It had been at least a fortnight or however much time that is since last eVo had been in a picture, and other than a random encounter with a noobish Pokémon trainer, nothing had come of his quest to find the four Cyber Planet Keys. More importantly, his quest to find all the bits of Crim’s soul had also come to a stop. This was mostly due to apathy, as that Crim guy wasn’t really worth the trouble. eVo knew, however, that the little red dog would probably go insane in his current state before too long (what with having his personality and perspective split into so many places that he could not hope to comprehend what was going on), and eVo didn’t need that kid to be any more annoying than he already was.

He now pondered through the Mojave Wasteland, looking for trouble. It was not long before he dallied into a cave that looked as if it might have some trouble in it. Plunging deeper into the underground, his surroundings became negro-black, and he was forced to draw his chiblade to see by the light from the neato blue lightning aura. A bunch of shit scurried at the edges of the light as he moved farther in, but he wasn’t scared. eVo was well practiced in the art of not giving a fuck. He had a green belt in it.

Eventually the darkness in the tunnel ahead of him gave way to a red glow, and he walked into a gigantic cave-room thing. eVo knew he had found something cool. But little did he know that it was actually something hot. It was a pit of lava. Also, a building-sized robot standing in that pit. It looked to be deactivated for many years.

eVo knew immediately that this was no good. He had seen Transformers, and he knew what was about to happen. He’d have to act fast before the robot came online and blinded him with a flash from its laser eyes, and he would be seein’ symbols and raving about some bullshit no one wanted to hear for the rest of his days.

In truth what he had stumbled across was not Megatron, but another Decepticon named Stormcrash that Xarok the wolf had happened upon a hundred years before. Xarok had easily bent the machine to his will and forced it to take his image. He had liked the idea of having a colossus that could turn into a tank do his bidding and represent him in all his affairs, but some things came up and the wolf had forgotten all about it.

eVo had been too preoccupied with not looking directly at the machine to notice the resemblance, though. Instead, he attempted to perceive it with his other keen senses. Its smell was oddly incongruous with its appearance. It had a rather scrubby odor that overpowered the smell of hatred and evil eVo had known would be there.

Wait. That wasn’t the transformer’s scent at all, but one all too familiar to the amphibian. Toggling his spirit-sight, eVo the frog gazed around. Everything was foggy and blue with spirit sight, of course, but eVo could perceive a wisp of his old friend, rolling around the massive chamber.

“Crim! I’ll get you out of here, don’t you worry!” eVo yelled foolishly.

The massive robot awoke at the froggy sound, its purple eyes lighting up and its incendiary gatling cannon spinning. It roared like robots will do, and the inside of its metal-toothed mouth began building energy for what was undoubtedly a really high damage AoE attack.

To be continued....

(Fun fact: Without the four Cyber Planet Keys, eVo would not be able to restore Primus’s spark to his body, and the Transformers would be forever without a planet to call their own.)