Rampage's History
Rampage was a wanted serial killer and later Predacon soldier after he crash landed during the Beast Wars.
Protoform X was a Maximal experiment to recreate Starscream's mutant, immortal spark. Though arguably successful in this regard, the creation was unstable. In point of fact, despite his intelligence and cunning, he was criminally insane. He was held at Colony Omicron but soon escaped, killing all of its inhabitants save a lone security officer, Depth Charge. After four stellar cycles of chasing the killer, Depth Charge finally captured him and brought him back to Cybertron, but not before Protoform X destroyed Starbase Rugby and devoured an unknown number of the inhabitants. Rather than destroy him, the Maximal Elders had Protoform X placed into a stasis pod aboard an exploration vessel, the Axalon. They instructed its commander, Optimus Primal, to dump him on some barren world in deep space.
Protoform X was among the stasis pods jettisoned by Optimus when the Axalon was damaged by Megatron's Predacons, and only fell out of orbit far into the Beast Wars. Upon landing, the pod's scanners detected a nearby crab, reformatting Protoform X with a Beast mode, which was simultaneously turned into a Transmetal as a result of being struck by the Quantum surge while in orbit. Despite this, Protoform X had been rendered inert, either by the impact of the crash or overloaded by the energon his pod had landed near. Battle near his stasis pod eventually shocked him into activation, and he promptly set out to terrorize all nearby Transformers, rending Tarantulas limb from limb and stalking Blackarachnia and Silverbolt. X seemed unstoppable at first, but when one of Silverbolt's missiles jammed his tank treads as he climbed up a mountainside, he lost his grip and tumbled down the rock face in pieces.
As Protoform X lay immobilized, Megatron arrived and, using a blade of pure energon, removed a portion of his indestructible spark. Megatron then had him brought back to the Predacon base and repaired. When X attempted to turn his weapons on his "savior", Megatron revealed that he held half of X's spark in a special cage lined with energon crystals, allowing him to torture the beast at will with a mere squeeze. Megatron thus welcomed him into the Predacon fold, dubbing him "Rampage".
Rampage made no secret of his hatred for his new "master", anticipating the arrival of Maximal reinforcements from Cybertron, and the demise Megatron would surely receive as a result. Megatron had other plans in motion, using Rampage's weaponry to destroy a mountain, proving that the future recorded on the Golden Disk was mutable. Rampage's services were further pressed into use when the Predacons assaulted a valley full of anthropoids, however his contribution came to an end when Dinobot forcibly inserted Waspinator into his main gun with predictable results.
Though a violent sociopath, Rampage was not without compassion. After an attempt by him to regain his spark fragment failed, Rampage encountered a twisted malformed protoform which he dubbed Transmutate. He quickly befriended it and attempted to have it inducted into the Predacons. Though Megatron ordered the creature destroyed, Rampage persevered with trying to make it a useful addition to the Predacon forces. He became possessive enough to viciously fight with Silverbolt over it. When Transmutate was killed by this fight, Rampage bellowed in grief.
Rampage was a major component of the assault on the Axalon when it appeared as though the Maximals were going to receive reinforcements from Cybertron. The Predacons were driven off by an invisible force—the cloaked Transwarp cruiser flown by Ravage. The cruiser would later be a part of a strike on the Predacon base, during which Rampage unleashed a barrage of missiles on it. Ravage judged the attack "impressive", and responded by using the ship's weapons to blow Rampage to pieces. Rampage, of course, survived to lead yet another attack on the Axalon. Quickstrike rode triumphantly into battle on back of Rampage's tank mode... until an auto-gun knocked him off, and Rampage uncaringly drove straight over him. The battle ended when Rattrap took out the Transwarp cruiser—Rampage managed to outrun the crashing ship and laughed in triumph... only for the still-armed missile on top of the ship to launch in his face.
At Megatron's call to arms, a badly-charred Rampage managed to pull himself together and began trying to pull the Axalon from its perch, with the aid of a large number of arachnoids. He finally met his match in battle when the newly reformatted Optimus Primal attacked him. The huge Maximal leader simply shoved him aside, but Rampage had the last laugh as his deflected missile sent the Maximal base plunging into the lake. Cackling, Rampage disappeared into the lake after it.
Later, Depth Charge arrived on prehistoric Earth with the single-minded goal of destroying Rampage. Rampage was beside himself with joy, eager for revenge on his old "playmate". Depth Charge's loss at Colony Omicron had embittered him, and Rampage used this emotional wound to torment the Maximal. In the end, Depth Charge got the upper hand, and may well have ended the feud then and there if not for the intervention of Quickstrike, which allowed Rampage to sneak away and destroy Depth Charge's ship. Rampage soon met his old enemy again when Rattrap descended to the bottom of the lake to retrieve the Sentinel module from the wreckage of the Axalon. Depth Charge had the upper hand in the battle, but Rampage escaped death when Silverbolt argued with Depth Charge over his commitment to the Maximals.
While the bulk of the Maximal forces were distracted by Megatron's Cyber raptors out in the field, Rampage accompanied the Predacon leader in an assault against the Maximals' home base. Though the Predacons nearly took control of the Ark, Depth Charge arrived at the last moment and drove them back.
When Megatron created a clone of Dinobot, he used Rampage's spark fragment to form the core of the new Predacon, who likewise retained the ability to torture Rampage into continued loyalty with it. Naturally, Rampage was filled with fury and disgust at sharing his spark with a 'half brother'. Dinobot was able to use the spark fragment to keep Rampage in line, and the two "brothers" took part in the interrogation of Depth Charge after the Transmetal driver went missing. When they were attacked by a strange feral beast, Rampage and Dinobot inadvertently blasted each other.
Rampage would go on to have a second clash with Silverbolt, targeting him when he was filled with grief and rage over Blackarachnia's death; he'd have killed him easily if Blackarachnia hadn't suddenly become alive again and beaten him up. He almost got his revenge when Megatron deliberately gave Blackarachnia to him, and was clearly having fun torturing her before she was able to overpower him. Following Tigerhawk's destruction of the Predacon base, Rampage and Dinobot were blown away by one strike from the Vok emissary.
While Megatron was retrieving the submerged Decepticon craft Nemesis, Depth Charge met Rampage in battle one last time on the ocean floor. At the battle's climax, Rampage allowed Depth Charge to kill him with a shard of raw energon, resulting in an immense explosion which destroyed them both. Rampage won even in death, laughing maniacally in triumph as Depth Charge made the final, stabbing blow.
