In another part of the forest...

[Airazor]

In another part of the forest, far enough away from Firebolt that the other female's music won't scare off the animals, Airazor perches in a tree overlooking a decent sized meadow. However, she's not relaxing. Instead, her muscle cables are tensed, ready to go into action at the slightest hint of command from her CPU. Her keen eyesight and hearing are dialed up, searching.

Since the energy needed for the whole mix-matched group of Autobots and Maximals is in short supply, Airazor is taking herself off the list of those who need it by using her beast mode's organic converters for energy instead. It's nothing new for her. She'd done it once or twice on extended missions, and that was the sole source of energy for her and Tigatron during their trip around the planet.

So she waits for her prey. A decent sized grazer would do, the local equivalent to a deer.

Over there! The bushes on the edge of the meadow rattle and shake as something moves in them...

[Rattrap]

Why is Rattrap out wandering the woods? Well, it's in the script, for one. For another, scrounging around out here for something to eat reduces his chances of running into Grimlock. Primus, but is that one screwy dino. Did nobody ever think to people-train him?

"What is it wit' reptiles, anyway?" grumbles the rat as he scuttles along the forest floor. No, that thing there tastes worse than burnt oil – found that out the hard way – and this one sent his filters into fits when he tried it. Pass, thanks all the same. "I dunno which is worse, da one who tries t' kill me all da time, or da one who can step on me!" He pauses to sniff something that looks promising. Hoo, never mind. Smells worse than he does. "I swear, evah since I signed on wit' Primal, it's just been one thing after anothah…."

After a while, he falls quiet. It's hard to gripe and stuff his furry little face at the same time, and the energy boost is more important than the catharsis right now. He could be dining worse, really, he decides as he works his way through the underbrush and pulls off some largish berryish things – he never paid much attention to plant taxonomy, so sue him – as he trundles along. He's just gulping down the last mouthful as he peers from the bushes into a big clearing.

This is not the grazer you are looking for.

[Airazor]

Airazor's swooping down as soon as a head sticks out of the bushes, even before her processor has a chance to realize exactly what it is she's coming down on. However, it's only a moment before the animal clicks as someone she knows and she squawks in surprise.

"Rattrap!" She flares her wings and twists to the side to abort the attack and transforms to kill off more speed before landing on her feet in front of her fellow Maximal. "What are you doing here?"

[Rattrap]

That is a large bird swooping down on Rattrap as he starts into the clearing. And that is an unmanly gasp coming out of Rattrap as he scrambles back for cover. When the bird misses, he turns and takes the opportunity to shake a little pink fist at his would-be assailant.

"Whaddaya think you're doin', ya crazy slaggin'– Airazah?!" Frowning, Rattrap ambles out and rears up on his hind legs, resting one forepaw on his side and pointing at her with the other. "Whadda you mean, what am I doin' heah?" he demands, not angry, but annoyed. And a little spooked. "What're you doin' swoopin' on me like dat? Do I look like a Pred t' you or somethin'? 'Cause I'm pretty sure I reset my emblem a few solar cycles ago."

[Airazor]

Airazor shrugs. "I was hunting." She doesn't need to explain more than that, really. She tilts her head as she looks at him. "What was going on at the time you were taken from?"

[Rattrap]

Like slag she doesn't need to explain more than that!

"Ya coulda taken my head off," grouses Rattrap, whiskers twitching. "At least Chopperface had an excuse, dat slaggin' turncoat…." He stops and gives Airazor a narrow-eyed look. "Or, what, are you some new Pred who jumped ship, too?" It figures he'd get stuck with a Predacon no matter which way he goes. What'd he do to deserve this, anyway? Is this revenge for those foul mushrooms he hid in Dinobot's quarters?

That's it. If he gets back to the Axalon alive, no more pranks on Dinobot for a whole deca-cycle. Honest. Provided the lizard doesn't throttle him first.

"Eh?" Rattrap blinks curiously up at Airazor, then his whiskers twitch again in irritation. She's taller in robot mode than he thought she'd be. Time for something of a height boost. "Rattrap – Maximise!" and he unfolds vertically.

…Okay, so it isn't really that much of a growth spurt. It's enough that he only has to tilt his head up a little to avoid staring at her torso plate or the sharp eyes of her beast mode there staring back at him.

"What was goin' on?" He rubs the back of his head in a fleeting moment of consternation. "Ehh… it's somethin' of a story, if ya don't know most of it already," he says with a bit of a shrug and a slight wave of one hand. "Let's just say it involved radio problems, everybody yellin', and me puttin' my skidplate on da line goin' undercovah in Pred territory t' get things figured out. And if I hadn't passed out and ended up heah, I'd have done exactly dat."

