*NOTE* The 'Predacons' mentioned here are not necessarily those of Beast Wars fame. They might eventually become them, or it could just be one big coincidence. Disclaimer: The Transformers, Autobots, Decepticons, Dinobot Island, and all Cybertronian, Nebulan and Human character names and personae used here are copyright Hasbro and their fellow companies. No attempt is being made to supersede this or any other copyright.

Ultra Magnus had a pain in the neck, and, for once, it didn't go by the name of 'Rodimus Prime'. A sniper had taken a pot shot at him as he'd been boarding Sky Lynx for the trip to Cybertron, aiming for his neural cluster. Sky Lynx, who was, Magnus had to admit, as quick at acting as he was at boasting, had swung his tail round sharply to both take the hit and knock Magnus clear- with the side effect of striking the City Commander hard in the back of the neck with the edge of his tail. Ultra Magnus remembered a moment in which he sincerely believed he'd been decapitated. With his neural cluster temporarily scrambled by the blow, it took five or ten minutes for him to associate the fact that his head was still attached to his body with the conclusion that he couldn't have been. By the time he recovered, the rest of his party had carried him on board the shuttle and they were en route through interplanetary space, leaving Sureshot and Cliffjumper to deal with the rogue sniper. Brainstorm had given him a quick check up during the journey, and ascertained that beyond a nagging pain and a bad temper, Magnus had suffered no ill effects. Well, apart from wandering concentration, of course, he admonished himself as he became aware of the other Autobots around the table looking at him curiously. He rubbed the back of his neck and looked across the golden surface at Optimus apologetically.

"Sorry, Prime... I spaced out a bit there. You were saying?" Prime sighed- an unnecessary habit in a machine, but one he'd observed to be very effective in wordlessly chastising the irritating habits of subordinates.

"I was asking if there'd been any sign of Decepticon activity on Earth." Magnus nodded his head and winced. Idiot.

"Assassination attempts and raids mostly. We've sighted all five Predacons... we've got Tantrum in custody at present after he tried to gatecrash a political summit, and a few Sweeps. No sign of Scourge, as far as I can tell. There's one called Morningstar who's a bit of a problem- he seems to be holding the group together, as far as Mirage can tell... incidentally, while he was on patrol he ran into Tracks."

"Not literally, I hope."

"Almost... Tracks had just got back from that tour of the Australian Outback he and Hound went on, and apparently he looked a complete mess." That drew some amused noises from around the table- although Highbrow looked rather blank. "Anyway, he'd heard some rumours about your return from Earth newscasts, and asked Mirage to pass on a message." Magnus grinned. "Says he's not surprised death kicked you out, with your bodywork. Oh, he did add, 'Sir'."

Optimus Prime folded his crimson arms on the golden table top and gave another heavy sigh, making 'eye' contact with the stencilled Autobot sigil there. A few chuckles came from round the table, along with an unrestrained snigger from Hot Rod. As his old troops had heard of his return, the messages had come pouring in from the survivors- polite notes of appreciation from most of the gestalt teams, who'd not really known him that well, the occasionally rather effusive tribute, a poem from Gears, of all people, and, from several quarters, rather ribald attempts at humour. Jazz and Blaster had got together to compose a rap song which contained several words- no, several verses- of ideas and language Daniel Witwicky was too young to hear, along the general theme of the pleased reaction of the Femmebot population of Cybertron to Prime's return for reasons which, for mechanoids like themselves, were either impossible, unnecessary, or at least highly impractical. After encountering Wheelie singing it, Arcee had gone after the two would be pop stars with a can of day-glo green spray paint, and the song had dropped out of circulation shortly afterwards.

"Thank you for that report, Commander," Prime sighed, cutting off Magnus' next words. "We'll deal with the Dinobot issue later, at the end of the meeting." He turned to Goldbug. "What is the Decepticon situation as a whole?"

The Autobots' diminutive espionage director shrugged.

