Within a jungle, a dark blue-purple gorilla with glowing blue eyes knuckled his way on the ground. He stopped and sat down so he could fill his belly. He grabbed some of the familiar vegetation and ate it. As he ate, he noticed lights in the sky. His mind immediately went to fight or flight mode. He chose the former option and found a good tree to hide in. He went inside it and decided to sit out the light show until it stopped.
Beyond the atmosphere of the jungle planet of Animatros, two massive starships were unleashing their arsenal on each other. One was colored in blues, grays, and whites, known as the Metrotitan, Fortress Maximus. He and his Autobot, Nebulan, and Mobian crew were being rocked by laser fire coming from the old Metrotitan body of his hated nemesis, Scorponok. Inside Fortress Maximus’ bridge, Optimus and his buddies were being tossed around as they struggled to man their stations. “Hull breach in sector seven!” called Tails. “Guidance systems failing!”
“This is ridiculous!” groaned Fortress Maximus as his robot mode appeared on screen. “I’m an Exploration-type Metrotitan, not a Battle-type!”
“No choice!” grunted Optimus. “You were the only one who could lock on to the Decepticons’ transwarp trail and get us to catch up in any reasonable time!”
“Shields are doing a major fade!” called Teletraan 1 as his avatar appeared next to Fortress’.
“Plasma cannons to full power!” ordered Goldbug. Prowl’s fingers keyed in the necessary commands.
On the bridge of Scorponok’s old body, the former Headmaster-Metrotitan-downsized-to-Predacon got a reading on the enemy ship. “Their shields are down!” he called to Megatron.
“We must destroy them now!” urged Strika.
“Where’s the fun in that?!” asked Morgane.
“She’s right, a little torment is in order!” agreed Megatron. “Side guns!”
Scorponok’s body maneuvered alongside Fortress and fired the side guns right into his sides! Fortress howled in pain on the bridge. “Rupture!” he cried. “The hangar’s been breached!”
“Guys, engines are offline!” reported Tails. “We’re going down!”
“Launch all ships inside the hangar!” ordered Optimus. “Get them into safe orbit!” Tails, Goldbug, and Grimlock dashed to their ships. Once they were on their respective bridges, the ships launched out of damaged hangar and made it into orbit around Animatros. As Fortress fell, he turned in a way that his guns were pointing at his old rival’s underside.
“Cliffjumper!” called Fortress.
“I see it!” answered Cliffjumper as he fired the plasma cannons. The shot struck true and knocked Scorponok’s body out of orbit.
On the enemy bridge, Scorponok got a new report. “Engines offline!” he called. “We’re going down!”
“Get our ships in orbit!” ordered Megatron. Shockwave, Eggman, Morgane, and Thundercracker made their way to the hangar and got the ships out.
The Metrotitans soon went through the heat of atmospheric entry. They would soon reach an area where they would be cooled, but it would be long after they crashed. They managed to separate from each other. When they landed, they bounced, then skidded, leaving a huge cut of desolation on the surface of Animatros. They soon stopped. Scorponok’s body ended up in a lava-ridden area while one of Fortress’ front landing strips straddled a canyon with a river flowing beneath it.
Within Fortress’ bridge, the crew picked themselves up and started checking themselves over for damage. They had seen better days. As they checked themselves, a console beeped. Prowl looked at it and reported what it was. “The Ark, Fang, and Blue Typhoon are hailing us.”
“Open a channel,” directed Optimus as he looked at the scar running across his left optic. “Scrap, that was a landing!” Tails, Goldbug, and Grimlock appeared.
“Is everyone okay?!” asked Tails.
“Thankfully, yeah, we are,” replied Fortress. “…For the most part, at least. We’re pretty banged up.”
“Some more than others,” remarked Optimus. “Fortress, damage report.”
“Believe me, you DON’T want to know,” replied Fortress. Optimus sighed.
“That’s what I thought.”
“The good news is that Maximal City is about four miles south of us. The bad news is that they aren’t responding to us.”
“Okay, if a Metrotitan crashed near me, I’d wanna investigate,” muttered Prowl.
“Uh oh,” gulped Cliffjumper.
“Uh oh?” asked Optimus.
“Prime, we’re gonna need to adopt our old Mobian transformation restrictions here.”
“Well?!” snarled Megatron to Scorponok. “Can any allies be reached?!”
“I wish I had a clear answer,” replied Scorponok. “No Predacon’s ever ventured this far, even though it’s a tactical fallback position for Predacon City. It’s five miles north-northeast of us.”
“Then we’ll get to them later. Is there Energon on this planet?”
“Of course there is!”
“Good.”
“Not so good, it’s too much.”
“Lord Megatron, I just got an Energon Field Density reading,” called Knock-out. “It looks like the Energon Field’s just like Mobius.”
“SLAG!” Megatron snarled, then took a breath. “All right, we’ll just have the same transformation restrictions as we did on Mobius.” An alarm then rang through the ship.
“Proximity alert!” warned Scorponok. “Someone’s coming!”
“Identify them!” The cameras spotted what was coming. It was a variety of metal animals roughly Cybertronian sized. They were a purple and yellow Tarantula, a purple T-rex, a red Pteranodon, a red Fire Ant, and a green Wasp. Scorponok ran another scan and managed to find a match.
“It’s all right! They’re Predacons!” he reported.
“Then let us greet them,” chuckled Megatron.
“Maximal City, please respond!” Optimus urged over the comms.
“No good, Sir,” grumbled Perceptor. “The Maximal Communications Towers are all offline. We could only communicate with each other on Mobius because of a good network that could pass through the Energon field. Here, we don’t have that luxury. Anything over a hundred meters, the comms aren’t worth scrap.”
“Peachy!” groaned Optimus. “With our alt-modes, we’d stick out like a sore thumb! The only ones who could potentially…wait, they just might be the answer! Get the Fang! Have Grimlock beam down!”
Grimlock was brought to Animatros’ surface. “You rang?” he asked Optimus.
“I want you and your team,” explained Optimus, “to get to Maximal City to announce our presence. Our vehicle modes would make us stick out, but you guys are already beasts, since it’s been confirmed that there are Animatronians who have dinosaur alt-modes.”
“I get it, you want us to ease the Maximals into seeing cars and trucks and other things that go.”
“Bingo.”
“All right then, let me just rally the Dyno-bots and we’ll be good to go.”
“I knew I could count on you!” Grimlock headed off to find his team.