, 
her hips waving in an exaggerated fashion.

Taratulas flipped the console back on.  "Oh, Tarantulas, please 
take me," came Blackarachnia's voice from it, and he huddled 
over it again, chuckling to himself.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

*I can't feel my left leg.*

The thought came to her through a haze of pain.  She was 
almost getting USED to it by now.  Tiliting her head forward, she 
saw that her left leg was little more than a mass of 
unrecognizable slag.  *Answers THAT question,* she thought to 
herself, grinning slightly.

"Able to recognize limbs at 62% power," said the purple one.  
"Amazing."

Another one stood next to the purple one, this one green and 
brown.  "I told you that this technology was worth it, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did.  Unfortunately, if I attempt to steal the correct 
sample from our target, then she will suspect it."

"Not me she won't.  The two of them think I'm barely a lackey.  
Plus, she might very well die if her upcoming machinations fail.  
So it would be logical to allow her to carry through with her plan."

"Hmmm...she has a 50% chance of dying.  Worth the wait.  I will 
agree with this course of action."

"You're forgetting my payment."

"Not at all."  The purple one produced a small canister.  "Five 
more charges."

"We agreed on seven."

"You did not bring me all of what I wanted.  Five."

The green-brown one growled, then took the canister and left.  
The purple one took a last look at her, then left as well.

A plan was beginning to form in her head as to how to escape.  It 
was probably insane, but it would get her out, one way or the 
other.  Even if she died in the process.

Delving into her internal programming, she began to run through 
some subroutines.  They all excecuted perfectly - that wasn't 
what she was worried about.  It was shutting the process down 
that she was worried about.

[SELF-DESTRUCT PROGRAM HAS BEEN ACTIVATED]

She felt her internal generator begin to build up power.  She 
began to glow as the energon built up.  The pain almost muffled 
the pain she felt from the external sources, but she gritted her 
teeth and did nothing.

The power had almost reached critical.  Trying to stay concious, 
she began to run another subroutine, trying to shut down the 
program in time, making the surge of power enough to fry the 
clmaping device.  *Come on,* she thought.  *Shut down, 
please...*

Pure energy blossomed out, filling the room.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

"Remind me again why we're doing this," growled Razorbeast, 
sniffing along the ground.

"I think it's because Stormcloud is our friend and we want to help 
him be reunited with Vixen," replied Armordillo.

"That's it," replied Rattrap.

"Ahem.  'Our' friend?  He's Rattrap's buddy, not ours."  
Razorbeast transformed to robot mode and cradled his rifle in his 
arms, with his eyes cautiously scanning the horizon.  "Are you 
sure this is the place he's set up?"

"As sure as I can be," said Rattrap, dropping from a tree and 
transforming.  "I wasn't exactly on the planning session, but from 
what it said in Headlock's account, this is pretty much the place."

"I thought all that Headlock told you was that Vixen was alive," 
said Armordillo.  He tried to jump into the air, then transform and 
come down gracefully.  Up until the "gracefully" part, he did fine.  
He clumsily slammed into the ground.

"That was all he *personally* told me," replied Rattrap, grinning.  
"It just wasn't all I got out of him."

Razorbeast grinned as well.  "I fail to see WHY you didn't make a 
good Decepticon," he said, activating his scanning systems.  
"No-one else in the area.  At least, no-one that I can get on my 
scanners."

From a tree, Arachnid chuckled to himself.  *Fools,* he thought, 
then continued moving through the trees, away from the 
Maximals.

"Any signs of an entrance?" asked Rattrap, drawing his blaster 
out of subspace.

"Well...there is a large dome of metal off about 0.3 kilcks to the 
northwest," replied Razorbeast.

"So where's the entrance?" Armordillo asked.

Razorbeast sighed.  "I'm not sure, but there's a large hollow head 
right next to me."

"No it isn't, I'm...hey!"

"Quiet!" snapped Rattrap.  "Let's get moving."