He'd almost rather it was one of Tarantulas' cockamamie traps than Random Mysterious Unknown Force of the Week. The alien probe thing was bad enough, now this, whatever it is?

[Airazor]

"I was moving before I saw it was you." She gives him an amused look. "Well, my pod did come down in Predacon territory. However, Rhinox and Cheetor reached it before the Predacons did. There was a lot of energon radiation in that area, and the stasis lock chip had been damaged in the crash. Rhinox used Cheetor's, then Cheetor kep the Predacons off of Rhinox's back while he performed repairs needed to keep me online and able to scan a beast mode."

She nods as he describes what had been happening. "Ah. I think I heard about that... Right around when Blackarachnia's pod crashed, correct?"

[Rattrap]

"Then maybe y'oughtta start lookin' before ya start movin'." Sheesh. Kids these days.

Rattrap listens while Airazor spins her story, occasionally tilting his head to one side or the other as he shifts his weight to a more comfortable stance and crosses his arms. The whole thing makes plenty of sense while still being out there enough to work. Stasis pods never seem to come down anywhere easily accessible or convenient for the Maximals to reach. Leave it to Rhinox to go to that length for one.

"Heh… yeah, dat sounds like Rhinox, alright," he murmurs with a knowing smirk. He kinda misses the big guy all of a sudden. He snaps out of it quickly, though; the last thing he needs is to start getting all mushy. He uncrosses his arms and moves his hands to his hips, nodding. "Dat's right," he answers Airazor with a sour look on his face. "And speakin' of da spider, she's on dis mudball, too." As Rattrap knows all too well.

[Airazor]

Airazor frowns at that, then shakes her head with a sigh. "Better Blackarachnia than most of the other Predacons. She'd be willing to work with us if it she had to to save her own hide."

Airazor pauses, shifting her weight a bit restlessly. "Look, do you want to know what happens between the time you were taken and when I was?"

[Rattrap]

Better than other Preds? As far as Rattrap is concerned, all Predacons are bad news. Some are just a little easier to handle and he's not sure he'd count Blackarachnia in that particular group–

Whoa, what? Work with the Maximals?!

Rattrap's jaw clacks open and hangs there. Not at the idea of a Pred willing to do that if it'll save her own skidplate, no. Not that he'd work with the Preds unless he had to, but he's done plenty in the past for his own sake that could – and occasionally does – make even Rhinox shake his head. No, Rattrap's flummoxed by the idea that the Maximals would willingly work with the spider.

"Did everybody drink da special fuel dat day or somethin'?" he demands when he gets his voice working again.

[Airazor]

"It's part of a much longer story." Here Airazor pauses so Rattrap can settle if he wants to.

"You know the aliens, right? Well... You're in for more trouble with them when you go back. First there was a flying island that enforced a ceasefire with a powerful weapon and had deadly boobytraps all over it. Blackarachnia had taken control over it and was about to destroy the base before Tigatron managed to destroy the mechanism that kept the island afloat. The destruction of the island triggered for a signal to be sent to the aliens. They eventually responded..." Here she pauses, her gaze distant.

[Rattrap]

"Oh, a longer story." Rattrap lifts his hands in an exasperated shrug, but his tone is resigned. Maybe even patient. "Arright, I know I'm gonna hate dis, but lay it on me."

And lay it on Airazor does. Pretty slagging thick, too. If it hadn't been for the floating mountain Terrorsaur got a buzz from – and Rattrap all too happily blew to little pieces – Airazor would've lost the spy right at 'flying island'. But he's seen the floating mountain and he's dealt with that alien… thing at the Standing Stones, so it isn't that hard to follow her story. He wishes it was, but it isn't.

"Maaaan… I knew dat thing would be bad news," he mutters, slowly shaking his head. Finally, he looks back up at Airazor, one brow ridge significantly higher than the other. "Dey responded…? I don't like da sound o' dat." He suspects he's going to like the facts of it even less than he likes the sound.

[Airazor]

Airazor shakes her head. "It wasn't good. Tigatron noted an anomaly and reported it back to base. Optimus went out to investigate, but Megatron intercepted him, calling for a truce. Optimus accepted and came back to send us to distract Megatron while Tigatron slipped in and looked for what had Megatron so worried. He discovered that Megatron had taken a golden disk from the alien anomaly, and had decoded it. The aliens were on their way..."

Airazor shifts on her feet for a moment. "A bit after that, Rhinox picked up an alien signal and we were the closest. When we arrived we found a stone circle, and at the center was a field generator that was about to activate. It knocked me offline and you out of the circle...then created a kind of organic-based structure around the stone circles. While I was trapped inside, the aliens scanned me. I'm not too sure how long I was in there or the specifics...my memory of it is pretty fuzzy.

