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"Swoop! Swoop, what wrong?!"

Sludge's anguished wail slashed through Grimlock like a point-blank blast from Megatron's fusion cannon, instantly wrenching his attention away from Slag and Snarl's latest argument. Up until the moment that Sludge squawked, it had been a normal, quiet day in a normal, quiet month in the Dinobots' huge lair at Autobot Headquarters, which had recently been dubbed "The Romper Room" by Jazz, a name that had stuck. Grimlock had been playing a "shoot 'em up" game on the computer in one corner of the room, but only half of his attention had been focused upon it. The other half of his attention had been devoted to keeping a wary optic on his comrades-in-arms.

Over on one side of the room, Slag and Snarl were arguing, quietly but heatedly. Arguments were everyday occurrences for the two of them. Slag was the bully of the Dinobots, always looking for a fight or provoking one if one wasn't to be found. Snarl, on the other hand, was a taciturn stoic who didn't much care about anyone and even less about what anyone thought of him. Snarl was usually Slag's favorite target for bullying, after Sludge. Slag was always trying to get a rise out of Snarl, for some perverse reason known only to Slag himself. Usually, Slag and Snarl's petty arguments were just that—petty. They called each other names, accused each other of being stupid, and impugned each other's courage—or lack thereof—under fire. In short, they blew off steam at each other and maybe they pushed each other around a bit, but that was usually the extent of it.

Then again, one never knew when one of Slag and Snarl's petty arguments would escalate into a serious one. If that happened, they could very well kill each other and perhaps a few innocent bystanders in the process. So Grimlock was as usual keeping most of his attention focused on the two of them, basically ignoring Sludge and Swoop.

Swoop and Sludge were on the other side of the room, engaged in one of their favorite pastimes: Sparring. It was something that never failed to amuse Grimlock whenever he watched them go at it. Sludge, after all, was the biggest and, arguably, the strongest of the Dinobots. Swoop was the smallest, the physically weakest and most delicate of them. Yet they got along famously. They were best buddies who often challenged each other to these mock battles, no powerful dinosaur forms or weapons allowed, just for fun. They had been in the middle of just such a "battle" when Grimlock had decided it was more important to keep an optic on Slag and Snarl.

Grimlock never did anything to discourage—much less stop—Sludge and Swoop's sparring matches. They never hurt one another, would, in fact, be mortified if they did. And Grimlock had long ago realized that it was actually good practice for both of them. Sludge, as the biggest of the Dinobots, was also the slowest and the clumsiest. Swoop was much quicker and far more agile than Sludge was, but to his disadvantage he also served primarily as air support for the Dinobots. He was getting rather good at air-to-air combat with the Decepticon jets and he had always been lethally accurate at dive-bombing enemies on the ground, but he had never been good at hand-to-hand combat, didn't have any real reason to learn. So by sparring, Sludge was learning how to fight an opponent much smaller and much quicker than he was and Swoop was...well, Swoop was just learning how to fight, period.

So now, hearing what might be trouble from the Sludge/Swoop side of the room was very disturbing to Grimlock. It meant that he'd possibly made an error in judgement in ignoring Sludge and Swoop. And he hated making errors.

Grimlock was on his feet in an instant, unfolding his huge body with surprising grace from the chair in which he'd been sitting. His optics locked onto the two erstwhile combatants on the far side of the room. Sludge's piteous wail had even brought Slag and Snarl's argument to a screeching halt, so all optics were suddenly focused upon Swoop.

For a moment, no one moved. All was silent...except for the strange sounds that erupted from Swoop's throat. They weren't words, these sounds, but neither were they only random noises. It sounded as if he was trying to say something coherent, but what emerged from his mouth was gibberish, as if his brain and his mouth were no longer on speaking terms. His hands were shaking violently. He was jerking his head sharply from side to side, as if trying to dislodge something annoying from his braincase. And then he collapsed ungracefully down onto one knee, and a squawk of confusion and genuine fear escaped him as his whole body began to tremble uncontrollably.

That was all that Grimlock needed to see. He charged over to Swoop's side, roughly shoving aside Snarl and Slag, who stood in his path. As Grimlock stomped to Swoop's side, Swoop looked up at him and his face was easy to read. He was terrified. That was a distinct rarity for a Dinobot.

"Grimlock," he croaked weakly. "Help. Help me!"