They nodded and headed towards the dome.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Vixen slowly awoke.

"Not something...I'll try...to do again...anytime soon," she 
wheezed, slowly trying to rise to a standing position.  It was not 
an easy task with one leg out.

She examined herself.  Burn marks covered her body, some wtill 
smoking.  Small armor panels were loose, revealing internal 
wiring.  Most of what wasn't burnt or shattered was melted.  She 
tried to go to beast mode.

Much to her credit, she was able to keep from screaming from 
pain when she transformed.  The intense grinding in her joints 
was almost like the hours of torment she had just endured 
compressed into twenty seconds.

She tested her beast limbs.  Thankfully, the beast mode seemed 
to be, for the most part, all right.  She couldn't see from her left 
eye, her hearing was sporadic, her fur looked worse than 
Cheetor after a recent incident with a hot-air turbine, and she 
ached all over - but the mode was functional.

Slowly, she crept out of the corridor, her feet making barely any 
noise as they hit the floor.  She padded along at a snail's pace, 
sticking to the shadows along the sides of the wall.

"I know you're out there," came Shockwave's voice, echoing 
through the corridors.

Vixen froze.  Shockwave continued in his emotionless monotone.  
"You can't have expected not to monitor power levels in your cell.  
And you can't expect me not to have motion sensors in the base.  
Face it - I am completely prepared for you.  You have no way to 
escape."

*He's just trying to scare you,* she thought to herself, and she 
turned right down a corridor.  Behind her, she could hear the 
heavy footfalls of Shockwave.

"Resistance is futile," he said.  "It will only terrify you and waste 
both of our time."  He seemed to turn around going back in the 
direction Vixen had come from.

Vixen turned down another passage.  He was right - she *was* 
scared.  *I've got to keep evading him,* she thought to herself, 
tension rising.  *Sooner or later, I'm bound to locate the exit.*

She slinked into another small room.  Computers buzzed and 
hummed all around her.  Leaning back on her haunches, she 
began typing at one of the computers, bringing up a blueprint of 
the ship.  She traced a route, then quickly left the room.

Shockwave was waiting.  "HALT!" he bellowed as he fired 
several bursts at her.  She slid to one side, then sprang across 
the hall, turning down a hallway.  Behind her, she heard him fold 
into a motorcycle.

"This is pointless," he yelled, still carrying no trace of emotion.  
"Submit and you will be harmed minimally."

*Now THAT'S an incentive,* she thought.  Saying nothing, she 
leaped down another corridor, paws nearly sliding out of control 
against the smooth metal.  He drove to the corridor, than veered 
around to drive after her.

Trying desperately to try and avoid him, she began to run at full 
speed, sliding slightly out of control.  She panted with the 
exertion.  Behind her, laser fire sprang from Shockwave, 
oblitherating the floor she sprang off of.

Finally, she turned down the last corridor.  Skidding slightly, she 
ran down the corridor, trying to make it before he caught up to 
her -

She heard an odd noise, and Shockwave grabbed her by her 
collar, holding her up for inspection.  "Not all that impressive," he 
said, his single eye staring intently at Vixen.

"You won't get away with this!" she screamed, her voice a 
combination of anger, sadness, and desperation.

"Probability of someone rescuing you are approximately 3.6%..."

A laser bolt struck Shockwave in the shoulder, making him drop 
Vixen.  "Don't you EVER," said Rattrap with a slight grin, "get sick 
of being wrong?"

Shockwave was about to answer, but Rattrap cut him short with 
more blasts.  Razorbeast ran towards Vixen, with Rattrap and 
Armordillo covering his rear.  "Come on, Vixen, we're getting the 
slag out of here."

She looked at him.  "Stormcloud..."

"Trust me, he'll be very happy to see you," said Razorbeast, 
ushering Vixen along.  "However, now is neither the time nor the 
place to discuss it."

