“That’s quite the history you have with the Metarex,” remarked Aleena. She, Optimus, Topaz, Sira, Trema, Cosmo, and Sonic were all assembled.
“Regretfully, they never fully embraced our culture of change,” sighed Cosmo. “Fear of a new identity has made these Seedrian radicals resist regeneration so much that they are no longer able to do so.”
“And now we have one hanging over our heads,” hissed Trema, “which begs the question of how they got here.” She then looked at Cosmo.
“Why are you looking at me?” she asked. “Why assume I would bring them here?!”
“Optimus DID say that the Metarex are Decepticon allies,” answered Sira. “The skirmishes could have attracted their attention.”
“Unlikely,” countered Topaz. Everyone turned to her. “We intercepted a transmission going to the Metarex ship. Reports say that it was MECH that sent the transmission.”
“So MECH and the Metarex are buddy-buddy?” quizzed Sonic. “Why? The Metarex aren’t even from Mobius and MECH hates the non-humans here.”
“The issue here isn’t MECH’s motives,” interjected Cosmo. Optimus arched an eyebrow. “I can tell you right now that the Metarex’s endgame will result in MECH being betrayed in some fashion. They will, in all likelihood, die at the Metarex’s hands.”
“Which means they’re in grave danger,” continued Optimus, “and we Autobots are bound by our morals to help them.”
“So, what’s our move here?” asked Sonic. “The way I see it, we have two choices. Either we concentrate solely on MECH and overlook whatever the Metarex have for Mobius, thus risking extinction. But, if we attack the Metarex, we risk overlooking MECH and a city is attacked with its Mobian Population being the target.”
“Which means we need a third option,” replied Optimus.
“I may have one,” mused Cosmo. All eyes turned to her.
“I can NOT believe what I’m seeing!” snarled Shadow at G.U.N while the meeting went on. He was in the detention area and was looking at the occupants of separate cells. Tom, Jerry, and a Male Mobian Bulldog named Spike were all battered and looking sheepish. Tom and Jerry never talked much, preferring to let their actions speak for themselves, but verbal communication was the only thing available to them.
“Sir,” called Tom, “if I could explain…”
“Agent Tom,” interrupted Shadow, “do you think I’m in the mood for explanations?! Three of my colleagues brawling in the cafeteria!”
“With all due respect, Sir,” argued Spike, “we weren’t brawling, per se.”
“You should take a closer look at Jerry’s forehead!” rasped Shadow.
“Well, he shouldn’t have got in the way!” barked Spike.
“Got in the…?!” protested Jerry. “I was trying to stop the fight!”
“We were NOT fighting,” insisted Tom.
“Then what WERE you doing?” asked Shadow, not believing him for a second.
“Er…” gulped Spike.
“We were…” stammered Tom.
“Having a difference of opinion!” finished Jerry.
“I guess…towards the end…” conceded Spike, “there was a bit of shoving.”
“According to Sandra,” hissed Shadow, “Jerry was ‘shoved’ over a table!”
“Now THAT was an accident,” replied Tom.
“It’s just…” supplied Jerry, “things got a little out of hand.”
“Things got MORE than a little out of hand,” rasped Shadow. “I suppose I’m going to have to talk to Mike myself, get him to end this nonsense so we can have proper meals again!” He turned to leave.
“Sir!” called Spike. Shadow turned back. “…Can we leave now?”
“…I’ll tell Sandra to let you go,” replied Shadow. Tom, Jerry, and Spike grinned. “In the morning,” finished Shadow. Their faces fell as Shadow left.
“Well, I hope you two are proud of yourselves!” squeaked Jerry.
“You got involved in this too, Jerry!” barked Spike.
“Shut up, you wankers!” hissed Sandra as she picked her knitting needles up and started work on the sock she needed. Sandra was proud of her knitting, especially when she experimented with other types of Mobian Spider Silk as well as her own. However, her knitting still didn’t hide the fact that she was a fearsome looking Mobian Queensland Whistling Tarantula. Tom, Jerry, and Spike clammed up.
