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Safe Haven, pt. I (PG)
by Echostorm (webman@ij.net)

MAXIMALS:

"Hey, monkey face!" Rattrap called from the hall. "Rhinox wants to see ya." Optimus stood over by the communications console, looking distracted.

"Right, Rattrap," Optimus sarcastically. "Rhinox hasn't wanted to see anyone for a week. He's been so busy working on that slagging machine of his . . ." He trailed off, leaving his second officer to gather his own ideas about what Rhinox was building.

A short while later, Cheetor streaked across the entry way. As he passed, he yelped, "Yo, Big Bot! Rhino-man wants to chat with you!"

Optimus was about to ask why he was running when Dinobot roared past shrieking, "Call me a lizard, will you? I'll tear out your furry little fluid pump and use it as a new wall decoration! Come back here, you hair-balled feline!" Optimus chuckled to himself, knowing the argument was only something they were using to keep boredom from setting in. This hadn't been an easy task lately. The Predacons weren't attacking, no new alien anomalies had been discovered, and of all things, the weather had been a drizzly, gray mess that had kept even Tigatron and Airazor in the base.

Not ten cycles after Dinobot's passing, Chitter loped past in his usual hyper pace, his chipmunk claws clicking lightly on the steel floor. "Rhinox wants to see Optimus," he sang.

Optimus shook his head frustratedly. "All right, all right! I'll go see Rhinox!" He moved swiftly down the corridor with Chitter at his heels.

"It's a really neat thing, what Rhinox wants you to see. Have you seen it already, and Rhinox just wants you to see it again? Because if you have seen it already then what does Rhinox want you to see it again for? Do you know, Optimus? Because if you know, then maybe you can tell me because I don t know and you seem like you know a lot about a lot. Do you know why a lot has a space between the A and the Lot? Do you know? Because if you do know-"

"Shut up already!" Optimus shouted in a manner that suggested that he'd been doing that sort of shouting a good deal lately. The door to Rhinox's lab slid open and Optimus was at once glad he'd come.

Just inside the entrance in the dim light that Rhinox liked to work in, was a monstrous work of machinery. It was so huge, that Optimus wondered how Rhinox had managed to get enough parts for it without raiding the Predacon base. The main section looked like a rather plain metal tube. He could tell it was mostly hollow inside by the way it sounded when he tapped on it. On the front of the tube, was a silvery thing that looked a good deal like a satellite dish. There was a square shaped section on top that looked like it could slide open if it so desired. The tube was supported on four curving rods that branched out, two on each side. The rods were connected to two large, rectangular boxes that were also on curving legs. There was a pair of rods on the front of both of them that had a hinge on their midpoints. The rods were connected, and from the center of the connecting bar, there was a massive cylindrical protrusion. It seemed like a protrusion was the only way it could be described because it didn't t really have any set shape. It kept shifting and waving, but was always a cylinder at the same time. It made Optimus's eyes hurt if he looked at it for to long. Under one of the cylinders was a large tank, filled with some sort of sparkling clear gel.

"Pretty impressive, isn't it?" asked Rhinox's voice. Optimus searched for the source of the voice, and found it behind him.

"What is it?" he asked curiously. Rhinox grinned as if he were sharing a secret with no one.

"It's everything . . . and nothing at all," Rhinox said in a vague tone.

"Slag," thought Optimus disgustedly. "He's in a philosophical mood. I hate those."

"Just tell me what it is, Rhinox." He had been feeling slightly irritable lately, and it seemed to him now that if Rhinox played any games with him, he would be forced to become just a little angry and rip his chips out.

Rhinox sighed, looking like Optimus had stolen his candy. "Well, to put it bluntly, it'll make us six new Maximals."

PREDACONS:

Blackarachnia looked at her handiwork, impressed at her first effort. "This should win me a month on Megatron's good side," she thought to herself. At that moment, Tarantulas sauntered in.

"Is this your futile attempt to give Megatron a sucking up Birthday present?" he asked with a sneer. Blackarachnia frowned.