Razorbeast nodded to Rattrap and Armordillo as he rushed Vixen 
out.  Firing a couple of parting shots at Shockwave, they all ran 
out of the base, weapons smoking.

"He'll catch up with us," said Vixen as they ran into the forest.

"You don't think I hadn't figured out an escape?" said Rattrap, 
grinning.  "You're talking about a RAT here, sister."

With a flourish, Rattrap cleared away several bushes to reveal a 
small airskiff.

"How'd you get this one?" asked Razorbeast incredulously.

"To quote myself, none of your damn buisness," replied Rattrap 
as they all loaded onto the airskiff.  "Razorbeast, you're the pilot.  
Get us out of here."

"Like we really needed you to tell us that," said Razorbeast, 
starting the engines and lifting it off the ground.  With a slight 
humm, the engines kicked in, and the airskiff slashed through the 
treetops.

"Umm, guys?" said Vixen.  "In case you'd forgotten, Shockwave 
has a jet mode."

The airskiff shuddered slightly as a bolt hit it.  "I suppose you're 
right," said Armordillo.  "I take it we'll be using evasive -"

The ship lurched to one side as Razorbeast pulled away from 
another group of shots.  "- manuevers," finished Armordillo 
sheepishly.

Razorbeast rolled the ship to the other side, then pitched it 
forward in a dive.  Shockwave climbed instead, then swooped in, 
firing on the engines.

"So much for evasive maneuvers!" growled Razorbeast.  "We're 
going down!"

"From now on, you DON'T pilot!" bellowed Rattrap.  He lunged 
over and hit a button.

The descent suddenly leveled off as the airskiff glided down.  
Wings pulled in, engines split, wheels turned down, and in the 
end, a small armored car hit the ground.  "What the slag IS this 
thing?" asked Armordillo.

"Rare!" replied Rattrap.  "Hit the gas, Razorbeast."

Razorbeast nodded, and the car rocketed forward.  The ground 
behind them exploded from Shockwave's shots.

"We're still not escaping!" said Vixen, panicking.

"Give me a couple minutes, will you?" replied Rattrap.  He flipped 
a lever, and two drills emerged in front.  "Tilt down, Razorbeast."

Razorbeast nodded, and the craft burrowed into the ground.  
Shockwave hovered overhead for a moment, then decided that it 
was no longer worth it to chase them, and veered back towards 
his base.  *All in due time,* he thought to himself, *all in good 
time.*

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Stormcloud clutched Vixen's hand tightly in his own.  "She IS 
going to be all right, isn't she?" he asked Skydive.

"Yes," replied Skydive for the tenth time in half as many minutes.  
"Really, Stormcloud, could you...well...leave?  You aren't exactly 
helping."

Stormcloud reluctantly nodded, then exited the room.  Standing 
there was Rattrap, a smile on his face.  "Who the man?" he 
asked with a smug grin.

Stormcloud grinned at Rattrap, then hugged him.

"WHOA!!!  Hold it!  Please, Stormcloud, I'm not INTO that kind of 
thing!  Let go!  Let go!"

Still grinning, Stormcloud let him go.  "I owe you," he said, his 
voice wavering slightly.

"Aw, you aren't about to start bawling on me, are you?" asked 
Rattrap.

Stormcloud simply smiled again.  "For once in your life, you did 
something without any personal gain involved."  He frowned and 
stepped back.  "At least, that's what it looked like."

"Naw, this I just did for no good reason.  I mean, you were 
starting to act like Stripes!"

"And that's a bad thing?"

"Not if you're Stripes, no.  But you aren't.  I mean, where else am 
I going to find someone who keeps beating me at Robot Wars?  
Let's face it, Stripes is Stripes and you are...come to think of it, I 
never gave you a nickname."

"Let's leave it that way."

"Oh, come on, you've got to have a nickname.  Stormy?  
Clouder?  Clouds?  Storm?  Stormster?  S--man?  SCloud?  
StormC?  SC?  Wings?  Feathers?  Falco?"

