Snowblind
A BeastWars story

By
Lady Razorsharp


---I never lost as much but twice,
    And that was in the sod;
    Twice have I stood a beggar
    Before the door of God!
    Angels, twice descending,
    Reimbursed my store.
    Burglar, banker, father,
    I am poor once more!
---Emily Dickinson

    The sky overhead was a brilliant blue, soft white clouds drifting in the wide expanse that soared to the edge of the horizon.  Tigertron closed his eyes and lifted his sensitive nose to the slight wind, inhaling deeply of fresh water and newly grown vegetation nearby.  He opened his eyes and looked farther up the mountain, to the snow that blanketed the high, wind-scoured peak, and for a moment, a frown crossed his feline face.  Snow always reminded him of Snowstalker-another white tiger who he had befriended before she was killed in a Predacon raid.  She was a native of this planet-not a Maximal like himself-, which made her loss all the more poignant. 

    She could not have understood what the Predacons were, just as she had not understood when Tigertron maximized in front of her once.  Snowstalker had turned and run from him then, not knowing that within his metal body still lay the heart of the wild cat that loved her.  After that, he had never done so in her presence again, until mere seconds before she was killed.  He had felt her confusion as she searched for the Tigertron she knew in the midst of that fiery battle, only finding the metal frames she considered enemies, felt her indecision: Go or stay?  Then it was all over, an avalanche of rock pouring down upon her from the blasts Tigertron had loosed on Inferno, and he felt her silent scream of pain as the stones crushed the life from her.

    He sighed, turning from the pristine white slopes just as the daystar's rays turned the snowfield into a scattering of gems.  Her grave was not far from here-a simple pile of stones to mark her resting-place-but he would not go to her today.  Optimus had managed to contact him through a net of static, finding him even in this remote place.  A stasis pod had landed a few clicks away, and since Optimus knew Tigertron usually did not stray far from Snowstalker's mountain, he knew the feline would be the fastest line of defense against a Pred attempt at capturing the pod.

    "I'm sorry to disturb you, my friend," Optimus had radioed, his words blurred by interference, "but you're the closest one.  I know you don't want the Preds to get a hold of that pod to make another one of them, so just sit on it until we get there.  Primal out."

    _Slag him,_ Tigertron thought bitterly, in an unusual display of disrespect toward Optimus.  _He uses my own feelings against me._  Still, Optimus was right, so Tigertron took one last look at Snowstalker's mountain and ran for the coordinates he had been given.


    The stasis pod had burned a large swath of destruction through the flora, and part of Tigertron wailed in anguish as he saw coils of smoke still rising from the burned-out husks of trees.  _Again, we hurt the wild!_  He slid down the walls of the small canyon, dropping to the mossy floor that had been carved millennia ago by a long-forgotten river.  The pod seemed to be intact, the big cat making a circuit of the sleek metal craft and finding no significant damage.  Whatever was inside was undamaged as well, the stasis screen flickering softly in time to the pulse of the unformed spark inside.

    For a wild, mad instant, Tigertron considered destroying the pod and telling Optimus and the others that it had been shattered on impact.  He gave the command to maximize, feeling himself change from white tiger to bipedal Transformer, and trained the sights of his concussion weapon on the direct center of the stasis pod.  _For you, Snowstalker.  No others of our kind shall be made to molest your home._  The microseconds passed, but Tigertron found he could not pull the trigger.  He lowered his weapon-the weapon that Rhinox had replaced after he threw the first one away during the battle that killed Snowstalker.  He could not kill another of his kind or lie to his commander and friends any more than he could turn Pred or set a forest fire.  He felt torn, his beast mode pulling him one way, his Maximal side the other.

    "Beast mode," he murmured softly, becoming a powerful, sleek cat once more. If he could not choose, then he would decide NOT to decide, and sat down on his haunches to await the arrival of the others.


    "Good work, kitty cat," Rattrap said, looking up at the white-and-teal Maximal that topped him by several meters.  "At least the Preds didn't get this one."

    Tigertron shrugged, wishing he could share Rattrap's enthusiasm.  "I merely followed Optimus' orders. Now that my work is done, I will return to the wild. Beast mode."  He switched back to being a white tiger, ignoring Rattrap's slight frown.