Grimlock knelt down beside Swoop, let Swoop lean back against him when he could no longer hold himself upright, easily supporting his relatively light weight. He was whimpering weakly, collapsing against Grimlock, slowly but surely losing consciousness. His entire body was twitching and shaking in Grimlock's arms.

Grimlock turned his gaze up at Sludge. He was standing next to Swoop as if he'd sprouted roots that held him securely in place. His wailing had stopped, and he was staring, frozen with concern, down at Swoop. He met Grimlock's glance, his expression at first haunted, and then a look of alarm flitted across his face.

"Me Sludge no hurt Swoop!" Sludge protested, apparently interpreting Grimlock's questioning glance as an accusation. "Me Sludge not ever hurt Swoop! Me swear!"

"Me, Grimlock know that, Sludge," Grimlock assured him quietly. Grimlock also knew that Sludge would be of no help in this situation, as upset as he already was, so Grimlock sent him on the only mission that he could think of at the moment. "You Sludge go get help. Find Wheeljack and bring him here. Tell him Swoop sick."

Sludge obeyed immediately, barreling for the door, his heavy, stomping footsteps rattling the metal plates that made up the floor of the Dinobots' quarters.

Grimlock knew that, of all the Autobots, Wheeljack was perhaps the most sympathetic to the Dinobots. For a long time, Grimlock had been certain that Wheeljack was sympathetic to the Dinobots simply out of self-interest, because he'd created them. But slowly, over the years, Grimlock had come to realize that Wheeljack was genuinely interested in the Dinobots and their progress as living creatures. Most of the other Autobots saw the Dinobots as cannon fodder—Optimus Prime assigned to them the jobs that everyone else was too afraid to do because they were dangerous. But Wheeljack...Wheeljack genuinely seemed to like the Dinobots. So Wheeljack was the only Autobot that Grimlock thought to call upon in this particular crisis.

Thinking about it again, Grimlock realized that he probably should have told Sludge to find Ratchet, but it was too late now. Sludge had already charged out the door, grateful for something to do. Grimlock could still hear him pounding down the corridor at a full run, but it was too late to call him back now. Even radioing him would make no difference, in all likelihood, since Sludge would ignore a hail at that point. He was particularly single-minded, after all. His brain could handle only one task at a time, and all of his attention would be riveted on completing that one task that Grimlock had assigned to him.So Grimlock turned his gaze on Snarl and Slag instead, and he growled at them in irritation. Slag was immediately offended, as usual.

"Why you, Grimlock, look at me, Slag, like that?!" he demanded hotly.

"Me look," Grimlock snarled, "because you idiot. You and Snarl!"

"Not idiot!" Slag and Snarl both protested, almost in unison.

"You both idiots!" Grimlock insisted. "You have another stupid, loud argument. Make me, Grimlock, watch you and not Swoop. Me Grimlock might have seen something wrong with Swoop before if me not so busy watching you argue."

Saying nothing in his own defense, Snarl merely scowled, turned, and walked away. He claimed a nearby chair and set about ignoring everyone, which was his normal defense mechanism.

Slag, on the other hand, was predictably furious.

"Not my fault Swoop big, weak baby!" he raged. "Not my fault he can't handle baby fight with stupid Sludge. Not my fault Grimlock too stupid to notice that Swoop sick."

That last insult, the one aimed at Grimlock himself, made Grimlock furious. He was just about to lash out, ready to club Slag over the head with whatever was at hand when he caught himself, when he realized that the only thing at hand was Swoop's body. Realizing that he'd almost unthinkingly done something that could have seriously injured Swoop by itself, notwithstanding whatever was wrong with him, he slowly reined in his temper. Calming himself, looking at a problem coolly and rationally, was something that had always been difficult for him, but it was also something at which he was getting much better. He was able to answer Slag calmly, which was certain to confuse Slag, and that would in turn defuse his temper.

"Is your fault you too stupid to keep big mouth shut," Grimlock declared emphatically but not loudly. "Go away, Slag."

At that, Slag scowled. He thought about arguing, but he knew it wouldn't do any good. Grimlock had that "I'm in charge" aura of his securely in place, a shield that Slag had never been able to dent, try as he might. So he stomped as far away from Grimlock as he could get without actually leaving the room.

Satisfied, Grimlock sighed inwardly as he watched Slag retreat, and then he looked down at Swoop cradled in his arms. He was fully unconscious now, but every once in a while one of his arms or legs twitched, telling Grimlock that he was still alive, at least. Gently shifting Swoop's body in his arms, distributing his weight a little more comfortably across his legs, Grimlock sat back on his heels to wait for Wheeljack to arrive.