"Falco?"

"I was running out of names, pal.  Come on, you MUST have a 
nickname.  Spit it out."

"Well..."

"What?"

"Back on Cybertron, my sister used to call me...no, I can't say it."

"Come on..."

"She called me...Dives."

"What's so bad about that?  You do 'em, anyways."

Stormcloud shrugged.  It was *true*, anyways.  "I just never liked 
the nickname a lot."

"Well, don't worry," said Rattrap.  "As the resident blabbermouth, 
I promise that no-one will ever call you Stormcloud again."

"Don't go there, Rattrap," warned Stormcloud.

Rattrap was about to say something, but the ship suddenly 
rocked.  "Oh, slag, a Pred attack," he moaned, running towards 
the nearest porthole.

Stormcloud ran into the med room.  "Skydive!  Is Vixen okay?"

"Yes," said Skydive.  "I'll have to leave to help out with the other 
Aeriomals."

Stormcloud nodded.  "I understand."

Skydive dashed out.  Stormcloud gave Vixen's hand one last 
squeeze, then turned to go.

"...Stormcloud...?"

"What?" asked Stormcloud, whirling around to face her.

She smiled.  "...good...luck..."

He kissed her lightly on the cheek, then ran to a porthole, 
converted to falcon mode, and soared out.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

"DIE!" bellowed Bloodclot as he barreled towards the Axalon, 
weapons blazing.

"Wazzzpinator think that Megatron will notice this," said 
Waspinator, hovering next to Blackarachnia.

Blackarachnia grinned and held up a small cylinder.  "That's why 
I got this magna-pulse generator.  So Megatron can't pick us up."

"Megatron may be stupid, but he's not that stupid," said 
Terrorsaur.  "I think he'll notice if the Axalon is a smouldering 
hole."

"Probably, but by that point everything we want to do will be done, 
and he will be unable to stop us," replied Blackarachnia.  She 
noticed Airazor flying out.  "Watch this," she said, her energon 
field crackling.

Flying towards Airazor, Blackarachnia drew her launcher and 
fired twice.  Airazor spun to avoid the shots, but Blackarachnia 
activated her leg-guns and blasted away.  The bullets shredded 
through Airazor's wings, and she had to transform to keep from 
falling.  She removed one of the bullets from her wing.  It was 
twice the size of her normal bullets.

*What the slag...* thought Airazor as she fired her missiles at 
Blackarachnia.  Blackarachnia spun away, and fired another 
missile, this one hitting Airazor's leg.  Airazor yelped, then tried to 
dive back towards the Axalon.  Blackarachnia grabbed her, and 
Airazor felt her strength seep away as Blackarachnia hurled her 
at the ground.

"Not bad, boss," said Drill Bit.  "These energon shields from 
Shockwave were worth it."

"Of course they were," replied Blackarachnia.  "Now, you know 
the drill..."

"Destroy the Maximals!" said Bloodclot gleefully as he rammed 
one of his blade arms through Ground Zero.  "Beat up on ME, will 
you?" he said to the large Maximal.  Ground Zero coughed once, 
the fell to the ground.

Stormcloud watched his teammates' demise from a distance.  
*How the slag did they get that powerful?* he thought.

Terrorsaur turned to Stormcloud.  "Ah, a new target!" he 
exclaimed, then flipped his cannons onto his shoulders and fired 
at Stormcloud.  Stormcloud veered to the left, then fired his 
wingtip missiles at Terrorsaur.  Terrorsaur dove down , then fired 
at the two missiles, destroying them.  "Now THIS is fun!" he said, 
a sinister grin on his face.

With a small loop-de-loop for show, Terrorsaur dove back down 
towards Stormcloud.  Stormcloud transformed into robot mode, 
then activated his internal turbines.  For a moment, nothing 
happened.  Then Terrorsaur squawked indignantly as he was 
pushed back by gale-force winds.  Stormcloud re-aimed his gust, 
and a 70 MPH blast sent Terrorsaur careening towards the 
ground.