    "Yeah, well...thanks, Tigertron," Rattrap murmured after his enigmatic friend, watching the striped tail sway into the underbrush.  In just a few microseconds, Tigertron was out of visual range, and the smaller Maximal rejoined Optimus and Cheetor at the slumbering stasis pod.

    "-if the Preds have discovered this one yet," Optimus was muttering, his large hands skimming the controls on the pod's panel.  "Rhinox was monitoring all Pred channels before we left, and I told him to alert us immediately if he saw anything heading our direction."

    Cheetor nodded in agreement. "Let's just get our new friend up and running, and get out of here, Big Bot," he said, glancing up at the clear blue sky.  He sent his scanners as fine and as far as they could go, but the only thing he saw was Tigertron plodding back up the mountain trail.  "He still misses her," he breathed softly, Rattrap joining them at the screen.

    Optimus didn't take his optics from the readouts, but the corners of his titanium lips curved downward.  "Yes, he does," the Maximal leader sighed, "but I know what he's going through.  We all do, I think; the loss of friends and loved ones to this war is common to us all."

    Rattrap couldn't suppress a small smile at Optimus' words; it was just like Primal to say something wise and profound at precisely the right moment. Cheetor, who was the youngest of the Maximals and looked up to Optimus like a hero, nodded sagely at the wisdom of ages in Optimus' voice.  It had not been a coincidence that Primal had chosen to take the name of the legendary Autobot leader, although Rattrap had been initially opposed to the idea.  Many had done so, but few actually lived up to their predecessor's image-and Primal was the best of those, in Rattrap's opinion.

    Now Primal keyed the final string of commands to make the new protoform a Maximal, setting a process in motion that not even the code-cracking Tarantulas could disengage.  The pod was still vulnerable to attack, however, so he and his soldiers took up positions of defense, with Rattrap on the opposite side of the screen, Cheetor at the foot of the pod, and Optimus near the screen.  It would take some time before the pod would need input for a beast mode, and each Maximal wondered what that form would be.  Optimus knew, as he stood fingering the trigger on his flare rifle, that Cheetor wouldn't mind another big cat, and Rattrap might hope for another rodent to help in scavenging for energon, but they knew they needed as many diverse soldiers as possible.  Optimus just hoped that the Preds hadn't discovered the pod yet.


    The underbrush rustled ever so slightly as Inferno raised his wrist to his fanged mouth, mentally keying the Pred secure frequency.  "Inferno to Colony," he hissed.  "The enemy is in range.  What are your orders, my queen?'

    Megatron's voice was harsh in the stillness.  "Observe-for now.  There will be ample time to convince the young one to join our cause after it witnesses how we triumph over its slave masters."  Inferno could almost see Megatron wince.  "And for the last time, you stupid insect, stop calling me that!"


    Back on  Snowstalker's mountain, Tigertron stopped on a rock worn smooth by the high winds and did something he rarely chose to do-he gave the order to maximize and sat down on the rock, his metal feet dangling in the air of the perilous drop below.  He had mourned Snowstalker time and again, each time hoping to wipe her memory out of his data tracks, but it was no use.  Her emerald eyes haunted him every time he recharged, the soft caress of her rough pink tongue awakened him night after night, only to find that she was not lying beside him, but still in her cold, silent grave in the clearing below. She could not speak to him with words, but Snowstalker had spoken to him with her heart, and in the depths of her emerald eyes, Tigertron had seen love and purpose.  Now she was gone, beyond the reach of anything Rhinox could ever do. Besides, Tigertron mused, shifting on the stone, Rhinox was a healer of metal bodies, not of flesh.  The feline Maximal buried his head in his hands, wishing there were some way to end the pain.

    A piercing scream cut through his sorrow like a plasma blade, and Tigertron looked up through blurred optics to find a winged shape float toward him through the air, riding the thermals and circling where he sat.  A smile lit the Maximal's face, lifting some of the pain away, and he stretched out a gleaming metal hand toward the winged shape, beckoning to it.  It materialized into a huge peregrine falcon, bright black eyes like onyx buttons catching his ruby optics with a startling amount of perception and clarity.  This falcon was a friend, and unlike Snowstalker, the falcon only knew Tigertron in his robot form.  His feline form was a natural enemy, and Tigertron was glad he had stumbled upon her aerie as a Maximal.

