Rattrap's History
Rattrap was a Maximal soldier under the command of Optimus Primal during the Beast Wars. His body was mutated by the quantum surge that resulted from the destruction of the Vox Planet Buster.
The destruction of the Planet Buster by Optimus Primal caused a quantum surge, mutating Cheetor and Rattrap into new Transmetal forms (which Rattrap decided were "gorgeous"). Rattrap gained a new wheeled mode which afforded him more speed. Almost immediately, Megatron, who had also received an upgrade, attacked, and the two Maximals found their new forms being tested in battle. Rattrap was able to use his wiles to trip Megatron, but ended up being crashed into by Cheetor. After finding a stasis pod containing a blank, Rhinox put himself into some sort of trance-like state. With everyone else out in the field, Rattrap was left alone in the base, and Cheetor naturally soon radioed to warn him that the Predacons were on their way. Naturally any use of the base defenses would interfere with what Rhinox was doing, so, joined by Dinobot, Rattrap set out to defend the base with Cheetor.
Outnumbered two to one, the trio fought on, capturing Silverbolt, one of the two Fuzors who had revived and been co-opted into the Predacon forces by Megatron. Though Dinobot favored termination, Rattrap and Cheetor had Silverbolt put in a CR chamber. The Maximals continued to defend the base, and were on the verge of defeat, until Optimal Primal appeared, reborn in a Transmetal body, and fought the Predacons off. Resuming command, Optimus asked Rattrap to remove his junk from the commander's quarters.
With Silverbolt now a Maximal, he and Rattrap were out patrolling when they were sent to investigate a Predacon signal and tangled with Blackarachnia, Tarantulas and Quickstrike. To Rattrap's chagrin, his comrade refused to strike Blackarachnia because of her gender. When the cave the Predacons were protecting exploded, Rattrap congratulated Silverbolt on his shot, but Silverbolt denied doing anything.
Rattrap's relationship with Dinobot was sorely tested when Dinobot temporarily returned to the Predacon side. For one long moment, as Dinobot was faced with a test of Predacon loyalty at Megatron's behest, Rattrap truly believed that Dinobot was about to slag him. But Dinobot proved unable to kill his erstwhile teammate; he instead turned on Megatron. Optimus left the final decision over whether Dinobot could stay a Maximal to Rattrap, who reluctantly agreed.
Rattrap and Dinobot were assigned to knock out a Predacon jamming tower. They eventually managed it, but by then Tigatron and Airazor had been shot into space by an alien device. After rendezvousing back at base, the Maximals headed out to the site, where the alien device sprouted into a huge construct and blasted everyone with an energy wave. The Transmetals and Fuzors recovered quickly, and Primal and Rattrap worked to drop the refractive web which Tarantulas had placed over the machine. Unfortunately they were too late to prevent Megatron taking control of ship, and Primal was taken prisoner. Rattrap was able to take Tarantulas captive, returning the Predacon to the Axalon, where they formulated a plan of attack. While the other Maximals provided a distraction, Tarantulas and Rattrap got on board the ship, and Rattrap was able to rescue Optimus. The craft itself was destroyed when Tarantulas sabotaged the transwarp drive, but luckily Primal and Rattrap got clear in time.
Rattrap was still giviving Dinobot grief about his recent betrayal—not the usual flippant insults, either, but genuine barbs that cut Dinobot to the quick. Rattrap's words helped motivate Dinobot into what would ultimately be his heroic final sacrifice to save the future of the human race. Rattrap arrived at the battlefield along with the other Maximals to find Dinobot damaged beyond recovery. His reaction was perhaps the strongest of any of the team. The two shared final words of both insult and reconciliation, Rattrap gingerly holding Dinobot's hand as he died. As Dinobot's spark left his body, Rattrap was the first to stand and, with utter sincerity, salute the fallen hero.
While searching for a jamming tower, Rattrap, Cheetor and Silverbolt discovered a crashed stasis pod containing a strangely mutated Transformer. As they fought the Predacons over, it, it let out a sonic cry which shorted out the Maximals.
When Rhinox's calculations suggested that the transwarp wavefront from the Planet Buster explosion would soon be detected by Cybertron, the Maximals celebrated their impending rescue. Instead they got Predacon secret agent Ravage, who Rattrap trusted only slightly less than he initially did Dinobot. Despite his misgivings, Rattrap took part in the assault on the Darksyde, and was present for Megatron's apprehension. Rattrap raised the alarm when Cheetor was knocked out by Silverbolt, who wanted to go capture Blackarachnia himself. A while later, Rattrap's distrust of Ravage proved well founded—Ravage was turned against them by Megatron, and Rattrap had to radio a warning to Primal.
As Ravage's Transwarp cruiser attacked the Axalon, Rattrap used his wheeled beast mode to launch himself out of the base and onto Ravage's ship. Tearing his way through its hull, he tossed a pair of fusion grenades right into the hands of the startled Tarantulas, who could do nothing but scream as they blew him to bits and destroyed the cruiser's engines. Rattrap bailed out as the Transwarp cruiser crashed its destructive way to earth, having pretty much single-handedly saved the Maximals and their base from destruction.