"A mess?" he hazarded. "I know you're going to ask me where Galvatron is, and I'm going to have to give you the same answer as last time: I've no more idea than the Decepticons have. Soundwave seems to have taken charge on Charr, according to the reports my Micromaster teams there have gathered, but if there's been any word from anyone who was aboard Scorponok there, it's not been mentioned outside of top-level command hearings.

"What's Soundwave like as a leader?" Magnus asked.

"Simply put, he's not. Not a leader, anyway. He's a great organiser, and a pretty good commander. Trypticon's running like clockwork, he's even got them processing minerals from Charr- they're not making enough energon to fight on, but it's kept them alive, but there's no sense of ambition, no plan. Soundwave's a caretaker, keeping them in line until Big, Purple, and Loony comes home... if he ever does." Goldbug paused. "And there's some dissention about that." He looked at Magnus. "That group who've been causing trouble on Earth, they broke away from Soundwave entirely a couple of months ago. Razorclaw led it- I think he's trying to establish the Predacons as a separate faction or something similarly deranged. It's hard to tell who left with him- I mean, Decepticons don't encourage chatter about that kind of thing, so Roadhandler and the rest of my little band of infiltrators have been pretty much reduced to counting heads. If your interrogators can get anything useful out of Tantrum, then you'll have most of the intelligence division wanting to buy you chrome plating, Magnus."

"A quiet Galvatron worries me..." Optimus looked around the circular Council chamber broodingly, almost as though he expected the errant Decepticon Commander to burst in through one of the walls.

"Why not let me lead a search team?" Hot Rod asked. "Most of the Targetmasters are just kicking their heels and arguing with their Nebulans these days... if you'll authorise a mission we could do with the practice, Optimus- and it's not like a group of gunslingers are going to be much good with our other current problem.

"It's a good idea, Hot Rod." Prime steepled his fingers underneath his chin. "Just remember... at the moment the Decepticons aren't a threat. We're trying to find them, not drag them back into the war if they've left it peacefully." Hot Rod nodded, which Prime seemed to accept, albeit with a certain misgiving.

"And that talk of the 'other problem' brings us on to the Dinobots. I've recently had a rather confusingly phrased report from Perceptor on that subject. Ultra Magnus, I understand you brought Brainstorm with you from Earth?" Magnus signed his agreement with one hand rather than risk another nod. "Did he shed any further light on their situation?"

"Nothing much... I'm afraid both of him were rather preoccupied with some new academic paper from Quickmix on the prospect of further binary bonding. He did say that Grimlock seemed to swing between near rationality and pure beastliness, though." There was a slight pause. "'Beastliness' was his word, not mine, Goldbug, so stop making silly expressions behind your faceplate. What is it about relative peacetime that makes high-ranking Autobots behave with less maturity than your average Witwicky?"

"Ah, Spike, there you are." Prime said, looking over Magnus' shoulder and speaking in his most earnest tone, not missing a beat. Ultra Magnus almost jumped, then sighed.

"I'm sorry Optimus... I've had better days."

"Understood. Hmm, I think we'll turn two problems into one solution." Prime saw four faces (and five minds, remembering Gort and Highbrow's separateness) turn towards him in slight perplexment. Another non-sequitur. Considerably older than most of the mechanoids here, although he spoke the same version of Cybertronian as any of them, his thought processes occasionally moved on an entirely different- and obscure- plain. It was strikingly similar to the Dinobots own problem, in fact, as Perceptor described it, and while Autobot science worked to solve their neurological problems, someone with Magnus' patience, not to mention one of the few non-gestalt bodies capable of withstanding Dinobot temper tantrums long-term, could be exceedingly useful to calm them psychologically. There was another reason, of course. Although the City Commander would never allude to it directly, three of the last five assassination attempts had plainly been directed at his own person, and so putting Magnus out of the way, but still in Autobot territory, could only be an advantage.

"I'd like you to take a trip to Dinobot Island."

