Life Finds a Way

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"I don't control the raptors. It's a relationship. It's based on mutual respect."
"Life Finds a Way"
Publisher	Transformers Collectors' Club (online exclusive)
First published	May 13, 2016
By	Matt Frank
Illustrations by	Matt Frank
Colors by	Gonçalo Lopes
Color assist by	Paul Hanley
Continuity	Of Masters and Mayhem
Page count	27pp

Marooned on a planet with hostile inhabitants, Fractyl falls in with a strange group of Transformers, who might be the only other Cybertronians left...

Synopsis

On a distant planet, Predacon geochemist Fractyl wakes up inside a stasis pod to the damaged capsule's computer screaming in his auditory circuits, warning him about the build-up of energon radiation. As he comes to, Fractyl remembers what happened: when something or someone named Thunder Mayhem attacked Cybertron, annihilating. Fractyl scrambled onboard one of the evacuating ships, sealing himself inside the stasis pod, but it must have been destroyed at some point, which jettisoned Fractyl's stasis pod and any others onboard. The Predacon reads out the information on the planet's surroundings given to him by the pod; with the presence of energon, he figures it must have had some contact with Cybertronians. Unfortunately, there readout doesn't give him much aside from warning him about the dangerous amounts of energon, and all his own scanners can tell him is that there's a massive presence of organic life. As energon radiation begins to seep through the damaged pod, Fractyl has the pod activate stasis lock so he can compensate his circuits for energon radiation. And as he goes under, he watches as dark, unfamiliar shapes gather around the pod...

When Fractyl wakes back up, he finds himself restrained, the prisoner of a group of large insectoids. The leader of the group, the "shaman," begins a speech towards his fellow insectoids; Fractyl's onboard translation software struggles with the language, but he can tell that they are preparing to kill him, and that they seem to have encountered Cybertronians before. The shaman is handed a green crystal by one of his attendants, and he holds it up towards Fractyl, ready for the kill. Fortunately for Fractyl, the ceremony is soon interrupted when a loud shriek distracts the insectoids, followed by several of them being rushed and dismembered. Fractyl can only watch as the insectoids arm themselves, as three strange reptilian-avian creatures take down the tribe non-lethally. Eventually, only the shaman and his attendants are left; the shaman moves behind Fractyl, holding the green crystal up to where his spark chamber would be, causing the three to pause. Luckily for Fractyl, there's evidently more than just these three to save him, as a shot rings out from the forest, disarming the shaman. The three allow the insectoids to escape, and the seeming leader of the pack frees Fractyl from his restraints. Initially confused, Fractyl is amazed when these three seeming-organics speak Cybertronian—because they are fellow Transformers! The Predacon tries to ask them questions, but the largest of the group silences him with a loud roar, as the sniper rejoins the rest of them. With all of them there, the leader of the group, Thrashclaw, introduces herself and the others: the smallest of the group, the excitable Shred; the stern, untrusting sniper Slice, who quickly deduces that Fractyl is a Decepticon of some wort; and the muscle of the group, the taciturn and loyal Gnash. Fractyl takes an interest in Gnash, noticing the damage to her exterior, with Thrashclaw noting that her missing skin is the least of what's happened to her. Fractyl peacefully surrenders, noting to himself that without a Cybertron left, there's little need for factions, but the amused Thrashclaw tells him that they can talk about it on the way back to their ship, before the insectoids—or Vespoids, as they call them—come back in force. Besides, they're not Autobots or Decepticons; they're Raptoricons!

