Past and Present

Scene opens over the planet, the sun rises over the beach in front of the Predacon base, the camera goes into the head of the ship, wedged into the base of their cliff. Tarantulus and Drone are in robot mode, they are working on something inside the bridge of the ship on the computers, the rest are lounging around the various seats in beast mode. Batteram is hanging from a thick cable in the ceiling, his transmetal body is in a sleeping position, wings folded. Anacronda is wrapped around a support beam, the front half of his body is hanging in the air, he is having a conversation with Chameleotron, who is lounging in one of the chairs. Transquito is laying across a central conference table, his thin legs spread out across the metal surface.

CHAMELEOTRON: What are we going to do now anyway? I mean, no more rooms, no real purpose to be on this planet.

TARANTULUS: Quite the opposite my shape-shifting friend. (Drone pushes a button that brings the machine they are working on on-line.) I believe we have more than enough reasons to remain here.

TRANSQUITO: Isn't that the worm-hole machine?

DRONE: Oooh, give the bug a cookie.

ANACRONDA: What do we need that for? This ship ain't goin' anywhere.

TARANTULUS: Not the ship, I don't plan to send anything through it.

ANACRONDA: What are you gettin' at?

DRONE: What he's trying to say is, (He hits a couple more buttons and a blue beam shoots out of the front of the ship, opening up a small worm-hole about twenty feet down the beach.) we plan on bringing a few things through.

(Chameleotron, Anacronda and Transquito still look confused.)

TRANSQUITO: Come again?

TARANTULUS: We are going to set the other end of the worm-hole to open during the battle on-board the Phantom, back above Earth.

CHAMELEOTRON: Oh, I see. Who are you planning on bringing back? Not all of the Insectictrons can be trusted, some where loyal to Starscreem.

TARANTULUS: Just Bombshell and Teraductile for the time being, it takes a tremendous amount of power to do this, so we have one shot at it. It would take a long time for it to recharge again.

ANACRONDA: But the energon on this planet is infinitely powerful.

TARANTULUS: The computer has millions of programs to run before another rift can be opened accurately. (Anacronda makes an 'Oh I get it' face, which is rather hard for an anaconda.) I will need you to stay in beast mode... (He goes on explaining, meanwhile, during the battle aboard the Phantom {During the Allied Wars}, the disabled and unconscious transformers float in the vacuum of space, a blue rift opens, it is about an inch across, inside the ship Tigatron has just frozen Swarm's beast mode, a whole swarm of little bees, the bees are sucked out of the ship. They float like sparkling jewels through space, and one of them goes through the tiny worm-hole and comes out on the beach in front of the Predacon base. The single tiny bee, still half-frozen, struggles to its little legs and looks around the beach.)

SWARM: Where is Swarm? (He sees the head of the Phantom at the base of the cliff.) Phantom? What happened to beautiful war-ship? (The small bee begins a slow crawl toward the base, he can't fly because he is still half-frozen.) It will take Swarm forever to regenerate the rest of himself, Swarm need to hide. (The Predacons come out of their base, all in robot mode except Anacronda, the worm-hole has expanded to about five square feet. The bee freezes as the huge feet come down around him.)

BATTERAM: You had to wake me up didn't you?

TARANTULUS: Shut up. (Anacronda wraps the back three feet of his long body around Tarantulus's waist, the rest of the Predacons grab onto Tarantulus and hold on.) Okay, go in. (Anacronda slithers into the rift, coming out the other end, his body floats weightless in the empty space, Anacronda shifts his head from side to side, he sees Bombshell, the snapping turtle's spiked shell mounted on his back is facing Anacronda. He snaps forward, grabbing onto the shell with his teeth, the robot tries to turn around in alarm, Anacronda curves his body back around and flings Bombshell into the worm-hole, on the beach Bombshell flies out of the worm-hole and lands on the sand.)