***

"I was once told," The Seeker said lazily, "That three atomic fission explosives, positioned at appropriate points around the Earth, and detonated simultaneously, could crack open the planet and destroy all life on it." His two companions in the small stealth hovercraft exchanged glances over their monitor screens. "Wildrider and I always wanted to try it, but Megatron always said no." Nobody bothered to respond to this. The Seeker, originally a turquoise hued individual, had had himself redecorated in black for after the original holder of that colour scheme had been dumped in space in 2005. Razorclaw, at the communications station rather than piloting simply because he preferred to let the Seeker burn out his optics on the view, realised with some amusement that he'd forgotten his pilot's name. Well, it was a standard joke about Strike Planes- forget this one, there'll be another one along in a minute. He wondered if that was what had made Starscream such a flagrant exhibitionist- the hope that if he strutted around enough, and made enough noise, people would stop thinking of him as 'another Seeker jet'. It had worked. Now people thought of him as 'another dead Seeker jet', thanks to Galvatron. Galvatron! A leader. Razorclaw stretched a tendon slightly. He was no Galvatron, he knew that. For a start, one corner of his cerebral circuitry remarked with some amusement, he was sane. For another, he would never inspire the same loyalty, the same devotion. True, his breakaway troops, his Predacons and the others who had joined them served him because their ideals coincided, because they agreed with his course, but he knew only too well that, unlike Galvatron, if he led them along a path with which they did not agree, they would fall apart into squabbling sub-factions in moments. That wasn't to say that Galvatron's actions were perfect- a lot of what he did had been counter-productive, energy-wasting and ultimately pointless, but at least the Decepticons had been a force to be reckoned with under his regime. None the less, Galvatron had been reknowned for going to tremendous pains and through schemes of great complexity which fell down at the last moment through simple error. It was rarely worth going to great effort for something simple, Razorclaw reflected, his own eyes half closed- unless, of course, it was the right sort of thing. The Sweep opposite him stirred in his seat.

%nbsp "Land ahead." The Sweep turned to the Seeker. "Or were you planning to tell us after we'd crashed into it?" The Seeker half turned, opened his mouth to deliver some scathing retort and then stopped, seeing the Sweep's expression. This one was dangerous. Not as intelligent as Scourge, perhaps, but a good second best.

%nbsp "Check co-ordinates, Morningstar," Razorclaw said levelly, expending the minimum energy possible. The Sweep did so.

%nbsp "Just like Laserbeak's records said, Commander Razorclaw. Dinobot Island." The Predacon leader nodded almost imperceptibly, then opened his eyes slightly wider as the comms screen in front of him pulsed with light, and cut out abruptly as the hovercraft's silent running automatics cut in. An Autobot scan-beam had grazed them- not enough to identify, but perhaps enough to alert. The ship settled on the waves, and began to sink. Razorclaw nodded to the Seeker. "Open the manual doors. We'll retrieve this craft later. We make our way to the island under our own power." The Seeker- Razorclaw persisted in thinking of him as Skywarp- nodded. "Did you know there's more variety of living creatures in the ocean than on the whole land mass of the planet?" he asked. Razorclaw and Morningstar just looked at him. With a shrug, the jet leant forward and turned a handle. A hatch sprang open, and a wall of water engulfed them.

Making a mental note to substantially improve the design of the ship's manual exit, Razorclaw recovered from the aqueous onslaught and pushed his way forward into the ocean. The Sweep was next, transforming to his vehicular form and slipping through the water with dynamic ease. Then came the Seeker, who, with his radio off and his mouth full of water, was mercifully unable to offer any more 'interesting' anecdotes about water pressure. Razorclaw 'swam' confidently and quickly, buoyed up by his natural flight ability and jet boosters in his feet, and crawled out on to the beach on hands and knees, transforming to lion mode without bothering to stand upright. He sniffed the air, resisting the urge from his implanted instinctual recreation circuitry to shake the water off his body. Much wildlife, warm and cold-blooded. And... in the distance, on the far side of the island, Autobots. He wished the rest of his team could be here. In his mind's eye he saw Predaking striding over the island, trampling Autobots and Dinobots alike into the ground... but that was not to be. Tantrum was a prisoner of those self-same Autobots, and Headstrong and the others were keeping the Terrorcons under control at their temporary base. Besides, he reminded himself, he was not here to fight Dinobots, but simply, and he unconsciously echoed the Prime Autobot in his assessment, kill two birds with one stone. He flexed his claws in the sand in satisfaction and padded into the jungle, his two larger- and distressingly clumsy- associates in his wake. Most efficient.

