As the sun rises over the Wild Lands, some life-forms stir awake while others hunker down to sleep after a night of hunting and foraging. This is a world rich in flora and fauna. And yet it is not natural.
Each of the animals roaming these forests a...
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"Crashed vessel three kliks away."
And how many Preds? Crabbox thought to himself as he scurried from one patch of tall grass to the next. Click-clack, clickety-clack. An outsider would see a giant metal crab, sunlight glinting off an iridescently speckled shell.
But inside was a robot in disguise.
Optimus had warned him the Preds would get there first, and despite Crabbox giving everything he had in his transmetal crustacean animal form, his beast mode wasn't built for traversing the savannah. Put him on the beach, though, and it would be a different story. No question.
The Predacons had eyes everywhere. Not only fliers, though. Crabbox was keenly aware of his last encounter with Giraffly. The giraffe with wings that only let him hover. A neck longer than you could dream. Eyes enhanced by telescopic lenses with the ability to detect fluctuations in energon readings. No amount of burying himself in the dirt could protect Crabbox against that.
A battle in robot mode was the only option.
Giraffly roamed in the knee-high grass, ears and and wings twitching with every rustle of leaves and change in the wind. Crabbox waited until the transmetal giraffe had ventured half a klik in the other direction before transforming.
It was a mostly silent process of rotating and moving parts. Though he did have the tendency to click his claws while it happened. He didn't need to blow his cover. When it was finished, he stood upright, on two legs. His guns were locked and loaded, technically his claws.
"Crabbox, can you read me?" That was Optimus.
"Loud and clear, big bot."
"Platypunk and Triceratank are almost at your position. They're coming from the south river."
On the horizon he spotted Gunpher the overgrown gopher up on Elephantonne's back, manning the turret. Scanning for any Maximal presence. And there was Screamgle, shrieking a storm as she soared the skies.
"Optimus, you might want to send more. A whole ecosystem of Preds in the area."
"Look up."
Crabbox did. Swooping in faster than the speed of sound was a massive shape that nearly blotted out the sun. It was a flying transmetal lizard, nearly a quarter the size of the Maximal starship they'd traveled aboard, with a ten-metre wingspan. The only Maximal with a beast mode taken from fossil scans.
Optimus Primitive.
Crabbox knew what was coming. He ducked his head into his shell and the cascade of smart bombs hit the battlefield. Huge explosions. Then the sonic boom. Fire jetted up from multiple impact sites. Smoke filled the area.
This was his opportunity. Keeping his head low, Crabbox raced along a path between two of the infernos scorching the grassland. He heard Triceratank's chain-cannon spitting shrapnel, saw Gunpher and Elephantonne getting dismantled to so much scrap metal.
Just beyond the next patch of trees was the crashed vessel. He could see its gleaming metal. He avoided pulse beams and danced in the dirt as shrieking gunfire rained down from above.
Screamgle.
Crabbox took a running leap off a termite mound. In the air, he snapped his wrist up towards the screaming eagle and popped off a lucky shot. Right in the neck. The bird dropped in a flash of shimmering feathers.
He landed in a roll.
Back to the vessel. Definitely a ship of some kind. Crabbox could spot an ion thruster from ten kliks away, he knew them so well. The ship was battered. The cockpit looked caved in by the thick trunk of an ancient tree. A hissing sound came from the underside.
He pried open some of the contorted framework.
He sputtered, "B-By the Matrix!"
Inside was something unlike anything he'd seen before. Clearly an animal life-form like others found there on G-4A1. Four limbs. A head. But different. Pink skin. Long hair like a lion's mane. And the way it had been constructed—it greatly resembled Cybertronians themselves. Except it was fleshy.