"I don't see you baking any energon cakes bigger than this one, Hairy," she growled in an annoyed tone. It had taken her an hour to bribe Terrorsaur into telling how to bake an energon cake, (she wasn't quite sure why he knew, but he did) another half hour to convince Inferno and Scorponok that it wasn't a bomb she was going to use to kill Megatron, and another twenty minutes to get Waspinator to believe that she would bake him a small cake with whatever was left over so he would leave her alone. She certainly didn't need Tarantulas telling her it was insignificant and she told him so.

Tarantulas snickered in exactly the way he knew Blackarachnia hated him to snicker, and said, "Perhaps you'd like to see my little gift for our leader's Birthday?" She said as a matter of fact she would and he led her to his non-secret workshop. Inside was a huge metal network of pipes, wires, rods, tubes, and poles.

"What is it?" Blackarachnia asked curiously.

Tarantulas snickered that annoying snicker again and proclaimed proudly, "I, Tarantulas, have rebuilt the Transmutor as a Birthday present for Megatron!" Blackarachnia didn't grasp the significance of this right away, seeing as Megatron had walked around the base for days ranting about how he never wanted to see or hear about another such machine again.

"I don't exactly see why Megatron is going to kiss your feet for this," she said.

"He'll be kissing my feet, you webless fool, because instead of changing Maximals to Predacons, my Transmutor has the ability to strip a Maximal of their beast mode and store the DNA in its memory banks. It can also change a Predacon's beast mode into anything organic as many times as he or she wants!"

Blackarachnia looked at the larger spider suspiciously. "All right then," she said with a smile. "Let's test it out...on you." Tarantulas shifted uncomfortably as if trying to find his courage. After a moment, he seemed to locate it and walked stiffly up onto the Transmutor's main platform.

"There should already be a beast form selected, Blackarachnia," he told her as she began to set the controls.

"Why so there is," she said in a disappointed tone. Tarantulas made a face as best he could, not noticing that she was changing it anyway. She punched a few keys and a beam of purple light shot out of the Transmutor s generators. But instead of changing into a bat as Tarantulas had expected to, he discovered the beam had been set to a frequency identical to a cutting laser and he was sliced to pieces in seconds.

Blackarachnia let out a wicked cackle as she cleared the shattered spider's body off the pad. "Now," she thought to herself, "I can at last rid myself of this accursed spider shell that Tarantulas put me in!" She set the controls to the desired perimeters, and stepped onto the platform. The purple light fired again, and engulfed Blackarachnia. She screamed with the pain of having her beast form stripped off her body, then felt raw power replace the pain as she began to grow.

MAXIMALS:

The shock of Rhinox's announcement left Optimus reeling. "What do you mean, 'Make six Maximals' ?" he asked the rhinoceros. Rhinox gave him a baleful look, as if what he meant should have been perfectly obvious.

"I mean exactly what I said, Optimus," he said, switching the balefulness in his look to his tone. "This machine can create a unique spark, make a protoform, give it a beast mode, and bring it to life!" Optimus stared at him for a moment as if trying to decide whether or not he was serious.

Finally, he said, "Let's go to the bridge and discuss this. I believe you fully, but I want to talk about beast forms. Now, do you think..." His voice faded as they left the room.

Neither of them knew it, but Chitter had been hanging on the ceiling through their whole conversation and he was intrigued by the idea of being able to choose what the protoform's personality and beast form would be like. He transformed and dropped down from the ceiling and walked over to the controls. He examined them closely and tapped a few buttons, not really knowing what he was doing. He waited for a minute, then waited some more. He began to grow impatient and started pacing. Finally, he walked back over to the display of buttons and switches and gave several of the buttons a solid whack with his fist. The machine gave a 'Bleep' and a mechanical voice said, "Beast mode selected. Beginning replication."

Chitter reeled backwards in surprised. He hadn't meant to start the machine up, just program the beast form to be another chipmunk, or maybe a squirrel. He had no more time to think about what to do before the door opened and all the other Maximals stomped in, buzzing with excitement about the prospect of six new Maximals all at once. They all stared at the bewildered rodent.