The next day, as the Maximals tried to infiltrate the Autobot vessel the Ark, Rattrap fired the shot that brought down the Ark's shields and—almost—gave the Maximals a chance to stop Megatron's last-ditch scheme to alter history.
Though Blackarachnia turned against Megatron and assisted the Maximals in starting to repair the damage Megatron had done to Optimus Prime, Rattrap was not particularly sympathetic, threatening to shoot her, even on pain of injury by Silverbolt. When Optimus hesitated in shooting Megatron, Rattrap volunteered to do it himself, and Primal batted him aside. Later still, Rattrap spared no sarcasm in mocking Silverbolt, after the other Maximal gave a long melodramatic speech over Blackarachnia, offering the services of his invisible violin. The Maximals were forced to move in to the cavern housing the Ark after Rampage destroyed the Axalon.
Rattrap wasn't impressed with new arrival Depth Charge, declaring him rude and joking the Predacons would make fish sticks out of him. Rattrap was picked for a mission to enter the submerged remains of the Axalon and retrieve Sentinel, mostly because he was the only one small enough to fit in the subaquatic stealth vessel which Blackarachnia had built. Attacked by Rampage, he was glad to see Depth Charge coming to the rescue, though Depth Charge was more interested in fighting Rampage than helping with the mission. Extracting the Sentinel module, Rattrap returned to the surface where Silverbolt was waiting, however the pair quickly ran into a group of Predacons who stole Sentinel. Though Rattrap and Silverbolt got it back, they collided with Depth Charge, resulting in Sentinel falling into Inferno's hands. Rattrap later had some uncomplimentary things to say about Depth Charge, but was forced to admit the other Maximal had saved his life.
Rattrap's suspicions of Blackarachnia continued when he spotted her lurking around restricted areas. When later telling Rhinox about it, Rattrap made it clear he still didn't trust the ex-Predacon. He and Rhinox found themselves defending the base alone against a Predacon incursion, when the others were all out battling a group of Cyber raptors. Just as it seemed the Predacons would triumph, Depth Charge arrived to lend a hand, and saved Rattrap's bacon. Rattrap monitored Cheetor, after the latter had turned up, having been missing presumed killed. He was startled by noises coming from Cheetor's quarters, and was even more shocked when a strange feral beast burst through the door, apparently spiriting away Cheetor. A while later, Cheetor once again returned, but it was clear all wasn't right, and Rattrap was surprised to discover that the young bot had been mutated by the strange properties of the transmetal driver.
Blackarachnia didn't appreciate Rattrap's insinuations about her loyalty when the Maximals were investigating the possibility of removing her Predacon shell program. His suspicions were seemingly confirmed a while later, when Silverbolt's scan detected Blackarachnia heading for Predacon territory. Although Rattrap's first instinct was to tell Optimus, Silverbolt managed to talk him out of it by bringing up Rattrap's friendship with Dinobot.
Rattrap was amused by Cheetor's attempts to educate Chak and Una, two young anthropoids. When Una was kidnapped by the Preds in order to complete Megatron's disruptor cannon, Rattrap was teamed up with Depth Charge to go rescue the kid. During the flight, they were shot down by Megatron's cannon, disabling Depth Charge and leaving Rattrap to go on alone. Though outnumbered by the Predacons, Rattrap was aided by Una herself, and the pair made their escape, using Depth Charge as a raft. When Blackarachnia's shell program began to degrade, and she downloaded the Ark's access codes into Optimus, Rattrap commented "You couldn't pay me to let that spider inside my processor", which prompted Cheetor and Silverbolt to tell him to keep his opinions to himself. He still defended the base to try and prevent the operation to save Blackarachnia from failing, even if it did fail in the end. Megatron's next plan saw Quickstrike taking control of Optimus Primal, disabling the other Maximals and locking them in a cage. Blackarachnia released them all in time to fight off a newly upgraded Megatron.
When the Predacon base was destroyed by the arrival of Tigerhawk, Rattrap was the first, and only Maximal prepared to celebrate, but was puzzled when anyone failed to return his high-five. e was skeptical that Tigerhawk's arrival had anything to do with the Covenant of Primus, and was later dismayed to learn that Megatron had pulled an ace out of his sleeve, in the form of the ancient Decepticon warship, the Nemesis, and they were going to have to defend the Ark against the oncoming attack.
With the Nemesis airborne, the Maximals were forced to try to implement Operation Eternity. Rattrap found himself having to pack up his collection of Predacon parts, which has particularly full of Waspinator bits, as Rhinox explained that they might need to move the Ark. The Maximals struggled to get the ship working, and Blackarachnia found that Rattrap's sword-tail made a perfect power conduit... once she snipped off the tip. OW. Of course, it quickly melted when they tried and failed to fire up the engines.
As the victorious Maximals left Earth in a refitted Autobot shuttle, Rattrap was more than surprised to learn that old chopper face's clone was responsible for saving them, but very happy—they were going home, and they wouldn't have to see Megatron until after they got there, as he was strapped to the roof of their shuttle.