The next day, Optimus, Cosmo, Blackarachnia, Ross, and Sonic were arriving at the MECH base. This was a surprise as no one expected a blatant arrival. When Tower heard about this, he immediately demanded they leave. “I do NOT require you popping in for a visit!” growled Tower. “Especially the Spider-bot!”
“Nice to see you too,” snarked Blackarachnia.
“Interesting that you aren’t shooting at us,” observed Optimus.
“We’re in control here,” replied Tower, his face betraying the uncertainty to his visitors. Hiding his face made it so much easier to command, but his mask and goggles were being repaired.
“Yeah, not buying it,” dismissed Optimus as they all strode towards a storage barn.
“Ah, I see you still kept the Energon Shield I helped you make,” mused Blackarachnia. “How’s the Rectifier Coil working?”
“Is there a reason you’re here?!” snapped Tower. “We’re not exactly on the friendliest of terms!”
“I’d have thought,” taunted Optimus, “that since you weren’t a member of G.U.N, you’d have lightened up by now. But did you? No. You’re still all business as usual.”
“I find that I can give greater focus to our goals outside of G.U.N!” snarled Tower.
“Ah, yes, the ‘noble’ goal of putting Humans above Mobians,” muttered Blackarachnia. “I never understood your need to feel superior to someone. It feels like you’re compensating for something.”
“Perhaps compensating for a loss that YOU gave us!” growled Tower.
“The T-cog affair,” recalled Blackarachnia. “Well, I can update you. Turns out the bot we stole from had his repaired and replaced and now he’s leading OUR enemies, the Decepticons.”
“We’ve noticed,” replied Tower. “From what Sylvia told me, he threatened to crush her before we took his T-cog.”
“I’d say she got off lucky,” remarked Optimus.
“I’D say she was almost killed as a robot proved our point!” snarled Tower.
“And what point would that be?” asked Cosmo.
“That only HUMANS can properly control technology!” replied Tower. “By having us in charge, machine accidents could never happen!”
“Oh really?” snapped Optimus. “Need I point out the accidents that happened in your 18th and 19th centuries alone?”
“Mere learning opportunities,” dismissed Tower.
“Those accidents resulted in death half the time!” shouted Optimus. As Tower opened his mouth for a rebuttal, Optimus cut in. “I’m not here to debate MECH’s ridiculous goals, though. My team and I are here for an entirely different reason. We intercepted a transmission between MECH and a cloaked Metarex vessel. Why are you talking to aliens when it’s clear you don’t like us?”
“MECH has its reasons,” replied Tower.
“Blackarachnia,” called Sonic as he looked at a set of controls, “can you identify these controls?”
“Let me see,” directed Blackarachnia as she transformed. Her holo-form came on and she examined the controls. Cosmo looked over her shoulder and grinned.
“Now THAT’S clever,” she praised. Blackarachnia’s eyes then lit up like a child on Christmas morning.
“Are these the controls to a large scale, Multi-kinetic Pan-wave Survival board?!” she quizzed. “Are we standing on it right now?!”
“Couldn’t have put it better myself,” replied Cosmo.
“GENIUS!” giggled Blackarachnia. She turned to Tower. “You guys didn’t build this!”
“We have our means,” remarked Tower.
“No, you DIDN’T build this,” clarified Blackarachnia as she keyed in a code. The appearance of the ground with roads shimmered away to reveal a large silver disc. It spanned the length of the base and startled Optimus and Sonic. “This kind of tech,” continued Blackarachnia, “it may have been built here, but that’s like you guys building a Romulan Warbird in the Middle Ages.”
“I know saying this is sacrilege for tech-bots like us,” interjected Optimus, “but what does a multi…” He couldn’t remember the entire name. You could HEAR Blackarachnia roll her optics. “Hang on!” protested Optimus. “Multi…” he then started snapping his fingers to try and bring the name forward.