BOMBSHELL: What the!? (He lifts his face from the sand and sees the other Predacons holding onto Tarantulus and Anacronda.) I'm not even going to ask.

(He walks up and helps. In the zero gravity of space Anacronda has spotted Teraductile, the robot, amazingly resembling a brown and green Terrorsaur, sees him and looks at him in disbelief. Anacronda signals him over with his head. Teraductile's jets are damaged so he has to tread empty space, Razorjaw is spiraling through space when he sees this, his jets are also dead so he can't fly, he transforms into his beast mode, a piranha, and tries swimming to them, to no avail, the rest of the transformers, that are still conscious, notice this phenomenon. Anacronda sees them watching him, Razorjaw transforms back to robot mode, he aims his fin-blasters in the opposite direction, and fires it, the opposing force sends him flying toward the worm-hole, Anacronda sees this and stretches his body in panic, he finally strikes out and bites down on Teraductile's foot, Teraductile opens his mouth in a silent scream of pain, Anacronda's body shoots back through the worm-hole like a rubber-band, the two fly onto the beach and knock the other Predacons backwards.)

ANACRONDA: Close it! Close it! There's a Maximal heading for it! (Drone starts up his ankle-rockets on maximum burn and heads to the base. The Predacons aim their weapons at the worm-hole.)

TERADUCTILE: I don't know what's going on here but it's better than floating in space. (He doesn't have any guns but points his fists at the open hole.)

ANACRONDA: Good thing none of those other bots were saved, or we could have just really screwed up the future.

TARANTULUS: I calculated perfectly, nothing can go- (Razorjaw flies out of the worm-hole and lands on the sand, Teraductile's lighting quick reflexes result in him being the first one to fire, his fists glow bright and shoot bolts of electricity, Razorjaw dives to the side, the sand explodes, then the other Preds start firing, Razorjaw continues flipping and rolling toward the water, the worm-hole closes. The Predacons stop firing and look at the worm-hole, wondering what to do next.)

RAZORJAW: (His voice has the metallic echoing to it.) I don't know what's going on here, but I'm stopping it! (he draws his fin blasters, the Predacons regain their thoughts and begin firing again, Razorjaw leaps behind a rock a few feet away from the shore, Bombshell lifts his turtle-head grenade launcher and fires a shot, Razorjaw looks around the rock in time to see the projectile arc through the air, he starts running to the shore, he jumps into the air and is half done transforming when it explodes, sending him further into the air, he splashes in the distance.) Now this is what I was born for! (His sleek piranha body slides through the water.) Now I have to find some Maximals, if there are any.

Scene goes to inside the Maximal base, all of the Maximals are sitting around the control room, including the new comrade Waspinator.

BAMBARD: This is as boring as it gets! (He is running a spatial scan.)

DINOBOT: Now that the Amazons have the Titans occupied and Tarantulus has been keeping to himself we have nothing to do. (Whiplash is working on a computer, he is almost asleep.)

PANTHOR: Give it a rest, you can't find it.

WHIPLASH: They pulled something out of the sealed section of computer, and there has to be a way to trace it in.

WASPINATOR: Waspinator like Maximals, they not yell at him and make fun of him all the time. (He leans further back in his chair, Bambard jumps to his feet, his antler hands go across the keyboard.)

BAMBARD: Look! Another ship! By the sixteenth planet!

WHIPLASH: It jumped, that's the fourth on we've seen jumping out of the system by the sixteenth planet.

DINOBOT: There are so many questions, hmmm. Whiplash, come with me, I'd like to discuss an idea. (The two leave the room and go to Dinobot's quarters, weapons on the wall, his desk has a small computer, a lamp, and a picture of him with the other original four Maximals, Optimus, Rhinox, Rattrap and Cheetor. Dinobot closes the door. Back in the control room Bambard is waiting patiently by the computer.)

PANTHOR: What are you waiting for?

BAMBARD: Wait, wait, (The computer brings up a three dimensional image.) Yeeeeeeee-es! It worked!

