Rodeesh of Maximals, part 1

Beast Wars Anonymous:

Beast Wars and all related belong to Hasbro. The story, its original contents and ideas, and any original characters belong to the author and cannot be used or reprinted without the author's permission.

WARNING! ! ! : The author has taken license to write out her views of what may or may not be true. I used the assumption that many of the old TF's may still be around, and that there's a maxi Chosen One. This is simply a fanfic. It doesn't make anybody else's point of view wrong or right.

Page Administrator's Note: Thanks to Nicki Ellsesser for doing the HTML coding on this story!

TIMELINE : This story takes place after the quantum surge, about one or two episodes after Depthcharge was introduced. After that, I'm going on my own timeline. So pretty much everything that happened before the 'Cutting Edge' episode can and probably will be worked in.

Rodeesh of the Maximals, pt. 1
by J.E.D.I (pderoeck@bellsouth.net)

Prologue

The Chosen One. In our darkest hour, a Chosen One will rise from our ranks and use the power of the Matrix to save us all... The Chosen One will be clever and compassionate. His cleverness will cause him to be a non-traditional leader in the sense that he will almost always do the unexpected, disregarding established methodology, and it will always work for him. His compassion will be unlimited. It will be his greatest strength and will even extend towards his enemies, despite how angry he might be at them. It will enable him to see things from everyone's point of view, and that will give him the ability to be the greatest peacemaker ever known. He will be a great and charismatic leader with the ability to make even doubters follow him no matter what is taking place at the time. The Chosen One will be a visionary. He will have the foresight to see the consequences of his and other peoples' actions; the talent to use that foresight to his and others advantages and to accomplish things no one else thought possible. Furthermore, he will be completely selfless and self-effacing, always thinking of other people, friends and enemies alike, before thinking about his own needs and always giving credit to other people and their accomplishments before claiming any credit for himself. The Chosen One will be completely unaware that he is the Chosen One.

He will also have a talent that no one else has. He will be able to identify with others on a level beyond normal understanding. It is an insight of sorts, into other's souls, as if he can see inside people and comprehend everything about them. In a way, it is the reason for his compassion and ability to be a peacemaker. He will have a rapport on a deep level with everyone, including his enemies, which will cause him to be the type of person who cannot hate even though he can get angry.

The Chosen One from the ranks of the Autobots has already come. He saved the universe from the threat of Unicron. Now the time has come for the Chosen One to come from the ranks of the Maximals. He must come, for the threat of Unicron returns as an age-old enemy is resurrected. Primus reaches out and touches the mind of his new Chosen One. Primus awakens skills and memories long thought lost, and waits for the time to come...

Chapter 1

Cheetor froze again. He paused in mid-step and scanned his surroundings. Something wasn't right. There wasn't any scent, sound, or sight to make him think that something was wrong. It was something deeper, almost like he could hear the thoughts and feelings of his prey. He waited. This was weird! Usually when he got this feeling, his prey was about to become bait. Cheetor stepped back and glanced over his shoulder, this was not right...

"Cheetor to Optimus," he said over his comm, careful to keep his voice to a whisper.

"Optimus here. What is it, Cheetor?"

"I'm not sure, but I think our party is about to have some serious crashers. Don't ask how I know, I'm not sure. Getting out of here would be good though," Cheetor responded.

"Hold on, kiddo. Ya want to tell me that YOU want to back out of a fight?!? Boy, now I've seen everything!" Rattrap retorted over the comm.

"Shut-up Rattrap. Optimus, please, something's wrong."

"You don't know how right you are, Maximal, yeeessssss...." Cheetor stiffened, then spun around.

"Megatron! Cheetor to Optimus, it's a trap! Bail out!"

"Oh, I like you pussy-cat. Even when facing the enemy, your first concern is for your teammates, yeeeessssss." Megatron smiled viciously and stepped forward. "But it will save you not, no. You will not escape after foiling my plans. Megatron... TERRORIZE!"

"Sorry, Megajerk, this cat has gotta scat. Jets...online!" Cheetor climbed into the air as fast as he dared. Megatron's laser blasts scraped past him, and ensured a very fun flight. "Cheetor to ANYBODY!!"

"Optimus here. Thanks for the warning Cheetor. We're all clear."

"'Wish I could say the same. Meg's on my tail...!" Suddenly, more laser fire joined in the volley following him. Cheetor risked a glance back and groaned. "Let me rephrase that... I'm leading a pred parade! And they are all playing 'Let's Shoot the Cat'! I could use some help!"

"Only you kiddo... What'd ya do?" Rattrap asked over he comm. "Call Megatron chicken?"

"Shut-up Rattrap. Yow!! Too close! Would you guys mind getting some of this fire off my tail? I'm leading them away from the Ark and all Predicons accounted for, but that is not good for me!"

"Hold on Cheetor, I'm on my way!"

"Okay, Optimus. What happened?" Rattrap asked almost rhetorically.

"I got there a few cycles after I told Cheetor to hold on, just in time to see one of Megatron's laser blasts connect. I caught Cheetor, but the blast had knocked him off-line. I've already told you that, Rattrap," Optimus said, glancing at the CR-Chamber.

"I wasn't asking about that...I meant, how did the kiddo notice what the rest of us missed? I mean, the kiddo usually isn't stupid, but he isn't exactly a military strategist. Plus, he's usually the last one I'd expect to retreat, much less ask if we can." Rattrap paused. "And this isn't the first time. He's been acting strangely lately, and you know it."

"Repair cycle complete, Optimus..." Rhinox said.

"Why don't you ask him yourself, Rattrap?" Cheetor stepped out of the CR-Chamber and grinned slightly.

"So much for my self-promise not to end up in the R-Chamber for a week."

"What? You actually expected not to end up in there for a whole week? Kiddo, you don't know yourself," Rattrap said, smiling.

"Hey, can't blame me for hoping. It's boring in there," Cheetor said with a grin.

"The kiddo jokes... Oh yeah, everything is back to normal." Rattrap beat a hasty retreat as Cheetor switched to beast-mode and chased jokingly after his teammate. Optimus smiled and chuckled. Some things never changed, most prominently on the list, Cheetor and Rattrap.

Cheetor kept smiling until he reached his new quarters and the doors had closed behind him. It hadn't been easy lately to keep smiling and joking. Especially not when he kept having these weird dreams. Cheetor switched to beast-mode and flopped down on his bed with his back to the door.

He felt the presence before he even heard the door open. For a nanoclick, Cheetor seriously considered ignoring him, but...

"Cheetor, are you alright?" Silverbolt asked from the doorway. "You've been acting a bit strange lately."

"What do you mean?" Cheetor said looking over his shoulder at Silverbolt.

"Well...you've been catching things no one else has."

"That's bad?"

"No. But that is the most obvious of it. Lately you've, well, changed. We are all a bit worried, and I thought that maybe you could tell me what's wrong." Cheetor could feel that Silverbolt meant it. He wished he could tell Silverbolt that nothing was wrong, but that wasn't true. He didn't know how he had been catching these things lately. And he didn't want to tell anyone about his dreams until he figured them out. The last thing Silverbolt would need to hear would be how Cheetor...

"No, Bolt, I wish I could tell you, but, I'm not sure how I've been doing it either... Maybe the cat's just better than ever?" The joke was extremely weak and both of the Maximals knew it. Silverbolt let it drop though.

Megatron was in a foul mood. He stomped through the Predacon base, wishing he could blast that cat a million times over. So close! He had come so close!! The cat, of course, had to catch on and call it in! That cat!!! He had ruined a plan that had taken days to create!

"THAT CAT!" Megatron screamed, "That, cat..." Megatron smiled, "Yeeeessssss, why didn't I see it before? The cat."

"Cheetor, I need you to take a few days off," Optimus said.

"What? Why? What'd I do?" Cheetor asked, looking around from his position on the table to see if he'd done something.

"Nothing. But you've been pushing yourself hard, and I don't want to have you so exhausted all the time." Optimus paused, then added, "And you're the only one who hasn't had a day off. So get going!"

"Yes sir, Optimus! I'll even stay out of Pred turf." Cheetor smiled and headed out the blast doors and raced up into the sky. Cheetor couldn't help but marvel at the sensation of flight. No wonder Optimus enjoyed it so much! It was pure freedom. He raced along at his top speed. He flew until the pain he had hidden started to fade. Finally, Cheetor looked down to see where he was. He didn't even pause as the scenery registered; he spun around and raced away as fast as he could.

"There are times even I'm not fast enough," he said out-loud. "I could have saved them...I could have helped... If only I'd gotten there a nanoclick faster, they'd still be alive..." Cheetor put on even more speed, and tried to hold back a sob. "Tigatron...Airazor... I'm so sorry."

Megatron looked at the form that was slowly emerging. Golden wings and an exo-structure of something were becoming apparent. Megatron chuckled.

"Oh, yeeeessssss. Should I make it as indestructible as Rampage perhaps? No, that is too powerful, near indestructible will work. The stronger he is, the better an ally he will be. Yeeeessssss, with this fighter, not even Optimal Optimus Primal will defeat me. First, to acquire my own new form. It is always intelligent to have a more powerful body than a new fighter, they always say. Yeeeessssss." Later, Megatron slept in his chambers, his dreams were particularly good. He defeated Optimal Optimus Primal in battle with his new form. Megatron stood towering over the fallen Maximal leader, and the other Maximals, seeing their leader's defeat, joined the ranks of the Predicons. Megatron smiled down at the disabled Optimus and powered up his weapon. Just as Megatron was about to fire, someone hit him from behind, then jumped away. The Maximal leader and Megatron's troops vanished in a sudden thick fog. Megatron spun around to find he was looking at Cheetor, in his beast-mode. The cat's old beast-mode, the one he'd had before the quantum surge. Cheetor maximized and started firing at Megatron. Megatron snarled and fired at the cat, but Cheetor dodged nimbly to the side and landed rolling. When Cheetor stood up, the cat was now in his transmetal robot-mode, and he fought Megatron in that form. Then suddenly, without warning, Cheetor transformed to his transmetal beast-mode, and disappeared into the mist. Megatron was now being hunted, and Megatron apparently could not kill his enemy. Megatron awoke with a start, then narrowed his eyes dangerously.

"The cat, why would I dream of him?"

Cheetor saw the waterfall where the Axalon had crashed up ahead. He pulled up and landed on a big rock that was right next to the waterfall. It overlooked the Axalon's crash sight. Cheetor looked at the sight quietly. In his mind's eye, the base was still there, untouched by the quantum surge and unmarked by the thousands of battles that had been fought around and in it. Cheetor sighed and let his shoulders and head droop. He stayed in beast mode and just thought.

Depthcharge came up behind Cheetor; the tall transmetal manta ray was hidden in the shadows of the rocks.

"I can't believe I'm doing this," he muttered. "I am following the pussy-cat when I could be out hunting for Rampage. How does the cat manage this?" Depthcharge settled back, certain he was in for a long wait. He wasn't. Cheetor suddenly leaned forward, then the cat stood up and cocked his head down inquisitively. Depthcharge found himself wishing he could see more than Cheetor's back. Cheetor cocked his head to the side again and a nanoclick later, jumped off the rock and hid under the overhang. A split-nanoclick later, Megatron, Inferno, and Waspinator flew up from the canyon and raced away. Cheetor watched the Predacons until they were out of sight then burst out laughing.

"I've got to tell the others about this!" Cheetor said, the words barely understandable from all the laughter.

"Tell them about what?" Cheetor practically jumped out of his skin. He spun around and felt his jaw drop as Depthcharge walked out from behind the rocks. Cheetor quickly regained his composure and took off.

"You'll never find out if you don't come back to the base!"

Depthcharge walked quietly past the blast doors. He could hear everyone laughing further back. He silently walked up and started to listen. Cheetor was in beast-mode and sitting on the table. He was obviously forcing everyone to wait to hear what he'd heard and everyone was laughing at Rattrap's attempts to make him talk. Cheetor looked around and saw Depthcharge and flashed him a grin, then apparently gave into Rattrap. Depthcharge was soon chuckling. He tried to return to his usual black state, but it was a bit hard. Cheetor paused for a breath then continued his 'report'. He badly imitated Megatron, Inferno and Waspinator, but Cheetor put all the effort he had into it. Depthcharge couldn't help it, he started to laugh. It really felt good to laugh he realized, and he laughed even harder as Cheetor finished up his 'report' with a badly imitated Waspinator saying,

"Mighty Megatron, Wazzzpinator just remember... only Quickzzztrike and Rampage guarding bazzze. Wazzzpinator think they should get back..." Optimus laughed as Cheetor told the team about Megatron's expression and the hasty retreat that followed. Cheetor stretched and yawned, obviously ending the 'report'. Everyone slowly dispersed. Depthcharge turned to go back out the blast doors only to find Cheetor popping up at his side. Annoyed that Cheetor had not only made him laugh but that the cat had caught him still chuckling, Depthcharge snapped out the first thing that came to mind.

"What do you want?"

"Just to talk. I know why you want to get Rampage, probably better than you think."

"How could you know? No one has ever died because you weren't there! No one's blood is on your hands!" Depthcharge growled.

"Two people died because I wasn't fast enough to save them Depthcharge," Cheetor said.

"How would you know!" Depthcharge stomped away, only to spin on his heel at Cheetor's next sentence.

"Sometimes we all have to believe in something besides ourselves." Depthcharge stared, he found himself wondering how in the Matrix Cheetor knew... "Things happen. We get created, we live, we fight, and we die. It happens. Without death, there's no life. Without life, there's no death," Cheetor said as he looked at Depthcharge.

Depthcharge snapped out at him. "You're living in a fantasy world pussy-cat, and your dreaming is going to get you killed some day."

"Maybe, maybe not. I'll die anyway someday, so why avoid it?"

"Because you can still fight if you're alive. Not if you're dead," Depthcharge snapped.

"Yeah, but to live a living death... That's destroying what makes this universe what it is." Cheetor paused again, then added, "Everyone loses someone at sometime. Refusing to admit it is as dangerous to you in battle as you say my dreaming is to me." Depthcharge noticed that Cheetor had stopped smiling and was now looking at Depthcharge in a concerned manner. "If you really want to die, no one can stop you. But, before you do, ask yourself this... Whoever you're trying to avenge, would they want you to die like this?"

Depthcharge said a few words that are really too harsh to write. Cheetor just nodded, then turned to go scouting.

"Look kid, I know you're trying to help, but, I need to handle this on my own." Depthcharge watched Cheetor walk towards the blast doors with a spring in the cat's step. Suddenly, Cheetor stopped, turned around and said,

"If you ever need a friend though, I'm willing." Depthcharge watched Cheetor walk out the blast doors, for a nanoclick he looked at Cheetor's retreating form, then growled.

"Slag, now I'm probably going to have to spend all my time protecting him."

Optimus looked down from the skies in his plane-mode, from this height he could see everything that happened outside the base. Optimus saw Cheetor walk outside the blast doors. The cat was obviously about to go scouting. Optimus chuckled as Depthcharge trotted up to Cheetor. Good. Cheetor would assuredly cheer Depthcharge up. After awhile, Depthcharge would probably join the ranks of the many, the proud, the 'Cheetor friends'. Seeing Depthcharge follow Cheetor around like a docile pet was worth another chuckle. He knew that if anyone could get past Depthcharge's hard outside, it was Cheetor. After all, Cheetor had become close friends with Dinobot!

"HmHmHm," he chuckled, "Well, good luck, Cheetor."

Cheetor had finished his scouting trip, but he hadn't really done any scouting. He hoped the Preds weren't doing anything because he had the feeling he would have missed it. Cheetor had been concentrating on cheering Depthcharge up the whole time. It was pretty hard, but so far Depthcharge had laughed a few times and had smiled the rest of the time. Cheetor smiled, even if he hadn't done any real scouting, the trip would be worth it if Depthcharge...

"Well, Pussy-cat, looks like this is where we split."

"Can we land here? I need you to report into Optimus with me."

"Why not just fly up to the blast doors and land there?"

"With nothing to report!?! I'm not in that much of a hurry to be slagged!" Depthcharge laughed as he landed and maximized. Cheetor maximized as he landed and the two headed off towards the base. Depthcharge couldn't help it, he laughed as Cheetor chatted and joked away.

"Cheetor definitely knows how to make people laugh," he thought. Cheetor kept up his banter as they walked. He paused as Optimus flew overhead, and Optimus obviously planned to be at the base soon. "Hey Big-Bot! Any problems?" he commed. "No, Cheetor. Enjoy your walk!" Cheetor started to walk again, laughing at Optimus's joke. Cheetor paid close attention to his footing on the shale, though he kept laughing. Suddenly he stopped and staggered.

FEAR! RUN! PAIN!!

The emotions hit him like a brick, and try as he might; Cheetor couldn't block it out.

"Not now! Not now! Don't let it come on NOW!"

"Hey, Cheetor, you okay?" Depthcharge asked, coming up and gripping his young friend's shoulder. Unknown to Depthcharge, that was the worst thing he could have done. It dropped every bit of shielding Cheetor had constructed to protect himself from the emotions and thoughts of others.

"Ow, I hate it when this happens..." Cheetor thought. Not expecting to feel such strong concern from Depthcharge, Cheetor hadn't set up his guard against it.

Flash. Optimus was relaxed and calm

Flash. Rhinox was angry at something

Flash Silverbolt and Blackarachnia were both feeling pleased

Flash. Depthcharge was concerned and angry, and ready to tear someone apart with his bare hands

Flash. Rattrap was feeling really down, he needed to laugh...

Cheetor suddenly felt every shield go back up. His 'ability' had turned off again. Cheetor sighed and enjoyed pure solitude for a few nanoclicks, then looked up to see a very worried Depthcharge.

"Better think of an excuse fast cat, or you are in trouble."

"You okay, kid? You had me...you acted like you got hit or something for a cycle there."

"I'm fine, I just lost my footing," Cheetor said, and thought "Thank the Matrix that's true! Good thing this isn't the solid rock we'll hit in a bit."

"HaHaHa. Well kid let's get back to the base so I can report this in. Let's see, how will I put it? Hmmmm... Optimus, Cheetor got through a scouting expedition in Predacon territory only to fall flat on his face walking back to base. Oh, Primal's going to love this..."

"Then you make the report. I just remembered that I owe Ratface a game of cards, and I don't need two people killing me, so... race you back to the base!!"

"Get back here!!"

"HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa..."

"Yo! Ratface! Where are you? You didn't come out to insult us; are you alive in there?"

"Yeah kiddo. I'm alive." Rattrap turned to find himself looking at a very concerned Cheetor "What do ya want, Spots?"

"Well," Cheetor stepped into the room and held out some cards "I just came to beat you at cards again. You afraid to play?"

"You? Beat me? I think not! Get your butt in here and prepare to lose!"

Chapter 2

Megatron was being hunted. In the thick mist he couldn't see his enemy. He saw a flash of gold, but it was gone before he could shoot. Again, and again, Megatron saw a glimpse of the hunter. Then suddenly, when Megatron turned around, there was someone there. He had been the predator; now, he had become the prey. Fathomless blue eyes glowed, and the wiry, strong build was the only feature Megatron could see besides the wings that were held tight to the robot's back. Then, as the light behind the fighter increased, Megatron began to see a strange, blue, stylized, flame symbol on the phantom fighter's chest. The light suddenly flared to a brilliant degree, and as the flame symbol burned into his optics, Megatron screamed in fear and pain.

Megatron awoke.

He snapped his head from side to side, half expecting to see the phantom fighter still before him. "What is happening?" he asked out loud, "What..."

Gods...we swear by them, fear them, and respect them. They are the beings no one can truly believe or disbelieve in. And they are real.

Primus. Unicron. Those two have been at odds for as long as life has existed, and they will fight until life no longer exists.

There are many different legends about Primus. Many are true, few are not. Most cannot be proven one way or the other. One legend is true -- that of the Chosen One. Hot Rod was the Chosen One of the Autobots; he was chosen to save the Autobots from their darkest hour. For a long time, Hot Rod could not, or would not, believe that he was the Chosen One. Hot Rod had enough trouble being Rodimous Prime. He didn't want to fully believe that he would some day do such great deeds as foretold in the prophecy. Primus, long ago, proved to Hot Rod that Rod was the Chosen One. Now Primus reaches out through time and space, and touches the mind of his new Chosen One.

