A Cheetah with Different Spots

Chapter 1: Wild Eyes.

The day had been hot. The wild land had been drenched in burning gold sunlight, feeding into the recent drought. A wonderful, if not slightly difficult, day for most of the wildlife living there, well unless you became another creature's dinner that is. However, it wasn't fairing that well for one of the resident groups of cybertronians. The Maximals. Rhinox and Rattrap had been working on a more recent invention but due to the heat he had been worried about some of the finer tunings of his device. Meaning the test run of said device had been moved to that evening.

As the sun began its decent, the Maximals took leave of their base. Predacon activity had been low recently, so they weren't too concerned with an attack on their base. Optimus primal, was currently carrying the new device, while he and Rattrap rode on Rhinox's back, with Cheetor and Dinobot following close behind them on foot. All of them in beast mode for safety reasons. However, one of them wasn't so excited about the abrupt fieldtrip.

"Why are we going out again?" Cheetor asked.

"Did ya forget already, Spots? Me and Rhinox got to test da gadget we made." Rattrap said.

"I know that. I just don't understand why can't you do it back at base? Or why I have to be involved?" Cheetor said.

"Because, we don't know what might happen, when we turn it on. I had been forced to use some outdated components. We're going out so that our home doesn't accidentally blow up." Rhinox explained.

"Okay, I get that, but why do I have to come?"

"Consider this a team building trip, Cheetor. And what's this about? You're usually excited for any mission. I would expect this kind of behavior from Dinobot, not you," Optimus Primal chimed in.

Cheetor sighed, "I just had planned something this evening. That's all."

Rattrap burst out laughing, "Plans! Yah right! Besides for the Predacons we're da only people on this mudball planet, with a broken ship and no communications. I know for a fact you's not fixin' da ship, so what could you's possibly be missing out on? A hot date?"

Cheetor sighed again and rolled his eyes. He didn't answer Rattrap. Sure, the kittycat didn't mind missions, he loved them, it's just his involvement in this one felt unnecessary and he was planning on doing something else this evening. Running. It was some uncontrollable desire that he couldn't explain to the others no matter how much he tried too. He looked over to the sun as it gave its last gleaming golden rays of day light. He felt the soft breeze as the evening began to set in, and the urge to leap out into the flowing grasses of wild plains came with it.

It had become a little ritual to the young Maximal, to go off on long and fast runs at dawn and dusk. It had started when he had deleted the Maximal programing block that was supposed to control his beast urges. The need to run, to be free, to go fast had hit him like a ton of bricks at first. He had felt constantly trapped inside of their ship. Heck! At one point he'd thought the walls were closing in on him. Switching to robot-mode did bring some kind of relief from it, but it was still there, deep inside, nagging at the back of his mind. Eventually, he'd figured out that running would cure his stir craziness. The wind flowing through his fur, and his paws beating against the rough solid ground; it was so addictive. However, tonight, he would just have to ignore it.

It was only a fifteen-kilk walk to get to the desired destination. An open grassland area, with not that many trees, and most importantly the area wasn't as potent with energon here as the rest of the planet. Sure, they wouldn't be able to stay in their robot-mode forever, but it would give them a few more moments before the Energon Field built up took effect. A good thing too, as Rattrap and Rhinox would need to use their servos.