21.April.07

Prologue: Ignition

By: Arachnid Champion

Author’s note: This episode takes place sometime between The Spark and The Trigger.  The only major difference in the series so far is that Fallen Comrades never happened.  So, no Tigatron.

What if Optimus had been the Queen? Prologue to a series.

It had happened twice before in the Beast Wars.  Now it happened again.  A stasis pod’s orbit began to decay and the pod plunged to Earth.

Deep underground something noticed.  Something with a computer.

"Stasis pod landfall.  Unit 127-Epsilon," said the computer in an emotionless female voice.

"A stasis pod?  Bah… wait.  127-Epsilon?!"

"Affirmative."

"Blast!" the occupant of the lair shouted.  "Of all the stasis pods to fall now… and there’s no way I can retrieve it without alerting the Beast Warriors to my presence."

"Affirmative."

The occupant glared at the computer.

"Well, keep an eye on it," he said finally.  He brought up his unit scanner and his spark lifted slightly.

Judging from relative unit positions, it seems as though my… ally will end up as a Maximal after all.  That’s good.   It will save me trouble in the future.

At the Axalon Rhinox’s computer began to beep.

"Incoming stasis pod!" he called to Optimus Primal and Rattrap, the other two in the Axalon’s command room.  "Looks like… it’s heading toward Grid Helix."

"Close to Predacon ground," sighed Optimus.  "But, we need to try for it anyway.  Isn’t Airazor near there?"

"Yeah."

"Good.  I’ll meet her there.  Feel like coming Rattrap?"

"Ehh.  I got nutin’ better to do," the rat replied.

Meanwhile, aboard the Darksyde the monitor duty-bound Scorponok picked up on the falling stasis pod as well.  He of course alerted Megatron.

"Terrorsaur, Waspinator, fly out there and claim that pod.  Waspinator, take Blackarachnia with you," the Predacon leader ordered.  "The balance of power is even for now, but with luck, a new Predacon may be just the thing we need to tip that balance and win the Beast Wars!  Oh, and if you can’t convert the Maximal into a Predacon, then do your best to retrieve the pod at least."

The two fliers saluted and flew away to look for Blackarachnia.

"And since when have we ever had luck?" Terrorsaur muttered, but not too loudly.

Eventually finding Blackarachnia in her quarters, the party flew off to claim the pod for itself.

In Grid Helix, the pod made a smooth landing, a nearly unheard of thing for a stasis pod to do.  The scanning and replication process eventually began, the light from the device washing over a small colony of fire ants nearby.

Underground, the computer began to give its warning signal again.

"What now?" the owner groaned, and walked over to it.

"127-Epsilon obedience program in jeopardy."

"Why?!"

"Unknown."

"Slag.  Find out why."

"Affirmative."

The lair’s occupant waited while the computer searched its archives for a possible cause.  Finally, the word "Done" came from the machine.

"What is it?"

"127-Epsilon has naturally strong beast instincts.  The obedience program has naturally fused into them."

"That’s odd.  What is Epsilon’s beast mode?"

The computer told him.

"Ah.  Well, this will be interesting to watch, certainly…."

As he said this, the pod opened, and an 8-foot-long fire ant climbed out of it.

Airazor arrived at Grid Helix, and upon doing so, commenced her scan for the stasis pod.  To her surprise, she saw not only the stasis pod, but an ant that was far too large to be natural.

"Looks like the new Maximal’s already online," she observed, as she flew down.

On the ground, the ant happened to look up and see Airazor’s descent.

"Ahh!  An invader of the colony comes from the air!  Inferno, maximize!"

Airazor stopped her descent as Inferno flew up to meet her.  He’s…quick, she mentally observed.  Most ‘bots wouldn’t wake up that fast, especially if they came out on their own.

"As Cheetor would say," she began, feeling mildly embarrassed, but continuing anyway, "that flight mode is ultra gear!  I’m Airazor.  Who’re you?"

"Defender of the colony," Inferno replied.  "And you are an invader!"  With that, he fired a plasma burst at her.  Airazor, shocked, was nevertheless able to dodge.  As she did so, her astonishment turned into anger.

"You’re no Maximal!" she accused.

"Gah!  You dare doubt my loyalty to the colony?!  Burn!"  He then shot a burst of fire from his gun at her.

Now quite confused, Airazor dodged this as well.  "Wait!" she said.  "If you’re a Maximal, that means we’re--"

The second plasma burst caught Airazor in the chest.  Stunned, she fell from the sky.

"Destruction to all who threaten the colony!" proclaimed Inferno proudly, descending back to the stasis pod.  He began to march back and forth in front of it.

"Optimus to Airazor," came the Maximal leader’s voice over Airazor’s radio.  "Did you find the stasis pod?"

She shook her head to clear it, then replied, "The new Maximal’s out already, but something must be wrong with his logic circuits.  He attacked me… and won."