Unicron is angry. Primus has placed his cards down, and Unicron has lost. There is no way he can stop the events that will soon occur. So he focuses on bringing back a fighter that not even Primus would expect. Soon Unicron will force the new Chosen One to come within him, and once he has the Maximal inside, Galvatron will destroy him.

The war will soon begin. You and other fighters shall be monumentally important to this effort. Soon, very soon, all that was forgotten will be remembered, and all that can be done to help will be done. Sleep well, Chosen One.

"Ahhhhhh!" Cheetor awoke with a small scream. Quickly, he lashed his head around, desperately trying to calm down. "Oh, please tell me no one heard that..." After a few cycles had passed with no noise, Cheetor decided that no one had heard him. "Okay cat, let's keep our cool. That's the third slaggen time I've had that dream. Maybe...I should tell the others..." Cheetor snorted at that. "Oh, yeah, great idea Cheets. Let's go tell the others that you've lost it." Cheetor yawned and stretched in typical cat-fashion, then flopped his transmetal body back down onto his bed. "I need to stop having those midnight snacks." Soon, Cheetor was asleep, and his dreams started again.

"Why'd you decide to train me?"

"Simple," answered a kind, deep voice. "You have a talent no one else has, except me. So I thought that I'd take you in and train you to use it. You might need it someday."

"Really? Well, I'm glad I'm your apprentice..."

The explosion rocked the mountain, waking Cheetor up and sending him crashing to the floor.

"Ow, slag! Why is it whenever I get close to finding anything out about my past, something happens?"

"CHEETOR! GET YOUR SHINY BUTT OUT HERE!!"

"I'm coming!" Cheetor shouted. He didn't even bother running down the hall; it was much easier to fly, after all. "Ah, well...might as well save the mysteries of my past for later."

Megatron growled; he had almost gotten the cat. His plan had worked perfectly, naturally. Megatron had fired at the annoying vermin Maximal, and, as expected, Cheetor had knocked the rat out of the way, and taken the blast himself. Unfortunately, Megatron hadn't counted on the rat being able to give enough cover-fire to allow the annoying cat as well as the rat himself to get to safety. Megatron probably would have been able to get the cat even then, if the feline hadn't stayed on-line and added his firepower to Rattrap's.

The combined firepower was enough to keep Megatron at bay until the other Maximals finished up their fights and ran to the rescue. Megatron had been forced to retreat. Now he growled under his breath, "Sooner or later Cat, I'll get you."

"Well, he'll be gone for a bit..." Rattrap said, as Cheetor leaned back against the rock-face in the shadows, obviously trying to hide that he was injured, as if the fact he couldn't even get to his feet didn't give it away. Rattrap turned away to say something to Optimus and Cheetor wearily closed his optics.

"Ohhhhhh...this...is...bad. Gotta stay on-line... ahhhhrrrr... oh, this hurts..."

"Cheetor? Hey kiddo, you gonna be okay? Cheetor?" Rattrap stepped up to his friend and touched the young Maximal's shoulder. "Cheetor? Oh boy... Optimus!"

'What? Where am I?' Cheetor thought, looking around. It looked like a gray... place. He could see that downhill a large group of robots were standing around. Cheetor could feel a strong pull, almost like he was underwater and the current had him. It slowly pulled him downhill.

"We're losing him!"

"Slag, hold him, come on Cheetor!"

'Why should I go that way? Where am I?' Cheetor braced his feet into the ground and felt the pull fade for a cycle. He looked behind him, and there was a giant cliff-face there. It looked like it would be difficult to climb.

"Come on, come on, kiddo. Don't do this... COME ON!"

"Slag it, work! Primus, please..."

'Where am I?!' Cheetor screamed in his thoughts, 'I want to know where I am!'

~ You are where you should not be... ~

'Ahhhh! Who said that!?!'

~ You should not be here, you must go back, ~ came the voice again. It was just like talking to an old friend, Cheetor thought.

~ You are, little one. Now climb. Your time has not yet come, ~ Cheetor didn't ask what the voice meant. He just shrugged and started climbing up the cliff-face.

'This would be much easier if this was downhill,' he thought, although he continued to climb upward.

~ It is always simpler to go the easy way. But sometimes what awaits you the hard way is worth more. Now climb. ~

"Thank Primus, I'm getting a stronger reading. Come on Cheetor... keep it up."

The pull increased. The higher Cheetor climbed, the stronger the pull. And the stronger the pull, the more effort Cheetor put into climbing. He put every bit of that willful energy and stubborn will that had gotten him into trouble countless other times.

'And,' he chuckled, 'if you ask any of my teammates, you'll find that energy and enthusiasm is something I have in abundance.'

~ True words, little one. Keep climbing. I assure you that the prize at the top is well worth all your effort.' ~ Cheetor couldn't help it. He chuckled.

'Truth to tell friend... I probably would have climbed this anyway, I... never was one to go the easy way,'

~ True, ~ the voice said with a chuckle. ~ You will understand the importance at the top.~'

'If not, I'll climb the next cliff.'

"Come on Cheetor, your almost there. Don't give up on us now... not when you're this close..."

"How much further until Cheetor stabilizes?"

"Just a little further... just..."

~ ...a little further. ~

'Almost, there... Made It! Hey! Where'd the cliff go?'

"Stabilized! Thank Primus... he's stabilized."

"Dat was too close. If he'd gone any further, da kiddo would have joined with the Matrix."

"He... had. But he came back."

"Yeah mean da kiddo was..."

"Yes. He's stabilized though. Computer, begin repair cycle, keep unit off-line until repairs are complete. Last thing we need is for Cheetor to move and slow things down."

"That was close. I do not understand, Megatron did not hit Cheetor that badly. How did Megatron manage to..."

"Kill Cheetor? The blast hit his spark. If you know where to hit, you can kill any Cybertronian with a stick."

"Don't tell us. I'd rather we don't know."

Page Administrator's Note: Thanks to Nicki Ellsesser for doing the HTML coding on this story!

Rodeesh of the Maximals, pt. 2
by J.E.D.I (pderoeck@bellsouth.net)

Cheetor looked around. 'Back to Dreamland, I guess... Good, let's see what I've got in the memory department.' Cheetor gave a mental shrug; he'd like to see what this was. Maybe he'd catch a glimpse at his past.

"Shhhhhh... Here he comes."

"Who?" Cheetor asked, it took him a few nanoclicks before he realized that he was truly living out this memory, but almost as soon as the realization came, Cheetor felt himself stop being an observer and become his old self. 'Now let me only remember this!' he pleaded on his thoughts.

He was scared, worried, and honored. He was one of the few people chosen that actually had a chance of being trained by HIM!

"That is, everyone else is. I doubt they'd want an orphan."

"Here he comes! Quick! Look important!"

"How do you look important? Especially if you're not."

A tall, red and orange robot walked slowly down the row of anxious young Maximals that stood in as close to an orderly line as they could get. He looked careful looked at each one. The robot was getting closer and closer.

'Oh please, PLEASE, pick me! I hate the orphanage!'

'Do you now?'

'Did I just hear...' The voice in his mind chuckled. It was deep and kind, with a bit of humor in it.

'Yes, you did.'

"Congratulations kid," said the robot, who was standing in front of him. "You are the first Maximal to be trained by..."

"Hey Cheetor... You okay?" Cheetor blinked his optics and shook his head. "'Slag! Every time!" he thought, then looked forward. The whole team was standing there, looking very worried.

"What happened? The last thing I remember, Megatron..."

"Blasted ya, he hit ya bad."

"How bad?"

"Ya gave us a bad scare Cheetor, ya... almost joined the matrix."

"I died!?! But..I...what...?"

"Relax kid, you pulled out of it."

"I remember... I'd thought..."

"Prime." Optimus looked down at the shaken Cheetor before continuing. "You may want to come out of the CR-Chamber, Cheetor." No one laughed at Optimus's joke. Cheetor was beyond scared.

"I DIED?!? That gray place was the Matrix! When I climbed the cliff, I was coming back to life!"

~ You are not alone, little one. None are alone, I am always here. ~

"Primus," Cheetor said, leaning on the table as his knees threatened to give out.

"Steady kid... relax. You'll be fine," Depthcharge said, purposely keeping calm. The kid had had a rough enough day as it was. The last thing Cheetor would need would be a lecture, and so Depthcharge would make sure that the last thing he got would be a lecture.

"Okay Cheets. He's right, relax! You will be fine! You've come this close to death before. Now relax!!"

"I'm okay, I'm okay... Just finding out that I almost woke up in the Matrix shook me..." He said, even while he thought, "More than you'll ever know!"

~ I assure you that the prize at the top is well worth all your effort ~

"He meant living! By the Matrix, I think I was just saved by Primus!!" Cheetor chuckled slightly, and he saw the others relax as he stood up, "'Well, if Primus saved me... Far be it from me to waste this renewed life shaking because I almost... Relax, Cheets!"

"So... Who gives me the first lecture?"

"ME!"

Chapter 3

There's something about being glared at by one of the greatest single powers in the universe that makes you wish you were anywhere else. Hot Rod was as angry as he got. It wasn't his battle fury, but it was more than enough to make Windchaser seriously consider falling flat down her face and begging for mercy.

"He was on the Axalon?" Hot Rod said it quietly, but that was even more terrifying then when he had lost his temper when he first received the report.

"Yes, sir. We were finally able to trace him," Skywitch said, trying not to let the fact that she was quaking all over show in her voice.

"So, Rodeesh is no longer on Cybertron."

"No, sir. He is now wherever, or whenever Megatron went," Nightwolf said. Hot Rod looked down at the three youngsters that stood before him. It was hard to believe that they were three-fourths of one of the best fighting groups on Cybertron, the Strike Team. Hot Rod sighed, then smiled.

"Okay, okay... Stop acting like I'm Unicron. We need to find out how to find Rodeesh."

Cheetor was being Cheetor. Optimus didn't know whether to cheer or to worry. Depthcharge had mentioned Cheetor's small speech, and the transmetal manta ray had been surprised when Optimus Primal began to worry. Optimus was beginning to wonder about Cheetor...

"Who is he? Where did he learn to fight?" Optimus leaned back and thought. In a few nanoclicks, Cheetor would report to him, and Optimus needed to give Cheetor a serious lecture. He wouldn't be able to if he didn't figure out or at least attempt to figure out a few things. "Thing One: Who the pit was Cheetor before I met him?" That question made Optimus smile slightly at the memory that began to play out before him.

Primal had been rushing to get to a rebel Predacon attack at the Autobot headquarters, when suddenly, someone shoved him to the side, a nanoclick before a laser blast left a smoking hole where he had been. Primal looked up to see a Maximal kid, shooting at the Predacon sniper. The kid missed... Primal didn't. Primal stood up; the kid turned around, nodded to Primal and started to walk away. He made it five steps when suddenly he fell to the ground, off-line. Primal couldn't leave the kid there so he reported in that he had found an injured civilian and was taking him back to his home.

His commander agreed.

Primal picked up the kid. He did have some apparent injuries, but Primal got the feeling it was more than the few injuries that had knocked the kid off his feet. Either way, it would be best to take the kid to his home. Later, Primal had the CR-Chamber computer do a scan.

"The poor kid," Primal said. "A memory virus. It's almost finished wiping all his memory tracks! It was just starting to tear away at his energy. Computer, use counter-virus NOW." A little while later, the kid stepped out of the repair chamber. He looked up at Primal, said an embarrassed 'thank you' and started to leave.

"Hold on kid. You saved my life, so it was just me returning the favor to take you to a CR-Chamber... Do you have any memories left?"

"No," said the small gold and blue robot, "I...I can't even remember my own name. I think I was hit by the virus just before I helped you."

"Do you have any place to stay?"

"No. I can sort of remember a year or two when I was a kid. I know I'm an orphan, but I don't know how I became one or anything."

"Well, my name's Primal. Would you like to stay with me?"

"Yeah, and, call me Kid... I think that's the closest we'll come to a name."

Optimus sighed. Kid had stayed with him, and over the years, Optimus had come to think of Kid as a son. He had even left Cybertron to stay with Optimus, who was pretty much his father, and the only family he had. Optimus sighed again. There were times he wished...

"Never mind," he told himself, Cheetor had stopped acting weird and had gone back to his usual self. That, at least, was worth cheering about. But why did Cheetor always have to get into trouble when he acted like, well, Cheetor? The sound of clawed feet hitting metal announced Cheetor's arrival. Optimus watched as Cheetor jumped past him and up to the table. Cheetor landed on the table and turned around to face Optimus.

"Sit down Cheetor."

Cheetor sat down.

"On the floor." Cheetor hopped off the table, walked forward until he was right in front of Optimus and sat down in beast-mode.

"Impulsive, brash...Cheetor why can't you for once listen to the orders that I give you off-duty?" Optimus sighed again. "On-duty, or in a combat situation, you listen. It's in a scouting, non-combat, or off-duty situation where you stop listening to orders. Lately, you've began to listen to my orders in those situations too." Optimus glared down at Cheetor, "But you have to listen to them more often. You did save the day and Silverbolt, but be warned..."

"I know...I know...I'll never do anything like that again."

"You had better not, because if you do...I'll have your tail in a sling!"

"I'll never disobey your orders again, Optimus..." Cheetor suddenly stood up and grinned, "...until the next time..." Optimus found himself looking at empty air as Cheetor raced off Leaving Optimus to laugh at the fact that Cheetor had done it again.

In the Past...

Hanging near Cybertron like a metallic buzzard, the Predacon battle station waits. But what is inside is far more chilling then the station itself.

Two Predacon generals meet, they stand in a red lit room. Their underlings stand around, working at various consoles. One of the underlings walks up and gives one of the generals a sheet of paper. The general looks at the report, nods to his underling then turns back to face the other general.

"We have found his energy signature," He says, calmly and evilly, with a voice of cold steel.

"Good," the other general said, with a voice like lava burning it's way over rock. "Send one of our warships to his present position and destroy him."

"Sir!" the two generals turn at the voice, they watch as a new underling comes up; he bows and begins his report. "Rodeesh is leaving the planet!"

"What?"

"He is on the exploration ship." The underling paused, then glanced at the paper in his hand, "The ship is the Axalon, captained by Primal. Primal has taken the first name of Optimus to honor the old Autobot."

"Why does the name Primal sound so familiar?"

"Primal is the Maximal Rodeesh saved from our sniper."

"Yes, I remember now. The foolish Maximal saved Rodeesh as well, correct?"

"Yes sir!" the underling said. "We lost track of the two of them, we finally were able to trace them to this ship."

"Interesting. Well, it would be tragic if a warcruiser crew went renegade and destroyed a helpless exploration ship. Wouldn't..."

"Generals!" a voice suddenly called from the counsels. "The Axalon has engaged with a warship! That betrayer is captaining it! Megatron!"

"Ah, good, I had hoped to destroy Megatron. Now, as we dispose of that betrayer, the Maximal exploration ship will sadly be caught in the crossfire and destroyed," said the first general.

"Two birds with one stone," said the second general. "Send the warcrusier, tell the captain to destroy both ships!"

Earlier that day...

Primal looked out from where the Axalon was preparing to take off. Kid still wasn't sure if he should go. He stood at the corner, looking down at the small bag that held his few possessions. He never had been one for personal artifacts; the less he had, the less to tie him down to one place. Kid turned and looked at the clock on the wall opposite him...

"One cycle, then I'm alone..." Kid sighed, "Ah, slag... There's nothing that important to me on this planet anyway. Might as well begin exploring the galaxy." Kid reached down and picked up the bag. He couldn't help but laugh. "I guess I don't really have a reason to be so glum about leaving then!"

Primal looked down on the streets. In less than one cycle, they would close the doors, have a small meeting, then, after a final systems' check, they would take off. Primal turned to walk back into the Axalon. "I'll miss you, Kid." Primal suddenly stopped. He looked closer. Had he just seen a glimmer of gold and blue? Yes! Primal smiled. Kid came racing down the street, laughing. Primal watched as Kid swung his sack up over his shoulder and slid his arm through the strap. Kid jumped forward and grabbed the ladder that led up to the Axalon. Primal watched as Kid raced up the ladder at top speed. "Well, looks like we're going to have a systems' monitor, pilot and scout after all," he said, smiling.

"Big-Bot! Emergency broadcast from Cybertron! Six preds stole something, a... golden disk?"

"What's dat got to do with us?"

"They want us to follow them and try to stop them. We're the only ship close enough to engage!"

"Do it!"

"Here we go! Weapons and defense systems on maxi..." Kid paused and looked closer at his screen, "Optimus! Two more ships sighted! They... Slag! Never mind! Lost 'em!"

"The Predacon ship is going through Transwarp space!"

"Prime. Lock on to them and follow!"

Back to the Present...

"Cheetor!"

"Huh? What?"

"Ya awake, kiddo? Ya were about ta send me flying."

"Sorry, guess I dozed off."

"Next time ya do, don't kick when someone tries ta wake ya up!"

"Oh. Sorry, Rattrap."

"Sorry... yeesh! You're a metal kitty-cat, you fall asleep in beast-mode in the middle of a conversation, then when I try to wake you up, you kick!" Cheetor stretched and yawned. He'd been really tired lately, and he still was. Rattrap had been kind of subdued ever since Cheetor had... Cheetor hid the shudder. He'd come so close... But still, he shouldn't fall asleep on watch. Rattrap was finally starting to get back to normal, so Cheetor had volunteered to take this watch to talk to him; he hadn't gotten a chance lately.

"Good thing Rattrap's getting normal again. A subdued Rattrap is just too weird. Wonder what was bothering him?" Rattrap looked at Cheetor again. The kid was totally exhausted. Not that Rattrap blamed him. The kid hadn't gotten any sleep ever since... Rattrap couldn't shake the guilt. He blamed himself for Cheetor being hurt, but he couldn't admit it out loud.

"Your fault," said a tiny voice in his head. It was barely a whisper, but Rattrap couldn't ignore it. "You saw Megatron taking aim, you could have dodged."

"Be quiet please... I didn't know which way to dodge, I... I panicked."

"Hey, Rattrap, you okay?" Rattrap snapped out of his musing to see Cheetor looking worriedly at him. "Sorry, I dozed off. I've just been a bit bushed lately. I haven't really had a chance to get any sleep."

"Nah, it's okay kiddo. Don't blame ya for being tired."

"Right, I..." Cheetor broke off as he tried to contain a yawn and failed.

"Sorry."

"You'll make me yawn soon, kiddo. Get some sleep. I'll wake you up before the next shift gets here."

"Thanks Rattrap." Cheetor curled up, still in his beast-mode, and was instantly asleep.

"The kiddo wasn't joking. He really was bushed."

"Your fault he is. You're the reason he was injured."

"No!" Rattrap screamed at that tiny portion of himself that constantly berated him. "I didn't know the kiddo would jump in front of me! I didn't.."

"You did! You know Cheetor! You should know that he would gladly give his life to save one of his teammates!"

"I didn't know! I'm sorry! I didn't know he'd been hit that bad!"

"You did! You should have taken him to the CR-Chamber immediately! But instead you turned to joke to Optimus! It is your fault!"

"No!" It took a nanoclick before Rattrap realized he had shouted that out loud. He glanced around, but no one came, no one had heard him, there was no one to save him from the guilt that was slowly eating away at him. Rattrap looked around again. Nothing on the screens and Cheetor was still fast asleep. Rattrap fell asleep without really realizing it. "I'm sorry..."

~ It was not your fault ~

'Yaaa! Who?'

~ You are not at fault. He does not blame you ~

'He? He who? The kiddo?'

~ Yes ~

'He should! It was my fault he got hurt! My fault!'

~ No. It was not. None of what happened was your fault~

'Okay, just how do you know this?'

~ I watch him. He is scared and worried. He has come close to death, and he has hidden his fear, but it grows... Talk to him... Now ~

'NO! NO!! NOOOOOO!!! I won't let it happen! I won't!! DO YOU HEAR ME? I WON'T LET THIS...'

"Cheetor? You awake, kiddo? Come on, I fell asleep, I need someone to talk to." Cheetor heard the voice, he grabbed onto it and pulled towards it desperately. He had to get away from the all-consuming fire and evil! Slowly Cheetor pulled himself back to reality.

