Code of Honor
Part 1: Transtermite
Chapter 3
By: Master Solo

“I am Rampage.”

“Rampage.”  Transtermite would have nodded if she could as she mimicked and at the same time acknowledged her friend.

A whooshing sound caught Rampage’s attention and he turned to see a holo-projection of Megatron.  First, it was half of his spark, and now the tyrant was stealing his Transtermite?

“Don’t forget, I have your spark, Rampage.”  Megatron gloated and then went on to observe.  “It has power, but does it have a brain?  You, what is your name?”

“Y…”

“Transtermite.”  Rampage whispered into the termite’s ears before she could offend Megatron with her mimicry.

“Transtermite.”  Megatron groaned in disgust.  “A strange and ugly name for an ugly creature, but it will do.  I wonder, what can it turn into?    Let’s see, shall we?  Rampage, transform into vehicle mode and then robot mode!”

Rampage hesitated, but a slight squeeze on his spark and a glance at Transtermite, an apparent sharer of his emptiness and pain, prompted otherwise.    He groaned.  “Vehicle mode.”

Transtermite could not help but feel fortunate as she automatically repeated after her red friend and transformed into a train. 

“Hmm…  Still an ugly thing, but an improvement over the beast mode.”  Megatron examined.

“Terrorize!”  Rampage then shouted and returned to robot mode.  The termite mimicked again, but this time, sparks flew and gears began to shift with the greatest amount of difficulty.  Then everything stopped.

“Try harder; you must do this.  Say ‘Transtermite, terrorize’!”  Rampage masked his desperation with a begging and yet comforting tone, for he was not about to appear weak in front of Megatron or have the closest thing he had to a companion be torn from him.  The termite mimicked again, but remained the same.

“This thing cannot even transform!  It is useless!”  Megatron commented after a second failed attempt to transform into robot mode.

“No!”  Rampage desperately screamed, thrusting his head forward and his hands back.

“My, my.  What a short memory we have?”  Megatron showed Rampage the box again.  He squeezed the box and pain erupted throughout Rampage’s circuits, but he ate the pain and stood to intervene.

“It’s hasty to waste so much power.  Give it a chance to prove itself.  I will help.”  Rampage pleaded as he struggled to rise from his agonizing knee.

“Very well, one chance.”  Megatron then turned to Transtermite.  “Bring the Maximals invading our territory to me.”  With those words, Megatron’s head disappeared, leaving Rampage and Transtermite alone.

“Maximals… to me.”  Transtermite could not identify her emotions, but she wanted to know why the purple one always told her friend what to do and why her friend waited, suffered, and then obeyed.  She also did not know why the purple face showed Transtermite her worthlessness and then started to order her around the way he did her red, eight-legged friend?  How did that purple guy come to be who he was?  Where did that purple head go?  Transtermite did not know what her emotions were, but she did know that they drove her to gnash her ‘teeth’ and clench her jaw apparatus.

“Let’s go.”  Rampage put a hand on the train-like bot’s ‘shoulder’ and began to escort her to the place where they left the Maximals.  “For now, he is our master, but one day, we will break free of his oppression.”

“Oppression.”  Transtermite repeated.  It did not hit the bull’s eye in her thoughts, but it was close enough to temporarily satisfy her.

“Rattrap, Dinobot, and Cheetor will return to base and fill Rhinox in.  Silverbolt and I will track this new life.”  Optimus ordered.  He asked, turning to the fuzor.  “Are you up to it?”

“Absolutely, and thank you.”  Silverbolt nodded.

“We will cover more ground if we split up, but stay in touch.”  Optimus commanded and Silverbolt, in reply, nodded.  Optimus then transformed into vehicle mode and the two flyers took off in opposite directions.

A blast rocked the earth, shaking Dinobot off of Rattrap, who was carrying the other Maximal home in his vehicle mode.

“Jumping gyros, what the pit is that?”  Cheetor reduced his speed to a hover as his eyes widened and his jaw dropped.

When the dust storm that the blast had incited cleared, the Maximals spotted Rampage and Transtermite, both in vehicle mode, at the center of the disturbance.

“Create another dust storm.  I’ll finish these Maximals off.”  Rampage told the train.