Missiles exploded onto Stormcloud's back.  Whirling around, he 
took his lightning gun out of subspace and blasted at Manterror.  
Manterror laughed, and spun away from the lightning bolt.  His 
grin turned to suprise as Stormcloud hit him in a diving tackle.

Stormcloud suddenly felt weaker.  *What is this?* he thought.  
Manterror grabbed him by his collar, then hurled him towards the 
ground.  Firing his retro-thrusters and using his internal turbines, 
Stormcloud managed to pull out of the dive, then turned up and 
fired at Manterror.  Manterror simply cackled again as he dodged 
the missile, then turned towards the Axalon again.

"No you don't!" exclaimed Neogene as he erupted from the ship.  
Stormcloud watched as the powerful Maximal slammed into the 
much smaller Predacon.  Despite the energy drain, Stormcloud 
didn't think that Manterror could beat Neogene.

His jaw dropped as Manterror sent Neogene hurtling towards the 
ground.  Flying towards an access hole, he swooped into the 
Axalon and dashed towards his quarters.  Entering the small 
room, he opened his storage compartment and withdrew a small 
white bundle.

"What are YOU doing back here?" asked Rattrap.  "I thought you 
left."

"I thought you did too."  Stormcloud glanced over Rattrap.  "Good 
god, where did you GET all of those weapons?" he asked 
incredulously.

"None of your damn business," he replied.  "What's the 
package?"

"It's a hand-held energon field generator."  Stormcloud smirked 
slightly.  "Makes a great stocking stuffer."

"Hell-O!?!?  Those guys out there are ABSORBING energon!  
Are you nuts?"

"No, this thing can kick into reverse," replied Stormcloud.  He 
dashed towards the access hole and sprang out, energon field 
generator in hand.

Turning, he saw Manterror flying towards him again.  "Want 
more, Maximal?" asked Manterror.  Stormcloud said nothing, 
simply aimed his energon field generator and fired.

A purple-blue beam lanced out, and Manterror gaped as he felt 
the energon being drained from his body.  He began to fly 
towards Stormcloud, but stopped as he ran out of energy and 
collapsed to the ground.

Stormcloud smiled to himself.  *We may win this battle yet," he 
thought.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Shockwave skimmed along the ground.  Banking to the left, he 
rocketed along towards the Axalon, still under cloak.

Tilting up, he climbed higher, slightly above the Axalon.  He 
brought his weapons back on-line, then pushed his engines to full 
and screamed over towards the Maximal ship.  As he reached it, 
he slowed and converted to gun mode.

"Shockwave!" shouted Drill Bit.  "Have you come here to -"  He 
was cut short as a blast from Shockwave's cannon blasted him 
away.

"Wazzpinator not see Drill Bit moving!" said Waspinator 
somewhat worriedly as he stared at Drill Bit.

"That's because he's DEAD, you idiot!" shouted Blackarachnia.  
"Juliet, can you do anything for him?"

Juliet kneeled next to Drill Bit.  "He looks he's alive.  I'll try to 
repair him."

Blackarachnia nodded absently - she already had another 
preoccupation.  "Shockwave!  We had a deal!"

"I agreed to supply you with the equpiment you needed in return 
for that parts I needed," replied Shockwave emotionlessly.  He 
unfolded into robot mode.  "I did not agree to anything else, nor 
did I have any deal with your subordinates."

"But WHY are you attacking me?" she asked, sprining away from 
a blast from his cannon.

"I inked another deal to begin an experiment on you.  I simply 
wish to collect my data."

Blackarachnia fired a volley of missiles at him.  "Given the fact 
that that involves my death, you'll understand that I'm not exactly 
thrilled to comply."

Meanwhile, Stormcloud had swooped around behind Shockwave.  
Aiming his lightning gun, he carefully aimed at the larger 
Decepticon, then squeezed off a shot.