On the way back, Shred happily fills Fractyl in on their personal history. Back in the war, Shred was a former Autobot who monitored Decepticon frequencies while stationed in Iacon, and heard about the exploits of Thrashclaw and Slice, twin Decepticon mercenaries. Enamored, she tracked them down and begged to join the two. She and the others are much less willing to talk about Gnash's origin, however. Shred also explains that they came out to this planet during the exploratory push—something that Fractyl doesn't quite believe, soured on the concept of trust by his time with the cons—and found the strange bio-technology that allowed for them to adopt these bestial forms, using DNA scanners to replicate some of the predators on this word, which shields them from the energon radiation. Nowadays, they spend more time in beast mode than not. The avian-reptiles, however, don't appear to be native; the planet seems to have served as some kind of alien research facility, seeded with energon and having 400-plus species imported here, all for some unknown purpose—and whoever these aliens were, they're long gone now. Shred pesters Fractyl about his origins too, and while he shares much of his past, he consistently avoids talking about Cybertron, unwilling to tell possibly the only remaining members of his people that their homeworld is gone. Eventually arriving back at the Raptoricons' ship Velocity. Onboard, Fractyl takes a moment to rest, but as it turns out, he isn't the only one with suspicions—Thrashclaw quickly begins questioning what happened to Fractyl's ship, knowing that he's hiding something. Fractyl doesn't get a chance to answer, however, as the ships computer alerts that the Vespoids have burrowed their way under the ship, ready to attack! Slice is quick to blame Fractyl for the ambush, but Thrashclaw orders her to stand down...even though she too finds it suspicious. Ready for action, Thrashclaw orders the others out, and tells Fractyl that if he knows whats best for him, he'll help too.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons/Predacons	Raptoricons	Others
Impactor (7)	Fractyl (1) Counterpunch (8)	Thrashclaw (3) Gnash (4) Shred (5) Slice (6)	Vespoids (2)

Notes

• Characters who are mentioned but not seen include: Thunder Mayhem, Primus, Vice Grip, the Covenant, Thrashclaw's mentor, a "purple lunatic", and Megatron.

Errors

• Gonçalo Lopes's surname is misspelled on the cover as Lopez, probably because of its phonetic similarity with the Spanish equivalent.
• On Page 12, a line reads as "Next thing he knew, all 5 of them we bursting out of the main hangar." The "we" should be "were".
• On Page 17, a line reads as "...as he broken down the..." which ought to read as "...as he broke down the..."
• On Page 18, Shred's line of "I had to convince Thrash and Shred to bring her on," should instead read as "Thrash and Slice".
• Likewise, on Page 18, Fractyl's line of "“I take it Thrash and Shred..." should instead read as "Thrash and Slice" since he's talking to Shred.

Continuity notes

• Fractyl is convinced Cybertron was destroyed by Thunder Mayhem.

Transformers references

• The usage of techno-organic beast modes to protect against energon radiation is taken directly from the first season of Beast Wars.
• Fractyl hopes Vice Grip made it to safety, the two being friends in the 3H BotCon stories.
• In this continuity, the Predacons have arisen as a subset of the Decepticons, though it is not specified what distinguishes a Predacon from any other Decepticon.
• Thrashclaw mentions a mentor, a brown and blue sort with a fondness for bravery who went off with some "purple lunatic". Now who could this mentor possibly be...?
• Fractyl briefly reformats himself into a pterosaur form, referencing his original Beast Wars toy.
• Impactor introduces himself with the universal greeting.

Real world references

• The story's title, is, of course, a reference to the Jurassic Park franchise. Fractyl compares the presence of dinosaurs on the planet, and the theory that the planet was once some kind of nature preserve, to "a zoo that got overrun".
• The fact the team consists of four female Velociraptors is a probable reference to the "Raptor Squad" of Jurassic World.
• On seeing the Raptoricons transform, Fractyl thinks the situation is "about to get wild", the tagline of the latest series of Power Rangers, Dino Charge.
• At the climax, Thrash tells Slice to "hold on to your butt". Samuel L. Jackson's character in the first Jurassic Park movie used that line as a catchphrase.

Errors

• On page 1, Fractyl's name is mispelt as "Fractyll" ("Fractyll struggled to recall what had happened before he went into stasis").
• On page 15, Shred is accidentally referred to as a "former Maximal" instead of a former Autobot, as she is consistently referred to throughout the rest of the story.
• On page 21, the third-person narration of Thrashclaw's thoughts mentions that the dinosaurs on the mysterious planet came from Earth; Earth doesn't have a name in this continuity, since it was never inhabited by humans, but evidently, Matt Frank didn't know that. Otherwise, the dinosaurs are noted to be non-native to the planet.

External links

• "Life Finds A Way" at The Official Transformers Collectors' Club