Feral Scream, Part 1

A stolen stasis pod and a dangerous mutation push Cheetor toward a feral, transmetal-driven change.

It is a dark and stormy night as Optimus Primal and Cheetor battle Megatron and Waspinator for a stasis pod. Cheetor pulls out a massive rifle, but instead of hitting Waspinator, his shot explodes closer to Optimus, collapsing the ledge he's standing on and burying him in an avalanche. The two Predacons retreat with their prized pod, and Cheetor is left to see to the fallen Maximal leader. Depth Charge arrives and helps uncover Optimus by blasting some rubble away with a "power pizza". After it's clear Primal is still alive, Depth Charge flies off to hunt Rampage. Damaged, Primal drives back to the base, while Cheetor in instructed to wait for back up, and assist Depth Charge.

In a dramatic ceremony, Megatron loads the stasis pod into a machine. With cells from Dinobot for an identity, half the spark of Rampage for life force, a blank protoform for a body, and the Transmetal driver to tie it all together, Dinobot II is born. Depth Charge crashes the birthday party, but the new Dinobot displays an intense ferocity against the manta. Cheetor arrives and "spices things up" by shooting stuff.

Dinobot transforms and inspects his new body, accidentally blowing off his own finger in the process. Cheetor grabs a Predacon hover-thing and uses it to snatch the Transmetal driver from Megatron's apparatus. Cheetor tosses the driver to Depth Charge. Megatron blasts Cheetor into the machine's electrical current, frying the cat bot. Cheetor spends a minute being tortured by the machine, and the assembled Transformers cover themselves as a large flash of white light explodes across the mountainside. Apparently, Cheetor is dead.

Outside, Primal blames himself for Cheetor's death—but as it turns out, Cheetor is still alive, though in bad shape.

In the Predacon base, Rampage expresses displeasure over having his spark's core given to the Dinobot clone. The king crab tries to reclaim the fragment of himself, but Dinobot has inherited Megatron's ability to crush the fragment of Rampage's spark, causing Rampage great pain. Dinobot is sent to recover the Transmetal driver. Rubber Ducky watches contently from the tub.

Depth Charge emerges from a CR chamber, and sets out to Subgrid Zarak to hunt Rampage. When there, he's ambushed and captured by Dinobot. Dinobot and the Predacons interrogate Depth Charge, but a feral monster jumps out of the darkness and strikes down Megatron. Quickstrike follows the blur of a beast behind a rock, but is quickly dismembered. When the strange feline monster jumps out again, Rampage and his "brother" try to shoot it, but only end up blasting each other away.

Megatron is left on his own, and overprotective of himself, he blasts away the wandering Waspinator. The beast hits Megatron in the back, and Megatron stumbles and plants his own tail-claw-weapon thing into the ground, causing himself to spin out of control and over a cliff. Depth Charge is left alone to wonder who or what saved him, but his mysterious hero sneaks away when Primal returns.

Back at the Maximal base, Cheetor stumbles onto the scene and passes out. Primal and Rhinox rush to help him.

—Megatron channels his inner mad scientist

—Waspinator and Depth Charge

—Rhinox and Optimus Primal

—Optimus Primal and Depth Charge

—Optimus Primal mourns Cheetor's supposed death