With suprising speed, Shockwave shot up into the sky, avoiding 
the lightning blast.  "You," said Shockwave, and he fired twice at 
Stormcloud.

Stormcloud spun away from the shots.  "Why do you say that?  
How in the world do you know me?"  He transformed into falcon 
mode, then climbed and dove.  Shockwave twisted aside, and 
Stormcloud banked around to face him again, blasting his 
missiles from his wingtips.

Shockwave did not reply, only spun around and fired at 
Stormcloud again.  Stormcloud transformed and dove away, then 
climbed again, flipping a pair of cannons onto his back and firing.  
Shockwave transformed to jet mode and banked away from the 
blasts, twisting around and preparing to fire.

"Answer me!" bellowed Stormcloud, climbing away from the shot.  
"How do you know me?"

Shockwave seemed to chuckle a little.  "From Cybertron," he 
replied.  "You were the one who led the raid against my 
installation.  So I sent in the Sweeps to take you down.  I was 
suprised when you managed to -"

He was cut off as Stormcloud slammed into him, rage filling his 
mind.  "YOU!" bellowed Stormcloud, punching Shockwave 
furiously.  "You killed them ALL!"

Stormcloud slammed his elbow into the side of Shockwave's 
head.  He raised his lightning gun, then slammed it through the 
lens on Shockwave's chest and fired.  Grabbing the wings on 
Shockwave's back, he swung him around and slammed him into 
a tree.

A pair of missiles slammed into Shockwave's left leg, 
oblitherating it.  Stormcloud punched furiously at the single eye 
on Shockwave's face until it shattered.  He grabbed the two 
"ears" on either side of the head and yanked hard, tearing them 
off.

"I have waited a long time for this," said Stormcloud as he 
prepared to blast Shockwave in the head.

He withdrew the blaster.  "But I won't kill you.  That would simply 
be out of rage and grief."

Shockwave shakily balanced against a tree.  "You are expecting 
me to now have to live with their lives on my conscience?  Highly 
unlikely."

"Maybe so," replied Stormcloud.  "But somehow I think that now, 
you'll have a hard time forgetting.  And beleive me, Shockwave, I 
won't LET you forget.  I'll remind you every way I can."

Shockwave turned to face Blackarachnia.  "The deal," he said, "is 
off."  He pressed a button on his wrist, and the energon shields 
around the Predacons disapated.

"Uh oh," murmured Blackarachnia.  "RETREAT!"

The Predacons gathered up their wounded and raced away, 
shots firing after them.

Stormcloud turned back to Shockwave, but he had already taken 
off.  "Until another day, Maximal," he said, and rocketed away 
from the Axalon.

"Trust me," said Stormcloud.  "For Chaseplane's sake, there will 
be a next time."

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Arachnid slowly crept into the cave.  *Perfect,* he thought.  *Now, 
if I can just keep them from noticing me -*

The lights all seemed to activate at once.  "Hello, Arachnid," said 
Blackarachnia with a sneer.

"Slag," he said.  "You're going to kill me, aren't you?"

The sneer on Blackarachnia's face turned into a smile.  "Kill you?  
We're proud as hell of you!" she replied.

"W-w-w-what do you mean?"

"Drop the stutter," said Tarantulas, also smiling (or at least, it 
seemed like he was smiling).  "It's annoying."

"But why the hell aren't you going to kill me?"

Blackarachnia smiled and walked over to him.  "Arachnid, since 
the day you landed, you've been whiny and stupid - or so we 
thought.  We tried to create you as a third member of our little 
'spider club'.  We thought that you were a total failure."

"And you suprised us both!" exclaimed Tarantulas.  "You sold out 
Blackarachnia to Shockwave!  You hoarded energy, you lied, you 
cheated!  You acted just like one of us!"

"But the best part is," continued Blackarachnia, "you fooled us 
both!  To us, you showed the face of an annoying little dickwad 
that could barely manage to hold his gun upright.  But in reality, 
you were plotting against us!  You pulled it off perfectly!"