"Oh boy, I think I just remembered why I haven't gotten much sleep lately."

"You awake?"

"Yeah. Shift here yet?"

"No, we've got another few megacycles before they come... Ya want to talk about it?"

"Yes! Please! YES!! I'm terrified! Every time I go to sleep or even let my concentration slip, I'm somewhere evil! Then I see... IT!"

"I guess so."

"What was it like? The matrix I mean."

"Well... it was a gray... place. There was a bit of a hill that I was standing on. Downhill there was a major group of robots; and it was like I was underwater and the current was pulling me towards them."

"Why didn't ya go?"

"It... was too easy. I wanted to see how where I was and how I'd gotten there."

"So?" Well, there was this MAJOR cliff face behind me..." Cheetor felt his fear fade away as he talked to Rattrap, "'Matrix I needed this! Now... how do I get onto the subject of bonfires?'"

"Sounds like you had a weird time. Sorry I got ya into it."

"What? What do you mean? It was my fault."

"I could have dodged, but I didn't. I froze and screamed. I almost got ya killed."

"I was about to push you out of the way before you screamed, if you'd dodged, I probably still would have been hit."

* FIRE! HEAT! Darkness, it consumes! It is evil! There's no escape! FIRE!! NO! The base! My team! I won't let you! *

"Cheetor you okay?"

"Sure, just still a bit tired I suppose."

* Fire. Fire and evil. *

"So what do you think?"

"What do I think?!? What do I think!?! There's evil coming! It's getting stronger! I can't tell any of you because if I did, you'd think I was crazy! I don't know what's going on! I almost died! I keep zoning out on bonfire dreams and the emotions of anything that'sgot emotions keep showing up in my mind! Plus, every time I go to sleep I get a glimpse of my past, which I don't think I like! Oh yeah, and I almost forgot, hanging above all the fire and evil is Unicron! Not to mention Primus has been having a few talks with me! Oh yeah Rattrap, everything's just plain normal for me. Isn't it like this for you!?!"

"I think Optimus is going to kill us when he sees that we used the computer screens to make holograms."

"You're probably right, kiddo. Better cancel this program, huh?"

"Good idea, because I think I hear him coming."

"Oh boy; almost there... done."

"Done what, Rattrap?"

"Nothing, Big-Bot. 'Night. Come on, Rattrap. You coming?"

* Fire! Heat! Darkness!! Evil so thick that air reeks with it! Above the fire and evil IT hangs, like a serpent about to strike! * Cheetor considered crying.

"Why? Why me?" - Because you are Chosen -

"No! NO! Get away from us! Leave us alone!" -I will have you, young one! You will be mine! -

"No!!"

* Fire, heat, darkness... Coming closer, nothing can win... *

"NO! There is always a way to win! I will not give up!"

~ Never give up ~

*Fire! Heat! Darkness!! *

"I will not let it happen! I will not let them die!!"

-You cannot stope it! You are unwhole! You cannot fight! -

"I will! Do you hear me!?! I will fight and I will win!"

*Fire! Heat! Darkness!! Coming closer... but a glimmer...Fire!! *

* Fire! Heat! Darkness!! *

"Ground!"

Cheetor pulled up. "Too close, definitely too close."

"You're telling me?!?"

"Sorry Rattrap..."

"Sorry?! We're in the middle of running for our lives! Then you suddenly turn off your jets and drop down, only to pull up so close to the ground that your belly scrapes it!"

"Lost the preds, didn't I?"

"You almost lost me!" Cheetor chuckled. It was hard to force it out but somehow he managed. He saw the blast doors up ahead. He could hardly wait to be home and in bed. Life was getting just a bit too weird for his tastes.

~ What troubles you? ~

"Primus! Do you talk like this to everybody?"

~ You are one of the few I can converse with. It is your gift that allows it. It is sad that you will not remember these conversations until later. ~

"What do you mean?" Cheetor asked as he pulled up and landed in front of the blast doors and walked into the base. "I doubt I'll forget talking to you!"

"Night kiddo! It's late. Try to get some sleep."

"Check. 'Night Ratface."

~ I will miss these conversations...~

"What do you mean?" Primus sighed; he had come to enjoy talking to his Chosen One. The young one seemed to have unlimited energy, enthusiasm, and trust.

"Well... Never mind. How'd you know I'd want to talk to you?" Something in the Chosen One's tone made Primus glance through the child's memories. Primus found the terrifying and badly hidden memory.

~ He's coming. ~

"Who?" Cheetor asked as he flopped down on his bed in beast-mode. "Who's coming?"

~ Our link endangers you, as does the memory of it. You will remember someday. Forgive me... ~

"Forgive you? For wha..." Cheetor suddenly fell silent, his head fell to his bed, and as his last fringes of consciousness started to fade, he felt his memories of his talks with Primus fade and vanish. "No! Please, I remember so little! Don't take anymore! Please..."

~ I'm sorry... ~ As Cheetor's consciousness faded completely, his optics closed, and his cat body relaxed. Deep in his mind, Cheetor cried.

"No! Please! I have so few memories! Please, NO!"

~ Forgive me... ~

* Fire! Heat! Darkness!! A glimmer of hope. Fire!! *

- Surrender to me!! -

"No!"

-You must! -

"Never!"

-If you do, I'll give you back your memories. -

"No! I don't want to find them out from you! Get out! Get out! "

*Fire! Heat! Darkness!! *

-Afraid of the dark? -

"No!"

*Fire! Heat! Darkness! Evil! Fear! The base! Optimus! Rattrap! Silverbolt!! Where's? Rhinox! Depthcharge! No! Even Arachnia. No!! NOOOOOO!! *

- I will do this to them if you do not serve me! -

"No! Get...away...from...me!!"

* Fire! Heat! Darkness! Evil! Fear! The base!! Fire... *

~ No more... ~

- Begone! Get away! You cannot! -

~ No, you begone ... ~

"No... Optimus, Rattrap, Depthcharge, Rhinox, Silverbolt, Blackarachnia... No..."

~ They live, and they shall be there tomorrow ~

"The fire. The heat. The darkness. The evil..."

~ They will come... ~

"My team, my family..."

~ That will not occur, if you do not allow it. ~

"How can I stop this?"

~ Stay the same. Keep what you have and hold on to it. You are my Chosen One. ~

"Why? What am I? Who am I?"

~ You are yourself. You need know nothing else ~

"Will I remember?"

~ Someday, but not today. ~ Cheetor saw the flames again and he screamed.

-What's wrong? Afraid of the dark? -

"Yes, I am..."

* Fire and evil *

"Will I remember?"

~ Someday, but forget for now... ~

* Fire and Evil *

~ Forget ~

* Fire and evil *

"No..."

Chapter 4

Destiny. Did it exist? Was his life pre-determined with no free will of his own? Cheetor was beginning to wonder. That dream where the Voice talked to him was getting more and more constant, and he was beginning to wonder why he could only remember bits of it. He was slowly remembering more, and whether or not he admitted it to himself; the parts that he was remembering were scaring him to death.

"Kiddo!" Cheetor snapped his attention back to the present, to find himself nose to nose with a ticked off Rattrap.

"Well, this is going to be fun to explain," Cheetor thought.

"Hello kiddo! Your transmetal brain in gear? If you're going ta be carrying me all over da planet, ya could at least listen ta where we're going!" Cheetor felt Rattrap's worry and the other's building, so he quickly joked.

"What? And take away your fun? If I listen now, that means you're going to have to make up things to complain about on the way. I really have enough trouble carrying your smelly carcass all around, I don't need you making more irrelevant comments than is necessary." Cheetor smiled and laughed. He hoped no one noticed how forced it was. Rattrap closed his optics, shook his head, and groaned. Cheetor heard him mutter something about death being intimate, but he forced himself to ignore it. "Well, let's hit the skies! Hop on! And try to stay downwind this time, you smell like Limburger cheese!" Cheetor laughed at Rattrap's expression and reveled in the fact that it was not forced this time.

Megatron grinned ferally; everything was going according to plan. Nothing could go out of control now.

In Space near Cybertron...

Deep in space, a small warship awaits her orders. They come through, and the jump is made. The hunt has now begun, and the hunters are not alone. Far away in space and time, another ship takes off, and jumps through time. The battle for the life of the Chosen One has begun, and deep in the eternal night of Cybertron, a tall red and orange robot lowers his head to his hands and begs for forgiveness for what he is about to drag someone back into. Deep in his spark, he knows he will never hear an answer.

"Big Bot... Hey, did we hit another jamming station? Big Bot are you there?" Cheetor felt the first tinges of worry... this couldn't be good. Deep in his spark, he felt that feeling of his arise, an attempt to warn him of a foul deed. "I really hate it when I get this feeling!" Cheetor glanced around, desperately trying to find the enemy. "Slag it! Whenever I get this feeling, I end up in the CR-Chamber! Okay, Cheets come on, calm down. Maybe you can get out of here in time... Maybe you still have enough time to get out of the jamming range..."

"Predacons, TERRORIZE!"

"Then again, maybe not. Still got to try to get to safety."

"Oh, man, we're gonna die!"

"Don't count on it, Rattrap!" Rattrap glanced at Cheetor. Even for all Cheetor's joking, the cat looked grim, and that's what scared Rattrap the most. Cheetor suddenly looked over his shoulder at Rattrap and smiled normally.

"Would you mind holding on tight, Ratface? The preds are about to find out why you don't mess with this kitty-cat!" Cheetor didn't even wait for an answer. The nanoclick Rattrap tightened his grip on Cheetor, the cat dove straight for the ground at his maximum speed.

Rattrap watched as the ground loomed closer and closer. He got ready for an impact that never occurred. At the last nanoclick, Cheetor leveled out and raced along parallel to the ground at break-neck speed. Cheetor's dive had added even more speed. Rattrap gulped. "I sure hope you've got a plan, kiddo!" Rattrap cringed as Cheetor muttered,

"Me too," in response.

"You don't have a plan!?!"

"I'm sort of making this up as I go along... but I think we may have an escape path ahead. Hold on, and move with me! I don't need you to change my balance in here! It was hard enough the last time without any distractions!" Cheetor suddenly grinned and added a

"YEEEEEHAAAW!" Cheetor whipped up, then dove into a canyon, racing along it and dodging the obstacles without slowing down in the slightest.

Rodeesh of the Maximals, pt. 3
by J.E.D.I (pderoeck@bellsouth.net)

When had this situation gotten out of hand? The cat had somehow managed to not only escape the initial trap, but get into a canyon where there were so many out-croppings and pillars of stone that it was impossible to shoot him.

"Cheetor hadn't been lying about this canyon," Rattrap thought. "For all his bragging and joking, I don't think he's ever actually lied about his speed. Unless he understated it, that is... Yoicks! Man oh man, I doubt anyone but the kiddo could have made this run. And if the kid's heavy breathing and all this wincing are anything to go by, if he makes it through this while carrying me, we'll be lucky. Ireally don't think this is as much fun for the kid as he said it was."

Cheetor was seriously beginning to regret this. He wished there had been anyway to get away from the preds but this. But nothing had presented itself, so through the canyon he went. Now, it was only the tiny portion of himself that he never really could see that wasn't paying attention to the flight. The tiny portion where the feeling came from and the tiny portion that stayed calm and cool even when Cheetor had joined the matrix. Now that bit of himself was reliving his first run down the canyon. Long ago, Cheetor had learned that any attempt to push away or contain anything from the hidden corner of his mind resulted in himself being unable to see or hear anything but that, which would be deadly now, so Cheetor let the memory play out. If nothing else it would help him get ready for the many twists and turns that would come.

Cheetor had been flying a routine patrol in this sector. He was just passing over the canyon when suddenly, for no reason, his engines had died. He had fallen towards the floor of the canyon, when just as inexplicably as they had gone off-line; his jets had come back on, at maximum power. It had sent him barreling through the canyon at a speed you really shouldn't be going in a canyon with so many pillars and twists. It was a speed that you really shouldn't be going at even in open air, trying to keep going was a suicide run and only an idiot would try it. Cheetor had no choice. If he tried to slow down, pull up, or land he would slam into either the canyon wall or one of the stone pillars that filled his vision. So he dodged and dove and twisted, avoiding stone columns left, right and center. As he slowly began to get the hang of it, he tried to calm himself down.

"Calm down Cheets, calm down! This is no time to PANIC!!" Then Cheetor glanced ahead and gulped.

"Start panicking..." he said as a giant stone wall with a major out hanging filled his vision, he couldn't go up or to the side so that left...

"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" Rattrap's scream brought Cheetor back to reality.

"There's only one way to go! Down!" Oh, please let the tunnel still be down there. Cheetor whispered in his thoughts. He spun around a split-nanoclick before he impacted, and raced along the cliff wall towards he ground.

"We're gonna die!" Rattrap screamed as the ground rushed up to meet him.

"Not today!" Cheetor said as he leveled out his flight and began racing through a tunnel that Rattrap hadn't even seen before. It was tight. There was almost no maneuvering room and stalagmites and stalagmites filled the tunnel. One wrong move and they were splats on the wall.

"Ohhh, this is going to be fun..." Cheetor muttered as he blasted along.

"We're gonna die!!" Rattrap screamed again as Cheetor raced around one of the 'mites and didn't even kill any speed.

"Shut up Rattrap!" Cheetor screamed. He was totally focused on navigating this. He was so focused in fact, that it wasn't until he burst out of the tunnel and the problem cropped up ahead of him that he remembered about it. The end of the canyon loomed ahead of Cheetor. Rattrap screamed in fear again.

Megatron and the other Predacons raced out of the tunnel behind Cheetor and Rattrap. They were all concentrating so hard on getting Cheetor that they had forgotten to look ahead of themselves. Cheetor suddenly climbed straight up into the air, his belly scraped the canyon wall. Megatron and the other Predacons couldn't maneuver as fast as him. So that when Cheetor risked a glance down, he saw that all the pursuers had hit the canyon wall. However, Cheetor had forgotten to look up when he'd climbed originally, which meant that he hadn't seen Optimus come up behind and above him. That also meant that he didn't know that Optimus was there until he slammed into him, sending Cheetor's world and Rattrap's spinning into darkness.

"I am really going to get it for that," Cheetor thought as he felt Optimus catch him and Rattrap and carry them rapidly back towards the base. "I'm really going to get it." Then the darkness fell.

"I don't believe this! I go through 'Suicide Canyon' at my maximum speed, avoid getting shot, make it through the tunnel and past the canyon wall completely unscratched... only to slam into Optimus. I go through all that trouble and I still ended up in the CR-Chamber!"

"Yeah, great job on the escape, Spots. But next time, try and look up first. Okay?" Rattrap said, laughing at Cheetor's graphic expression.

Optimus tried not to laugh as Cheetor jokingly chased after Rattrap, but he couldn't help himself. Cheetor had not only managed to evade a Predacon trap as well as take Megatron out of commission for the next few days, but had managed to get through it unscratched. It must have damaged his pride deeply when Optimus had carried him in. Then to wake up in the CR-Chamber must have compounded it. Yet Cheetor still joked. Optimus wondered with a shudder what would happen if Cheetor was ever killed and didn't come back. Optimus shoved that thought away and forced himself to listen to Cheetor's banter until the tiny part of himself that had almost panicked with the dread of that thought faded away. Cheetor wasn't going anywhere. He had the nice ability to always make it, somehow. There was nothing to worry about... This was after all, Cheetor.

Nothing could kill him.

Chapter 5

Two days had passed since 'Suicide Canyon' as Cheetor had called it. Rattrap was beginning to worry. The Predacons had been attacking with terrifying regularity. Every time they had attacked, Cheetor had been there. Usually Rattrap wouldn't have given it a second thought, but there was something about these attacks that just wasn't right. Optimus had ordered Rattrap off-duty after the latest attack. Rattrap still could almost feel the agony that Megatron's blast had caused, and reveled in the simple lack of pain again. Rattrap heard Silverbolt laughing down the hall. He considered going down there and joining the bird-dog, but decided against it. He was going to use this time to figure out what was strange about these attacks. Cheetor's head suddenly popped out from the doorframe. Rattrap looked up and smiled at Cheetor's quick, hello-goodbye. Rattrap muttered something under his breath that Cheetor took to be, 'Try not to get lost, kiddo.'

Rattrap listened to Cheetor's chuckle filling the hall as the cat trotted off to get some sleep. Suddenly, Rattrap stiffened as a thought occurred to him.

"No, it can't be that," he said as he quickly got up and rushed towards Silverbolt's room. "Slag it, let Silverbolt prove me wrong." He knocked on the Fuzor's door and entered the instant he was acknowledged. "Hey 'Bolt, I need ta talk ta ya. You got a cycle?"

"Rattrap, I am currently ordered off-duty by Optimus, and Blackarachnia is currently on-duty. Yes, I believe I do have time," Silverbolt said in good humor. Cheetor had just been there and the cat had left Silverbolt doing his level best not to fall over laughing.

"It's about these attacks," Rattrap said. "Look 'Bolt, we've got people dat we know are enemies, attacking different places for no apparent reason. So far, only one thing has been the same at every attack. Cheetor was dere." Silverbolt thought carefully about it before he answered Rattrap,

"Yes Rattrap, Megatron is probably angry at Cheetor for humiliating him at the 'Jungle Attack' and 'Suicide Canyon'. Megatron is probably attempting to exact some revenge from Cheetor." Silverbolt thought of something that Rattrap may not know, so he hastened to tell him "Cheetor mentioned it to Optimus and now Optimus is sending Cheetor out only if there is more than one person with him. Do not worry, Rattrap, Cheetor will be fine."

"That's not it, 'Bolt. It's how dese attacks are being carried out dat's worrying me. Okay, let me try dis again... Ya got a known enemy; he's constantly attacking one person. The enemy could easily destroy him with one good blast, and yet dat enemy goes out of his way to make certain dat not only is da target not destroyed but also dat the target is not even too badly damaged. What would dat tell you?"

"I would assume that the enemy is attempting to capture... the... per... son..."

Rattrap nodded and said worriedly, "Oh slag, 'Bolt. They're after the kiddo." Silverbolt felt his face fall. He shook his head and tried to think of any reason Rattrap's assumption would be wrong and grabbed the first one that came to mind.

"But Cheetor...he's...and...he's not a good fighter. Why would Megatron want him? Megatron went after Rhinox for his skills, but except for his speed... Cheetor has no strong abilities..."

"That's what I think to. Come on. Let's go tell the Boss-Monkey. He may get it."

"No." One word told it all. The Strike Team had jumped to when the Axalon had followed the Predacon ship through the Trans-warp hole. Everything had gone according to plan, except that the Predacon warship that had appeared and gotten set to engage the Axalon. The Drake had rushed in; its weapon's blazing. The Drake had successfully taken out the Trans-warp drive on the Predacon ship. Sadly the Drake's own Trans-warp drive had been taken out. The two ships had tumbled out of control in Trans-warp space. Finally, they fell back out of Trans-warp space to see a planet below. The sought energy signature was on the planet, but it was obvious that they had fallen out of Trans-warp space quite sometime after the Axalon and their quarry! Fortunately, the Predacon ship was far beyond flight repairs, that one would never leave the ground again. The Drake, though Trans-warp flight was out of the question, would hold together long enough.

Deep within the starless sky, at the edge of reality...

The evil on stirs again. It awakens slowly, and stretches out It's awareness. Then It laughs. The Chosen One that destroyed It still exists, but that one is no longer It's concern. The new Chosen One does not yet remember what abilities he possesses, or what he will someday become. This is too easy...

It is well known that Primus has a wicked sense of humor. Now, however, Primus is not using it. Primus reaches out and speeds up a few key events, his Chosen One must be ready in time. Primus touches the Chosen One's sleeping mind; he feels the fear that silently builds there. Primus soothes the fear and laughs at the Chosen One's surprise. This one is so like the first Chosen One and yet so different. The new Chosen One possesses the same abilities and the skills soon to be reclaimed. Perhaps it is good, perhaps this new One will be better in some ways, if he is different than the first, better for him, for the enemy will not know what to expect. It will all depend on whether or not the Chosen One uses his differences or tries to push them away in a hopeless attempt to be like the ones who have come before him. Primus hopes the new Chosen One will stay the same; such energy is invigorating.