PARRATOR: What worked?

BAMBARD: Whiplash showed me how to place a long range scan ahead of time, so I was able to scan the ship. (The ship is a pretty basic form.)

PARRATOR: And this helps us how?

BAMBARD: I believe that there has to be some kind of space port, or maybe a base out there, around the sixteenth planet, and possibly, a species that would help us fight Tarantulus.

PESTALANCE: Are you thinkin' what I think your thinkin'?

BAMBARD: We could send someone out there in one of the remaining pod-fighters.

Scene goes into the cave of insectoid creatures, the Titan's lair. The three Titans, in beast mode, are in a large corridor that is about twenty feet tall and across, Brutallion can barley fit his huge form through the tunnel, even when crawling, Quake has some trouble moving on top of the ground, since his body is made for tunneling, and in the front Darkrazor's immense spidery form is crawling on four of her arms and her two legs, her smallest pair of arms, the ones that stick out of her chest, is holding a small black robot with four legs. Around them are drones of the species that inhabit the caves, they are carrying eggs. The Titans reach their dead end, a small hole, about two feet in diameter is the only way to continue, the drones crawl in and out of the opening, the ones going in carry eggs, those coming out are empty handed.

BRUTALLION: (His booming voice echoes through the tunnel.) Why did you bring us here?

DARKRAZOR: A simple reason, (She sets the small four-legged robot onto the ground, Quake hears the move and his three tongues tense up, Darkrazor cracks her razor-sharp tail through the air like a whip, Quake obediently draws his tongues back into his huge beak.) I have discovered something very disturbing about our pets. I was looking through their genetic traits, I took several of different forms, I realized that certain ones had traits of animals on the planet, in fact all of them.

QUAKE: Say what now?

DARKRAZOR: Every drone I have tested has traits of their species, along with traits of an outside species, and one of the ones I found had a trait that I didn't recognize, a DNA strand that doesn't quite fit with this planet.

BRUTALLION: Spit it out.

DARKRAZOR: My brothers, we transformers are not the first visitors here, I looked through the data I stole from the Maximals and found a match, human. (The other two are silent with surprise.) I believe these creatures not only have another step in their development, but, they need a host, if you will, to advance to the adult stage. I intend to prove that as well as find out if it is really human DNA I have found. I have modified this little robot to put out a signal that temporarily disorients any drones near it, so that the guards wont destroy it. (She hits a button on the back of the little robot, it starts walking to the tunnel, the two guard drones, as expected, go after it. The drones suddenly waver from side to side and fall unsteadily to the ground.) Now, let's go watch our little friends progress in the control room. (The little robot begins crawling through the two-foot diameter tunnel.)

Scene goes to the Amazon's headquarters, it is raining there, a raised section of land, a plateau, about forty meters tall, the flat top of it is about thirty by thirty meters across, it has trees and plant-life growing on top of it, the camera goes through the trees into the center of the plateau. All of the Amazons are there, all of them are in beast mode. The center has a small clearing, a steel hatch is in the center, the door is open and there is a ladder going down into a hole.

QUADROBLADE: Whiplash sure knows his geography, this place is great.

SHELLSHOCK: I know, the steep mountain-side should keep the Titans down.

DRAGONESS: Not Darkrazor, that's why I had you put all of our equipment in the hole, our quarters will just have to be the trees.

SPRINGBLASTER: Oh boy, a year-round camping trip. (She leaps off of the ground and hangs upside down from a limb.)

TANKEEL: What are you complaining about? At least you can climb trees. (She looks back over her armor plated eel-like body and waves her two arms in the air.) I'm made for living in sand! (Dragoness lifts off of the ground, her four scaled wings slice gracefully through the air, she lands on a limb.)

DRAGONESS: I'm sure you can figure something out. (Pyereen flies into the air, her red and black stripe-scaled body silhouetted in a strike of lightning, her scaled wings beat through the air, she lands in the crook of a large tree. Shellshock comes up next to Tankeel.)