***

Ultra Magnus stretched out on the sand and put his hands behind his head. A summer holiday in a mental hospital. The universe was a strange place, as Kup was fond of saying, and the results of most orders were stranger, as Springer had always replied. Magnus turned his head and his good mood faded quickly. He'd pleaded with Perceptor for Snarl to be let out of his containment field- the stegosaurus had never shown the slightest aggressive tendency since his decline began, and Magnus had felt sorry for him, slumped immobile in his cage with Grimlock and Slag howling to either side. Now, instead of being slumped on the sandy floor of the containment area, Snarl was slumped on the sandy beach, his back legs folded up under him, his front legs pushed forward, the Dinobot's long head lain dispiritedly between them.

"Snarl? Do you want to hear a story?" No reaction. Ultra Magnus sighed. He might as well have spoken to the (organic) pteranadon overhead. It might have been stupid, but Snarl was both stupider, and aware enough to be depressed about it. He was aware, Magnus was sure of that. When they'd left the containment area, Perceptor had just received some message from Prime, a decryption key which had unlocked two of Wheeljack's old files- two out of the three he'd not managed to delete before his death. Perceptor and First Aid had paralysed Grimlock with something called a neural relay interruptor and taken out his brain. Then, with Perceptor examining its neural connections in microscope mode, the duo had sat poring over the deactivated Dinobot mind, totally ignoring everything around them. Ultra Magnus had been watching Snarl then. He'd seen the Dinobot's reaction when his former leader had abruptly keeled over and lain unmoving. Magnus remembered what Perceptor had told him.

"They're not stupid... their minds were very complex, and still are, but they simply can't relate to the world any more." Sometimes, Magnus mused, stretching one foot out further and dropping it firmly on to the sand, I know just how they feel.

"Hey!" An outraged if somewhat muffled yelp came from somewhere in the region of his feet. With a sudden jerk, he lifted the foot he'd just lowered, and a blue and silver dune buggy raced out from under it. A voice as mellow as mellow got, but none the less somewhat reprimanding in tone politely requested that the Commander kindly look where he was putting his great big car transporter feet, sir, and what would have happened if he'd had Daniel riding in him, sir, and Beachcomber drove on again. If he'd been human, Magnus knew he would have blushed. He looked at Snarl, and found himself just resisting the urge to pat the Dinobot on the head. "That didn't happen, all right." He smiled slightly. "At least, it didn't if you don't want me to remind everyone about how you spent the whole of the battle of Autobot City jammed in the recharging chamber on Prime's shuttle thanks to those wings of yours. Deal?" The Dinobot made no reply. In fact, the Dinobot had gone.

***

Beachcomber had forgotten his annoyance within a few hundred yards. After the old battles here he'd been one of the few Autobots allowed to visit, to check on the geological balance of the place, and mainly because it stopped his constant requests to be allowed to do so. He turned inland, following a rough track he'd worn with his vehicle-mode peregrinations, stopping politely to allow a family of velociraptors to cross the road, and then rolling onward. Some Autobots hadn't taken to the change of pace after the Unicron incident very well. The battles might have been fiercer, but they were more spread out, and for those stationed on one particular planet, the periods of inactivity were long. For Beachcomber, it was heaven. He'd toured most of the planet, occasionally sending postcards- usually of spectacular scenic vistas- to friends like Groove and Swerve, gone months without bumping into a fellow Autobot. He'd even run into a Decepticon without combat once. All right, so it had been Dead End, and they'd not exactly been friendly- the incident had been more a case of: "Well, I suppose we ought to fight now."

"Why, are you trying to conquer anything?"

"Not that I'm aware of, I'm just waiting for that idiot Astrotrain to get back here and pick me up... but I suppose I ought to destroy you rather than let you know we have a rendez-vous point here."