Back at Earth...

Rattrap and Silverbolt had to work hard to keep up with Cheetor, even at this speed. Cheetor finally pulled up and landed. Rattrap and Silverbolt happily stopped beside him.

"Next time, you walk, we'll fly kiddo. We'll be more likely to keep up." Rattrap gasped out, glad that if, or when, the Predacons showed up he wouldn't have do any fighting. Optimus was just within firing range and ready to come racing in.

"What?" Cheetor asked. "I wasn't going at my maximum speed..."

"No, but you were travelling at our maximum speed, Cheetor," Silverbolt said.

"Sorry, bird-dog, didn't mean to."

"Why were ya going so fast anyway, kiddo?"

"I wasn't going that fast! Usually go a lot faster on my patrols! It's not my fault you guys are so slow!"

"Sorry, Cheetor. It is simply hard for us to go at your speed. Try to remember that you are the fastest member of this team." Cheetor opened his mouth to respond when suddenly it began.

Optimus stared in shock as it happened. This was unexpected.

Cheetor had been joking around with Silverbolt and Rattrap when he had seen it coming out of the corner of his optic. He felt his jaw drop and he halfway saw Rattrap and Silverbolt turn around to see what had gotten his attention, and he saw their jaws drop as well.

"A Warship. An Autobot Warship," Cheetor said, staring in open awe at the Warship that tore down through the sky. "By the Matrix... It's the Drake!" The ship raced past the stone pillars, then suddenly, it lost control. The ship's engines died, and it kept heading straight for the threesome. Cheetor noticed that it was going to hit them and the tiny part of him that wasn't in shock began to wonder what he should do. Rattrap suddenly maximized and pulled Cheetor and Silverbolt down flat. The ship scraped overhead and crashed a few feet away. Cheetor didn't even pause. He had a feeling that whoever was on that ship was in trouble. He heard Silverbolt maximize behind him, but for the nanoclick, Cheetor ignored him. There was a hole in the hull of the ship and Cheetor jumped through it, landing inside the ship itself.

"Cheetor! Ya crazy kid! Hold-on will ya!?! Dere could be a defense grid on dis thing!" Rattrap hopped through the hole, just in time to see Cheetor ignore him as per-usual and race down the hallway.

"CHEETOR!"

Windchaser awoke slowly. She opened her optics to see a wall ahead of her. For a nanoclick, she considered panicking, but then calmed down. It was the door of a Cybertronian Restoration Chamber, and something in the air around her told her that she was in friendly arms. And, she realized with a gasp, somewhere near the Chosen One!

The CR-Chamber door opened and she stepped out with Skywitch and Nightwolf. She felt her jaw drop at the collection of people that stood before her. These were the Maximals that had been on the Axalon? Only one of them looked roughly the same, and there were more people here than there had been in the original crew. Nightwolf and Skywitch looked at her, obviously waiting for her to start the conversation, so she did.

"Who in the name of Primus are you?"

"My name is Optimus Primal," said the giant robot. "I'm the leader of this team. Who are you?" Windchaser nodded in respect to his leadership, then turned to make introductions. That's when she noticed it.

"What the...! What in the name of Primus did you do to our exo-sructures?!?"

Cheetor leaned quietly back into the shadows. On a normal day, he would have been the first to walk up and introduce himself. On a normal day, he wouldn't have paid much attention to the fighters other than whether or not they were Maximals. This, however, was not a normal day. There was something hauntingly familiar about one of the femmes and the male. Something told him to wait in the shadows until he had figured out what was so strange. Oddly enough, the femme that seemed familiar was also the tallest member of the three fighters. Usually femmes were not very tall, but apparently this femme was not normal. Cheetor carefully appraised the tall, white and silver robot. She was probably about Rhinox's height and everything about her told him that she was a fighter.

"We gave you beast-modes," someone said, breaking Cheetor's concentration and drawing his eyes back to his teammates. Who had said that? "They will protect you from any raw Energon deposits." Oh, it had been Rhinox. Cheetor watched as the three fighters began switching back and forth from robot-mode to beast-mode. Apparently he wasn't the only one lost in thought, and everyone else was quietly watching the three fighters. Cheetor carefully looked at the three fuzors again.

The silver and white femme was a lioness-eagle fuzor. She had a white lioness body and an eagle head with strange, triangular, feather covered ear tufts. With that and her silver wings, she looked like a gryphon out of the old human legends. When she switched to her robot-mode, Cheetor noticed that she kept the lioness legs and wings. The eagle head became her helmet and she handled her tail-quasar-gun with an ease he had never had with energy weapons.

Rattrap glanced at Cheetor. The kid was leaning back in the shadows and looking at the fighters. That was weird. Usually Cheetor would have just walked up and introduced himself and the others, but Rattrap couldn't blame the kiddo. There was something about these three fighters that just made you want to check them out before introducing yourself.

Cheetor looked at the other femme. There was no doubt in his mind. She was a dancer. Everything about her from claw to head was dancer. She switched to her beast-mode. "She looks like a dragon," Cheetor thought. The femme had taken a lightly built raptor for most of her beast-mode. She also had a head like transmetal Megatron's with large frills for ears. She even had bat-like wings instead of normal arms, they each had three fingers - two long ones on the top and one shorter one that was almost like a thumb. The other two fingers formed the support for the flight membrane. Her tail also had a type of blade at the end. It looked razor sharp. What animals had made her fuzor form? Cheetor thought back to what he had seen on the scanner. "Oh yeah, a T-Rex, Raptor, Bat and... What had that last one been? Oh, right, a chameleon. Bet she's going to be able to change her skin color." The white dragon switched back to her robot-mode. She was about as tall as Air-Razor had been, with a build that put the perigrine to shame. Instead of the usual Maximal face, the dragon-bot had a type of facemask that reminded Cheetor of Wolf-Fang's. The name as well as the picture made Cheetor pause. "Who the slag is Wolf-Fang?" Cheetor shook his head at his own inability to remember his past. "Just once, I would like to remember where I get this stuff," he muttered blackly in his thoughts. Cheetor watched as the fighters switched to beast-mode yet again. They sure were having trouble believing that they could switch. Cheetor turned slightly to look at the other hauntingly familiar robot, the black and red robot looked almost identical to Silverbolt. The only difference was the coloring, the fact that the black and red robot had raven wings instead of eagle wings, and the most obvious, the black and red robot had wolf legs instead of eagle legs in the front. Cheetor suppressed a sigh. The deep red optics of the wolf-raven were as familiar as the lioness-eagles deep silver had been. Cheetor suppressed another sigh and looked at the lioness-eagle again. There was something about her...

Windchaser was staring in open astonishment at her beast-mode again. There are something's that no amount of training could prepare you for... this was one of them. Windchaser was dumped out of her musing as the giant robot, (what was his name?) Oh yeah...Optimus Primal... cleared his throat. It took a cycle before Windchaser realized that she had yet to answer Optimus Primal's question as to who they were.

"Opps, ohhhh... Primus take it! Better act mature guys. I think we'll need to impress these guys."

"Please forgive us, Optimus Primal. We are not used to this type of thing. Allow me to make introductions."

"Nice Chaser, real nice. Keep it up."

"And if you say this is just like one of Kup's war stories, I'll gut you."

"My name is Windchaser. I am the present team leader and I'm usually Second in Command. I'm also in charge of Defense and Offense." Cheetor nodded slowly, thinking, so the silver and white female was Windchaser? Funny how the name fit her present form.

"This is Nightwolf, our team medic and scientist," Windchaser said, indicating the black and red wolf-raven. Cheetor had to fight to keep the chuckle down.

"Now there's someone who really fits their name!" he thought, then turned his attention back to the introductions.

"This is Skywitch, our weapons' official and computer expert."

Optimus smiled down at the fighters. "Well, let me be the first to welcome you to the Beast Wars. That's what we call this war, anyway."

"Then let us thank you for your kind welcome and please accept our pledge of loyalty to this group. You need not worry about guarding your backs from us. We will never willingly turn on an ally."

"Who pulled us out of the ship?" Nightwolf inquired. "I know we were all knocked off-line when we landed."

"I would have ta call dat a crash, wolf-bird. You're gonna have ta thank the kiddo for dat, though," said a small, silver and blue Maximal, with a smile. Windchaser cocked her head as she tried to both figure out what his beast-mode was and not look too stupid by asking the next question.

Fortunately, Skywitch asked for her.

"Kid - do? What sort of a name is that?"

"Kiddo's not my real name. Rattrap just calls me that," came a male voice from behind them. Windchaser felt her jaw drop slightly as she spun around and she had to force herself to close it. How had whoever this was managed to get behind them without any of them noticing?

"Hey! My name is really Cheetor. What are the three of you doing here?"

"Well... I have good news and bad news. The good news is that we were ordered to follow the Axalon and bring its' crew home to Cybertron..."

"Cybertron? All right!! That's..." Cheetor stopped in mid-shout and his face fell. "The Trans-warp drive. On the Drake, the part of your engines that took out the rest... That was the Trans-warp drive." Cheetor felt his shoulders slump as his dreams of going back to Cybertron slid away into the mist like his memories long ago had. "We're still stuck here. Aren't we?" Windchaser looked around and saw disheartened expressions on all the other Maximals faces.

"Primus take it! That does it! From now on I give the bad news first, then the good news!"

"Windchaser, is that true?"

"Yes, I'm sorry, I... I tried to tell you but I couldn't get it out in time."

Rattrap felt his mech fluid freeze as he realized something. "BY THE MATRIX!! None of ya are much older than Cheetor! Why did they send ya?!?" Windchaser felt a little hurt by that comment and snapped back without thinking.

"We were trained by Autobots! The three of us have abilities very few others have!" Windchaser saw everyone's' expressions change to understanding, and for some reason that hurt the most. "They may be small abilities but they're more than most people have!" Skywitch and Nightwolf looked like they agreed whole-heartedly with her. But suddenly Windchaser felt her anger go. How could she be angry with them? They had saved her life and her teammates lives, and then they had asked a perfectly logical question... and she had almost snapped their heads off! Windchaser sighed, closed her eyes, and wished for a wall to bang her head against and Rodeesh to show up and save her butt with equal vehemence. "You're... right though. We probably are around Cheetor's age. I'm sorry I snapped at you, I guess I'm just a bit tense."

"Don't worry," said the silver, gold, and teal robot. What was his name? Cheetor. The Maximal smiled and leaned back against the wall. "You should have come here a little while ago. Rattrap and Dinobot would have made your outburst look like a smile." Cheetor smiled, then jokingly and prudently got out of the small silver and blue robot's attack range again before asking his next question. "So ... Rattrap! ... You guys were really trained by... Ouch! Rattrap that HURT! ... Autobots? ...OW!!" Windchaser finally managed to stop laughing, and though Skywitch and Nightwolf were all but rolling on the ground in laughter, she managed to answer in a serious tone of voice.

"Yes, we really were. Hot Rod named our group...the Strike Team."

Chapter 6

"Okay Cheets, let's try to get this down." Cheetor looked out from the modified rock outcropping where he stood. The window they had just placed this morning to complete the 'watch tower' reflected his image back at him. Cheetor had volunteered to take the first watch, and he had told the surprised Rattrap that he just wanted to be the first to spot and fight the preds; making Rattrap chuckle and giving Optimus a chance yet again to tell him to be careful and trust his own judgement.

"Trust my judgement. How when I don't even know who I am? When the only time I get a hint of my own slaggin' past is in my dreams? How can I trust my judgement when I don't know where it comes from?!?" Cheetor sighed and leaned back. He had really volunteered so he could think. He just needed a chance to lean back and think for once. "Okay Cheets, let's review. You know you've got a past because someone taught you to fight. Unfortunately, anything before you saved Big- Bot from that pred and him talking you into leaving on the Axalon is a blank. Slag, I hate this. Well... forget it. Next item, how did I know the name of the warcrusier the Strike Team was flying? I didn't even know what the Drake was before I saw it. But, I once called the Axalon the Drake... that time we almost left the planet." Cheetor sighed and put his tail blade down on the table and began to pace as the memory of that battle filled his mind, as crisp and clear as the day it had happened.

Cheetor snapped his head around to look at the forward screens. Dinobot was coming back? Without thinking, he voiced his question. Just as Cheetor got ready to celebrate his comrade's return, he saw something else appear on the screen that made his breath catch in his throat.

"The Predacons!" Cheetor's mind caught on the fact that the Predacons were alive. It took a nanoclick before it occurred to him what Optimus was doing. "He's going out for him! But he can't! The preds will focus all their firepower on him! He needs back up!" Cheetor leaped forward and looked down the lift-shaft at a surprised Optimus.

"Wait for me! I'm coming too! Cheetor, MAXIMAIZE!"

"Cheetor, get back to your station!" Optimus yelled. But for the first time in a very long time, Cheetor didn't care.

"You'll never make it to Dinobot without back-up. Besides, Cybertron wouldn't be the same without you." Cheetor hoped Optimus would catch the meaning behind that because he didn't want to have to go into detail in front of the others about the fact that he had no past. Fortunately, Optimus smiled and gave in.

"All right, we need to hit them hard and fast." Cheetor smiled.

"I'm your cat." Turning, he grabbed one of the shields and jumped down to join Optimus. The lift started down and Optimus looked at Cheetor, then leaned over and whispered,

"What would you have done if I had said 'No'?"

"Grabbed a shield and gone down the other lift," Cheetor whispered back. Optimus chuckled, then took off, heading for the downed Dinobot while Cheetor supplied cover fire. Cheetor kept a loose optic on Optimus as Big-Bot picked up Dinobot and then started retreating back to the ship. Cheetor smiled.

"Almost there, just a bit further and we'll be home free. Come on... OPTIMUS!" Cheetor snapped all his attention to Optimus as a blast suddenly hit Big-Bot from behind. Terrorsaur had flown up behind Optimus and shot him! Cheetor fired at Terrorsaur then felt the agonizing fire of pain in his stomach as Megatron's blast connected and sent him flying three times his body length back. Cheetor finally reached the lift and pulled himself onto it. He lay limp on the lift floor. It took a nanoclick or two before he realized that his hand wasn't on the ground anymore... it was in the air! That meant...

"The Drake's pulling out. OPTIMUS!" Cheetor could see Optimus carrying Dinobot. Cheetor struggled to his feet. Optimus's beast-mode wasn't very fast, and the ground was getting increasingly far away. Optimus finally got just beneath the lift as Cheetor leaned forward. COME ON! Optimus tossed Dinobot up on the lift then made a jump for it.

"NO! It's too high!" Cheetor thought, he dove forward and grabbed Optimus's hand as gravity caught up with the gorilla. Optimus looked up, then relaxed and smiled. Cheetor started to pull Optimus onto the lift when suddenly something hit his hand, sending pain racing along his arm. Forcing it to open for one nanoclick... more than enough for Optimus to fall slowly to the ground.

'NO! HOW?!? Scorponok! He shot my hand!' "NOOOO! OPTIMUS!!"

Cheetor shook his head, ending the memory and bringing himself back to reality. He glanced out the window again. "No Preds yet. Oh, this is fun," he thought sarcastically, "Come on Cheets, let's go over our memories. Come on, let's remember." Cheetor sighed and looked around the 'watch tower'. Except for the table off to the side, there was nothing in the metal room, nothing to distract him from his thoughts. Cheetor sighed again, then turned to look out the window. "Okay, now why did I know the Drake's name?" Cheetor shook his head, "Oh well... maybe I heard it somewhere."

"Heard what?" Cheetor spun around, pushing his hands together and getting ready for a fight. He had actually aimed and was ready to dodge before he even registered the fact that the voice he had heard belonged to Depthcharge. Depthcharge lifted his hands in mock surrender and smiled at his friend.

"I surrender. Don't shoot. I'm not an enemy."

"I don't know," Cheetor said, forcing himself to smile, "I know one or two people that might consider you one." It was a pathetically weak joke. That, more than anything else, gave away the fact that something was wrong.

"So, what's new?"

"Not much. Nothing really changes around here," Cheetor said as he walked over to the table to retrieve his tail-blade, then returned to stand by the window and began sharpening it.

"So, why'd you volunteer?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well...oh, never mind." Depthcharge walked into the room, strolled over and sat on the table. He leaned back against the wall and looked at Cheetor. "So, we talked about my past... let's hear about yours."

"Wish I could, but..."

"What? We can go over every detail of my past but yours is too high to talk about with low-life's?"

"No. I'm being literal. I really wish I could. I... can't remember anything of my past, it was... erased... before I left Cybertron." Depthcharge looked at his friend. He could see Cheetor was telling the truth. Lying and Cheetor simply didn't get along. It simply was totally against the kid's nature to lie. Depthcharge gave a metal shrug and let the subject drop. Soon he and Cheetor were laughing and joking. It was hard to have something happen that the kid couldn't bounce back from. Depthcharge stood up and started to leave.

"Well kid, I guess I'll see you lat..." Cheetor's tail-blade clattered against the metal floor and a scream of pure agony rent through the air, reverberating around the 'watch tower'. Someone shouted a name.

Cheetor tried to figure out what was going on. Confused, unable to move and feeling emotions that weren't his, Cheetor tried to focus his optics and identify the scream. Emotion upon emotion poured through his CPU with pure fire. "No!" Cheetor screamed in his thoughts, "Ahhhhrg! It's too much! Can't control it! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!" The mental fire burned hotter and hotter, Cheetor screamed again as the pain grew.

* Meal, Good. Must watch out for predators... Predator! RUN, RUN, RUN! NO!! PAIN!!! *

"Cheetor? Can you hear me?" Depthcharge grabbed Cheetor by the shoulders and struggled to hold on to him, "Answer me, Cheetor! Are you okay?"

* PAIN! AGONY! FEAR!! *

"Too much! Too much! Ahhhhhhrg! I... I can't control..." Cheetor almost saw Depthcharge's concerned face as he tried to get his ability under control. Cheetor struggled against the pain that lashed out at him. "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHRG!!!"

-Emotion! You cannot control it young one!! Soon all will...-

"Noooooo! Get out of me! Do you hear me?!? GET OUT!!"

"Slag it, Cheetor! Say something!! Anything!!! Please! Tell me you're alright! Come on kid!!" Depthcharge was on the literal verge of panic. Cheetor spasmed in his hands like he was fighting for his life and screamed again. Depthcharge half saw the others racing out of the blast doors in the direction of the 'watch tower', but at the moment he could care less. "Don't you dare, Cheetor! Don't you DARE do this to me!! Slag it! Cheetor, I will never forgive you if you don't snap out of this!! Cheetor!!!"

~ You are not alone, young one. None are alone. I am with you...be at ease... ~

Cheetor stopped screaming. Depthcharge half supported, half caught him as Cheetor went limp and fell to his knees, obviously exhausted far beyond his endurance. Depthcharge could hear the others racing to get up to the top of the 'watch tower'. Cheetor's optics finally managed to focus on Depthcharge's concerned face. He tried to get up. He wasn't sure how he had gotten on his knees with Depthcharge supporting him, but...

"Hold on kid, I'll get you to the CR-Chamber. You'll be fine, we'll find out what happened." Depthcharge turned his head as the other Maximals rushed up the last of the stairs and into the watch tower, then skidded to a stop. Depthcharge didn't say even say anything. He didn't have to. Silverbolt and Rattrap, the only other Maximals still at the base, took one look at Cheetor on his knees, noticed that the only reason the kid wasn't lying prone was that Depthcharge still held the cat's shoulders and turned on their heels and quickly went back down. Rattrap ran down the stairs three at a time, Silverbolt tight on his heels. Depthcharge helped Cheetor to his feet, and then caught him when the cat's legs gave out again. Depthcharge looked down at the exhausted feline for a nanoclick, then picked Cheetor up physically and carried him down the stairs.

"Relax kid, you'll be back to normal soon." Depthcharge was worried sick. He glanced up at the sounds of engines and relaxed a bit as he realized that it was just Optimus coming in. Optimus pulled up and landed just as Depthcharge got off the stairs. Optimus's worry was evident on his face. Depthcharge speed up to a trot once he was in the base.