“Dust storm… finish these Maximals off.”  Transtermite mindlessly repeated and her body began to relocate the local soil at an impossible pace, as if some internal mechanism recognized the first words as a command.  A blast illuminated the brown storm and Cheetor could hear metal clanking, various weapons firing, and gears moving.  The dust lit up a second time, and Cheetor followed his instinct to move.  When the dust cleared again, none of the other transformers were in Cheetor’s sight.

“Cheetor to Bigbot.”  The transmetal cheetah hit the comm.

“This is Optimus, what is it, Cheetor?”

“Crab legs turned that bug into a baddie and they got away with Dinobot and Rattrap!”

“Where did they go?”

“I’m not sure, Bigbot.”

“Return to base and fill Rhinox in.  Silverbolt and I will meet you there.”

“Understood, Bigbot.”

As Transtermite lugged an unconscious Rattrap by his tail, she wondered why Rampage had to be so cruel and destructive.  The rat did not hurt her until Rampage’s cannonfire incited a shot.  The termite was left no time to wonder when her red, eight-legged friend, who introduced himself as Rampage.

“We’re here.”  Rampage announced as the two Predacons and the two prisoners arrived outside the Predacon base.

“Ah yessss.  The traitor and the rat.  You did better than I thought.”  Megatron announced over the comm.

“You speak too soon, Megatron.”  Dinobot surprised the Predacons by transforming into robot mode, driving his sword into Rampage’s back, and then leaping off of the crab that took him prisoner.

“NOOO!”  Megatron growled and then ordered all Predacons to attack.  Rattrap awoke to the booming orders and transformed to join the other Maximal in battle and escape.

“Thinkin’ of goin’ back to Megs again, Chopperface?”  Rattrap snickered as he turned the train upside down with a flick of his tail. 

Everything is as pathetic as it ever was, especially Megatron.  Dinobot clenched his fists but resisted his urge to grab the rat by the cuff of his neck because of the presence of Predacons.  How dared that vermin say such thing?  His deeds might have been somewhat mitigated, but even the sight of the base reminded him of his terrible betrayal of his honor and his people.  Dinobot forced his anger to subside and turned his attention to eliminating the autoguns with his jade eyebeams.

“Doesn’t matter the answer, cuz you’re not gonna live to find that out.”  Dinobot and Rattrap both turned to see Quickstrike, Megatron and Waspinator marching out of the Predacon base.

“We’ll see about that.”  Optimus, Silverbolt, and Cheetor appeared in the sky side by side with weapons trained on the Predacons.

“Stand away, villain!”  Silverbolt fired a wing missile in warning.

“Very well, I have my new soldier, yessss.  Predacons, retreat!”  Megatron grinned.

“My queen!”  The newly repaired Inferno pointed to something on a scanner and called for his leader.

Queen?  Was Transtermite a royal servant of some court?  The person to whom the ant referred to as ‘queen’ looked like a male.  Perhaps Transtermite was living in a matriarchal kingdom under a rare, male ruler?  Regardless of her thoughts, the termite repeated after the red ant.  When the words flowed out of Transtermite’s mouth, they sounded surprisingly right to her termite instincts.

“Inferno, Transtermite, get out of my sight!”  Megatron roared.  Having one Predacon call him a woman was torture enough, but two was over his threshold.

“At once, Royalty.”  As Inferno bowed, he gave the new Predacon a sidelong glance.  For once, another member of the colony had given the royalty due respect, and for some strange reason, the queen threw both bugs out.  Perhaps, at some point, he should speak to this true fellow soldier about their queen and gain some insight on the irrational leader of the colony.

“I knew this bug’s trouble.”  Blackarachnia, who was leaning against a rail in robot mode, mumbled but was loud enough for Transtermite to hear and mimic.  The spider’s optics narrowed as she devised a plan to wreak her revenge on the bug for the insulting imitation.

“What in the tarnation?  Who the hell is this?”  Quickstrike clamored into the scene when he heard Blackarachnia’s words repeated.  The bug repeated the words, and Quickstrike’s anger and annoyance began to match those of Megatron and Blackarachnia’s.

End of Part 1

Wow.  It amazes me how much I can mutilate a TV episode just by keeping one of my favorite characters alive.