"Or we could just decide we didn't notice each other." They'd driven off in different directions without a word. Not the friendly rapprochement of the two factions Beachcomber always dreamed of, but at least a meeting without fighting. He sighed, and only registered that the sound of machine gun bullets was in reality and not a nightmarish memory when they tore up his front tyre and send him spinning over on his side into the sand.

He transformed as quickly as possible, but the bullets had damaged the pivot mechanism in his knee and his left leg refused to fully unfurl. With a most unscientific oath, Beachcomber made a dive for the trees, but two glowing eyes appeared from the darkness moments before a clawed foot slapped out and knocked him back into the road, making deep, painful gouges in his chest unit in the process. A black, purple trimmed Seeker seized him by the throat as he fell.

"Skywarp!" he choked. The Seeker looked annoyed. "But you're dead!"

"Oh, we wish." An evil voice came from behind the Seeker, and a Sweep with yellow eyes and the stylised 'Sweep Beard' cut short came into view. "Alas for you, Autobot, death today seeks another place of repose." The Sweep reached out a hand suddenly studded with jagged spikes, and flexed it in front of Beachcomber's visage.

"Er, what's that for?" The Seeker sounded surprised. "Why don't we just ask him first... then torture him if he doesn't answer? What's the point of torturing someone for information if you don't ask any questions?" The Sweep looked furious, almost to the point of pushing his spiked fist into the Seeker's face.

"He is an Autobot," the Sweep hissed, "Isn't that..."

"It's called sadism," Razorclaw purred silently from the bushes, "And Sweeps are rather prone to it." The Seeker nodded. "However, much as the cries and screams of this Autobot could be most amusing," Razorclaw continued, "We have no time to waste on such entertainments, Morningstar." The lion loped forward into the light, never moving more than was absolutely necessary. "Autobot, Ultra Magnus is on this island, you will confirm that." Beachcomber stared at him. He'd travelled out on Broadside on the same trip as Magnus, had heard the rumours that a Decepticon assassination squad was after him. Morningstar scraped a spike across Beachcomber's left optic, crazing a fine line in the transparent cover. Something almost like disgust crossed the Seeker's face. "Morningstar, you have permission to cripple the Autobot... but do not render him non-functional." Razorclaw's voice was casual, but Morningstar's reaction was instant. His hand moved, faster than Beachcomber could see, and the next moment pain flooded him as that fistful of spikes closed around his elbow, tearing through his structural integrity, and then pulled. The minibot shrieked as his left arm was ripped in two, the lower half cast on to the ground. The Sweep smiled at him all the time, the Seeker's face a blank mask.

"Although it's possible for almost all damage inflicted on a robot body to be repaired," the Seeker said conversationally, "A vicious sadist like Morningstar knows just how to remove your optics in such a way as to permanently short out the visual cortices of your brain module. You'd be blind for the rest of your existence, Autobot." The black jet paused, then almost giggled. "I just thought I'd mention it. Where's Ultra Magnus?" Morningstar lifted his fist again, pressing one spiked knuckle against Beachcomber's right eye. Never see again, never experience the world around him in light and colour, not ever again. An eternity seemed to flash past. They'd just search the island anyway. Magnus could take them. Magnus could take anyone. The plexiglass cover of Beachcomber's optic began to crack.

"He's on the beach- along the road."

"Excellent," Razorclaw purred. Morningstar's hand reached for Beachcomber's neck, but the lion growled. "No time. We have bigger blue wheeled robots to kill." Razorclaw loped off along the road, Morningstar following him. Slowly, the Seeker lowered the battered Autobot to the ground.

"Sorry about that," he said. Beachcomber stared at him. "The gruesome threat, I mean... it's true, but if I hadn't threatened it, he'd have done it, and which do you prefer?"

"What do you care?" the injured minibot croaked.

"About you, not a molecule, but it's a rather gruesome procedure, and I'd rather not have to see him go through it again." The Seeker smiled cheerily. "Nice island, this, isn't it. Anyway, if you'll excuse me, I'd better go and help puss-cat and porcupine-fingers kill your City Commander now." He walked off.