Hurry, Wheeljack , he silently pleaded. Hurry.

* * * * *

Wheeljack was sitting at the drafting table in his lab, idly toying with a design idea that had been ricocheting around in his head for the past few days. Leaning back in his chair, kicking his feet up onto the tabletop, he began a few sketches on a small portable datapad.

He was halfway through this latest design of his when he became aware of a distant thumping sound that was getting closer and louder by the second. With a sinking feeling, he recognized the sound: Footsteps, the running footsteps of an extremely large Transformer. One of the Dinobots, he suspected, was about to pay him a visit. Wheeljack had narrowed his impending visitor's identity down to one of two possibilities, but he was still surprised when the less likely of the two candidates shot through the door of his lab as if he'd been belched from a cannon.

Sludge pulled up just in time, before he ran headlong into a wall. There was a look of utter panic on his face, something that was certainly rare for a Dinobot. They weren't easily rattled by anything, after all. Sludge's behavior instantly set Wheeljack on edge. Something, he now knew, had to be very wrong...

Most of the Autobots took it for granted that the Dinobots were morons. And sometimes the Dinobots did, indeed, act like morons. But Wheeljack was convinced that they did so mostly because they'd heard that they were morons so often. They'd started to believe what they heard about themselves all the time—that they were incapable of intelligent thought, incapable of compassion, incapable of any genuine emotion except, perhaps, for hate. As the Dinobots' designer, Wheeljack knew better.

Certainly the Dinobots' operating programs were much less sophisticated than that of a "normal" Autobot, but that wasn't the Dinobots' fault. If the fault was anyone's, it was Wheeljack's. He'd designed and built many things in his time, but the Dinobots' creation was a first for him. It was the first time that he'd ever attempted to design anything remotely as complicated as a new Transformer from scratch, without so much as an existing personality matrix upon which to build.

And on a whim, he'd tried to remain true to the prevalent human idea that dinosaurs were nothing more than stupid, lumbering brutes. In fact, at the time of the Dinobots' creation, the Autobots had sorely needed a dose of unfeeling, pure brute strength. But now, several years later... Now, Wheeljack harbored the guilty suspicion that he had done the Dinobots a grave disservice, that without really thinking about it he'd cursed them with a life of eternal ridicule, eternal prejudice. One of his greatest fears was that they'd forever be treated as outsiders to the Autobot cause when they had, in fact, saved the Autobots' collective bacon more times than Wheeljack wanted to count. It just wasn't fair to them that they were so often ignored. Even worse was the fact that when they weren't being ignored, they were often being ridiculed to their faces by their own allies.

So now Wheeljack did what he could for the Dinobots. He tried to spend time with them, did his best to educate them whenever the opportunity presented itself. He was always working on ideas to upgrade their operating programs, to try to undo some of the damage that he'd unwittingly done to them when he'd designed them to be simple-minded brutes. He often found himself defending them from the sometimes-cruel jokes that the Autobots made at their expense. The Dinobots didn't always understand the jokes, but Wheeljack certainly did, and he was offended on the Dinobots' behalf.

And, of course, Wheeljack was forever pleading the Dinobots' case with Optimus Prime. Prime certainly appreciated the Dinobots' value to the Autobot cause, but he would also just as soon keep them securely locked up in a cage like wild animals, to be called upon—used, really—only when it served the Autobots' interests. Granted, Wheeljack supposed that Prime was justified in shunning the Dinobots: Grimlock and his crew had almost killed Prime once. But still...

Wheeljack knew that if the other Autobots would just take it upon themselves to interact with the Dinobots every now and then, then the Dinobots would learn from them. Along with brute strength, Wheeljack had given them an enormous capacity to learn as they progressed through life, just as human children learned as they progressed from a messy birth, through childhood and turbulent teenage years, and on into reasonably intelligent adulthood. The Dinobots just weren't being given much of a chance to learn anything.

So now Wheeljack knew that Sludge wouldn't have come charging into his lab in a blind panic for just anything. Something terrible must have happened, Wheeljack knew, to make one of the Dinobots seek out an Autobot in the first place, even one of his own creators. Wheeljack stood up, eyeing Sludge warily as Sludge spun around and locked his panicked optics with Wheeljack's concerned ones.

"Wheeljack!" Sludge wailed. "Wheeljack, you come quick! Swoop sick! Swoop very, very sick!"

