In a completely different part of the cave system, Jaggid was staring wide eyed at the inconceivable landscape. There was a dull ache in her arms from holding up the landslide, but it seemed to fade in this place. How strange. Was it the distracting dumbfoundedness of an entire underground ecosystem as flourishing as the world above? Or was there perhaps something else to this place? Either way, she didn't like it. Sunlight and open air or bust, in her opinion.

She pulled out a data pad to try to get some readings; atmospheric, flora and fauna, geometrics scans and the like.

"Nothing," she muttered in frustration, banging the pad into the heel of her hand. She suspected this strange place was the cause of these sensor glitches, and possibly the communication problems they had been having up top. She couldn't pinpoint why she thought this, but the nagging sensation wouldn't leave her. She inhaled. "Very well. The old fashioned way it is, then."

She transformed into beast mode and after twenty or so minutes arrived at a clearing, sheltered by the side of a cliff. The rock face was made of hexagonal basalt columns, covered in ivy and moss. Any other time, Jaggid would have found this terrain picturesque, and felt right at home in the jungle environment. But she couldn't get rid of that lingering sense of dread. Where were the animals? She hadn't heard a single creature since she arrived, not even an insect.

Suddenly she heard a noise that didn't belong. She Maximised and readied herself in a defensive stance. She stood as still as she could; waiting, listening, trying to find the source of it. She whipped her head around. This time, she caught something in the corner of her eye. But her brain couldn't process what she thought she saw. Did that tree just...move?

She shook her head roughly, trying to clear her mind. There was something seriously off about this place. She couldn't rely on scanners and she couldn't even trust the landscape, assuming she wasn't losing her marbles, so what now? She would have to improvise, and be instinctive.

She began leaving markers on rocks she passed to help her find her way back by slashing them with her extendable claws. She considered doing this on tree trunks, but something stopped her. It looked like it was shaking. Not the leaves, but the tree itself. A little perturbed, she settled for scratching rocks.

"When I find you two, I'm going to give you both a clip around the ear," she muttered to herself and the distant duo. "The sooner we leave this place the better. I've got a strange foreboding..."

As if on cue, there was a sudden loud rustling behind her. She tucked and rolled out of the way of a barrage of bullets. She recognised the attack pattern.

"Come on out and face me, spider!" she snarled.

"No thanks," Tarantulas cackled and continued his attack from the cover of a large tree.

She dodged his fire and approached his hiding spot. They threw kicks and punches at each other until she forced him out in the open then backed him up against the rock face. She just about had him pinned when she spotted something to her left. No: someone.

"Grey!" she exclaimed with both surprise and relief. Tarantulas squawked in panic, shoved her away, and scurried for cover, reloading his ammunition while she was distracted. Jaggid ran up to Greyback, who for some reason had his back to her, and was not responding to her calls.

She reached out to him, but before her hand could touch his shoulder he collapsed and disappeared into a hole of blackness. She froze in horror as she stared at the place he'd once been.

"...No!"

She knew there was something wrong with this place. There must be traps everywhere! She dropped to her knees and started frantically digging, but there was no trace of a hole where he might have fallen into. What was going on, where was he?

She suddenly remembered she was in the middle of a battle and shot back to her feet, searching for Tarantulas. Who she saw instead surprised her, but she was glad nonetheless.

"Rattrap? You half-pint house mouse, how did you get down here?" He was also facing away from her. She wondered what was wrong, and ran over to him. Just before she reached him, he too collapsed into emptiness. "No, Rattrap! What is going on?" She rounded on Tarantulas, who was attempting to flee. "You've got something to do with this!"

From his hiding place, he responded with a confused grunt. She ran to him and kicked his feet from under him. He landed on the ground with a thud, but managed to roll out of the way of her punch. He hopped back onto his feet and elbowed her in the chest.

"Give them back!"

"What?" he answered, blocking a punch and returning it.

She flipped onto a high, sturdy branch when he started his machine gun fire again. She aimed her blaster at the wall behind him, causing a pile of rubble to fall on top of his lower half. Jaggid took this opportunity to find Greyback and Rattrap. She ran off, calling their names.

Within a few hundred meters, she found them. They were standing with their backs to her again. "What's wrong, you two?" This time, she ran around to face them. They were both giving her a strange, empty look. It made her apprehensive. "Lads?" she asked hesitantly.

They were suddenly both simultaneously hit square in the chest with a missile blast. She yelled as they collapsed to the ground in a crumpled heap. Devastated, she ran to Grey's side and knelt beside him, too scared to touch him for fear of aggravating his wound.

"Jag..."

"Sh. Don't speak..."

"You...didn't..." However he didn't finish his thought. His head dropped, and he lay unmoving on the ground. Too stunned to react, she looked up. Rattrap was also lying motionless, his hand outstretched towards her.

Then a new voice, laced with urgency, came from the air. "Jaggid!"