    The falcon settled on his arm, her claws making small clicks against the metal, and Tigertron stroked her silky feathers with a careful finger.  She had grown since he had seen her last, he realized, and he wondered if she had an aerie of her own by now.  She had been just a small hatchling when he had found her, struggling for life amongst the burning embers of what had been her mother, brothers and sisters after a stray laser blast turned her home to a smoking cinder.  He had taken her to Snowstalker's lair, nursing her back to health as a way to keep him from going crazy with missing his companion, and the bird and the Maximal had become fast friends, sharing in a common loss of loved ones.

    "Hello, AirRazor," he murmured softly, and the bird cocked her head at him at the sound of his smooth voice.  "What brings you to Snowstalker's mountain?" In answer, the falcon pecked at his other hand, hoping to find one of the small morsels he sometimes caught for her, if he happened to think of it. However, there was no such treat today, and Tigertron shook his head with a chuckle.  "No, pretty one, I don't have anything for you today.  You're on your own for that, as you should be.  I hope I didn't spoil you when we met." He stroked the dappled feathers on her chest, and she flapped her wings a few times to regain her balance, the sharp beak opening slightly as if to say something, but she settled and resumed her calm blinking at the huge robot. Naming her had been something Tigertron could not help, as he could not help with Snowstalker.  He knew they had no idea what the words meant, but it fastened importance to them in his mind.  The wild had a face in Snowstalker and AirRazor, and it kept his side of the battle against the Preds in crystal focus.

    A low rumbling interrupted Tigertron's thoughts, and AirRazor spread her wings for balance as he whipped his head around to the view beyond the mountain range.  Engines-whining turbines and thrusters-coming over the ridge, and closing fast.  "Predacons," Tigertron murmured, automatically scanning the sky for energy signatures.  His Heads-Up Display returned with Inferno and Waspinator, followed closely by Terrasaur, and a hot blade of irony stabbed the feline through his energon pump as he watched them descend into the valley below.  They had been the reason behind the battle on this mountain the last time, and they had been the targets of Tigertron's own blast-the blast that had buried Snowstalker alive.  _They will not desecrate this mountain again!_ He swore silently, turning back to a clearly agitated AirRazor.

    "Go, pretty one, fly away!  Fly as fast as you can, and don't look back!"  He launched her into the air from his fist, his voice tinged with desperation as laser fire began scorching the rocks all around him.  The Preds had seen him, his Maximal form sending out an energy signature like a beacon.  His own stupidity would cost him another friend, he thought harshly, but he forced the thought out of his mind for the moment and concentrated on drawing the Pred fire away from AirRazor and his comrades down in the valley.  "BEAST MODE!" he screamed, hitting the ground with all four paws running, dodging the Pred lasers and thundering into the underbrush toward his friends and the stasis pod.


    "Slagit!"  Rattrap cursed, hitting the mossy dirt and tumbling away from a heat-seeking missile as it churned up the valley floor, then covering his cranium with his hands as the explosion threw rocks in every direction.  "I thought Rhinox was supposed to warn us if the Preds were gonna crash the party!"

    Optimus dodged from behind a tree, then leapt to the side as Waspinator shot the tree with an electrical charge, sizzling the living plant like it had been struck by lightning.  He returned fire, his flare pistol making plumes of smoke in air that already smelled of cordite and ozone.  "The Preds probably have the net jammed," he yelled over the din of battle.  "Concentrate on protecting that pod!  That's what they want!"

    Cheetor took aim at the center of Terrasaur's chestplate as the Predacon folded out of beast mode.  "And we're not gonna let 'em have it, Big Bot!"  He let off a few blasts, frustrated when the flying Predacon easily dodged the plasma bursts, but the young Maximal doggedly followed him through the sky as the battle raged on.

    "HOLD YOUR FIRE!"  Tigertron burst through the underbrush, skidding to a stop in front of the startled Maximals.  "Tigertron, MAXIMIZE!"  Changing instantly from white tiger to gleaming robot, Tigertron held up his hands to show he was unarmed.  "Predacons, leave this place!  You will not injure this planet any more than you already have!  I forbid it!"