Wheeljack's optics widened in surprise. So that was it. The Dinobots might not care much for the Autobots, but they were usually fiercely loyal to one another when they weren't fighting amongst themselves, theirs the strange camaraderie often found amongst the socially shunned. And Wheeljack knew that Sludge and Swoop in particular were friends, kindred spirits in spite of their physical differences. Both of them were friendly and outgoing in comparison to the other Dinobots, always attempting to fit in even when the Autobots and particularly the other Dinobots ridiculed them for it. And of the five Dinobots, Sludge and Swoop were particularly vulnerable to ridicule, precisely because they genuinely wanted to be accepted. And now something was apparently wrong with Swoop, which was sure to make Sludge panic.

"Where is he?" Wheeljack asked.

"Romper Room," Sludge replied. "You, Wheeljack, come with Sludge! Help Swoop! Please!"

"I'm gonna try, Sludge," Wheeljack said reassuringly.

Sludge frowned at that.

"You always say not try, do!" he protested. "Like Yoda!"

Wheeljack didn't answer, although he was pleased that one of his lessons, at least, had apparently sunken into Sludge's head, even if it was a lesson borrowed from a movie. But now he was too busy thinking to comment.

Wheeljack couldn't imagine what could be wrong with Swoop. His mind was off and running through a list of the things that could go seriously wrong with a Dinobot. The list was short—and, distressingly, most of the things on the list were invariably fatal. Wheeljack felt the beginnings of panic flutter around in his brain. So he busied himself gathering up the equipment that he thought he might need, and then he rushed for the door. Without being told, Sludge fell into step next to him, a festering knot of worry who shadowed Wheeljack down the corridor.

"What's wrong with him?" Wheeljack finally asked of Sludge. Not that he'd expect a diagnosis from the Dinobot, of course, but maybe Sludge could give Wheeljack some idea of what had happened to Swoop. Sludge, however, just shook his head miserably.

"Not know!" he cried forlornly. "We play-fighting. He fine, but then he stop and say he can't move. Then he not talk right. Then he fall down and not get up again. Then Grimlock tell Sludge to find you. Me go. Me Sludge not want to see Swoop like that."

Oh, no, Wheeljack thought to himself, a sudden sinking feeling descending upon him. Me Wheeljack not want to see Swoop like that, either...

Immediately, he contacted Ratchet, the Dinobots' co-creator and the Autobot whose help Wheeljack now realized he was going to need.

"Ratchet, Swoop's crashed," he said succinctly.

"So what else is new?" came Ratchet's sardonically amused reply.

"I don't mean crashed out of the sky!" Wheeljack snapped, annoyed. "I mean systems failures."

"What?! " Ratchet responded, alarmed, all sarcasm gone in that instant. "How is that possible?"

"I don't know!" Wheeljack griped. "Just get your tail down to the Romper Room now. I'm gonna need your help with this, I think."

"Be there in a flash," Ratchet assured him.

Wheeljack hoped so. If what he thought was wrong with Swoop actually was what was wrong with Swoop, then he had to accept the fact that Swoop might already be beyond help by the time he and Ratchet reached him. But if anyone could help him, it would be Ratchet. Wheeljack's specialty was designing things; fixing them when they broke was Ratchet's forte. Without a word, Wheeljack broke into a run, Sludge following closely on his heels.

* * * * *

The first sight that greeted Wheeljack when he walked into the Dinobots' lair was Grimlock. He was huddled on the floor, and his shoulders were slumped dejectedly. Swoop's relatively small body was sprawled awkwardly across his lap, his head resting in the crook of Grimlock's elbow. His body was twitching randomly, but he was unconscious. Sludge was right. It appeared that he was very sick, indeed.

With Sludge trailing anxiously on his heels, Wheeljack approached Grimlock, who tensed and laid one protective arm across Swoop's body until he realized who it was that was standing over him. He looked up at Wheeljack, and Wheeljack was stunned to see worry and naked fear in Grimlock's somewhat limited expression. He'd never thought to see Grimlock afraid before.

"Swoop dying, Wheeljack!" Grimlock cried with uncharacteristic anguish. "He won't wake up! He not allowed to die, Wheeljack!"

Wheeljack laid a reassuring hand on Grimlock's shoulder as he knelt down next to the big Dinobot commander and his smaller, helpless burden.

"Easy, big guy," Wheeljack murmured, pulling a medscanner out of the small kit he'd hastily put together and brought with him from his lab. "Let's just have a look here..."