"Matrix, let him be all right. Let him know that I'm his friend... no matter what..."

Cheetor tried to move, but sheer exhaustion kept him down. He tried to muster enough energy to get up and tell the others he was fine, but he couldn't. And to his horror, he could still feel every emotion... every thought around him.

"Who am I? Why do I have this? What..." With those few thoughts, Cheetor felt his emotional armor crack. The tiny chink he had been patching since he had lost the memories of his past became a spider-web of fractures with a soul trembling CRACK. "Who am I?"

I don't know, Optimus," Rhinox said, looking up from his screen where he and Nightwolf had been doing a check on Cheetor again. "Except for his complete exhaustion, he's fine. According to the machine, there's nothing wrong."

"Prime." Optimus caught Nightwolf grimacing at Rhinox as the rhino was facing Optimus. "What do you think, Nightwolf?"

"Why ask me? I'm just a kid, Primal..."

"You also were trained by Ratchet and First Aid. And I'd like to hear your opinion," Optimus said as he leaned back.

"Well, like Rhinox, I've got to say that there's nothing wrong physically," Nightwolf paused when he saw Depthcharge glaring at him. But he continued anyway, "However, I think there's 'more than meets the eye', to use an old expression. Something obviously happened up there, and when I did a scan, I thought I noticed something."

"What?"

"Well, his normal isn't normal. I didn't know what Cheetor's normal system looked like, so I checked his file. Interesting kid."

"What do you mean?" Nightwolf quickly turned and brought up the file.

"Look, I compared his internal circuitry with Rattrap's and Depthcharge's since they're the only other Trans-metals. Look at the difference here."

"What? I don't see anything. Ever occur ta ya that you might be seeing things, Wolf-bird?"

"The thought does occur to me... would you mind standing down-wind? Anyway, it was just that something seemed familiar." Nightwolf sighed and leaned back. "I guess I was wrong. But excluding that one thing, he's fine."

"What seemed familiar?" Nightwolf jumped a bit at Blackarachnia's voice. He looked at the display for a nanoclick, then answered.

"The circuitry in his CPU. It looks, at first glance, like Windchaser's."

"Which would mean...?" Rhinox asked.

"It's called 'Sight'. Windchaser has the strongest 'Sight' in our group. Her's is 'Time Sight'. It's been seen in about 10% of the robots on Cybertron."

"So you're saying Cheetor is part of that 10%?"

"No. I did a closer check. It's not 'Time Sight'. It isn't 'Signature Sight' like Skywitch..."

"Hold a nanoclick Dog... errr... Wolf-Bot. What the slag is dis 'Signature Sight'?"

"Exactly what it sounds like. It's the ability to see, identify, and conceal energy signatures. It works on anything that puts out any sort of energy. Mainly it identifies Maximal or Predacon, though."

"Does Cheetor have this?"

"No Silverbolt. He might have my type of 'Sight' though."

"And dat would be..."

"'Healer Sight', before you ask... it means that I can immediately tell what has to be done to help heal who, or whatever I'm close to. That includes mental as well as physical. It's the second rarest of the 'Sights', it only occurs in about 5% of the robot population."

"Off da record Wolf-Bird, I got three questions for ya..."

"Shoot... and no, I don't mean literally."

"Funny. Okay... One: How rare is dis 'Signature Sight', and Two: what da slag is the rarest sight, and Three: How come ya keep sayen 'robot population'? Don't da humans have dese 'Sights' too?"

"Okay, to answer your questions. About 7% of the robot population, 'Spark Sight', and yes; only robots have these 'Sights'. Humans have different ones. Going back to the original topic... If Cheetor has any 'Sight', it would have done this to him when it activated. It probably won't hit him like that again though."

* ~ Repair cycle complete. ~ * Cheetor walked out of the R-Chamber, obviously still exhausted, but just as obviously feeling better.

"So," he asked, "What's wrong?"

"Ya might have something called 'Sight', kiddo," Rattrap said. "It shouldn't do dat ta ya again, at least, dat's what da medic says."

"Good, because I really hated that."

"Ya okay, kiddo?"

"Sure, just a little..."

"Tired? I don't blame you; it takes a lot out of you. Surprised you're still on your feet. Skywitch's 'Sight' didn't hit her half as hard and she didn't even make it clear of the CR-Chamber door, with twice as much time in it as you had, and she collapsed. Took her three days to recover," Nightwolf said, looking worriedly at Cheetor, the cat was in worse shape then he let on. Cheetor gripped the table with one hand and held his pounding head with the other, the emotions still flowed through his CPU, threatening to make him scream, but...Cheetor didn't even finish the thought. His exhaustion caught up with him all at once, and his overly abused systems shut down.

Rattrap leaped forward and caught Cheetor as the cat suddenly went off-line and collapsed. Optimus picked up Cheetor and glanced at Nightwolf and Rhinox.

"Don't worry, Optimus," Nightwolf said, as he checked Cheetor's pulse and breathing with a touch. Optimus couldn't help but marvel a bit as Nightwolf's optics suddenly glowed a bright red. "Cheetor will wake up with a headache, but give him about three days off-duty. Let me check him once or twice, and he'll be fine." Nightwolf chuckled. "He certainly did better than any members of the Strike Team," he added, and felt the tension that had been growing quickly fade away. Not that Nightwolf blamed them. Cheetor had become Nightwolf's best friend. "It sure is nice to have someone to talk to that isn't a femme," he thought. "Glad his 'Sight' didn't hit him too hard."

Rodeesh of the Maximals, pt. 4
by J.E.D.I (pderoeck@bellsouth.net)

Cheetor awoke with a start.

"Man-oh-man, why me?" He groaned and stretched, then flopped back down on his bed and tried to ignore his pounding headache. "Great, just great. Weird voice in my head tells me that evils coming... and that stupid feeling of mine had decided not to turn off even when there isn't any danger. Slag it and Primus take it! Why me?"

Windchaser slowly awoke. She half considered getting up, but decided against it. She needed to work out the things that had been bothering her anyway.

"Okay Bird, now let's keep cool. Remember what Kup taught you, always keep cool." Windchaser flicked her tail and wiggled her beast-mode around a bit to a more comfortable position, then began going over the things that bothered her. "Thing one: why did I think that the Chosen One was here? Hot Rod's still back on Cybertron, and his past self hasn't come to earth yet." So why had her first conscious thought been that the Chosen One was here? "Slag it and Primus take it! Never mind, just put it down as one of the mysteries of the universe Bird. Okay, Thing two: why didn't Teletran Two come on-line when the Maximal cat jumped in the Drake? And how did the cat know the Drake's name? Not that I'm complaining, but... oh well, maybe Tel. Two was off-line. I hadn't really checked while we crashed... and the cat probably saw the Drake's name on the side anyway. Slag, why did Hot Rod send us? We're fighters, but we're not old enough or good enough to be on a mission this important."

"What is dat supposed to mean?" Windchaser jumped off her bed and landed in a fighting position, still in beast-mode, before she even looked to see who had spoken. It was the blue and silver robot, what was his name?

"Rattrap?"

"Yeah, dat's me." Rattrap walked in, "So what's dis important mission?" Rattrap leaned against the wall, obviously not planning on leaving until he got some answers.

"Well, if someone on this team besides us knows why we're here it might speed things up a bit. Hot Rod did tell me to make sure that one person on the Axalon's crew about our mission. Might as well be this guy. Oh slag, I hope I'm doing the right thing..." Windchaser relaxed and began her confession with,

"Well... do you want the whole story or just Rodeesh's?"

"Who's dis Rod - eesh?" Rattrap laughed a bit. "Sounds like I'm sayen yeesh, for the last part of dat name."

"I know, I used to joke about that with him. Anyway, Rodeesh is the only Maximal, besides Skywitch, Nightwolf and I, to be trained by Autobots."

"Oh, dat kid. I remember now. Hot Rod took em in one day and announced he'd found an apprentice. I remember when I heard about dat. Slag, I was sure I'd seen everything then. What happened to dat kid anyway? Last I heard before the Axalon took off was dat da kid was easily up to where Hot Rod had been at the beginning of the Great War if not higher."

"Well, that's why we're here without him, you see... he kind of got hit by a memory virus, and separated from us at the same time during a renegade pred assault. We were finally able to trace him to this ship, so we jumped through to when you left and were getting ready to help you fight the pred ship when another pred warcruiser showed up, and got set to attack the Axalon. We stopped it, but that's when our Trans-warp drive was taken out and that's also how we ended up coming through the Trans-warp hole so far after you. We think the pred ship might have survived it's crash though. So now you've got more problems them Megatron. About 25 of them actually...I'm sorry."

Megatron smiled. The cat's form was almost done, and his own new form was already complete. Megatron stared with an evil gleam in his eye at his new form. It would be taller that Optimus Primal, and although he would lose his flight ability in robot-mode, it would be worth it. Megatron smiled evily again. In a few cycles, he would take his new form, and then...

Megatron stopped in mid-gloat; had he just seen movement by his new form? No. Nothing there but empty air. The cat's exo-structure soon would be finished, complete with Predacon chip. Ah, yeeeessssss.

"A fighter as loyal to me as Cheetor is to Optimus, and this one comes complete with knowledge of the new Maximal base. Ohhh, yeeeessssss!"

Nightwolf and Skywitch worked faster. The fact that they were both stealth-masters was really up to the test now... They had successfully changed Cheetor's new form back to Maximal, and now Nightwolf desperately tried to change Megatron's new form to something that could be fought. Like Cheetor's exo-structure to be, he couldn't change the external form, but he could change the internal circuitry of the two forms. So while Skywitch used her chameleon-like ability to hide Nightwolf's work, he desperately manipulated the wires. Nightwolf's moral kept him form destroying the form, but he was more than willing to make it as weak as possible.

"Inferno! Prepare to move my spark!"

"Uh-oh! Time to close up shop, 'Wolf!" Skywitch said through her 'Sight'.

"Let's go 'Witch. I've done all I can," Nightwolf replied along the telepathic channel all 'Seers' had.

"Do you think we should tell the others about this?" Skywitch asked as they slid through the Predacon ship.

"No, that new form will give Cheetor many more fighting abilities, and no one will know what I did until Cheetor maximizes," Nightwolf replied as they slid out he hole they had made in the shield, closed it behind them and slid off into the night.

"I hate to scrap the Drake, but I'm afraid we have no choice Windchaser."

"I know, Optimus. You don't really need to ask me. Hot Rod told us to follow your orders until we find what we're looking for."

"Which would be what?" Cheetor asked yet again.

"I can't tell you, I'm sor..."

"Sorry, we know. Why don't you just tell..."

"Predacons!!" Everyone turned at the shout and turned enmass to go combat the enemy. Windchaser had a feeling that she wasn't the only one who could hardly wait for Teletrain Two's defense grid to be installed. The shield and autoguns would be marvelous help.

"Bouncing Breakers! Here we go again!" Windchaser turned to glare at Cheetor. He was worse than Rodeesh with those sayings!

"Where do you get those saying?!?"

"Why should I tell you, Bird?"

"Don't call me that!"

"Okay, Bird."

"I just said... ohhh, you annoying CAT!"

"BIRD!"

"CAT!"

"BIRD!"

"Will da two of you save that argument until after the fight?!? Yeesh, the two of ya are worse than Dinobot and I were!" Cheetor burst out laughing, and with varying degrees of hesitation the others joined in. After all, what better way to face battle and the possibility of death than happy?

Chapter 7

"It was a set-up, Optimus!" Rattrap yelled, losing his temper again. "From beginning to end, it was a set-up! They were after Cheetor! If it wasn't for Nightwolf and Skywitch comin' when they had, the preds would have gotten him!"

"I know." Rattrap paused for breath. He tried to ignore the fact that Cheetor had stormed out of the base after telling Windchaser off, and the fact that Windchaser had quickly followed suit.

"Look, Boss-Monkey, we have got to figure out what is going on. Before Megatron gets Cheetor."

Cheetor sat on what had recently become his thinking rock. Windchaser was getting annoyed; the cat just sat on the rock! She glided in tight circles above his position and looked closer at his expression. He looked sad and lost in thought and the wind kept flapping his ears around a bit. Windchaser sighed. This wasn't going to be easy, but maybe he wouldn't harp on it.

Cheetor looked down at the falls. The churning water accurately showed what he felt like. What was happening?!? Why was Megatron so interested in capturing him?!? He had almost gotten Rattrap killed today! He had felt Megatron getting ready to shoot and he hadn't warned him! Then Windchaser had gotten hurt. She had lost her temper at him, and he had felt so guilty for getting Rattrap hurt that he had lost his temper and said more than a few things that he regretted.

"Cheetor?" Cheetor snapped his head up and looked behind him. It was Windchaser! What was she doing here?

"I...came to say...I'm sorry..." Windchaser stopped and looked down her beak at the ground guiltily, she sighed and looked back up at Cheetor. "Those things you said were right... I did..."

"Shhhhhh. Don't say anything.It was mainly my fault. Matter of fact, that's why I come here." Cheetor looked at Windchaser, sighed, and then continued talking. "I used to come here before the quantum surge...I never really told anyone about it, but... come on up." Windchaser started to climb up the rock, but before she could see past Cheetor to get a look at what he had been looking at, Cheetor shook his head, "Close your optics... Now walk forward; open your wings a bit... Now... open your optics." Windchaser opened her optics and gasped at the sight that met them.

"It's beautiful!" Windchaser felt a smile begin to form at the edge of her beak. "Now, if only Rodeesh was here. Oh, great idea, Bird. Spoil the moment! I've got admit it though, Cheetor sure is cute and sweet; if he was a few years older, Rodeesh would have serious competition instead of a kid brother!"

"When the moon touches the land... and the stars touch the sky..." Cheetor sang, snapping Windchaser out of her musing. She glanced over at Cheetor, but he wasn't really paying attention to what he was singing. He was probably completely unaware that he was singing for that matter, "The sun will touch us all... with it's light from above... My spark feels it is so... and it crows with delight..."

"Where did you learn that song?"

"What? What song? Oh! That song? I don't know, I probably just heard it around somewhere... Why?"

"No reason, I just liked it."

Six Sectors away, where the jungle borders the desert...

The Predacon warcrusier captain scanned his surroundings. He had been sent by the council to destroy both Megatron and Rodeesh of the Maximals. He had failed to do either. He glowered as he thought of what he was going to do to that Maximal warship.

"Ah, I see your taste in beast-modes is the same as mine," came a voice from behind him. The captain stiffened and spun his Tyrannosaurus Rex beast-mode around. In the shadows of the jungle that bordered his ship's desert crash site, two glowing red eyes stared out at him. "I challenge you to battle for the control of your crew and ship," the stranger called out. "Do you accept?"

"Of course!" the captain replied, certain of his own immortality, and thus, sealing his own doom. "Fighters! You shall obey whoever wins this battle! Now 'Red-eyes' let us begin..."

At the Maximal base, two weeks later...

"They got him." Three words, just three words Rattrap had said, and Optimus felt his mech.-fluid freeze.

"No."

"Yes. Dose fighters dat Windchaser said were on the pred warcruiser that da Drake fought. Dey came outa nowhere with Megatron in da lead. Cheetor didn't have a chance. We got away, but he didn't. Megatron got da kiddo, Optimus."

"Maybe he got away..."

"He did. For the moment anyway," came a voice behind Optimus and Rattrap. They spun around to find themselves looking at the Strike Team.

"We spotted the Predacons, figured out who they were looking for and came here to tell you what had seen before we began searching. He might be able to get back here, but he might not, so we'll check everywhere else that we can. The three fighters took off before Optimus even finished processing what Windchaser had just said. They raced away at top speed and just within sight, the three split apart. Nightwolf going left, Skywitch going right, while Windchaser continued going straight ahead.

"Don't worry Optimus, we'll find Cheetor," Windchaser said over the comm. Then added to herself, "Or Rodeesh will have our heads... when we find him."

Windchaser saw Cheetor's rock up ahead and put on even more speed. She landed on the rock with a dull thud and looked around. She had come here quite a few times with the other members of the Strike Team and Cheetor for the past two weeks. She could see why Cheetor liked this spot. The wind was always blowing, and the falls made a calming melody...

"Cheetor?" She asked, turning a complete circle on the rock before jumping down to the ground. "Cheetor? Are you here?"

"Yeah, right over here," Cheetor said as he slid out from the shadows of the rocks in his beast-mode. "This was the only place I could get to on foot. My jets were damaged in the fight, so I'm ground-bound."

"Maximize and hop on my back. I'll give you a lift back to the base."

Cheetor smiled and joked, "We're going to have to start calling it the Drake. It's almost completely your ship now." Windchaser nodded. It was true, she thought as Cheetor did as she had instructed and she raced to the sky. The entire mountain now was metal clad as the interior of a normal ship. It really was 'the Drake' now and not 'the Base'.

"Cheetor! You are all right!"

"No Bolt, I hadn't noticed."

"Will the three of you get inside the Blast Doors so we can activate the auto guns?" Blackarachnia asked. "I think Megatron may come to pay a call as soon as he realizes that we have Cheetor."

"Right," Cheetor said as he walked in with Silverbolt and Windchaser. He hadn't seen much of Blackarachnia lately, but he guessed that it was because Aracnia was scared of Windchaser. Not that he blamed her, considering the fact that the two of them hadn't exactly 'hit it off'. Windchaser had thought that Aracnia had been a Predacon spy and had almost killed the spider. Now Aracnia kept either sending Silverbolt after Windchaser or flat out running from the cat-bird.

Megatron smiled. He now had his new form and new troops, and although he had lost his flight ability in beast-mode, he was now as tall as Optimal Optimus... Megatron had built his new body to be as indestructible as Rampage's. Now, he had only to catch the cat and he would have a fighter as loyal to him as Scorponok had been. Megatron might be a maniacal tyrant, but he did know that one loyal fighter was worth a hundred that you must guard your back from. Now, not only did he have a new form, 25 new fighters; he would soon possess a loyal new fighter.

"Ah yeeeessssss, my dear Primal, very soon I will have everything that I desire. Including your precious ancestors, yeeeessssss. Even if do manage to somehow succeed in holding your position, I will have your loyal pussycat as my trusted Lieutenant. Nothing can stop me now Primal, no."

At the waterfall...

"They got him again." How could Nightwolf say that so calmly? Hadn't he figured out what she had about Cheetor? Or was she wrong? Was the connection between Rodeesh and Cheetor just in her mind? Probably... the connection had been weak at best; but then again, Rodeesh had always said that sometimes the weakest connection could actually be the strongest. So...

"Then let's go 'un-get' him," Windchaser heard herself say out loud. 'How did I say that so calmly? Why does my anger, surprise and fear not show? What do I do now?!? PRIMUS but I wish we could find Rodeesh!'

"Well, well... What do we have here? A helpless little Maximal perhaps? Yeeeessssss."

"Unchain me and I'll show you just how helpless I am, Megadumb!" Windchaser froze.

"Sounds like we found Cheetor," she said through her 'Sight Link' to Nightwolf and Skywitch. "Slag, but I wish I could see those two stealth masters!" Windchaser looked around carefully, just when she was sure she would never find them, she spotted the ripple effect that Nightwolf created when he was 'invisible'. Windchaser checked his position and nodded to herself. Good, he was already in place. Windchaser scanned what little of the room she could see from her positon. "Good thing I know where those two are supposed to be or I'd never find them!" It was a sign of a good stealth master and Windchaser knew it... but that didn't mean that she had to like it much. "What was that?" Windchaser carefully scrutinized the spot again. "Oh, it's Skywitch. Okay team, get ready..." Windchaser got set. She couldn't see what was happening from her position, but she could hear... and what she heard wasn't too reassuring.

"Well, Maximal, what do you think?"

"Nice exo-structure, Megajerk, but Optimus will slag your purple butt. Even this big, you're still nothing but a slag spouting AHHHHHHHHRG!!" Skywitch winced and turned her head; she just couldn't look at Cheetor anymore.

"I can't believe we didn't tell him or his team, 'Wolf. No new form is worth this. We could have at least told 'Chaser!"

"We tried to, 'Witch, but something kept coming up. You know, with scrapping the Drake and all."

"You dare insult me, Cat?!?" Megatron asked again, "You dare to insult me when you are chained, injured, and otherwise helpless?"