“Multi-kinetic Pan-wave Survival board,” answered Blackarachnia.
“Multi-kinetic…” ventured Optimus.
“Pan-wave Survival board,” finished Blackarachnia.
“Multi-kinetic Pan-wave Survival board!” repeated Optimus, finally getting it. Blackarachnia transformed and hugged him when he did.
“That still begs the question, what does it do?” quizzed Ross.
“Some disaster happens to a planet,” explained Cosmo, “like a nuclear winter, all the volcanos smothering the planet, or a meteor splitting the world, result: all life dies. BUT, this thing shrouds survivors in a force-field so they’re protected. Then you feed it coordinates and it will generate a concussion wave that you ride out of the solar system and puts you into stasis until you get to a habitable planet.”
“It’s a surfboard that can hold a lot of people!” realized Optimus.
“And has stasis pod functions,” elaborated Blackarachnia.
“What are the Metarex planning that you need to leave Mobius?!” yelped Optimus to Tower.
“This is a last resort,” explained Tower. “And how can you possibly know about the Metarex? They are a new species!”
“The fattest lie I’ve ever heard,” countered Cosmo. “They’re a splinter group of my people, the Seedrians. We were at war with them during the last 50,000 years of the Great War, the civil war of Cybertron.”
“The Great War?” repeated Optimus as he headed to a large pod. “That’s what everyone’s calling it?”
“It’s what the Stellar Council decided,” explained Cosmo.
“I’d like to argue that, but that’s neither here nor there,” muttered Optimus. “What IS both here and there is THIS.” He pointed to the pod.
“What is it?” asked Ross.
“A thing,” replied Cosmo as she stepped inside the pod. “A lot of people don’t question things. Me, I make connections and my connections lead me to the conclusion that it’s a teleport pod.” She pressed a button on the side of the pod and vanished in green light.
Cosmo reappeared in the last place a Seedrian wanted to be. She was on the Metarex ship. Several Trooper-class Metarex were walking around the large bridge she had arrived at. The Trooper-class Metarex looked like robots twice Sonic’s size and had insectoid bodies and heads. These were the grunts of the Metarex. They mainly had a brown coloration, with only the commanders having gold or silver armor. A few Jumpee-class Metarex were talking to five cloaked figures that were sitting on thrones. Jumpee-class Metarex looked a lot like Cybertronian sized frogs. The cloaked figures wore different cloaks and would be roughly a head taller than Optimus if they weren’t hunched over. The cloaks’ colors, from left to right, were turquoise, light blue, black, green, and red. The figure in the black cloak saw Cosmo. “Ah,” said Cosmo to herself. “The Metarex Five are involved.”
“We have an intruder!” called the black-cloaked figure.
“How did I get in here, you ask?” taunted Cosmo. “Intruder window! Bye!” She activated the teleport pod and returned to the MECH base.
“GET BACK!” she shouted. Optimus and the rest had moved back when the black-cloaked figure appeared. Cosmo chucked a stone at the control panel. The panel sparked. “A member of the Metarex Five!” she declared. The figure stopped as Optimus, Blackarachnia, and Ross raised their guns. “That’s what you are, am I right? A member of the Metarex Five? Now, how could I, a young-looking Seedrian diplomat, know that? Don’t you want to keep me alive for that long at least?”
“I order you to surrender,” demanded Ross, “in the name of the Guardian Unit of Nations!”
“That’s not gonna work,” remarked Cosmo. “Blackarachnia, did you see a purple box inside the control panel.”
“…That better not be a Tarzamp Signal Generator,” hissed Blackarachnia, “because I’d be furious if it were.”
“‘Fraid so,” sighed Cosmo. As Blackarachnia raged, Optimus explained what a Tarzamp Signal Generator did.
“It releases a signal,” he lectured, “that disrupts plasma cohesion, causing any laser fire to dissipate into nothing. That’s why we weren’t shot at. It wasn’t that MECH didn’t want to, they COULDN’T.”