Wheeljack ran the scanner over Swoop's inert body. And then he winced as the small device immediately began to blare dire warnings about Swoop's condition, which, as Wheeljack discovered, was not good at all. Swoop's systems were indeed crashing, one after another, at a dizzying pace. So far, his vital systems were unaffected, but from what Wheeljack saw on the medscanner's read-out, that was soon to change. It was only a matter of time, maybe minutes. And he had no idea what to do to stabilize him.

C'mon Ratchet, Wheeljack silently urged. Where the hell are you?

Grimlock was staring at the medscanner, meanwhile, alarmed. He knew what plaintive scanner sounds meant, after all.

"Not good!" Grimlock bellowed. "You, Wheeljack, fix him now!"

"I can't, Grimlock!" Wheeljack snapped back, more irritated with himself than with Grimlock, because all he could do was sit and ineffectually watch Swoop die by inches. "Ratchet's on his way."

"But Ratchet no like Dinobots!" Grimlock protested. "Call us 'bubbleheads.'"

Wheeljack sighed exasperatedly as he continued to monitor Swoop's condition, watching in helpless concern as more and more of his subsystems crashed.

"Only when you act like bubbleheads," he answered, annoyed. "Like you are right now. Why do you always assume that someone doesn't like you just because they point out to you that you're acting like an idiot?"

Grimlock was silent for a moment, actually thinking about Wheeljack's question.

"Not know," Grimlock finally concluded. "Must be design flaw."

Wheeljack glanced up at Grimlock then, stunned. Is he teasing me?he silently asked himself. Maybe he is learning...

Before Wheeljack could comment, though, Ratchet skidded into the room. He nearly plowed headlong into Slag, who'd been edging slowly closer to Swoop and Grimlock since Wheeljack had arrived, curious despite himself about what was going on with his flying comrade. Ratchet pulled up just in time, muttered a half-hearted apology to Slag, who ignored him, and went over to crouch down next to Wheeljack, who growled at him like...like a Dinobot.

"'Bout time you got here," he groused. "What'd you do, take the scenic route?"

Ratchet chose not to answer, attributing Wheeljack's uncharacteristic surliness to his concern for Swoop. Ratchet could understand. He was concerned himself. He'd had a rather large part in the Dinobots' creation, too, and of the five of them, he was most fond of Swoop. He was an intensely curious soul, like Ratchet himself and, lately, he'd developed a habit of hanging around the medical bay, silently watching what the medics did for hours on end, even if they were just going about routine business. Lately, Ratchet had started to give him small, simple tasks to do around the bay, just paying attention to him in general.

And he loved attention, soaked it up as a human soaked up sunshine while lying on a beach. So few of the Autobots paid attention to him or to any of the Dinobots, after all. It really was a shame in Swoop's case, at least, for Ratchet had discovered that he could be rather endearing. He reminded Ratchet of a Great Dane puppy—big, awkward, rambunctious, and completely heedless of his own strength, but hopelessly eager to please. And now...Now it was particularly disturbing to see him in such bad shape, more disturbing than he might have expected. Over the last year or two, Ratchet had gotten used to his curious, ever-cheerful presence.

Without a word, Ratchet snatched Wheeljack's medscanner out of his hand, and ran it over Swoop's twitching body, as Wheeljack had done. Just as he'd begun to interpret the medscanner's findings—not at all liking what he saw—Swoop's body suddenly went into a fit of powerful convulsions. It was all Grimlock could do to hold on to him, despite the fact that he was twice Swoop's size, and the medscanner began to have an hysterical fit, blaring warnings more dire than ever.

"Damn!" Ratchet cursed loudly, drawing alarmed glances from both Wheeljack and Sludge.

"What?!" Sludge demanded to know. "What wrong with Swoop?"

Ratchet had no time to answer. He twisted around and started rummaging frantically through the kit he'd brought with him from the medical bay. Various pieces of medical equipment went flying everywhere as he dug through the kit, hoping that he'd thought to toss in the device that he needed. With a relieved sigh, he finally located it buried in the bottom of the kit. Haste making him clumsy, he grabbed the small, box-shaped device, pulled it out of the kit, and quickly unwound the cable that was wrapped around it. Turning hurriedly back to Swoop, he popped open a small access port at the junction of his shoulder and his neck and, while Grimlock held him as still as he could, attached the device to him. Almost immediately, Swoop's body relaxed and some of the medscanner's frantic bleating subsided. Ratchet sat back on his heels, momentarily relieved.