"Optimus?" She turned and saw him flying towards her. " We have to get them..."

Before she could say, "back to base," a missile launched from the surface nearby and struck Optimus on his side, sending him plummeting. He landed right next to Rattrap and Grey, grunting in pain. Jaggid moved over to him, pulling out a mediscanner, which didn't even register him. She banged it with the heel of her hand in panicked frustration.

Optimus groggily opened his eyes. He painfully turned his head and saw the other two lying motionless beside him. Then he looked back at her. "Jaggid..."

"Easy boss," she said comfortingly.

"You've...failed them..."

She stared at him, taken completely aback. "I.."

"You couldn't...protect us..."

His eyes dimmed, his head lolled back and he stopped moving.

She stared at her three friends, her breathing heavy and her eyes wide. There was a rustling from behind; Tarantulas must have been attempting to leave the clearing.

She leapt to her feet and glared angrily at the spider, putting herself in between him and her fallen comrades. "Stay away from them," she warned with bared teeth. "I don't know where you're hiding that missile launcher, but I will find it, and I will destroy it!"

(Illustrated by Jaggid-Edge)

In actuality, Tarantulas had been watching her with a bewildered expression. To him, she had been talking to thin air for several minutes, and appeared to be fiercely protecting a bundle of roots. When she mentioned a non-existent missile launcher, it snapped him back into focus. "What in the Pit is the matter with you, you foolhardy feline?" he asked, confused.

"I said stay away from them!" she roared, shooting her blaster at his feet, knocking him onto his back, then knelt back down next to the roots, giving them words of encouragement.

Tarantulas stared at her for several seconds, perplexed. Then it slowly dawned on him; she was hallucinating, like he had been earlier. He hurriedly looked around him to see if 'Megatron' and the others would reappear. They did not. He looked back at the Maximal and hummed curiously to himself. At the moment, she was the only one of them affected. This could prove most useful, he mused to himself, chuckling.

He rose and said in a very blasé tone, "Well, well, well. What a terrible turn of events." She shot up to her feet to face him, defensively growling and guarding the roots again. He surmised that they must represent, in her mind at least, her fellow Maximals. He smirked inwardly and continued, "Tsk tsk. What a pity you couldn't have done more to protect them. Or could you have?" He saw that her chest was rising and falling faster and heavier. He had hit the nerve.

"You'll pay for this..." she said breathily.

"Me? But it was your job to protect your crew - your friends - was it not?" He took a few slow, menacing steps in her directions, his tone casually cruel. "It was their folly that was their downfall: to place their trust in you. You must face facts: you'll never be good enough to protect them. And we Predacons shall persevere until each and every one of you Maximals is defeated."

She charged towards him, so blinded by rage that she didn't notice the mine he threw at the ground. The resulting blast knocked Jaggid off her feet, slamming her into a tree. She slumped onto the floor, in stasis lock.

Tarantulas chuckled at his triumph, and marched towards her. "Your visions certainly took you off your game. How tactically advantageous..." Before he could get too close however, a shower of bullets rained down on the ground at his feet and he staggered back in alarm. He looked up just in time to see a fist before it collided with his face. He fell onto his aft and grunted in pain, rubbing his chin. He heard a sound zooming towards him so he rolled out of the way, and a foot slammed onto the ground where his head had been.

"You!" he snarled, staring at his adversary.

"Me," Airazor answered with a sly smile. She flew into the air and dove at him again, grabbing him by the shoulders and lifting him off the ground. He struggled uselessly until she dropped him into a crumpled heap. He staggered to his feet and fired wildly at her with his machine guns, most of which she dodged expertly. One of the bullets got lodged into the rock face behind her, giving her an idea. She moved closer to it and taunted Tarantulas to improve his aim. Aggravated, the spider complied, and caused a rockslide, half burying him yet again.

He dug his way out and angrily spat, "Accursed flying female! Your meddling won't prevent me from finding the source of these visions!" He transformed into beast mode and scuttled away, muttering angrily to himself. Airazor landed softly on the ground.

"Yeah, you'd better run, itsy bitsy!" she called after him as he disappeared into the undergrowth. Behind her, she heard a groan and she turned; Jaggid was coming around. Airazor ran up to her friend and helped her gently to her feet. "Hey, take it easy, crazy cat lady. You took quite a hit. How ya feeling?"

Jaggid blinked the world back into focus and groggily answered, "I feel like Unicron used me as a fly swatter." Once her vision returned to normal, she saw the area behind Airazor was deserted. Her mind and body went into sudden panic mode. "Where are they? Where are they?!!" she asked in a panic, running past the falcon and searching frantically.

"Who, Jag?" Airazor asked, alarmed.

"Grey, Optimus and Rattrap, they were attacked and hurt and I think...I think they..." she tried to finish but her voice trailed off as she choked up. She suddenly felt Airazor's firm grip on her shoulders, and she was forcibly turned around to face her.