Arachnid smiled as well.  "So you aren't pissed?"

Blackarachnia's smile changed to that of a cat that just 
swallowed the canary.  "Oh, we said we were PROUD of you, but 
we never said we weren't MAD at you..."

Tarantulas and Blackarachnia advanced menacingly towards 
Arachnid.  Arachnid gulped.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Skydive finally walked out of the room after what seemed like an 
eternity.  Stormcloud stood up.  "Is she..."

Skydive sighed good-naturedly.  "Yes, she's fine.  You can go in 
and see her now.  Just don't get her too stressed."

Stormcloud nodded, then walked into the room.  Vixen was 
hooked up to half a dozen wires and tubes.  He walked over to 
her and sat down next to her.  "Are you all right?" he asked her, 
taking her hand.

She smiled.  "I'm fine, Stormcloud."

"Fine people usually have fewer machines attached."

She laughed.  "You've got a point there," she said, smiling.  "Are 
you all right?"

He nodded.  "A lot better since I know you're okay."

She looked at him.  "I heard that you went kind of...wacko when 
you thought I was dead.  Is that true?"

He smiled back at her.  "Not just kind of, completely.  I couldn't 
stand the thought of you being dead."

"That's sweet," she said.

He squeezed her hand.  "You wouldn't believe how glad I am that 
you're back."

"Stormcloud...why were you so adamant about me being alive?"

"I love you."

"I know, but...it just seems like it was much more than that."

He smirked slightly.  "Motives In Disguise, eh?"

She laughed.  "You KNOW that wasn't what I meant."

"I do," he said.

"But...who was it in your past that reminded you so much of me?  
Or are you just plain obsessed?"

"Well, I AM obsessed," he replied.  "But you're right, there was 
someone in my past."

"Who?" she asked.

He sunk his head slightly, then looked back at her.  "Well...did I 
ever tell you about my sister?"

"Only briefly," replied Vixen.  "What was she like?"

He looked at her again.  "You would've liked her..."

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Shockwave gently touched down on the floor of his complex.  He 
would have to remember that robot in the future.  He was 
unusually frenetic, for some reason.  Not something that 
Shockwave wanted to deal with again in the future.

He had supposed that there was at least one logical robot among 
all of the robots that had landed here.  Unfortunately, he had 
found that not be true.  The Predacons were either motivated by 
fear or greed, and the Maximals love or respect.  Occasionally, 
they would act logically, but for the most part, they were simply 
hyperactive bundles of emotion.  Useless.

No, this planet was a lost cause.  The robots here were too 
illogical.  So were the Decepticons, perhaps, but at least there 
were a few logical ones among their ranks.  Here, the logical 
ones still slipped into emotional rages all too easily.

But, the bonded technology...  That was amazing.  Testing on 
Vixen, a low-endurance robot, had proved that they had 
incredible resistance to pain and torture.  While they were not 
more durable in terms of actual durability, their mental stamina 
and resistance to pain was miraculous.  Not to mention that they 
could repair their own wounds, given time.

There was certainly more to find out here.  A great deal more.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

"I WILL beat you this time!" shouted Rattrap, furiously rolling 
towards Stormcloud.  "I won't LET you win!"

"Nobody asked you," replied Stormcloud.  He sprang back over 
Rattrap, then whirled around.  Lifting his scimitars over his head, 
he brought them crashing down on Rattrap.

CROSSCLEAVE DEFEATED GROUNDBANK
SUSHI SPECIAL!  86,000 BONUS POINTS
CROSSCLEAVE WINS THE DUEL

Rattrap scowled.  "I'm starting to wonder why in the world I 
helped you, Dives," he grumbled.

Stormcloud was about to say something, but stopped.  Instead, 
he simply laughed.  Sitting behind him, Armordillo and 
Razorbeast began to laugh as well.

Eventually, Rattrap began laughing too.