"Uh," he stuttered but that was as far as he got. The gel in the tank glowed a with blinding white light, identical to the light that came out of a stasis pod when the protoform came on-line. There was a loud rumbling, like a giant was pounding on a drum with a rubber mallet. After a moment, the light faded. Everyone could see the brown shape struggling to make its way out of the clear jelly that was holding it. At last, it broke its way out of the tank and flopped onto the floor. It was a brown rabbit with a white tail, slightly larger than Rattrap. Optimus and Rhinox chuckled, knowing that one Maximal was almost always good as any other. Cheetor proclaimed loudly that it would be "Ultra gear!" to have a rabbit around the base. Airazor smiled warmly at the prospect. Rattrap gave an amused snort. Dinobot screamed.

PREDACONS:

When Waspinator discovered Blackarachnia's transformation, he didn't immediately recognize her. "Didn't immediately recognize her" as in deciding she was Maximal spy and thinking destroying or capturing her would be a wonderful Birthday present for Megatron.

The newly reshaped Blackarachnia glared at the foolish bug from her new saurian eyes. She was quite pleased with her new body even though she hadn't even gone into battle mode yet.

She decided now might be a good time to transform though, considering that if she didn't, the crazed wasp would soon scrap her. She hadn't thought about a new name yet, but she didn't think "Blackarachnia" would fit her saurian body. She made one up on the spur of the moment, changed her activation code, and reared up on her back legs. It felt rather strange to only have four legs, but she liked it.

"Dimetridax, Terrorize!" she shrieked, surprised at the power of her voice. Her Dimetridon form seemed to split down the middle as she stood, for the first time, in a body bigger than Inferno s. Her left arm had broken into five long shards of metal, and she found she could move and flex them like they had joints. She was snapped from her thoughts as Waspinator unloaded six missiles into her chest.

"Back off, bug!"she hissed, firing a bolt of raw power from her eyes into a shocked Waspinator s face. His head blew off his shoulders and disintegrated. She impaled his body, which was still standing despite its head's departure. It dangled on her claws for a moment, then crashed to the floor. She let out a maniacal laugh, and went off in search of Megatron to wish him a Happy Birthday.

MAXIMALS:

Dinobot screamed. The noise seemed to startle the rabbit on the floor, whose fur was still damp from the tank. It looked up and around. Its eyes landed on Airazor who was in beast mode. Then they traveled to Cheetor, then to Tigatron, Dinobot, then Rattrap. Chitter, who had vacated the ground, watched from the ceiling and the rabbit didn't see him. It began to quiver and shake as if it were going to have a spasm. Then, with a scream of mortal terror, it began to run in circles shouting, "Predators, predators! Runrunrunrun! Aaaaaaahhhhgggg! Run!" And with another scream, it did just that. It was off like a shot down the hall.

"I'll catch it!" Cheetor hooted, thrilled at the idea of a chase. A nanosecond later, he too had vanished down the corridor. Dinobot let out a roar of annoyance. Optimus gave him a solemn stare as if to ask, "What's eating you?" Dinobot gave Optimus an equally solemn stare, as trying to convey to him that he was the universe s biggest fool.

"Our wonderful new Maximal is a rabbit! Doesn't that just bother you," and he held up two fingers close together, "just a little?"

Optimus glowered at him for a moment, then turned to race after Cheetor. Before he could, however, a cacophony of alarms and whirling red lights went off. "Predacon attack!" Optimus shouted.

PREDACONS:

Dimetridax had scoured the base for Megatron and any others she could find, and wasn't t pleased with the result of her efforts. All she had to show for an hour s worth of searching was a note that read:

Blackarachnia, Tarantulas, and Waspinator,
Feeling ridiculously lucky. Went to raid Maximal base. Have a birthday present for me when I return, or you are scrap. If not back in three megacycles, Waspinator is new leader.
Screams and Torment,
Megatron

Dimetridax read this, and went back to Tarantulas's lab. She gathered his remains and tossed them in the CR chamber. Then, after a moment's consideration, she put her foot in the energon cake. She had a feeling Megatron would have a hard time scrapping her for not having a present.