Feral Scream is the forty-fourth and forty-fifth episode of the Beast Wars TV series.
Synopsis[]
Part 1[]
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.
Back in the Maximals' base, Primal is repairing himself. Depth Charge arrives and reports Cheetor's death. Depth Charge heads into a cave to scan the driver, and finds that it's a device of alien nature that has been altered by Megatron. He decides to destroy the device by tossing it into some lava, but once Depth Charge's back is turned, Blackarachnia catches the device before it is immolated.
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.
Part 2[]
Optimus Primal checks on Cheetor, who is napping after he collapsed in front of the Maximals' current base, heavily damaged from the fight with the Predacons. After making sure Cheetor's okay, Primal has a discussion with Rattrap, mentioning that Cheetor has refused to use the CR chamber. Rattrap figures he wants to prove something, but Optimus is suspicious. He decides to discuss it with Cheetor in the morning, while Rattrap decides to take a little rat nap.
Cheetor doesn't sleep soundly, though. From the cat's chest, a strange appendage grows, and Cheetor has a nightmare of the other Maximals (sans Optimus Primal) wanting to see 'what makes him tick', and subsequently transforming him into an ugly, mutated monstrosity, to their disgust. Cheetor awakens, glad his dream was unreal, but finds himself caught in a green light expanding out of his spark.
Rattrap, awakened by the noise, heads to the lower level to see what's wrong. Before he reaches Cheetor's room, a large cat monster bursts out of it and knocks Rattrap over, then rushes away. Optimus Primal comes to help Rattrap, who (incorrectly) assumes that the big ugly monster has gotten Cheetor.
In the Predacon base, Megatron hears the roar of the roaming beast and checks the radar. He figures out that Cheetor has been upgraded, explaining who his nemesis from the most recent battle was. Waspinator is sent to capture the cat-bot.
Silverbolt returns to the Maximals' base, having failed to locate Cheetor (and jealous of Blackarachnia's concern for the feline). Having already surmised what is going on, Optimus Primal confronts Depth Charge, and forces an account of the relevant events out of him. Depth Charge explains that Cheetor removed some device from the Predacon machine, but was caught in the overload. Depth Charge also says that he destroyed the Transmetal driver.
Awakening in a cave, Cheetor finds himself back in his usual Transmetal form again, completely repaired, but with fragmented, disturbing memories of what happened the previous night. Later, Dinobot and Waspinator find the cave, and after shredding Waspinator, Dinobot proceeds to hunt the Maximal. But inside the cave, he finds Cheetor has already left.
Optimus orders the Maximals to search for Cheetor in Grid Alpha Two, but Cheetor shows up outside the Maximal base. He tries to explain that he's taken care of "the monster". Optimus Primal, being less gullible than Cheetor is clever, indicates he wants Cheetor to take him to the creature's remains. Away from the other Maximals, Primal and Cheetor talk, but before Cheetor can admit the truth, Primal's chest is fried by Dinobot.
The emotional stress of Cheetor's concern breaks the cat back into his Transmetal 2 form, and he easily blasts away Waspinator away. Then Dinobot comes out and blasts the downed Primal again, and the two Transmetal 2's duel with each other, slashing away in their beast modes. When Rattrap and Silverbolt arrive, Dinobot is smart enough to retreat.
Optimus reaches out to the feral Cheetor, coaxing him back to his senses. Back at the Maximal base, Cheetor tries to keep his cool while he flirts with Blackarachnia. Cheetor misinterprets her affection as something personal, when really she's more interested in his technology—and how she can get some of it for herself.
Transcript[]
- Feral Scream/Transcript