SHELLSHOCK: Here. (She extends her many legs and stands over Tankeel, since her body is a large, trilobite-like shell, she stops the rain from hitting the two-legged lizard, Tankeel pushes some of the legs out of her way.)

TANKEEL: Back of! I can handle myself. (She slides away and goes under a bush.)

SHELLSHOCK: Jeez, sorry I cared.

Scene goes into the Predacon base, Teraductile and Bombshell are in beast mode on the cave floor listening to Drone explain, the pteradon and snapping turtle look at each.

BOMBSHELL: You found a way to cure energon build-up?

DRONE: Yes, I immunized you while you were repairing.

TERADUCTILE: What about the fish?

DRONE: As long as he doesn't find the Maximals, he wont last long without an anti-electron. Although, we're still not sure what the extremely long-term effects are, most likely deactivation.

BOMBSHELL: There's something not quite right about that bot.

Scene goes to somewhere in the ocean, Razorjaw is swimming, he is suddenly wracked with an energon surge.

RAZORJAW: By the pit! (He is paralyzed.) Ahhhhh! (He floats slowly down to the depths of the ocean.)

Scene goes to the Titan's control room, a very large cave deep under the ground, it is roughly a hundred feet across and about sixty feet high, along one wall of the large room is a panel of computers, along another wall are their three huge CR tanks, the three Titans are watching the main monitor, they are all in robot mode, their giant weapons are hanging on rock out-croppings. On the monitor is the view from the small spy-bot, it is showing a tunnel, made from the same rib-like structure as the rest of the cave, except there are strange cacoon-like growths on the wall.

DARKRAZOR: Zoom in. (She brings her beautiful yet somehow terrifying robot face up closer to the screen, sticking out of the cocoon is the head of one of the scaled tigers that reside on the planet.) Pan around. (it shows other species, monkey-frogs and others they haven't seen yet.) Computer, check similarities in species of hosts. (The computer's word appear silently on the screen, All hosts have similar size and shape of cranium.) All right, (One of the eggs under a frog-monkey is beginning to open.) zoom in! (It zooms in on the egg and the host in front of it, the Titans bring their huge faces closer to the screen, then, suddenly a spider-like creature, with long knuckled legs and a long tail flies through the air and latches onto the face of the frog-monkey. The Titans jump in surprise.)

QUAKE: Ah! Whoa, you where right. What's the next step though?

DARKRAZOR: I intend to find out, pan around. (The spy-bot turns around in the tunnel, it looks up through a hole that leads to moonlight.) Huh, that's how they get the hosts in. (A drone appears in the opening, it is holding another frog-monkey by the back legs, after the drone comes through it pulls a rock over the opening.) Ah ha, so they don't have to bring the hosts through the nest and danger the queen.

BRUTALLION: Look! (He points to something in the side of the screen, on the wall is one of the scaled tigers, its chest is wide open, as if an explosive went off inside it.)

DARKRAZOR: I believe we found the next step. (The robot turns to look at a scaled tiger that is roaring in pain, it writhes and jerks but cannot escape the cocoon, then its chest bursts open, a small snake-like creature comes out and slithers away.) Follow it! (The robot drone begins to turn when Darkrazor sees something else of interest.) Wait, stop. (The robot drone freezes, the wall that the scaled tigers are cocooned to is slightly different.) Go up to it. (The spy-bot goes up to the wall, it is metal, it walks further down and finds a door.)

QUAKE: What does this mean?

BRUTALLION: This may explain the human element. (The bot goes through the door, it is going through a dark corridor.)

DARKRAZOR: Initiate computer meld. (The small spy-bot walks up to the computer, a small arm with a talon on the end comes out of its back, it then crawls up onto the keyboard and thrusts the talon in. Darkrazor is knocked back by the sudden rush of information.) Humans, millions of humans.

The_Rest