***

Ultra Magnus had finally caught Snarl trying to climb trees. At least, he assumed that was the intention. The Dinobot was walking up to trees, rearing up, and putting his front feet against their trunk. Whatever the next stage of the plan in Snarl's mind might have been was rather academic, since invariably at that point the tree decided that enough of its existence had been dedicated to the joys of vertical, and that it would give horizontal a try for a change. Magnus had approached the one-robot deforestation project with some care, and then, when it looked as if Snarl might move off just as he was in reach, had made the mistake of trying to grab the Dinobot by the tail. Ten more trees ended their long and tranquil existence as Ultra Magnus went flying, and a Tyrannosaurus Rex which had been wondering what the strange shiny Stegosaurus might taste like decided to go and eat something else instead when a very large red and blue shiny thing crashed to the ground next to it and emitted a loud yell. Ultra Magnus sat up, and rubbed his neck. "This isn't my day. Actually, this isn't my week." Snarl looked at him passively, and wagged his tail. Magnus sighed. "This isn't my life."

"Well, that should make this a little easier for you to accept, Autobot." Magnus jumped. A laser blast meant for his neural cluster instead sizzled into the armour of his back, painful, but not damaging. He rolled, drawing his own rifle and firing. Snarl watched the pretty coloured lines in the air with interest. Magnus had fired before focusing on his target- assassination attempts tend to make one trigger happy, and so it was in fact a few seconds before he registered that his assaillant, a Sweep, had paused from making a second attempt to lash out at a dark coloured Seeker.

"Will you just shut up!" The Sweep snarled to his theoretical comrade, at the same time dodging Magnus' return fire, and shooting again. This time Ultra Magnus didn't bother dodging. An assassin's shot in the back of the neck, that was one thing, but a laser bolt to the chest armour was barely noticeable, and the fear that glittered momentarily in his attacker's eyes as Magnus weathered his frontal assault with nothing more than a grunt more than made up for any pain. The Autobot City Commander advanced on the Sweep.

"I remember you from Autobot City... and Paris. The one that got away, eh?" Magnus took another bolt- this time in the knee. That did some minor damage- First Aid would probably complain, but nothing crippling, and he had a few things to say to this Decepticon before he took him down. "Do you have any idea how annoying you've been?" The Sweep's face contorted.

"Annoying?" he grated, jerking his gun up to aim between Magnus' eyes and firing. That one would have killed him, but the Autobot's upflung arm deflected it harmlessly.

"Yes, annoying, you snivelling little wretch." The Seeker, knocked flat by the Sweep, watched from his prone position on the beach with some amusement. "You hurt and scare my friends, you make me paranoid and bad tempered, and you throw my schedule into chaos. The Autobot-Decepticon War ended earlier this year, Sweep. I've got better things to do." The Sweep snarled incoherently, raising his gun, his eyes locked on Magnus' own. He was expecting the Autobot to continue his 'heroic' march, weathering the storm until he got close enough to take on the Decepticon hand-to-hand. He was not expecting Magnus to launch his left shoulder missile at relatively close range.

Magnus himself was knocked backwards by the blast, but the Sweep went flying, a smoking hole where his chest used to be, and a distinctly surprised expression on his face. The Autobot came down hard on one shoulder. One down. One to go. He estimated the sand was dense enough here- if nothing else, the weight of his feet in robot mode, not to mention Snarl- who was still watching the battle curiously- should have bedded it down. He didn't even try to stand, he simply transformed, running full tilt at the black and purple jet warrior, who was still trying to regain his footing. The jet yelped and transformed himself, getting half-way into the air before Magnus's cab hit him. The car transporter jolted as the Seeker was knocked back, his own jet engines almost corkscrewing him into the sand. Then another jolt, and he felt suddenly heavier. Then a sudden sharp pain. Optic sensors gave him a reverse image- a Decepticon beast, Razorclaw, crouched on his trailer section and tearing into the connection between cab and trailer. Magnus snarled, trying to transform, but the Predacon's teeth had already damaged several important connections. His cab-section began to change, but his trailer remained immobile. Blast! The boot was well and truly on the other foot now. Fortunately, he did have his smaller cab-robot form- similar to Optimus Prime's own, the body that had been his originally when he'd just been Magnus, not Ultra Magnus, before he had been adapted to his super-warrior form. He transformed into that, hoping Razorclaw wouldn't be anticipating a second robot form, and swung his fist at the Predacon commander. His empty wrist sailed inches short of Razorclaw's nose. All right, he corrected, he did have most of his smaller cab-robot form. Obviously some parts had been removed during the conversion. Rather grateful to have his feet, Magnus stepped back as Razorclaw lunged, and swiped at him with his lower arm. Twin shoulder-mounted cannons exploded with light and the Autobot City Commander's world grew black.