"I... am... not helpless, Megatron. I will not die helpless, and I will never bow to slaggen PREDICAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!"

"You will!" Megatron screamed at Cheetor, "You will, Cat! Do you see that?!?" Cheetor looked in the direction Megatron was pointing.

"Nice exo-structure Megajerk. What? Are you planning on changing forms again?"

Nightwolf wondered how much more damage Cheetor could take. "Come on you slaggin Inferno worshipper!" He thought, wishing Megatron could hear his insults. "Stop torturing him! Leave the poor cat alone!" Nightwolf felt sick as Megatron blasted the chained Cheetor yet again. He felt his respect for Cheetor deepen as the cat forced himself onto his four feet again and glared up at Megatron. "Well. I've got to hand it to him; the cat's got fire. He'll be a great leader someday. Strange, when I look at him I keep thinking that's he's Street Cat. Weird."

"Okay Megajerk, stop the chat. Go ahead, give me the 'How I got the troops and power' speech, or would you rather hit me with the 'My evil plan' speech first? Your babbling is the worst torture I've had so far. Finish it up already."

"You dare insult me?!? Just for that, Cat, you shall endure torture beyond your most terrifying nightmares and your limited comprehension. Yeeeessssss."

"Then when you're done, I'll die a Maximal. There is no greater glory to be had."

"An interesting speech, Cat, but you will not win. The captain of the warcruiser thought he could defeat me, but, as you can see... he lost. Now I control all his troops and soon his ship will be mine as well."

"Well hurray for you... Do you think that frightens me?"

"No. I am not so foolish, but I have a fate worse than death planned for you, Cat."

"And that would be?"

"Well said... Predacon."

"What!?! How dare you call me a Predacon?!"

"Ah, angry. You finally got angry," Megatron said with an evil smile. "Soon Cat, you will bow to Megator."

"And just who is Megator? You? Babyish choice of name, Meggy."

"How dare you! I am the predator that will destroy you!"

"Oh. Megatron and predator... Megator. Figures you'd come up with a dumb name like that. Now... why did you call me a Predacon?!?"

"Because once your spark resides in that exo-structure over there, that is precisely what you will be!"

"Did you forget what happened when you tried this with Rhinox Megadork?"

"Rhinox? Nightwolf, Skywitch, do you..." "Yeahh, I know... I'll tell you later..."

"Thanks, 'Wolf." Windchaser shook her head. That would certainly be an interesting story! She wondered if she should tell Nightwolf and Skywitch her suspicions about Rodeesh and Cheetor, but then decided against it. Better to go into this without letting them know the possible loss. Anyway, Nightwolf and Cheetor were close friends. If Nightwolf said he would tell her when to strike, Windchaser trusted him and Skywitch. Windchaser got into a more comfortable leaping position. She would wait... forever, if need be.

"No Maximal, I have not forgotten that... incident. But I shall not make the same mistake twice."

"Really? Sounds like you're doing so to me."

"I think not."

"You think? Wow! That's news to me."

"You'll pay for that cat, yeeeessssss. But not now, no. I pre- programmed this exo-structure to be a Predacon, yes; but not like it was for Rhinox, no. This time nothing shall go wrong."

"There's only one problem Megajerk. My spark is in me over here; your new exo-structure is over there... I think you may have a problem."

"I doubt it, for now I shall move your spark... By killing you." Windchaser heard Cheetor scream in pain as she saw the red glow of Megator's laser. Cheetor's scream of anguish was cut abnormally short.

"Witch! 'Wolf! Attack now!"

"'NO! We attack now and Cheetor dies permanently! Let Megator put Cheetor's spark in the new form! Then it'll be safe to attack! But not before!"

"Well? ...Is it in yet?"

"Not yet... he's moving it."

"Now?!?"

"No."

"Now?!?"

"No."

"Now!?!"

"No. You seem more tense then you should be. You okay?"

"YES! Is his spark safe yet?!?"

"Almost... It's in the new form! Wait three cycles then attack!"

"THREE CYCLES!?! WHY?!?"

"To let him recover. Hold on..."

Rodeesh of the Maximals, pt. 5
by J.E.D.I (pderoeck@bellsouth.net)

Cheetor blinked his eyes. He slowly raised his head and shakily stood up. He looked around, then staggered and almost fell. The memories! Millions of memories! Everything of his past! ...Including what Megator had just done.

"I need to sort this out. Nanoclick that! I need to get out of here and go somewhere where I can sort this out. Then I go back to Optimus and the Drake. I guess I'd better..."

"Strike Team... ATTACK!!" Cheetor snapped his head up. Skywitch and Nightwolf suddenly appeared in the room. They maximized and began attacking. Windchaser charged in, goingthrough Waspinator to do so, and joined in the fray.

"Enjoying yourself 'Chase?"

"RODEESH?!?"

"Call me Cheetor..."

"Dis is getting monotonous. Dey got him again," Rattrap said. "I mean... da kiddo has got ta be getting tired of getting caught only to escape and be caught again."

"Yes. Well, we'd better go get him," Depthcharge said. The speed with which he got up betrayed his supposed calm.

"Don't bother." Everyone spun around at the words, to see Windchaser, Skywitch, and Nightwolf walk up. The trio looked much the worse for wear. Nightwolf was barely on-line and Skywitch wasn't much better. Windchaser's wing had been badly damaged, but she was otherwise unhurt.

"We tried to stop them, but Megatron took Cheetor to the Predacon base. I'm so sorry."

"Thank you for trying," Optimus said, then turned to the others. "Okay, let's get them to the CR-Chamber, then figure out how to get Cheetor back."

"Too late...for...that...too," said Skywitch in a strangled voice.

"The reason we're so torn up is a long story... that..." Nightwolf began, then slumped to the floor, bringing immediate attention to his and Skywitch's injuries.

"Get them into the CR-Chamber!" Optimus shouted, then turned around to face Windchaser. "Windchaser, explain what happened."

"Megatron is calling himself Megator now," Windchaser explained. "He's your height and he's moved Cheetor's spark into a new form. Unfortunately for Megator, he forgot to watch his back. We think Cheetor got out of the Predacon base before it blew, but..."

"You blew up the Predacon base?"

"We didn't mean to. But someone dodged the wrong way, and we sort of hit the Predacon's Energon crystal. The Predacon base sort of went... BOOM." Windchaser looked down sadly. "We think Cheetor's new form... well, Megator probably built it to change Cheetor into a Predacon."

"Prime. So Megator and his lackeys lost one base, possibly changed Cheetor to a Predacon, and...anything else?"

"Not that I am aware of. This is all my fault, I'm so sor..."

"Sorry, we know." Rattrap sighed. "Well, let's review. Now we have to find Cheetor, who is probably a Predacon and now we don't know where Megatron, or Megator as you said, is. Oh yeah, no problem. Yeesh."

"Shut-up Rattrap," Optimus said the way someone does when they've said something so many times that it's become habit.

Windchaser slid quietly through the tunnels of the Maximal base towards the new blast doors. The giant doors that had once been the Drake's pod-bay doors slid quickly and quietly open in front of her and slid shut behind her with the same lack of sound. The giant Maximal symbol that decorated the doors seemed to stare at her with its golden eyes. Windchaser knew that Skywitch and Nightwolf had switched the Maximal and Predacon chip since they had told her and the others about they're spy-run when they had emerged out of the CR-Chamber. So she was certain that Cheetor was still a Maximal even if the others were not. Windchaser also knew something that she had forgotten to mention. She knew who Cheetor really was, which would make finding him even more imperative. Windchaser slid outside the base parameter and began racing towards Cheetor's rock. She was certain Rodeesh had escaped the explosion. Windchaser couldn't risk flight; Megator might be scanning the sky. When she reached the rock, she jumped up on it and looked around her quickly.

"Rodeesh?" she asked, as she quickly jumped off the rock and began searching the other stones. She couldn't shake the feeling that Rodeesh would walk out of the shadows in his new form just like he had before. But he wasn't there; and he didn't step out of the shadows; and he didn't come to save her like he had long ago. Windchaser slowly walked back to the rock and pulled herself up on top of it. "Rodeesh..." Windchaser tried to fight the tears, but she failed. After awhile, the sound of sobbing faded from the star-strewn sky, to be replaced by a sadly sung song as the sun began to rise in the east.

"When the moon touches the land...

and the stars touch the sky...

The sun will touch us all...

with it's light from above...

My spark feels it is so...

and it crows with delight..." Windchaser tried to hold back the sobs that she felt rising up again, but Rodeesh had... "Oh, Rod..."

Chapter 8

"Rattrap to Optimus...

"Optimus here Rattrap. What's your report?"

"Well... I'm at Megator's old base, or least where the base used to be anyway...' * Rattrap paused and looked around, * 'If da kiddo didn't get out of that base before it blew, well... dere's no way he could have survived. Dere's no hull or anything left. Just a big, dark, smoking, hole in da ground."

"Prime. Is there any evidence that Cheetor got out of the base before it exploded?"

"I'm not sure, maybe... Do ya call cat paw-prints and gold feathers proof?"

"That's just Prime, Rattrap. Come back to the base."

"Where have you been?"

"Looking for our missing comrade, same as the rest of you, Blackarachnia."

"Has it occurred to you that even if we find him, he will probably be a Predacon? Well, Windchaser, what do you have to say to that?" Windchaser didn't even pause. She lashed out with her hand and grabbed Aracnia by the throat. Windchaser was as tall as Rhinox, and now Aracnia found herself eye-to-eye with the cat-bird.

"Look, she-spider. I am not in a good mood. If try to push me one bit further or send your Sir Lancelot after me to avenge your honor, I swear the next time he comes after me, it will be to avenge your untimely demise. Got it?"

"Uh-huh." Blackarachnia gasped out.

"Good." Windchaser opened her hand then looked down disdainfully at the gasping black widow. "Now get away from me. I've still got a job to do."

Three days later...

"Ah well, Inferno. The cat will apparently never join my ranks, no."

"I do not understand, Royalty...why was the cat so important to you?" Megator looked down at the giant red ant, and smiled.

"Besides the cat's unquestionable loyalty, which alone and in itself was more than enough, Optimus and Cheetor shared a father-son relationship. The loss of one would decimate the other... yeeeessssss..."

"Now I see Royalty! By reprogramming the cat, Optimus Primal would lose his will to fight! Even if the cat did not escape the blast, you have gained the upper hand!"

"Yes, now... go. Take as many fighters as you please and go make certain that the cat is dead. Yeeeessssss."

"I will go at once, my Queen."

"Would it really be all that difficult to call me King?" Megator asked the empty air in front of him as he watched Inferno leave.

Megator was soon asleep, and soon he began his dream. Again he faced the Phantom Fighter, but this time he couldn't awake when the searing light tore into his optics. Slowly, his dream-self regained sight, and screamed in fright. It was the cat! In the exo-structure he had made! The cat chuckled as he stepped forward.

"New form, new abilities...old memories. Rodeesh, is back."

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Megator awoke screaming. A quick look told him that no one had heard him and reassured him that Cheetor had not actually appeared before him. Megator sighed and leaned back for a cycle. "The cat...he must still be alive. But how did he..." Megator paused and then turned to face the computer, "Computer, access all data- banks. I want all the information you have on a very particular Maximal, yeeeessssss."

~What Maximal? ~

"Rodeesh, yes. Very soon cat, very soon indeed, I will know all your secrets. Yes."

Cheetor glanced around. There were times when he wished that he could sweat or something like humans did. It would have at least given him something to do other than worry, even if that something was just wiping his brow. He hadn't had a few nanoclicks rest. He had seen Inferno and about five other Predacon flyers. They had all but scoured the countryside for him. He had been pushed further and further away from where Megator's base had been. Unfortunately, he couldn't get to his base or the waterfall. Cheetor scanned his surroundings again. The cliff he had hit was flush to the ocean, and he didn't think he could get clear. If the fight would commence, it would commence here. Cheetor leaned back into the shadow. H got ready to recharge and go out in a blaze of glory whenever Inferno arrived. However just as he got ready; he heard crunching sounds coming up behind and to the left of him. Instantly Cheetor was on the alert. So, they thought they could sneak up on him, huh? Cheetor turned and pulled out his bow and drew one of the arrows out and pulled the bowstring tight. He didn't know why Megator had decided to give him a bow and arrow, but Cheetor sure was glad he had it now. He leaned back into the shadows as whoever it was walked past him. Cheetor drew the arrow tight and leaped out of the bushes, drawing his arrow up to aim at his target. The target, for his part, spun around, lost his balance and fell to the ground. He looked at the arrow, then at Cheetor in a combination of fear and surprise. Cheetor blinked in surprise as he realized just who his target was. Cheetor was so surprised that he completely forgot that he had a drawn bow and arrow aimed at the fighter before him.

What the slag was he doing here?

"Rattrap to Optimus. Come in fearless leader."

"Optimus here. Have you found Cheetor?"

"Oh yeah, I found him. Not that helps me much."

"Is Cheetor still a Maximal?"

"I am sure hopin' so, boss-monkey."

"Why, Rattrap?"

"Well he's sorta got dis really big arrow pointed at me and I think he knows how to use it. And..."

"Freeze Maximals! In the name of the Royalty, you must BURN!" Everyone spun around at the sound of Inferno's voice over the comm. The sounds of a rigorous battle ensued over the comm. The sounds of the fight finally faded away, and Rattrap spoke into his comm. again.

"Well dat was fun. I lost track of da kiddo, Optimus. But I'm better off den Inferno; he lost a few body parts. The fighters he had with him are in even worse condition den he is."

"Prime. I'm going to leave Nightwolf and Skywitch at the base. The rest of us will come to your position. We'll find Cheetor."

Six megacycles later...

This was not good; just how exactly had this happened again?

"Oh man, oh man, oh man; we're all gonna DIE!" Rattrap waited for someone to respond as they usually did, but this time no one voiced a complaint against what he had just said. "Slag! I knew it." Rattrap looked around. All of his teammates except Windchaser were in a giant cage, and the only reason the Windchaser wasn't in the cage was because she was in a worse position.

She had been hit in the wing by a laser blast from Megator. She had managed to catch onto a protrusion on the cliff-face as she had fallen, but that was where her luck ended. Megator had had Inferno melt the rock around her until it was as smooth as glass. Now the kid could do nothing but hold on until she lost her grip on the small protrusion and fell to her doom. Windchaser looked up from her grip on the stone to find Megator looking down at her in a superior manner. The Predacon laughed at her predicament in true joy.

"Hold on as long as you like, bird! Your comrades will never get here from the base in time to save you! Enjoy the matrix!" Megator took off, adding over his shoulder as the cage of captive Maximals and the other Predacons disappeared from view, "Give my regards to that treacherous Dinobot! As well as Tigatron and Airazor, if they are there!" Megator's laugh filled her audio circuits. Even when it finally stopped, she was sure that she could still hear it. Windchaser struggled to get higher up the side of the cliff. She was just a few feet away from the top! But it might as well be a few miles! She realized that there was nothing above her to get a grip on, and she was on an outcropping of the cliff itself. She couldn't even climb down the cliff-face either! Windchaser struggled again, but it was in vain. The only way she was going to get off the cliff, short of dying, was if someone helped her, and no one was close enough to where she was to do that.

Just as Windchaser was about to let go, a robot lowered his blue hand into her field of vision. Windchaser looked at the hand, but didn't look up to see who owned it. If it was a Predacon, then she didn't want to hear his laughter. But if it wasn't a Predacon, she didn't know what she would do. So she stared at the hand as it opened a bit more, then made her choice. Windchaser reached out and grabbed onto the wrist of the robot, and slowly found herself being pulled up. Finally she was on level ground. Windchaser stayed on her knees and caught her breath before she dared to look to see who her savior was. She felt her jaw drop when she looked up. It couldn't be!!

Megator was gloating. All the Maximals except three were his prisoners, and one of those three would soon be a mangled body at the bottom of a cliff, if she wasn't already. Life, was good.

~ Megator, data files on subject requested; Rodeesh; found. ~

"Begin report."

~ Rodeesh was one of four Maximals trained by Autobots. According to last report, subject was still on Cybertron. All known data shown.~ Megator watched for a few cycles, then suddenly, he began to wonder.

"Could it be?"

"Computer... Show last known picture of Rodeesh." Megator felt his mech-fluid freeze for a nanoclick, but then he relaxed with an evil laugh. "So, Maximal; it is you..." Megator laughed evilly again, then turned to the comm. station.

"Megator to Inferno."

"Inferno here, my queen."

'Do stop calling me that, Inferno. Now - I have a new task for you: When you find the cat, do not destroy him, no. Capture him and bring him to me, yeessss."

"I will do so at once, my queen..." Megator turned from the comm. station and looked at the picture in front of him again, then laughed evilly. Waspinator looked at the hologram that the computer had made in front of Megator, and asked without thinking,

"Megatron, eh, Megator...Wazzzpinator not understand. Rodeesh look like cat-bot before he Tranzzz- metal, without cat-partzzz. Why cat-bot not have cat-partzzz?"

"Because, you winged moron, the cat is Rodeesh, and this is what he looked like before he left Cybertron. Yeeeessssss. I see my way to power. With Hot Rod's apprentice at my side, nothing will stand in my way!!!" Megator laughed, and hesitantly, more out of fear that understanding. The other Predacons slowly joined in.

Hanging in separate cages now, the Maximals all looked at each other.

"Cheetor?"

Chapter 9

"LET GO OF ME!!" Megator turned at those words and felt a superior smile form at his lips.

"Ah, my dear Ms. Windchaser. I see you somehow managed to get off that cliff-face, although it did you no good. No."

"Do you always talk to yourself, Megabum?" Windchaser growled out at Megator, as she struggled to get free, obviously more than a little angry.

"I simply have a longing for intelligent conversation, bird."

"Then why talk to yourself? You purple behemoth!"

"Oh, you'll pay for that bird, yes."

"I doubt it, Barney."

"Royalty!" Inferno shouted as he led ten fighters into the desert clearing where their new base resided. The fighters were carrying a gigantic black box. "I have captured the cat my queen! He resides in this box of his own free will! Awaiting you to open it."

"Ah, good. Now Maximals, prepare to witness my flawless victory as I open this box and have your loyal cat join my ranks... Open it!" Inferno quickly opened the box. As the door swung open, Megator's gloat was replaced by anger and surprise at what awaited him there. "WHAT?!? You fool! That's a ROCK!! Where is the cat?!?"

"Right behind you." Megator stiffened at the voice behind him. He spun around to find himself looking at Cheetor's new beast-mode.

Optimus looked at Cheetor's new form in surprise. He was built like a heavier version of his old Trans-metal mode, but he had fur now instead of metal for his hide. Although he had had kept the long jaw of his Trans-metal; he now had gold wings instead of engines. Optimus blinked as he realized that the new form seemed to have no claws. Had Megator forgotten to have those added? Megator smiled.

"Very intelligent cat. You used the hologram ability that I gave you to trick Inferno into thinking that he had captured you. Leaving you free, as well as giving yourself ample opportunity to find out where our new base resided. Ohhohoho, I like you pussycat, yeeeessssss. Now, what do you have to say for yourself, hmmmmmm?" Megator smiled at Cheetor, but Cheetor didn't return the smile. He just walked slowly into the circle of Predacons and walked around till he hit an area with no one behind him, then turned to face Megator. Cheetor leaned back slightly. He obviously knew exactly what he had to do.

"I have just two words to say to you, Megator, and those two words will prove my allegiance to all beyond a shadow of a doubt." Everyone leaned forward, especially the Maximals. What was the cat planning?

"Cheetor..."

Well, here was the answer.

"MAXIMIZE!" Cheetor transformed. He transformed in the same manner as Windchaser. He kept the cat legs and a small flap went down just like hers, but unlike Windchaser, he kept his cat's tail. Like Windchaser, his wings pulled back to show a secret compartment that had held his robot arms before. However, now his cat front legs swung around as his robot arms swung out and the cat legs were then hidden as the wings swung closed and hid them. Unlike his old transformation, the cat's head did not become his chest plate; it lifted up and over, clicking into place on his back, with the cat's head facing up. Much like Rhinox's rhino head did, but unlike Rhinox's rhino head, Cheetor's cat head was completely on his back, with the tip of the muzzle touching his shoulder blades.