Wheeljack was watching Ratchet warily, not particularly wanting to hear Ratchet's diagnosis because he was already pretty sure what it would be and it wasn't good news. But he had to know.

"It's cascade failure, isn't it?" he asked quietly.

Ratchet nodded miserably and sighed.

"I'm afraid so," he said sadly.

"Damn it! What'd I do wrong?" Wheeljack suddenly exploded, smacking a fist against the floor, making Sludge, who was crouched next to him, jump. As Swoop's designer, Wheeljack apparently felt that Swoop's problem was his fault, although Ratchet couldn't begin to understand why.

Grimlock, meanwhile, glanced between the two Autobots who had, between them, designed and built him and the other Dinobots. Sludge, however, asked the question that Grimlock wanted to ask before he could ask it.

"What wrong with Swoop?!" Sludge demanded to know. "What is...cascade failure?"

Wheeljack and Ratchet exchanged a look. Wheeljack shrugged, deferring to Ratchet. The Dinobots deserved to know what was wrong with their comrade, and Wheeljack knew that Ratchet would be able to explain it to them far better than he could.

Ratchet sighed, taking a moment to put into extremely simple layman's terms what had happened to Swoop.

"You know that all Cybertronians live and behave the way they do because of the...programs that are encoded in their circuits, right?" At Sludge's wary nod, with a glance at Grimlock to make sure that he was still following, too, Ratchet continued. "Well, sometimes what happens in one of those programs can affect what happens in others. It's called being interlinked or interdependent. And sometimes, something goes wrong in one program that happens to be interlinked with others, and that one problem ends up spreading through all the other interlinked programs until, finally, the entire network of operating programs ends up failing."

"And then they die?" Grimlock asked quietly, anxiously cradling Swoop more tightly against his chest as if that would protect him from further harm.

Ratchet nodded.

"Sometimes," he said gently. "If help doesn't arrive in time to stop their central operating programs from crashing, then yes, they usually die."

Both Grimlock and Sludge looked troubled, exchanged a distressed glance. Wheeljack asked the question that they were apparently afraid to ask.

"And Swoop?" he asked quietly. "Did help arrive in time for him?"

Ratchet sighed again, smiled faintly and tiredly.

"Just barely," he said. "If I'd gotten here half a minute later, his central operating program would've crashed and we'd never have gotten him back. For now, this bypass," he continued, gesturing at the small box that he'd attached to Swoop, "is keeping the failure cascade out of his most vital systems, but it won't work forever. I've got to get him to the medical bay and see how much damage has already been done."

"So Swoop will be OK?" Sludge asked brightly.

"I hope so, Sludge," answered Ratchet fervently. "Grimlock, will you carry him to the medical bay for me?"

Grimlock nodded, adjusted his grip on Swoop, and then stood up, gently cradling the fallen Dinobot in his arms. Sludge bounced to his feet, too.

"Sludge come, too!" he announced.

Grimlock nodded, then aimed a glower at Slag, who was close by now, and then at Snarl, who was still off in a corner, ignoring everything that was going on around him. Grimlock was still blaming Slag and Snarl's argument for Swoop's trouble and his own inability to recognize that something was wrong with him sooner, even though he knew the accusation was completely illogical. Still, Grimlock wanted the two more troublesome Dinobots with him, so that he could watch them. He didn't trust them alone.

"Us all come," Grimlock announced, glaring at Slag in particular as the others headed for the door. Snarl shrugged indifferently, then stood up and began to follow the others, but Slag stayed where he was, arms folded defiantly across his chest, optics narrowed furiously at Grimlock.

"Not want to!" Slag spat vehemently. "Not care about Swoop! He weak. Weak should die!"

But Grimlock was having none of it.

"Now, Slag!" he bellowed, not even bothering to debate Slag's theory on the survival of the fittest. After a moment or two of hostile staring at one another, Slag growled and headed for the door. He nailed Grimlock with a furious glare as he walked by, though, as if to say that the argument wasn't over.

Ratchet, meanwhile, sighed as they left the Dinobots' quarters.

Great! he thought to himself, glancing heavenward as if in search of divine help. Just what I need. A bunch of big, bickering, over-protective oafs rubber-necking while I try to save a life.

It was the start, Ratchet was certain, of what promised to be a very long, very bad afternoon...

On to Part 2