***

Sludge's head wavered at the sound of the explosion. Slag opened his mouth, trying to unleash a torrent of flame long since deactivated by Perceptor. Once scorched, twice shy. First Aid looked up.

"That came from the beach."

"Magnus." Perceptor transformed back from his microscope mode, hurriedly depositing Grimlock's brain back in its rightful skull. They'd all been warned about the assassination attempts of course.

"Either that or Warpath's come to visit again," First Aid snapped, hurrying out of the gap in the bars of the energon fence surrounding the sick Dinobots, and drawing his light pistol as he did so. Perceptor followed, with very little illusion. They were both lightly armoured in contrast with the Autobot Commander, and probably equally so with respect to anything any sane Decepticon officer might choose to throw against him. Still, they were Autobots. They had to try.

Sludge watched the two upright things walk off. Why they did what they did, he didn't care. They were simply strange things. He looked around for something else moving he could watch. Soon something came. It was bigger than the other two things, and black, with big wings on its sides like the terra... ptera... big dinosaur bird lying in the cage next to him, and a purple face on each wing. That purple face meant something to Sludge, but he wasn't sure what. The black upright one went into the cage the other two had just left, the one where the two legged dinosaur that shouted a lot was lying asleep, and picked up the round thing the other two had been playing with from inside the dinosaur's head.

The Seeker smiled. The Sweep was good, but predictable, like most people. The supreme hunter. Of course he'd wanted the final kill for himself- the Autobot City Commander. What a haul. A fit trophy for the new leader of the new faction. Morningstar's ambitions had been transparently obvious from the start, and the Seeker had learned what the Sweep, apparently, had not.

"Never underestimate a Predacon," the Seeker muttered, quickly beginning his work on Grimlock's brain. Yes, of course... they'd originally been designed to copy Dinosaurs. Animal instinct. Simple, and elegant. He had to give the dead Autobot who'd created these five that much. So many of the layers above it had collapsed, but they kept going simply because, however their natural instincts might now be suppressed, beneath it all, five animals wanted to live. The Predacons and Terrorcons used the same technique, but there the animal instincts were vestigial, surface-layer things applied to what were, basically, robots. That was why, for all their flaws, the Dinobots had always made far better use of their beast modes than those others, because those self-same beast modes were the Dinobots in their most basic self. The beast, not grafted on, but truly at one with the self. The Seeker smiled, patting the deactivated Grimlock on the head. "If we can combine the best of both worlds, future generations of Predacons will have on tap a raw power beyond anything even you could understand," he told Slag, Sludge, and Swoop, as he idly carried out a few changes to Grimlock's brain. "Maybe we should name a Predacon 'Dinobot' after you one day?" The Seeker placed the brain back in the skull. "I'd switch that on," he told a none-too fascinated Slag, "But he'd tear me to pieces, and it would probably hurt. Still, see you around, guys." The black Seeker stepped outside the containment field and transformed, soaring up into the blue sky.