"Eventually Optimus and some of the Predacons arrived, including Megatron. You and them managed to find a way in, however Optimus stayed inside while you and I escaped and the exit closed after us. The aliens scanned Optimus and spoke to him about something... And it was at that time that Megatron decided to end the truce.

"We took care of the Predacons and the structure started to glow...Then Optimus blasted out of it, saying that the aliens had called for a termination sequence. The three of us flew back to base as one of the moons began to change... It was turning into a device to destroy the planet.

"We met up with Tigatron and Cheetor coming back from their patrol just outside the base. However, when we entered we found Rhinox and Dinobot offline and webbed to the ceiling of the command center. The spiders and Inferno had managed to make it into the base, but when we searched we only found Blackarachnia still online. Tarantulas was burnt crisp and Inferno was in pieces. However, Blackarachnia had just finished converting one of the spare pods into a transwarp-capable space vessel.

"We called Optimus to come take a look at it, and he made the decision that he would use it to destroy the alien machine with a transwarp explosion. Blackarachnia pointed out that the pod's controls would only respond to her, and Optimus explained to her that the only chance for any of us to survive-including her- was if she changed the codes so that he could fly it. She did while we were watching, and Optimus took it up to the alien machine while we watched and waited in the control room. The plan was for him to set the detonation sequence then bail out of the pod just before it reached the machine. The pod exploded and destroyed the machine...and he hadn't bailed." Airazor shuts off her optics, her voice choking a bit on remembered grief.

[Rattrap]

Rattrap listens to the rest of the story with a faint grimace, doing Airazor the courtesy of remaining mostly silent. Hey, she doesn't seem so bad, except for the swooping on him part… and yeah, there's a bit of rub-off when it comes to Rhinox. Rattrap's allowing himself that little bit of sentimentality, but he ain't about to go telling everybody. There's no way he can remain silent when she mentions the bogus truce.

"A truce. Feh! He's da only one who'd believe dat load o' scrap," he mutters in disbelief of Primal. Predacons don't call truces. Predacons lie. And if Rattrap was along for all of this, why wasn't he reminding Optimus just how stupid it was to believe Megatron? Clearly, getting blasted by that alien doohickey knocked all the sense out of him, because that's the only explanation Rattrap can come up with for his lack of protest. …Okay, well, that or Airazor just doesn't remember it. How she could forget it is another matter.

And it sounds like Blackarachnia's a regular tech-head, too. That's just great. She takes after her wacky nutjob boyfriend. Rattrap frowns in disgust; he should've blasted her in the mines while he had the chance. Now she's gonna make herself a big pain in everyone's collective skidplate, and who's gonna have to deal with her? Yeah, Rattrap, that's who. It's still better than a reckless charge headlong into life-threatening danger.

"Sounds like da stupidly heroic kinda thing da boss monkey would do–" Rattrap's vocal circuits freeze up when Airazor's last few words sink in and her aggrieved tone hits him. He stares at her silently for almost a full cycle. "Optimus… didn't bail out…?" he finally echoes, just a few decibels above a dry whisper. Another few nano-kliks and his expression tightens into a bitter scowl, fists clenching. Slag it all, Optimus – what's the point of saving everyone if you go and get yourself blown up? Just what're the Maximals supposed to do? Follow Rattrap some more?

No. No way. Rattrap knows how well that can work out – it won't. He was alright knowing they'd get Optimus back at the Standing Stones. He is not about to try leading them indefinitely. He isn't– They need Optimus.

"…Dat figures," mumbles the spy, annoyance too thick to be sincere. Any thinner and the pain will leak through.

[Airazor]

Airazor gives him a smile at his comments about the truce. "It didn't stop the fighting. It just meant we had to get...creative with how we dealt with them."

Her optics dim. As hard as Optimus' death was, his return was equally shocking. But she's not quite there in the tale yet.

"The explosion resulted in a unique quantum surge. It knocked everyone offline. When we woke up, you and Cheetor had been reformated into what was quickly dubbed 'transmetals'. Your beast modes became metalic as well, and you each got an alternate mode of transportation. In beast mode, wheels could come down and replace your legs, and jets popped up from Cheetor's side for flight. We soon found out Megatron and Tarantulas were altered similarly.

"After Megatron came to retrieve his troops and demonstrate his new firepower, we found that the quantum surge had knocked the stasis pods out of their orbit, scattering them across the planet. Tigatron and I left on a journey to find those pods beyond the scanners' reach. We had minimal contact with the base, due to distance and interference. However, on our first report in... ...Optimus answered our transmission."