"Are you sure he’s not a Predacon?"

"No Preds are nearby.  I doubt they’d just leave him and the pod here."

"Unless it’s a trap of some kind, and the new soldier isn’t all that bright.  Rhinox, can you make anything out of this?"

"What was his beast mode?" came Rhinox’s voice over the radio.

"Some kind of ant, I think."

"Uh oh."

"What is it?" asked Optimus.

"I think that his beast mode is dominating his logic circuits.  He thinks he’s really an ant.  I don’t know what the colony could be, but… you said he knew he was a Maximal?"

"I accused him of not being one.  He said that I would burn for doubting his loyalty."

"So, the Maximals are other members of the colony, but he assumes that no foreign beings can be."

"All right," said Optimus.  "Watch out for any Predacons coming in, Airazor.  I’ll see if I can convince him we’re on the same side.  Optimus out."

Aboard Optimus’ back, Rattrap groaned.  "So, our new pal is a psycho who tried to slag one of his own team.  We’re all gonna die."

Meanwhile, back at the stasis pod, Inferno tirelessly continued to march back and forth.  That is, until a blast from Blackarachnia’s rocket launcher hit the ground right next to his foot.

"What?!  More invaders!"  He spun around and fired his own gun in the direction of the shot, but Waspinator, carrying Blackarachnia, dodged.  She dropped from his grip and fired another shot, this one hitting the stasis pod and making a hole in it.

"Wazzzpinator, terrorizzze!"

"Terrorsaur, terrorize!"

"Blast…" muttered Blackarachnia.  "Looks like the protoform is already a Maximal."

"Then slag him and get the pod!" screeched Terrorsaur, firing his shoulder cannons at Inferno.  These shots hit him in the ant head serving as his chest, but he merely fired back, and Terrorsaur was only able to dodge by performing a midair roll.

"Impressive…" mused Blackarachnia.  She considered loading her gun with the "special" rocket that she had developed earlier, but decided against it.  Instead, she fitted it with a Cyber venom dart and fired that at Inferno.  It hit him in the leg and began to take effect.  He dropped to one knee as his "muscles" began to weaken.  Just then she was hit in the side by a rocket.

Airazor had snuck around to flank the Predacons while they had been occupied battling Inferno, and now proceeded to take to the air, concentrating her fire on the enemy fliers.  However, both of them managed to dodge her shots.  Waspinator’s return fire missed completely, but Terrorsaur, firing with his optic lasers, struck her in the left wing.  She reeled, barely able to remain in the air.  Terrorsaur was preparing for another shot when a missile came from the sky, hitting him in the back.  He crashed, but got up again in time to dodge the next shot.

Optimus Primal and Rattrap had arrived at the site.  As Optimus landed, Rattrap transformed and fired a few shots from his own gun at the Predacons.

"Gah!" Terrorsaur squawked.  "Predacons, retreat!"

The three proceeded to do so.  Until….

"Hold it," said Blackarachnia.  "I may have a way to make something out of this…."

"What?  How?" asked Terrorsaur.

"With this."  Blackarachnia withdrew a rocket from her subspace pocket.  It resembled one of her ordinary ones, except that the tip was pronged by a ring of claws.

"This is something I came up with.  It inserts raw Energon into the target with the injection system and then explodes.  If I can use this on Optimus… we may be able to bring him down for good."

Meanwhile, Airazor had removed the dart from Inferno’s leg and he had gotten up again.

"Ahh!  Yet more invaders!"  He lifted his gun, scanning the Maximals, trying to see which one might fall most easily.

"Take it easy," said Optimus, who had converted to beast mode.  "We’re all on the same side here.  We’re Maximals, just like you."

"You… are servants of the same Royalty?  I recognize none of you as being of the colony."

Eesh, thought Rattrap.  Guy who can hold off three Preds, and he thinks we’re all… wait a minute….

"Well, around here for da Maximals…."  He jerked a thumb at Optimus.  "She’s da Royalty."

"What?" asked Inferno incredulously.

"What?" Optimus repeated.  "Rattrap--"

"It’s true, isn’t it?  Fearless leader and all that?  Airazor, you know it, right?"

"Well, I suppose…" said Airazor slowly.

"I’m no one’s… er…."

"Come on.  Boss Monkey equals Queen ta dis guy."

"I… all right, I guess I am then, but--"

Inferno was watching this conversation with bewilderment, which turned into shock.  "Ahh!" he cried, quickly saluting Optimus.  "I apologize for doubting you for an instant, my queen!"

"Well… that’s… all right.  What was your name again?"

"Inferno!"

"All right.  Thanks."  He turned to look at Rattrap, “We’ll talk about this later."

Just then, Blackarachnia’s "special rocket" whizzed by Inferno and Optimus, barely missing them.  Instead, it hit the stasis pod.  The injectors activated, and liquefied raw Energon entered the pod.