Megator stared in open amazement as Cheetor calmly crossed his arms in front of the stylized, blue flame symbol that decorated his chest and looked at Megator.

"Your move, Megabum."

"All Predacons fire on the cat. FIRE!!" All of the Predacons started shooting at Cheetor. Cheetor flipped his wings in front of him and soon, none could see him for the smoke of all the impacting weapons. Finally, Megator called for a stop.

"Well done Predacons. Nothing could have survived that."

"Guess again..." Megator spun around at the voice, just in time to see golden wings sweep forward then return to behind his shoulders, revealing a very uninjured Cheetor.

"What?! How?!?"

"You designed this exo-structure very well Megator, including wings made of Tironium. You know, that almost indestructible material that stasis- pods are made of? Coupled with my ability to make almost instantaneous self-repairs; along with abilities and weapons that I can't even access yet; well, you may have bitten off a bit more than you can chew.

"Blast you to the PIT, cat!! Predacons... destroy him!" Cheetor got balanced for the fight. Waspinator was the first to get within fighting distance. It wasn't even a real fight. Waspinator was scrap in a nanoclick. That was enough to make the other Predacons pause. They looked at each other, then back at Megator.

"Well, apparently the cat has some new fighting abilities. Tarantulas ... destroy him!" Tarantulas raced forward in robot-mode, yelling and shooting. Cheetor simply kept dodging the blasts, but otherwise he didn't move. That is, until Tarantulas reached him. Then, Cheetor punched him, hard enough to take Tarantulas off his feet and send him flying three times his body length back and sending the Tarantula crashing into the blackness of being off-line.

"All right... who's next?" Three or more at a time, the Predacons attacked Cheetor. The cat simply dodged, spun, and retaliated. The cat was as tall as Rhinox, but he had kept his cat speed, making him an extremely dangerous adversary. Everyone was intensely watching the fight, including the Predacon that held Windchaser captive. Windchaser smiled to herself.

"Caught going into enemy turf, dragged in front of Megator, and now held captive while Rodeesh fights the enemy. All and all, everything is going according to plan." Windchaser didn't even wait when the Predacon stopped concentrating on her. She elbowed the fighter as hard in the stomach as she could. As soon as her grip on her loosened a bit, she tore her arms free and spun around. She kicked him as hard as she possibly could between the legs, then grabbed him by the shoulders. A split-nanoclick later, the poor Predacon was getting a lesson in flying backwards and upside down. He didn't enjoy it, or his abrupt landing into the wall of the warcruiser hull.

"Well, I like dat move, cat-bird," Rattrap said with a chuckle as Windchaser hurried up to their cages and began trying to figure out how to open them. "All right, how'd ya manage dis?"

"Simple. Rodeesh pulled me up off the cliff-face, then came up with this plan," Windchaser smiled, then chuckled. "So far, everything is going great."

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"

"What's wrong, Preds? Afraid to fight the kitty-cat? Come-on! Try to fight!" Cheetor's voice was filled with rage. Rattrap shook his head as Windchaser said half in pity and half in laughter.

"Poor Preds! They haven't got a chance!" Cheetor suddenly popped up at Windchaser's side.

"Hurrying would be good 'Chase. Megator's powering up!"

"I'm going as fast as I can! I just can't cut through this!" Windchaser opened her mouth to ask Rodeesh for help when suddenly the cat used the blades on his arms to quickly slash through the locks on the cage doors.

"Can we get a bit more of a move on, 'Chase?"

"Oh, you're so fun... Rod watch out!!!" Cheetor didn't ask what Windchaser meant. He spun so that he faced the direction that Windchaser had pointed to and snapped his wings in front of himself. It was just in time to block Megator's blast. But the sheer force of it pushed him back. Cheetor's wings were holding up against the strain of the laser blast, but even with his feet braced in the ground, he still moved back, his feet leaving furrows in the ground.

"Maximals -- Maximize and open fire!" Optimus shouted as soon as Windchaser shot the last lock. Megator stopped firing at Cheetor and turned his attention to the Maximals as they all opened fire at him. Cheetor had been leaning forward so the blast wouldn't knock him over and expose any unprotected area. However, with the sudden lack of laser pushing at him, he lost his balance and fell rather ungracefully forward. Cheetor struggled up to his knees and raised his right arm. A small arm mounted laser popped up and a bright red laser lashed out, tearing it's way through Megator's shoulder.

"Ahhhhhhrg! Blast you cat! You will die for this! Yes!" Cheetor looked down at his arm and the small laser with a surprised look that quickly turned into a slight grimace.

"Well, that was unexpected," he muttered. Cheetor dodged to the side as Megator turned his attention, and his laser, back to him. Cheetor rolled nimbly to the side, then stopped rolling and pushed himself off the ground and onto one knee. He drew the gold bow tight as he aimed, and paled at the sight that greeted his optics.

"Optimus!"

"Now cat, stand down, or I will kill your precious leader. Yeeeessssss," Megator said, holding Optimus in front of him by the neck. "You will not fire. Everyone knows how bad your aim is and I know that you will not risk harming your leader." Cheetor stayed on one knee. But he slowly drew his arrow back the rest of the way, sighting along the shaft.

"You may know my aim with energy weapons, Megator. But you made the mistake of making the bow and arrow my primary weapons. With these, I am a master." With that, Cheetor released the arrow. It raced through the air with only a slight whistling sound to accompany it. The arrow slid right through the opening in Megator's defense.

"Ahhhhhhrg!" Megator screamed as the arrow pierced his hide. Releasing Optimus, Megator tore the arrow out and glared at Cheetor. Then he did a double take. That marking on his chest...

"NO! It cannot be!!"

"New form, new abilities...old memories. Rodeesh, is back."

"NOOOOOO!! Predacons, retreat into the base! Engage autoguns!!"

"Running would be good Optimus!" Cheetor said as the Predacon's automatic weapons kicked in. "Running would be a really good idea!!"

"Maximals, transform and pull out!"

Halfway back to base, Cheetor finished up a rough summary of his life. He told them the main points of his past and what had happened right up to when he had shown up at Megator's base. Optimus chuckled as Rattrap began complaining again. Some things never change, most noticeably on the list, Rattrap and Cheetor. Cheetor beat his wings in the air and did a summersault in beast - mode.

"Well, let's head in fellow fighters, our battle for today is wo..."

"You have won no battles yet, Rodeesh of the Maximals!" a voice boomed out of the sky. Everyone snapped their heads up to see something that made them all tremble.

"UNICRON!!!"

"Yes, it is I! Prepare to die!"

"Well this is not good..." Cheetor muttered under his breath as he looked up in shock at the moon sized being above them.

"Now you, and all that you hold dear, will perish!" Cheetor glared up at Unicron...

"I don't think so...Strike Team attack!!"

Of all the things that Optimus had expected, this was not one of them. Unicron showing up and knowing Cheetor, well Rodeesh's, name was pretty terrifying. He had half-expected Cheetor to fall flat on his face. He hadn't. To be sure, when Unicron appeared every one that had been in the air had landed when earth's atmosphere was pulled towards Unicron, creating a storm of terrible proportions. Cheetor and Windchaser maximized almost as soon as they landed. Suddenly, almost seeming to come out of thin air, Nightwolf and Skywitch showed up. Optimus had a feeling that he wasn't the only one that growled up at Unicron's threat. But to his utter surprise when Unicron announced that he would kill them now, he hadn't expected Cheetor to narrow his eyes and tell the Strike to attack. However, just as he realized that that was exactly what Cheetor had done, the Strike team had taken off, and was racing up towards Unicron.

"Dat crazy kid! They'll be killed!"

"Maybe, maybe not. It's a good day to die. So let's do it!"

"Slag, I knew that I was going to have to protect that kid!"

"Prime. Let's do it!"

"I don't believe this! There is no way that we can win against that, that... THING!!"

"Ah, but don't forget my love; we shall fight until the bitter end, and all shall remember..." "*Do you ever stop with the speeches, 'Bolt?*"

"Well I... never... I should..."

"*Save it, Bowzer!*"

"*I heard that, Windchaser!*"

"*Good. You were supposed to! Now get your never-quiet-mouth up here! Maybe you can bore Unicron to sleep! *"

"*Windchaser...*"

"*What?!? I didn't do anything, Rodeesh! *"

"*Cheetor.*"

"*Rodeesh. *"

"*Cheetor!!*

"*Rodeesh!!*"

"*Will you two save it!?!*"

"*Sorry!!*"

"*Let's do it! And it's Cheetor!*"

"*Rodeesh!*"

"*Cheetor!*"

"*What did Rhinox just say to the two of you?*"

"*Sorry!!*"

"*Rodeesh, watch your left! Incoming!!*"

"*Copy that! Cheetor!*"

"*Rodeesh!*"

"*Oh I give up!*"

"*What?!?*"

Cheetor was doing plenty of damage, Depthcharge noticed. The cat climbed into the air away from Unicron and then dove back down. Cheetor would then slam his claws into Unicron's hide and let his momentum spin him around and pull him back, leaving deep scour marks in Unicron's hide.

"*Fall back! I repeat, all fighters fall back!!*" Cheetor started slightly at Optimus's voice as it came over the comm. He glanced around then repeated Optimus's order when the Strike Team stayed behind.

"We need to find a way to fight him, Optimus!" Cheetor said, coming up beside the giant robot. "Do any of you remember how the Autobots fought Unicron? I... I think they used the matrix, right? I can't remember what Hot Rod said about it..."

"Kiddo, come on, ya just got these memories back. Ya can't remember everything."

"I... don't trust the memories yet. I guess I... wait a nanoclick! I do know one thing that we can do!"

"What would that be, pussycat?" Depthcharge asked as he came up beside Cheetor, Optimus and Rattrap. Rattrap looked over from his perch on Optimus and gave a half grin.

"Well...we need more fighters right?"

"Right," Optimus said, not seeing where Cheetor was going in this.

"Well... I know where we can get a lot of fighters that will probably be willing to fight Unicron with us."

"The stasis-pods? That won't work kid. We don't have time to find and activate all of them." Depthcharge stated; though he was beginning to get a glimmer of where Cheetor was going.

"That's not what I meant. I mean; some already on-line fighters that will probably hate Unicron as much as we do, and will probably be willing to help us get rid of him."

"But..." Optimus said, a bit confused "the only fighters beside us that are on-line are..."

"Yeah, the Predacons."

"You're crazy kiddo, ya know dat, right?" said Rattrap, "Why would Megator agree to help us?"

"Well, I didn't say that I liked this idea. And if anybody has a better suggestion, I would love to hear it. But..we need the fighters, and I somehow doubt that Megator would want Unicron to destroy a planet that he couldn't get off of."

"Well, that's just prime."

Rodeesh of the Maximals, pt. 6
by J.E.D.I (pderoeck@bellsouth.net)

"*Predacon base, come in.*" Megator looked up from his throne. Such anger and controlled power in that voice, yes. It was strong enough that he forgot the fact that he had been musing over the sudden weather change and walked over to the new comm. station and answered the unknown maximal himself.

"Megator here, Maximal. Who said that?"

"*This is Cheetor, Megator. Now listen up, ya miswired... Have any of you trash-bots scanned the skies lately?*"

"Is there any reason that we should have done so, cat?"

"*I think a moon-sized evil entity is a reason, Megator.*"

"What are you talking about?"

"*Unicron Megator. Unicron is here."

"What?!? Waspinator, I want a scan of everything that's in the sky, NOW!!"

"Wazzzipinator scanning; scan shows cat-bot, bird-bot, dog-bot, bird-dog-bot, and lizard-bot in skies..."

"We detect nothing in the skies but you, the Strike Team, Silverbolt and this storm, cat. What are you..."

"*Look UP, you idiot!! Use your optics!!*"

"By the pit...Unicron. What do you want, cat?"

"*A truce, a real truce. We work together until Unicron is destroyed. No one goes into anybody else's base. No one tries to kill anyone except Unicron.*" Cheetor paused, then added, "*and you stay clear from Optimus. Deal?*"

"Agreed, cat. I will honor this truce until Unicron is destroyed."

"*Fine... Cheetor out.*"

"Well," Cheetor said to the flyers that hovered in the storm beside him. "He meant it when he said he'd honor it, if nothing else. Let's just hope that he doesn't change his mind."

"I am open to suggestions, Cat," Megator said, glaring at Cheetor. The cat had not only had at least one Maximal watching him at all times, but he had personally kept Megator out of range of Optimus. It was maddening! Now when the leaders met, Cheetor showed up, with the eagle-cat tight at his heels. His excuse for showing up? Simple. He led the Strike Team. Therefore, all decisions that would or could endanger his team would be stated now and he would be present to argue for or against the plan. His real reason? Easy to see. To protect Optimus from Megator...by force if necessary.

"You need not worry so much, cat. I will abide by my promise, yeeeessssss."

"Until Unicron is destroyed, we are allies, Megator. But be warned. The only reason that I abide by this treaty is that I am not leader but second-in-command under Rodeesh. He alone keeps your life intact. Once this Unicron is destroyed though, watch your back. I will soon have you as my prey, and none have survived being so for long." Megator turned to glare at the eagle-cat. What was this annoying femme called again? Ah, yes.

"Rest at ease, Ms. Windchaser. I promise that your record of that will end the nanoclick I kill you. I may even let you fight long enough to understand my superiority, femme."

"If we can return to our war counsel?" Optimus said, as Cheetor physically pulled Windchaser off Megator's throat. "We have more pressing concerns. Such as destroying Unicron."

"Yeah, dat's goin ta be fun."

"You should not speak in such a manner to the royalty, vermin!"

"May I ask you again Primal? Why must we encumber ourselves with our seconds-in-command? Yeeeessssss."

"Prime. Can we get back to our more pressing topic is here?!?" Cheetor switched to beast-mode and roared at the top of his lungs.

Windchaser had been the only one to cover her audio-receivers, everyone else could not hear for a cycle or two. Cheetor maximized and glared at Megator, since he had been the one that had started the whole argument.

"Now look...I am not in the mood for a fight, either physical or verbal. If we do not decide on what to do about Unicron NOW, we will all be dead, and these arguments will be the cause! Now... Megator, the Predacons have data tracks that include Unicron. Correct?"

"Yeeeessssss."

"Optimus, did you find any data on Unicron in the Axalon's data tracks?"

"Yes."

"The Strike Team and I went through the Drake's files and copied all the data onto this crystal. As we agreed, we have a computer here that is attached to NO computers at either base. That means that we can all use it without worrying."

"That's prime Cheetor. Let's finish this before Unicron's attack begins again."

"That is a question that we should all ponder as well Primal, Unicron is here. Why has he stopped his attack?"

"I don't know Megator. There probably is a reason... 'sides really good luck!"

"How can you possibly call UNICRON good luck cat?!?"

"No Megator, I don't call Unicron good luck. I call still being alive to fight him good luck. I just hope that it holds."

"Now Cheetor, if you are done with your little inspirational speech...let us see what information we have... yeeeessssss."

Chapter 10

"Explosives. The only thing that might work is a high amount of explosives placed inside Unicron," Optimus stated calmly. Cheetor groaned and closed his optics. He felt Optimus look at him. He knew what Optimus would see. Cheetor had aged, literally aged, years in a few cycles.

"I'm not ready to lead anybody," he thought. "I really wish that I could back out of this... but I can't."

"So, how do we get them inside?" Cheetor heard Megator ask Optimus. Cheetor opened his optics and answered the question. Even though Megator hadn't been asking him.

"Some Maximals and Predacons take them in, set them, and then try to get out before they blow."

"Oh goody," Rattrap said. "So who goes?"

"The Strike Team."

"What?! Cheetor are you crazy?!?"

"No, Rattrap. Windchaser and I go in. We're the real fighters of the Strike Team. Nightwolf and Skywitch will stay behind."

"Oh dat's just great kiddo! What happens if ya don't get out in time?"

"Then we're all in trouble. Megator, who are you planning to send with us?"

"Waspinator and Inferno."

"Oh goody," Windchaser said sarcastically. "The bug-brigade."

"Wazzzpinator not like this. Wazzzpinator alwayzzz getzzz zzztuck with zzzlag azzzzzzignment. Oh, why univerzzze hate Wazzzpinator?"

"I am going to hurt that bug..."

"Calm down 'Chase, we need them in order to set the explosives."

"You want to trust them with high explosives?!?"

"No 'Chase, but we do need them to carry it."

"Just out of curiosity," Windchaser asked as the four fighters landed on Unicron. "How are we supposed to get into Unicron?" That question answered itself as the ground under the Transformers suddenly was noticeably lacking.

"Oh no," Cheetor said, as for a nanoclick they hung in midair. The four fighters fell through the tunnel, "There isn't enough room to open our wings!!"

"Switch to beast-mode!"

"Too late!!" After a long fall past strange spikes, three of the four robots fell heavily to the hard metal ground.

"Well - that hurt," Windchaser said as she slowly got to her feet.

"Wazzzpinator hates this azzzzzzignment."

"You should be glad, Wasp. Every assignment from the royalty is a gift!"

"Wazzzpinator thinkzzz ant-bot is major zzzuck-up!"

"Hold it, buggies...where is Rodeesh?"

"Wazzpinator not know."

"Great! Well, I sure don't know where he is but... Primus! I sure hope they didn't get him!"

Cheetor was not having a good day...

First, he had been captured and placed in a new body after being killed. Then, he had had to fight through about 20 Predacons to save his teammates. Then his teammates weren't sure how to treat him, which didn't make sense because Cheetor was still the same person.

"Maybe they just don't see that it's still me. Just older and with old memories." That of course wasn't the worst part of the day. Just as it looked like life could get back to normal, or as close as it could come to normal...

Unicron showed up.

Then it had become obvious that the only way that they could fight Unicron would be from the inside. Deep in his spark, Cheetor knew that the real reason he had insisted on going himself was because of a gut feeling. He hadn't told the others except for 'Chase because he had a feeling that no one would let him do something like this on impulse alone.

Windchaser had been adamant that she should go with him. Cheetor had originally planned to go at it alone. But it honestly hadn't taken much for Windchaser to convince him to let her come.

When they had fallen out of the tunnel, the four fighters had fallen past giant horizontal spikes. Cheetor's wing caught on one of the tips that spun him around so that he slammed chest first onto the next spike. Fortunately, he hit it from above. So, besides having all the air forced out of his chest, he received no further damage. Cheetor looked down; he could see the others beneath him. Cheetor struggled to get air flowing again and get off the spike when he saw giant claw like things come out of the walls and begin attacking the others. Cheetor finally got his lungs working normally again and jumped off the spike, firing his laser as he went.

Windchaser began shooting at the claw things. To her surprise; red laser fire joined in at firing at the claws. Rodeesh landed beside her.

"I was afraid you wouldn't make it to the party," she said.

"Hey, can't keep me down for long. Come on you three, let's get out of here!" Rodeesh switched to beast-mode and ran off. Heading away from the claws, the others followed. The two Predacons stayed in robot-mode, while Windchaser switched to beast-mode like Rodeesh and did her best to keep up with the cheetah. Windchaser dodged and ducked, bobbed and weaved, avoided and advanced, and wished and cursed for Rodeesh's speed. The claws were nearly as big as they were, and easily as fast. Windchaser risked a break in her concentration to ask through her 'Seer link',

"Please tell me that you have a plan, Rodeesh. I don't want to die in here!"

"Cheetor. I've got a bit of a plan, I think. We're heading towards Unicron's control room I guess, since the defenses are getting stronger. I just hope that we make it."

"I trust you...Rodeesh."

"Cheetor."

Megator looked up at Unicron. The monster planet was no longer a planet. It had transformed into a robot of titanic proportions. It's feet were creating valleys where they were placed on the ground. Megator realized for the first time that there were somethings more important than destroying Optimus Primal and winning the Beast Wars. Staying alive, for example. Megator looked up at Unicron again. He found himself praying to whatever, or whoever, might be on their side that the two Maximals would succeed.

Because all the fire power that the fighters out here had combined was not even close to enough to destroy Unicron.

"Here!" Windchaser quickly tossed the last explosive to Rodeesh. They had miraculously made it to the control room, and now the last explosive was being set.

