Personal tools

The Autobot ship is out of control, either going to burn up or crash into Earth—causing the energon goodwill gift to the humans to detonate like a multi-nuclear strike. Kup searches for the saboteur and for Rodimus Prime, and seemingly finds both when he discovers Longtooth over Prime's body. Arcee quickly reveals Longtooth can't have done it, and that the doors to the retro-engines are sealed shut. Rodimus, coming to, is unable to remember why he passed out.

Kup comes up with a plan, explaining to Rodimus Prime that Arcee is going to reach the retro engines via the coolant tank. In actual fact, she's going through the ship's ducts, and she's able to fire the retros and allow the ship to land (badly). But Kup's plan has caused the saboteur to reveal himself, as they try to intercept Arcee at the coolant tanks—and the saboteur is Rodimus himself, possessed by dark forces...

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Others
Kup (1) Longtooth (2) Rodimus Prime (3) Arcee (4) Red Alert (5) Quickmix (6)	Unicron (7)

Quotes

"Just stay very still, Longtooth...or I promise I'll blow a very big hole in you and your Pretender shell! Is he dead? If he is, so are you!"
"No, he's not dead! Look, what's--"
"Stop it, Kup, he's telling the truth. This is how we found things when we answered your alert call. The retro room's been sealed. It'd take longer than we've got to cut our way in there."
"Oh. Sorry, Longtooth."
"Huh."

—Kup getting ahead of himself with Longtooth, and Arcee providing the alibi just in time.

"And our goodwill gift of energon to the humans--"
"Late Christmas present, Kup."
"Whatever."

—Kup brushes off Arcee trying to give him a lesson in diplomacy.

"Ohh...I hurt too much to be dead."

—Arcee making a distressingly common deduction.

"You made me reveal myself before I was ready, Kup. Relish that small victory as I tear you limb from limb!"

—Dark Rodimus reveals both his possession and his newfound love of the melodramatic.

Notes

Artwork and technical errors

The story reveals a possessed Rodimus is the enemy as a twist. Transformation page tells us that Rodimus Prime is the saboteur and this is the 'Dark Rodimus' storyline.

Continuity errors

Continuity notes

Rodimus has been possessed by the Matrix-trapped Unicron, following on from Galvatron's attempts to pervert the Matrix in "Aspects of Evil!". The story doesn't recap this though, relying on the reader's memory.
Over 430 Autobots are fleeing to Earth.