"What?!" shouted Inferno.  "An attack on the colony?!  Where is--nooo!"

For, at that moment, the rocket exploded, taking the pod with it.

"THE COLONY!" screamed Inferno in rage and despair.  "Whoever has done this shall BURN!"  He proceeded to charge the Predacons’ position.

"Uh oh," said Terrorsaur.  He shifted to beast mode and began flying away.

"Meep," agreed Waspinator, who did the same.

"Get back here, you idiots!" yelled Blackarachnia.  "Fly me out--ahhh!"

For Inferno had reached Blackarachnia and fired his flamethrower at her.  It was from too far away to do much damage, but it was still painful.  She returned fire with her machine guns, but they seemed to have no effect on Inferno.  He merely shot another stream of flame at her.  This time, it was from a much shorter distance, with correspondingly greater effects.  She tried to aim her rocket launcher, but aiming is a bit difficult when your "skin" is being scorched off.  Finally, she fell to the ground and the fire stopped.  Through now-fuzzy optics, she saw Inferno walk over to her and aim his flamethrower directly at her face.

"Now, destroyer of the colony, prepare to meet your end."

"Stop!"  Inferno, hearing this, looked up in surprise.

The other three Maximals were heading over to him.  It was Optimus who had told him to stop.

"Why?"

"It’s not the Maximal way to destroy downed foes."

Inferno seemed to struggle over this internally.  Finally, he burst out with, "But she destroyed the colony, my queen!"

"Be that as it may, we don’t kill the helpless."

"Besides," put in Rattrap.  "I don’t think that was the real colony.  The real colony’s where we live."

"…Very well, Royalty.  Are we leaving for the true colony, as the rodent said?"

"Yes."  He transformed to robot mode, and activated the Prime Jets.  Rattrap climbed on top of him, as usual.  Airazor went to beast mode.  The quartet took off.

"I apologize for attacking you earlier," said Inferno to Airazor.

"No harm done," she replied graciously.  "Well, not much."

Back at the Darksyde, Blackarachnia had finally arrived in Megatron’s command room, at the tyrant’s request.

"Ah, Miss Arachnia.  You seem… disheveled."

Scorponok chuckled sycophantically.  Blackarachnia glared at him, before turning the same glare on Megatron.

"You would not have enjoyed that fight any more than I did.  That new Maximal doesn’t seem to hold the concept of ‘mercy’ to heart the way the others do, and his weapons are… unpleasant."

"That’s unfortunate.  However, Terrorsaur and Waspinator have told me that you caused the attack by destroying the stasis pod.  Did I not ask you to retrieve it?"

"Well--"

"Get to the CR tank."

When Blackarachnia had left, Megatron settled back on his command chair.  It seemed as though the Maximals had gained a powerful new fighter, and one with apparently unswerving loyalty to Primal… this was a prize he would regret not catching.

"Any luck?" asked Optimus.  The Maximals were back at the Axalon, and Rhinox had just finished scanning Inferno’s processor.

"Not really.  If the overpowering ant instincts can ever be removed, it’ll take time.  The ordinary level of beast instinct seems to have fused with some kind of obedience programming installed in his stasis pod.  So now, he’s unswervingly loyal to his queen and his colony.  Thanks to Rattrap, those would be you and this base, so not everything about it is bad."

"I know… I just don’t like manipulating someone like this."

"It’s not manipulation.  It was his own choice from the start.  We’ll find some way to fix his programming eventually."

Below ground, in the lair, the occupant’s mood had improved.  Thanks to his rather extensive system of monitoring, scattered around this entire region, he had witnessed the fight where Inferno had shown his power.

"A very powerful warrior indeed," he mused.  "Hopefully, the time will soon come to place him where he belongs--at my side."

Suddenly, the occupant heard laughter coming from the computer.  The computer was laughing at him?  He spun around and saw that the laughter was not coming from the computer itself, but from the transparent metal chamber attached to it.  His optics narrowed.

"Oh, dear.  It looks like things aren’t quite going your way, are they?"

"They will be soon, Trinexx.  As you very well know, this is a minor setback.  127-Sigma will come and deal with Epsilon’s mishandled programming."

"You sound very confident.  You think that she’s reliable?" the unseen speaker chuckled.

"Our--my--mission counts on it.  Of course I made sure."

"You were sure about Alpha, too.  And look where that got you.  He’s completely out of your reach."

"Thrice-slagged Council.  You know that had nothing to do with me!"

There was another laugh from the unseen speaker.  "So desperate to prove yourself to me… you really are like a son."

"Do not ever call me that!"

"If you say so," came the tolerant reply.

The first occupant stalked away into the depths of his lair.  I will free myself from you someday, he thought.  And when that day comes… your suffering will be so exquisite.