    Rattrap glanced at a stunned Optimus, then looked up at the hovering Predacons-who were clearly just as stunned.  "He's lost his mind," the rodent offered by way of explanation.  "He's blown a diode, being out here by himself, that's all."

    The feline Maximal growled in Rattrap's direction, making the smaller robot close his harmonizer in surprise.  "I am the sanest one of you all!" he snarled.  "You are the ones who insist this madness continue."  He drew his concussion pistol, rage and anger coursing through his every circuit as he swept its aim through the Maximals, then leveled it at the three Predacons. "Leave. This. Place," he said, his voice low and deadly, biting out each word through clenched incisors.

    Clearly rattled at Tigertron's fervor, the Predacons exchanged uneasy glances.  "He's a freak," supplied Terrasaur.  "He's not worth the ammo we'd waste on plugging his sorry hide anyway."

    "But the royalty said-"

    "Mmmmzzzzssshut up about royalty!" Waspinator spat, training his electrorifle on Inferno.  "Wazzzpinator tired of stupid insect alwayzzzz talking about royalty thizzz, royalty that!"

    Inferno's eyes narrowed, titanium lips pulled back in a fanged snarl.  "Who are you calling a stupid insect, stupid insect?!"  He shoved his fist in one of Waspinator's compound eyes, making the green Predacon howl in pain.  "You are a traitor if you do not follow the royalty's orders!"

    Terrasaur hauled both of them by their head modules and bonked them together with a resounding CLANG!  Sparks flew as their circuitry banged around in their metal skulls, and they dipped woozily in the sky.  "Will you two quit your bickering!  We are outgunned and we're low on energon.  We need to return to base."  He shot a glance at the stunned Maximals, then looked at Tigertron, who still stood at full draw.  "Besides," he murmured so only Waspinator and Inferno could hear, "we are outnumbered four to three, five to three if you figure for Optimus Primal being down there."

    "Our skidplates are slagged if we return to the colony without the pod!" screeched Inferno, still holding his head where his had met Waspy's.

    "Our skidplates are slagged anyway, if Primal decides to use the protoform to torch us all!"  Terrasaur changed back to beastmode, flapping his leathery wings.  "Have your stupid pod and your precious mountain, you sorry energon guzzlers!  Megatron will have his vengeance on you for this!"  With that threat hanging in the air between the two factions, the Predacons turned and sped off in the direction of the Pred base.

   
    Cheetor was the first to speak in the stunned silence that followed.  "Sh- should we go after them, Big Bot?"

    Optimus looked at Tigertron, who had lowered his pistol and was standing with proud head hung, as if the weight of the universe was on his broad shoulders. "No.  We have more pressing concerns right now.  The Preds will have enough to deal with when Megatron finds out they did not capture the pod."

    "Heheh, that's for sure," Rattrap chuckled, wishing he could be an energon mite on the wall in the Pred throne room when Megs let his three screwups have it.

    The readout on the screen beeped expectantly, and the other three Maximals gathered around Optimus in curiosity as their leader punched in the next set of commands.  "Beast form prototype," the computer's level voice queried, and Optimus' hand hesitated over the controls.  He turned toward Tigertron, compassion in his optics as he knew what Tigertron hoped, but dared not ask. The power to halfway right a grievous wrong was in his hands, but Tigertron shook his head almost imperceptibly.  There would only be one white tiger in the Maximal army, no matter how much the feline wished he had a companion to fill his lonely existence on the mountain.

    Tigertron scanned the faces of his friends, their compassion mirroring that of their leader.  They all knew how much he missed Snowstalker, but again he shook his head.  "No, my friends, I know what you're thinking.  Snowstalker can never be replaced, nor do I want to attempt such a thing."  He caught Optimus' gaze once more, then looked skyward in surprise as he heard AirRazor's piercing scream overhead.

    "Beastmode prototype confirmed," the pod's computer said placidly, sending forth a scanning beam toward the falcon wheeling above them.

