The crackling flames churned and writhed in a mad dance against the smoky night sky. The forest seemed almost to scream aloud as it was consumed; ancient trees blackened and crumbled beneath the inferno's onslaught. A single Autobot watched without comment, the hellish light casting strange shadows across his blue-and-white plating.

"It's got kind of a . . . poetry to it, you know?" he observed vaguely, not bothering to turn to face the approaching footsteps.

"Uh, OK," the younger Autobot replied, sounding dubious. He looked around at the flames that seemed to mirror the pattern across his chest. "If you say so."

"It's like, the whole creation/destruction thing, you know?" the first went on. "It's all cyclic, man."

"Sure, Beachcomber," Hot Rod assured. "It's real 'cyclic'. Listen, I. . . ."

Beachcomber seemed lost in reverie, enraptured by the sight of the holocaust before him. A small, dark bird left a glowing flame trail as it plummeted to earth at his feet, shrieking in terror, flapping wildly as it burned alive. The Autobot watched it suffer for a while, then raised his foot and casually stomped it into the ground.

Abruptly, he asked, "You remember that naturalist dude?"

"Uh . . ." Hot Rod seemed impatient, as if he was trying to get to a point, and was resentful of the other's constant tangents.

"You know, that one with the island." He waved his gun barrel vaguely, tracing swirls in the billowing, choking smoke that suffused the air. "Chundley or something."

"Oh yeah, him." Hot Rod coughed slightly. It didn't escape his notice that the fire was getting closer. "Listen, maybe we should. . . ."

"Dedicated his life to preserving endangered species," Beachcomber droned on, smiling faintly as a particularly huge and magnificent oak collapsed mere yards away from him. "Set that whole island up for them, then tried to get rid of Prime cuz he was, like, a threat to the ecosystem or something. . . ."

He failed to notice how the other Autobot's expression had darkened at the memory.

"Yeah, and he botched it," he muttered.

"Mmm," Beachcomber replied a bit dreamily, not really paying attention. "But, like, no thanks to Blitzwing and Astrotrain." His mouth quirked in a sneer. "Never knew they were such, like, tree-huggers, man." He spat this as though it were the vilest insult he could concoct.

"Yeah, bet they're not happy unless they interface with a redwood every day." Hot Rod coughed again, moved back from the tree line as a row of dried brush exploded into scattering sparks. "You really love what you do, don't you?"

His tone rapturous, Beachcomber replied, "It's like, cosmic, man. See. . . ."

He seemed ready to launch into another philosophical treatise, but was interrupted.

"You'd have more time to do it if Prime wasn't always on your case about security, wouldn't you." It wasn't a question.

Beachcomber scowled. "Right on, man. He's like, so anal about every little thing." Something that might once have been a deer came crashing through the flaming underbrush, collapsed in a twitching, smoking heap. "I mean, I've tried to explain how, you know, important this is, but. . . ."

"He doesn't understand." Hot Rod's tone had gone sly, ingratiating. "Not like we do."

"Mmm." He seemed to be heading off for dreamland again.

"But if we had a new leader . . . someone who'd let his fellow Autobots pursue their dreams, indulge their desires. . . ."

"Groovy, man."

"Yeah, sure, real 'groovy'." Hot Rod made a disgusted face which the other didn't see, then slipped back into his smooth tone. "I hope we understand each other."

Slowly, Beachcomber looked back over his shoulder at the young Autobot. All dreaminess was gone from his face now; his expression was as hard as glass, as sharp as knives.

"Oh yeah, my little friend. We understand each other real good."

For an instant, Hot Rod panicked, thinking he was found out, his plans undone. Had the Security Chief been one of Prime's informants all along? But Beachcomber only pinned him with his stare for a long, painful minute; then his face slowly broke into an ugly grin.

"You just let me know," he said nonchalantly, "when you think that's gonna happen."

Hot Rod hesitated a moment longer, wary, suspecting a trap. Finally, he returned the other's grin.

"I'll do that . . . my friend."

"Mmm." Beachcomber turned towards the forest fire once again. "Awesome, man," he sighed in deepest satisfaction.

"Yeah," Hot Rod replied simply, glancing back at the annihilating flames as he turned to leave.

In the pit of his dark imagination, in the depths of his twisted mind . . . it wasn't a forest he saw slowly burning.