"Jaggid," she began earnestly, "I just spoke to Dinobot. Optimus and the others still at the base."

"That's impossible," Jag insisted. "I saw him, and the others and they..."

"Jag, calm down!" Airazor interrupted forcefully. Then she continued in a calming voice, "They're still at the Axalon. I received a message not long ago."

"What?" The leopard was confused. "No, I saw him, he was right there!" She pointed to the pile of roots. "There was battle, and there was...I saw..." She slowed down, suddenly realising she could see no physical evidence of the battle.

"There's no way they could have gotten here before me," Airazor affirmed, giving her friend a reassuring squeeze of the shoulders. Attempting to process all this, Jag suddenly felt dizzy. "You alright, cat?" she asked.

"Yeah. I must have hit my head hard when..." She stopped mid sentence and blinked. "You're right. Grey was barely on his way to base when I started to explore this place. There's no way he could have gotten there and back again in that short amount of time..."

"What is there, an echo in here?" Airazor asked dryly, with a wry smile.

Just for confirmation, as she was still in distress and confused, Jag asked, "So...they definitely weren't...?"

"No. I don't see any sign that they were ever here."

Jag took a deep breath, and on the exhale sank onto a rock. With shaky inflection, she asked her companion, "How did you find me?"

"Strap in," Airazor answered, stretching her hands forward and cracking her fingers. "I got a message from the base to check up on the field team at the anomalous coordinates. So I did. What I wasn't expecting was a huge crack in the ground a few kilometers from Grid Epsilon. At first I thought it was just the tectonic activity I'd detected. But once I got a closer look I could see a jungle...underground! I figured that was worth swooping and snooping. I heard blaster fire, followed it and voila: the Fearsome Falcon to the rescue."

"Thanks," her friend uttered gratefully. In return, she filled Airazor in on what had happened.

"All that before lunch, huh? What a day." She stroked her chin, thinking about Jag's unusual experience. "Yaknow, I heard Tarantulas chuckling to himself about 'your visions' before I clobbered him. Perhaps that's what was happening to you."

"Maybe..." The leopard rubbed the back of her head where she made contact with the tree. "But now, it seems I've had the sense knocked back into me."

"Meaning?"

"I think you're right. I must have been seeing things. But wow, did they seem real. I can't think what caused them. I didn't hit my head before I saw them. But once I did, they seemed to stop."

Airazor hummed thoughtfully. "The audacious arthropod also said something about 'finding the source of the visions' before I sent him scurrying away," Airazor noted.

Jaggid grumbled. "I knew there was something off about this place.."

Airazor nodded. "It does have a major creep factor to it. You don't suppose there's something down here that caused your hallucinations, do you?"

"I wouldn't put it past this place," she replied darkly. She rubbed her head again, and the stinging sensation seemed to keep her mind clear. "The shock to my system seems to have snapped me back to reality."

"That's a rather cumbersome quick fix," the falcon remarked skeptically. "Are we supposed to knock ourselves out each time we see something screwy?"

"It might not be the most elegant solution," Jag acknowledged, unconsciously rubbing her head again, "but until we figure out what's going on, it'll have to do."

Airazor grimaced but agreed. "In the meantime, I reckon you'll need help finding our young-uns." Her friend nodded and she continued, "Since scanners don't seem to be working down here, I'll see what I can spot from the sky. So to speak." With that, she launched herself past the tree tops and into the air. She observed the surrounding forest, noting the vast stretch of greenery and cave ceiling, and not much else. Occasional shafts of light spilled in through the newly formed fissures, and some unknown source that she couldn't pinpoint.

One thing that stood out in the sea of forest canopies was a tall, monolithic structure, made up of three segments in decreasing width. Atop it was a cone at the top that housed a powerful sort of radiance; like a lighthouse. She shouted down to Jaggid, "There's some sort of obelisk a few clicks from here."

"Oh goody, another ominous obelisk," the leopard replied, rolling her eyes. At least this one wasn't on a floating rock. "Which direction?"

Airazor looked back up, but it was no longer there! "What the..." She rubbed her optics and looked again. She spotted it once more...but it was in a different position, slightly to the west of where it had been. "Um, we have a potential problem developing here."

"And that would be?"

Airazor tested her hunch: she looked away and then quickly back again. Sure enough, the dang thing had moved again! This time east. "It seems to be...moving?"

On the ground, Jaggid scratched her head. "Any theories?"

"Well, I might not be able to scan it, but I can see some funky energy emanating from it."

"In that case, I think you may have found the source of this place's 'funkiness'," the cat replied.

"Do you think the kids might be trying to get to it?"

"Let's hope so."

"I'll try to keep sight of it from up here. Think you can keep up?"

In response, Jaggid transformed into beast mode and jumped up onto a high branch to keep a closer eye on where Airazor flew. "Let's find out."

Without further ado, they both set off for the strange monolith.