***

By the time they had reached the beach, the battle was long over. Perceptor had studied the damage while First Aid ran back to the communications billet further along the shore to radio for a clean up crew. Both kept their weapons handy, but both could see it was far too late. Ultra Magnus' trailer section lay abandoned, untransformed and severed, the serrated marks of metal teeth around its fore-section, the cab, Magnus himself, missing with not a trace but for a few torn shards of white-painted metal nearby. Further along the beach, Perceptor found a Sweep, dead, its chest gone in a pool of molten metal, and its head cut open by some unknown person, the laser core removed. A few feet further on he found said core, blasted and charred almost beyond recognition. A noise along the trail distracted him and he looked up. Snarl approached, a badly injured and semi-conscious Beachcomber draped across his back.

"Snarl? What happened..." Perceptor started, before he remembered. The Dinobot let the minibot slide down his neck into the scientist's hands, and then began to plod back slowly towards the containment area. "Snarl, wait?" He was ignored, for now the weight of confusion inside the Dinobot's head too great for any explanations. In time, that might subside, but by that time the memories, the spark of intelligence would also go. If they didn't think, they couldn't understand, but if they thought, they could barely function. And isn't that what I'm doing now? Perceptor asked himself. Beachcomber may die from these injuries, unless First Aid can save him, Magnus has been captured by the enemy, and even if I understand the problem there is nothing I can do for the Dinobots. He stepped back into the clearing, and only then noticed that the 'door' to Grimlock's cage had been left open. Almost automatically, he operated the control to close it, and to switch out the paralysing interruptor in Grimlock's systems. The dinosaur reared up to his feet... and transformed. Perceptor stared. The other Dinobots stared too, from within their own cages. Grimlock rubbed his head painfully.

"Grimlock?" The Dinobot turned his head, and spoke. "I think," he said, his voice slow but careful, "That I'm ready to talk about it."

***

"Yesssss." Magnus' auto-repair circuits kicked in slowly. Conscious. Well, that was probably a good thing. On the other hand, since he hardly expected First Aid to hiss at him, possibly not. Movement? No. He couldn't move. Some sort of energy restraints around his arms and legs. He slid open his optic covers. He was lying on a narrow shelf at the rear of some sort of craft. Decepticon technology- he recognised the type. Slag it, this wasn't a good holiday. He lifted his head. Three seating positions- a pilot's chair facing forward, currently occupied by a robot-mode Razorclaw, and two others, facing each other in the middle of the craft, now empty. Radar and comms, he guessed. The entire cabin was tetrahedral in shape, and black except for the central viewscreen. Water. So, still on Earth, at any rate. As he wondered who Razorclaw had been talking to- or whispering to, he noticed the comms light still flashing. A voice spoke from it.

"Yes Commander," the voice addressed Razorclaw. "The information's ours, and I checked up on Morningstar. Dead as Shockwave's sense of humour. I took out his laser core and shot it a few times, just to make sure."

"Excellent... Seeker. You have redeemed yourself your aggravating qualities."

"Er, look," the 'Seeker' said, seemingly slightly aggrieved. "About that name thing. Since no one seems to have remembered the old one, I'd like to pick a new one... call it my 'Predacon name', if you like, Commander."

"Well?" Razorclaw's earlier gratitude seemed to have disappeared. A soft chuckle came over the comm.

"Well, I took my paint from a Decepticon I helped someone throw out into space, it seems only appropriate I loot the name in a similar way. It's a sort of cosmic irony really, don't you think, Commander Razorclaw?"

"What name?" Razorclaw snapped.

"Special Agent Morningstar, signing off." Razorclaw brought the vessel to a halt and crossed back to the communications console, turning off the channel with an irritable flick of the wrist. Then he approached Magnus in his usual lazy way.

"And so the Autobot awakes... excellent."

"What do you want with me?"

"Galvatron tried to kill you once, remember?" Razorclaw's tone had grown almost bored. "He failed. The last great ruler of the Decepticons, and he failed. Now Galvatron is gone, and our army is torn between Soundwave's Decepticons and my Predacons... and I have you, the Autobots' Greatest Warrior, you my helpless captive. And I have the information, I have Wheeljack's secret that will make the next generation of Predacon troops the most deadly warriors this planet has ever seen... and I have disposed of a most troublesome and ambitious lieutenant. Most efficient. What you might call killing three birds with one stone."

***