“How do you know so much?!” snarled the figure to Cosmo. He then turned to Tower. “Who is she?!”
“She never gave her name,” replied Tower.
“This isn’t typical Metarex behavior!” recalled Cosmo. “Hiding? Using humans? Stopping laser blasts? A Metarex should face lasers with dignity. Shame on you.”
“You dishonor me, Madam!” shouted the figure.
“Do I?” quizzed Cosmo. “Then reveal yourself.”
“I will give the enemy a chance to understand the position they’re in!” declared the figure as its hands, its ROBOTIC hands, undid the broach. The cloak became a cape as the figure stood up straight, revealing a purple, Cybertronian-sized, robot-like being with one, large, green eye, silver horns on the head, and a large, green orb in its chest.
“…Oh,” gulped Optimus as he and Blackarachnia finally understood the danger they were in. “HE’S here.”
“The entire Metarex Five is here,” clarified Cosmo.
“Who’s that?” asked Ross.
“I am Dark Oak,” introduced the figure, “the Eternally Victorious! Supreme Leader of the Metarex Empire!”
“Eternally Victorious?” laughed Sonic. “What happens if you lose? Do you become Dark Oak the Almost-Eternally-Victorious-Except-For-That-One-Time-But-Forget-It?”
“He’s like a Gundam,” remarked Ross. “A purple Gundam. A purple, cycloptic Gundam. A purple, warped, cycloptic Gundam!”
“Now, Ross,” called Optimus, “don’t be rude. You look like your non-Mobian cousin after an argument with hair dye.”
“The Metarex,” explained Cosmo, “are the fiercest life-forms in this galaxy, dedicated to a life of conquest and thievery of Planet Eggs; the life-force of every planet, and Dark Oak here happens to be my father.”
“…Well, well, well!” chuckled Dark Oak as he folded his arms. “So, regenerated again, Cosmo, my child? And you threw away a life of battle to be a diplomat.”
“I’ve found being a diplomat to be much more rewarding,” replied Cosmo. “It covers my weaknesses better than that ridiculous cape you and the rest of the Metarex Five wear.”
“We have no weakness!” protested Dark Oak.
“Yes, you do!” argued Cosmo. “It’s a good weakness.”
“I thought you would have been clever!” snapped Tower. “Only an idiot provokes a warlord!”
“Besides,” said Optimus, “history would say that what Dark Oak said wasn’t an idle boast.”
“Well, history doesn’t have every fact,” replied Cosmo. “Because these Seedrian Radicals spend their lives in robot suits, the Metarex can no longer photosynthesize like I do. They have to get their energy from a crystal on their backsides. THAT’S the weak point.”
“So THAT’S why they always face their enemies!” giggled Blackarachnia. “They can’t turn their backs!”
“Metarex stare into the face of death!” boasted Dark Oak.
“Yeah?” taunted Optimus, gaining new confidence. “Stare at this!” He drew his wand and fired a magic blast into the teleport pod behind Dark Oak. It bounced into the crystal on Dark Oak’s back and the Metarex leader doubled over in pain. Blackarachnia got out Optimus’ Sonic Screwdriver and buzzed the teleport pod’s control panel. It sparked and flashed before going dead. “RUN!” called Optimus. He covered the retreat as a Ground Bridge opened for them. When they went through, Dark Oak waved the soldiers trying to tend to him away.
“Don’t touch me!” he snarled. “A Metarex would rather be forced to regenerate than show pain! I must return to Scarship.”
“But they broke the teleport pod!” replied Tower.
“Bah!” dismissed Dark Oak. “A mere stone and primitive Cybertronian magic!” Dark Oak fired a blast from his chest crystal at the pod. “The device is now fully operational.” They stepped into the pod and Dark Oak set the controls to send him and Tower up to his ship, the living flagship of the Metarex fleet, Scarship.