"Do you think that this is enough, Rod?"

"I sure hope so. Now, let's get out of here. I've got a really bad feeling about this...and for the last time it's Cheetor!"

"Why cat-bot and bird-bot argue about name?"

"Will you just stay out of this?!?" Inferno and Waspinator looked at each other and shrugged. There was no understanding Maximals. They had done almost nothing on this mission. It had been the two Maximals that had saved them from the claw things, found the massive room with it's strange globe of views that they assumed was the control room, and now it was the Maximals that set the explosives. If they wanted to argue over what the cat-bot's name was, well, as long as the explosives were all set and all four of them got out in time. Who were they to argue?

"Okay...the last explosive is...set!"

"Wazzzpinator wants to know what do now?"

"Getting out of here would be good buzz-breath. Right, Rodeesh?"

"Right...and will you call me Cheetor?!?"

"Wazzzpinator thinkzzz cat-bot and bird-bot zzzound like rat-bot and lizzzard-bot uzzzed to."

"Rod...I am really going to hurt that bug."

"Save it 'Chase! Let's fade outa here!"

"Where's the exit?"

-You need not worry about exits, transformers!-

"Rod... please tell me that that wasn't Unicron."

"We might be in trouble..."

-You will all soon join with the Matrix. Then leaving me will no longer be of consequence. Proceed...to oblivion!-

"We're in trouble. RUN! Get out of here before Unicron really begins concentrating on killing us!"

-I need not waste the energy!-

"I don't like this Rod..."

"Get out of here! GO!!"

-He will do so for me-

"He? Rodeesh who is Unicron talking abou..."

"Windchaser, RUN! NOW!!" Windchaser turned to look at Rodeesh when she heard the fear in his voice.

"What? Why? Who is it?!?"

"Galvatron 'Chase. Unicron brought back Galvatron!"

"Galvatron?!?" Chapter 11

"Galvatron!?! We've got to fight Galvatron?!?"

"Wazzzpinator not like this. Wazzzpinator not want fight Galvatron."

"You have no choice Transformers! Prepare to die!"

"Running would be good, Rod."

"Hiding would be better!" Cheetor grabbed Inferno and Waspinator by the throats and quickly pulled them with him into a shadowed corner. Windchaser stayed tight on his heels.

"So now what do we do?" Windchaser asked through the 'Seer Link'. Cheetor had finally gotten used to the fact that all Seers could talk like this, mind to mind without any worries of anyone but another Seer overhearing. He replied in kind. "I'm not sure. Galvatron is coming, I can feel him. Do you remember how Hot Rod fought Galvatron?"

"Not really. I think he did what we're doing now. You know, hiding in the shadows until Galvatron had gone by."

"Yeah, I remember now... Hot Rod blinded Galvatron, right?"

"Yes. Use your laser for that. Then if we all fight together we should be able to win."

"You know...you really are a great leader! Anyway, back to business."

"Waspinator, Inferno. We're going to have to work together. You two willing?"

"Wazzzpinator want to know what happen if Wazzzpinator and Inferno not work with cat-bot and bird-bot."

"Every living thing on this planet dies."

"Wazzpinator work with cat-bot."

"I, too, shall aid you. But only to save my queen."

"Why don't you call Megator, 'King'?" Windchaser asked.

"Where are you Maximals? You and the Predacons have no hope of winning a battle with me."

"Hush!" Cheetor whispered to the other three fighters. "Don't move, just let him go past."

"Oh no!"

"Oh no? You aren't supposed to be saying dat Skywitch! What are ya doin sayen dat 'oh no' dere for?"

"Galvatron."

"Galvatron?"

"Unicron brought Galvatron back to life. He's hunting them in there."

"Well...dis day just keeps getting' better and better."

Galvatron walked forward slowly. He looked from side to side, but he couldn't find the four Transformers. There were millions of alcoves and shadows for the Chosen One and his allies to hide in. Galvatron couldn't say the same. He was far too tall to effectively hide.

"Where are you, cat? You cannot hide forever. Sooner or later I will find you." Galvatron came to the end of the tunnel. He looked around.

There was nothing there. Galvatron narrowed his optics. Unicron had been careful this time. Galvatron was completely loyal to him. Galvatron would not betray Unicron again.

Cheetor hid quietly in the shadows. Windchaser was in position, as were the two Predacons. Cheetor whispered a prayer to Primus for help. He closed his optics for a cycle... then opened them and got set. The time had almost come.

Back on Cybertron...

Hot Rod walked down the hallway, joking with Springer. He smiled, enjoying a few nanoclicks away from his worries. Springer laughed at Hot Rod's joke. Some things never changed. One thing high on that list was definitely Hot Rod. Three centuries old and he still joked.

Hot Rod stopped in mid-laugh as he felt the Matrix give a sudden surge of power. "What the...? Hot Rod began the thought but it was cut off at the sudden surge of white-hot pain. Hot Rod felt the Matrix give one last throb of power; then it was gone, slamming him backwards as something or someone transported the Matrix to another point in time and space.

"The Matrix..."

Unicron has made a mistake. A simple mistake, to be sure, but a mistake none the less. With anyone but the Chosen One, it would have meant nothing. But with the Chosen One that means that this little mistake could come very quickly come to a head. Unicron was so certain that Galvatron could take care of four robots that were less than 1/6th his height, that Unicron paid absolutely NO attention to the battle. That was his mistake, and Galvatron's. Because sometimes size does not matter.

Galvatron turned around. He looked at the end of the tunnel again. Where had the transformers gone?

"Where are you, cat? You cannot hide forever. Sooner or later I will find you."

"It will probably be sooner than you think, Galvatron." Galvatron spun around at the sound of a voice coming from behind him. Galvatron stared in shock. The Maximal stood in plain sight, in the center of the tunnel floor. Glavatron's shock quickly faded to gloating pride. He smiled. This would be too easy. But in his pride, Galvatron forgot one of the basic rules of life...

If it seems too easy...it probably is.

Cheetor stood calmly. He could feel that Galvatron was letting his pride make the calls. Never a good move. Galvatron had fought Autobot upon Autobot and had often come out the victor. How could four puny man-sized robots hope to win? Cheetor fought back a smile, and forced himself to remain standing calmly in the center of the tunnel with his arms crossed and no expression on his face.

"You know...I really hate bait duty, 'Chase."

"I prefer to call it 'decoy duty'."

"Well, whatever it is...let's do it."

"You are a fool! Prepare to die, Rodeesh of the Maximals!!"

"Not today!" Galvatron smiled again and charged up his arm-cannon. This was truly going to be too easy. It was. And that's how the plan worked. Galvatron fired at the Maximal. The blast tore through the air with a speed that none of his foes had ever been able to dodge. But Glavatron's foes had all been Autobots...and one thing that had happened since the Maximals had evolved from Autobots was that their speed had increased. And Cheetor was fast even for a Maximal, as Galvatron soon found out.

Cheetor fired up at Galvatron's optics...and missed!

"Slag it and Primus take it! NOW!!" Glavatron's pride doubled... Those puny robots thought that their little weapons could hurt him?

To his surprise...they could.

"Ahhhhhhrg! You'll pay for that Maximal scum!" Windchaser landed next to Cheetor, Cheetor looked at her and cracked his trademark grin. Windchaser couldn't help but to smile back

"You know, I heard that a very strong human curse is 'May you have an interesting life.' How many times have you been cursed?"

"So many times, by so many people...'Chase, it isn't even funny."

"Die Maximals!"

"Predaconzzz here too! Why Galvabot not zzzay Predaconzzz?" Galvatron transformed to his cannon-mode and fired at the robots before him. Again, he missed. Unfortunately, this time when the blast hit the wall, a wave of water gushed out, and swept the Transformers away.

Windchaser was bashed in three dimensions. She struggled valiantly to keep her head above the water. Suddenly, she was swept over in a waterfall. The force of it slammed her under the water, and she couldn't get back up to the surface.

"Don't panic, don't panic...Primus...HELP!" A hand suddenly grabbed her shoulder and hauled her back up to the surface. With a gasp, both she and her rescuer broke through to the surface, and greedily gulped down the air. Windchaser glanced over to see who had grabbed her. She barely had time to identify her rescuer as Rodeesh began hauling her towards the metal shore. Without thinking, she broke free and began swimming on her own. The two of them pulled themselves out of the water and looked around.

"You know...this reminds me of one of Kup's war-stories."

"Everything reminds you of one of Kup's war-stories."

Inferno and Waspinator looked around in surprise. The water had sent them down a different tunnel than the Maximals. Spun bashed around, they finally went flying outside of Unicron when the tunnel that they were in met a hole from the outside. Apparently, their luck was still with them.

Cheetor and Windchaser would not say the same about their luck. Cheetor felt himself blanch at the sight that greeted his optics. Giant tanks of acid bubbled and boiled, giving off a foul gas that burned at the optics and lungs. Cheetor coughed and looked around again.

"We have got to get a new travel agent," he muttered. >{?"Yeah. How long until Unicron should go boom?"

"Two more cycles, maximum. But we have to survive. There's something that we have to do once we get out of here."

"What?"

"We have to..."

"DIE!!" Cheetor and Windchaser spun around. Windchaser wasn't fast enough to dodge Galvatron's backhanded slap. She all but flew backwards and hit the acid tank's side. She lay in a crumpled heap at the foot of the tank.

"WINDCHASER!!"

"Your fate will not be as pleasant Rodeesh!! Now... you... DIE!!"

"Never!" Galvatron dove at Cheetor. The cat jumped over the Decepticon. He flipped in mid-air and landed facing the giant Transformer. Galvatron spun around. The fight had truly begun.

Optimus looked up worriedly at Unicron. Willing Cheetor and Windchaser to get out in time. It had been too long...

Cheetor risked a look around.

"Where the slag is that song coming from? Since when does Unicron listen to 'Dare' by Stan Bush? Did he swallowed a radio or something." The fight was getting more and more intense. Cheetor was almost out of breath. There was no hope for it. It was time for a miracle or death.

To Cheetor's surprise...it was the miracle.

Unicron felt the surge of power where the Chosen One and Galvatron fought. He recognized that power without a second thought...

-Primus!!-

If Cheetor had known that he and Unicron had both uttered the same word, he probably would have laughed. But the pulsing, blue light of the portal held his attention too tightly.

It was a beautiful sight for sore eyes... even if he had no idea what it was. The light flared suddenly, making Galvatron scream in pain and stagger back. Cheetor wondered why Galvatron had screamed. But then suddenly, he screamed out as the portal closed, leaving an object behind. Galvatron reacted faster then Cheetor thought even he himself could.

"NO! The Matrix!!" Cheetor dove forward. His smallness finally became an advantage, as did his speed. He actually slid under Galvatron and grabbed the Matrix before the giant Decepticon could.

The nanoclick his hands closed onto the Matrix, a blast of power surged through him. He half saw Galvatron flying backwards and upwards... to land right in one of the acid tanks.

~ Arise...Rodeesh Primal. ~ He heard the voice and felt the power that flowed through him.

"Primus..." Rodeesh Primal whispered in awe. Rodeesh felt the knowledge flow through him.

~Use the power now...Chosen One. ~ Rodeesh slid his fingers into the finger holds. They fit as if it had been molded for his hands. He remembered the prophecy of the Chosen One and what he must do now with the Matrix.

"Now...light our darkest hour..." Slowly, carefully, Rodeesh Primal opened the Matrix. His optics and flame seemed to glow with the same light as the Matrix itself. For a nanoclick the glow stayed near the now open Matrix, then it tore away, and Unicron began to scream. Rodeesh Primal felt Primus slide his memories away, but because of the Matrix, he now understood why.

"I shouldn't have gotten it yet?"

~ No. You shall remember when it is time. ~

"Do Windchaser and I still have enough time to escape?"

~Yes. I must return the Matrix. Good luck... Chosen One. ~

Windchaser awoke with a start. She groaned and held her pounding head.

"Sounds like you're going to need a trip to Nightwolf's med-bay when we get out of here." Windchaser opened her optics and looked up to see a smiling gold face with Cheetah stripes, matrix blue optics and a dark blue helmet. Windchaser found it very hard to overwhelm the urge to rip out those optics.

"You're annoying. You know that, right Rodeesh?"

"Cheetor."

"Well at least I know that you're not too badly hurt. Rodeesh."

"Now that we both know that the other will survive...it's Cheetor! Can we go now?"

"You have to ask? Let's hit the skies!"

"Uh-oh..."

"Uh-oh?"

"Small technical problem that just occurred to me."

"And that would be...?"

"How do we get out of here?"

"Uhhhhhh...we're dead meat, aren't we?" An explosion of green fire suddenly tore at the wall to their left.

"How about we run away from the fire, 'Chase?"

"Sounds good to me!"

"RUN!" The two Maximals raced down the hallways, explosions of green fire at their heels. Cheetor saw a wall of green glass in front of him. It took a cycle before he realized what it was.

"Windchaser! Go out through the optic!"

"Dey did it! Those two kids did it!"

"Great. Where are they? I lost contact after they reported in Galvatron."

"Does dat mean what I think dat means, Skywitch?"

"I'm not sure...Nightwolf! Have you been able to make contact with them?"

"No, I...where's Megator? I lost track of him."

"Ohhhhhh, Primus take it! He's heading for Optimus Primal!"

"Oh slag! Rodeesh'll kill us! Come on!"

Megator was getting closer to Optimus. Just a few more feet now and he'd be within striking distance.

"Optimus! DUCK!!" Optimus Primal hit the dirt, a nanoclick before a laser sliced through the air where he had been. A nanoclick after that, bullets, fire and projectiles raced over head... hitting Megator.

"The truce is over Megator! Get away from us!"

"Hold that Order!" Everyone looked up a Cheetor's voice. Cheetor landed and shouted out an order that no one disobeyed.

"HIT THE DIRT!!!" Every transformer fell flat on their face. Just is time to feel Unicron explode. One blast sent the giant robot spiraling into space. The second utterly destroyed him. The heat ripped at the air around them, Nightwolf tried desperately to borrow deeper into the ground. This hurt! The heat finally faded. Nightwolf raised his head and looked around.

"You know, I'm starting to feel sorry for this planet," Street Cat said. Nightwolf turned to look behind him. Street Cat was looking at the raging fires with a haunted look in his optics. Nightwolf looked around again. Most of the other transformers were off-line. It would be safe to talk now.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"I...saw this before, in my dreams. What I don't understand is how. I don't have Time Sight."

Nightwolf chuckled. "Everybody with Sight saw this. I think Unicron was trying to scare all the Seers into not fighting."

"Fire and Evil. Well, the plan back-fired didn't it? It just made me want to fight it even more. Looks like I couldn't stop it though."

"You stopped the evil didn't you? Plus... look. Those rain clouds will stop the fire soon."

"We did stop the fire and evil. Didn't we?"

"We sure did, Rodeesh," Windchaser said, joining the conversation.

"Cheetor."

"Rodeesh."

"Cheetor."

"Rodeesh."

"Cheetor."

"Rodeesh."

"Cheetor."

"Rodeesh!"

"Cheetor!"

"Do the two of ya ever stop arguing!?!"

"Will you stay out of this Rattrap?!?" the two fighters yelled together, then looked at each other and burst out laughing.

"So what happens now?" Cheetor asked. "We go back to shooting each other?"

"Yes cat. As soon as we have recovered, we shall fall back to our respective bases, and the Beast Wars will commence again. Yeeeessssss."

"So we're enemies again? That's just Prime."

"I guess so. But at least now we know we can work together, when we have to fight a larger threat anyway."

"Don't get all metaphysical, kiddo. People dat hate each other always pull together to save their own butts."

"If the only way different people will work together is to save themselves Rattrap, then explain Cybertron." Cheetor waited for a response, but one never came, for no one could find a rebuke for it. Slowly the damaged fighters turned and went their own separate ways. Cheetor looked at the storm that was quickly killing the fire, then turned to look at the Strike team.

"Come on guys, there's one more important thing to do... Strike Team! Transform and pull out!!"

Chapter 12

"NO! NO!! Rodeesh... NO!!!" Optimus spun around at Windchaser's scream. He glanced around worriedly, then spotted Windchaser's white and silver form. Optimus Primal relaxed. It was nothing Windchaser couldn't handle...provided she could dance. Optimus smiled. This was probably one of the best ideas Cheetor had had. He had mentioned that the Autobots used to have parties to help with morale and had bugged Optimus to let them start doing the same.

"Of course, considering how I jumped at the idea and put the four of them on it right away; I really can't say 'bugged me.' More like I 'bugged them.'' Optimus chuckled as he thought back to the preparations. Skywitch had gotten to a computer, and had effectively kicked Rhinox out of that area. Optimus couldn't help feeling a little sorry for Rhinox. Skywitch had taken over the computer field, and Nightwolf was all but a total tyrant in the medical bay. Optimus gave himself a quick reminder that he had a check- up tomorrow at Twenty One Hundred. He got the feeling that Nightwolf really would make him regret being late; even if it had sounded like the black wolf- raven had been joking. Rhinox now had nothing to do but 'scientific-stuff' as Cheetor had put it, and the rhino sure enjoyed it. Rhinox had even gained the eager apprenticeship of Nightwolf.

"Come on 'Chase. Time to dance!"

"NO!!" Optimus spared another look at Windchaser. Cheetor had managed to pull her towards the dance floor in the middle of the rec-room, but he was having some difficulty getting her any farther. Optimus chuckled again, then looked around to check his team. Skywitch and Nightwolf were playing a fiddle - slash - drum duet, playing some fast paced dance music. (Think of the Irish dance music from Titanic people.) Optimus looked over to the 'bar'. Rattrap and Depthcharge were both leaning back and enjoying a game of cards and a drink of high grade Energon. Silverbolt had somehow gotten talked into taking this watch with Blackarachnia and Rhinox was laughing at Cheetor and Windchaser. Optimus smiled to himself. Thanks to Skywitch, most of the Axalon's stasis-pods, if not all, would be retrieved in the morning. And as soon as Rhinox and Nightwolf could get the Drake's tractor-beam fixed, they could pull down the few stasis-pods that the Drake had carried and lost in its aerial do-fight. With those new fighters, the Maximal numbers would effectively triple. Windchaser gave another half-laugh, half-scream as Cheetor succeeded in pulling her to the center of the dance floor.

"You're enjoying this..." Windchaser muttered with a smile.

"You bet!"

"Rodeesh, one day I'm going to kill you!"

"Cheetor!"

"Rodeesh!"

"Cheetor!"

"Rodyaaaaaa!" Windchaser stopped in mid-shout as Cheetor grabbed her wrists and pulled her into the dance. "No!" Windchaser tried to scream around the laughter. "NO! Please, no! I hate dancing... Rod!!" Windchaser closed her eyes and gave a laugh filled scream, then gave in and let herself enjoy the dance. Cheetor smiled and let go of her wrists the nanoclick he felt her emotions slide. He sidestepped slightly; waited until she opened her optics to look at him in surprise, then did a dance routine that would have made Hot Rod proud. Cheetor gave Windchaser his trademark grin and a daring look.

Without a second thought, Windchaser accepted the unspoken challenge and launched herself into an even longer and harder dance routine than the one Cheetor had just don and finished with both a flourish worthy a master, and a 'HA!!' aimed at Cheetor. Cheetor raised and eyebrow (not exactly, but you know what I mean!) then smiled and proceeded to out dance her. The complexity and difficulty making even Rattrap and Depthcharge forget their game of cards and join in the watchers.

Everyone was now watching the dancers, clapping their hands and stomping their feet in time to the music, which Nightwolf and Skywitch sped up with each dance routine. As Windchaser began her dance, Cheetor suddenly started dancing at the same time. The two danced to the furious pace of the music, then stopped suddenly with a bow to the audience. Nightwolf and Skywitch changed the music to another song, and Cheetor and Windchaser walked over to the chairs where the two players sat; pulling their instruments out of sub-space pockets as they did. Soon Nightwolf's drum, Skywitch's fiddle, Windchaser's Irish pipe, and Cheetor's Irish flute blended together to create a beautiful harmony.

In our darkest hour, a Chosen One will arise from our ranks and use the power of the Matrix to save us all... He has done so once, and he shall do so again... The Chosen One.