    "NOOOOO!"  Tigertron could only stand and watch as the beam caught and held the falcon in it rays, the scanner interfering with the falcon's highly tuned senses.  It stalled in the air, its feathers ruffling as it plunged to the ground like a stone.  Tigertron stretched his feline body to the limit and managed to slide on his belly, his outstretched hands breaking the falcon's fall by mere microinches. He was greatly relieved to see that the falcon was unhurt, except for a few displaced feathers, and caressed the bird's chest in silent offer of comfort.  "There, there, pretty one, it's alright.  You're safe."

    Rattrap smiled at his friend.  "Trust the kitty cat to make friends with a bird," he quipped.  "Things keep getting' weirder an' weirder on this planet all the time."

    There was a hiss of steam and a hum of machinery powering down, and all the Maximals stood silent as the pod's hatch began to open.  <No one make any sudden moves,> came Optimus' silent radio instruction, and everyone obeyed as a slender form rose from the depths of the pod, steam curling from the new Maximal's plating as the polymers hardened against the oxygenated atmosphere. The figure emerged slowly, emerald eyes blinking against the setting sun that set her gold and black armor ablaze with fiery light.  _Her?_ Came the thought into everyone's mind at exactly the same instant, but it was true-the new Maximal was, by pure luck of the draw, a female.

    _Or WAS it just coincidence?_ Rattrap mused to himself, sneaking a glance at Optimus, who returned the glance with a knowing, sagely smile.  Then the rodent slid his gaze back to Tigertron, who was standing a few meters behind Optimus with a look of utter surprise on his feline face.  The falcon on Tigertron's arm shrieked and flew away, startled by the newcomer, and the motion snapped everyone back into reality.

    Optimus was about to extend his hand in welcome to the newcomer, who still had not spoken. She was taking in her surroundings, absorbing all the data her newly formed processors were able to hold, and had barely spared the Maximals a glance since she first saw them.  However, she returned her bright gaze to scan them once more, her hawk-like features sharpening with interest, and Optimus slowly turned to Tigertron.

    <You, who have lost so much, should be the first to greet our new friend,> the Maximal leader radioed, and Tigertron nodded in speechless gratitude.  He carefully stepped closer to the femme, extending an empty right hand toward her. 

    "Welcome.  We are Maximals, and we mean you no harm."

    The femme smiled.  "Thank you," she said, her voice pleasant and even.  "I'm glad to meet you."

    Tigertron touched his chestplate.  "I am called Tigertron.  And this is Rattrap, Cheetor, and Optimus.  Optimus is our leader."

    The emerald eyes swept the group, taking in their forms and filing their schematics away in her database as allies.  "Am I-one of you?"

    Optimus smiled.  "If you wish it so."

    She nodded.  "I would like that."  She looked back at Tigertron.  "Well, it looks like I'm the only one without a name here."  She cocked her head at him, so much like...   

    "AirRazor," he said softly.  "You are called AirRazor."

    AirRazor smiled, trying the name out on her harmonizer.  "I like that.  Yes, I like that very much."


    Tigertron stood on Snowstalker's mountain, watching his Maximal friends head back to the Axalon with AirRazor in tow.  The chilly breeze rippled along his fur, and he instinctively lifted his nose to smell the wind.  The air was full of the promise of snow, but the scent did not drive plasma blades through his soul as it once had.  The main reason for that was the Maximal flying above the others, her newly formed wings slicing the cold air and riding the thermals toward her destiny.  _AirRazor._ His breath had been taken from him by her beauty, his soul warmed by the intelligence sparkling in the depths of her emerald eyes.  He had fallen in love with AirRazor on first sight, and as much as he thought the concept only something he'd read about in myths of old, he knew it was happening to him.

    "Snowstalker...please, please forgive me," he whispered to the wind, and turned back into her lair to await the coming snows.

The End


Author's Note: watching "Law of the Jungle"...inspired this.

Transformers: Beast Wars: Snowblind  (c)Copyright 1998 Melissa McCook  Melody Silver/Golden Eighth Note Ltd. 
TRANSFORMERS(tm) AND ALL RELATED CHARACTERS ARE PROPERTY OF HASBRO, INC.  THIS STORY IS NOT FOR SALE OR PUBLICATION AND IS NOT MEANT TO CONSTITUTE AN ACT OF PLAGARISM OR A BREACH OF COPYRIGHT.


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