Beast Form: Gorilla

In all the history of the Transformers, only one being has ever done as much for the planet Earth as Optimus Primal, and that was the original Optimus Prime. The commander of a Maximal exploration ship, the Axalon, Primal's mission changed when they got word that some Predacon renegades had stolen a priceless artifact known as the Golden Disc. When the Axalon engaged the Predacon ship, both ships were badly damaged and were forced to crash land on a wild unknown planet, (which was later found out to be prehistoric Earth). As the Axalon entered the atmosphere, the crew was forced to jettison their cargo hold, which held several Maximal Protoforms in it, into orbit. After they crashed it was determined that the planets high level of unstable Energon would make it impossible to remain in robot form, and so each member of the crew took on a form based on indigenous life forms. With the choices presented him, Primal took on the form of the Gorilla.

They soon found out that the Predacon's had also taken on Beast forms of their own, and soon enough the two sides engaged in battle. It was not long after this battle that Primal took on the former Predacon Dinobot, who had had a falling out with Megatron, as a welcomed addition to the team (this evened out the numbers in the two groups to 5 each), despite the objections of at least one of the other Maximal's. Primal's leadership as well as his stasis as the only flyer in the group soon earned him the respect of not only the bots under his command, but also that of the Predacon's that they were in constant battle with.

It was not long before Primal added two new Maximal's to his command. The peaceful but courageous white tiger, Tigertron, and the beautiful and graceful falcon Airazor. But at the same time they also lost two Protoforms to the Predacon's, thus allowing them to add Blackarachnia and Inferno to their ranks. Primal's true test as a leader though came when the Aliens that seeded the planet with Energon returned in order to terminate the project with an orbiting weapon (that was disguised as a moon). Primal put all of his cards in a risky gambit to destroy the weapon with a transwarp explosion, caused by a stasis pod that Blackarachnia had just finished modifying into an escape pod. Unfortunately for Primal, Megatron (not to be confused with the original Megatron) had similar plans on how to stop the weapon. Only in his plans the pilot of the ship would go down, as it were, with the ship. To this end he activated an override command he had been able to plant into the ships computer, thus overriding the ejection controls.

Though this should have been the end of Primal, like Optimus Prime before him, his spark was brought back and placed in a new Transmetal body, thanks in part to Rhinox, who risked his own spark in the risky move to retrieve Primal from the very heart of the Matrix. And with Tigertron and Airazor off on a scouting expedition, Primal was pleased to welcome the noble fusor Silverbolt to the team.

Unfortunately, not long after this took place, Primal had to face the abduction of both Tigertron and Airazor by the aliens that had tried to kill them with the weapon, as well as the death of Dinobot, who sacrificed his own spark to stop the Predacon's from wiping out the entire human race. Hope soon came to them when Rhinox learned that the wave that was created by the transwarp explosion that destroyed the alien weapon was headed right for the Cybertron that they came from, and during one last desperate attack by the Predacon's, help arrived, but not the help that they had expected. Instead of the Maximal's, it was the Predacon's that showed up, in the form of former Decepticon, Covert Agent Ravage, to handle the problem.

With Ravage's help Primal and his team were able to capture Megatron and end the Beast Wars once and for all. Unfortunately things didn't go as planned for Primal and his crew as Megatron was able to convince Ravage to help him, thus leading to the destruction of the Predacon ship that would have taken them all home. But Primal had bigger things to worry about as, after the battle, which ended with the destruction of Ravage's ship, Megatron took off in a direction away from his base. Knowing exactly were he was headed Primal gathered the remaining Maximal's at the base and took off after him. Only to arrive too late to stop him from entering the Ark and trying to eliminate Optimus Prime, thus allowing the Decepticon's to defeat the Autobot's, and ensuring that the Predacon's ruled over the Maximal's.

Fortunately Blackarachnia, who had stolen the Ark's access codes from Megatron, decided to switch sides, and was able to get Prime on life support long enough for Primal and the other Maximal's to arrive. But yet another problem arose when it was determined that Prime's spark would never survive the repair process.  It was then that Primal made the decision to move the spark into his own body while repairs were made. This melding of sparks transformed Primal into Optimal Optimus, thus giving him, on top of his original beast form, two new vehicle forms (a flying mode and a ground mode). Though this new power was enough to stop Megatron from causing anymore damage to the inhabitants of the Ark, it was not enough to keep the Predacon's from destroying the Axalon. So in order to protect the Ark, the Maximal's moved into the Volcano.

Soon enough they had more problems to deal with, including the arrival of a new Maximal, Depth Charge, a new Dinobot (this one working for Megatron), and the transformation of both Cheetor and Blackarachnia into the new, more powerful Transmetal 2 form (this also allowed Blackarachnia to throw off her Predacon Programming and become a full fledged Maximal). But nothing would test Primal's leadership more then when Megatron, who decided that he wanted more power, decided to merge his spark with that of the original Megatron, thus giving him a new, and much more powerful Dragon beast form, and then the return of Tigertron and Airazor in the form of the mighty Tigerhawk, who was sent by the very aliens that had tried to destroy them not long before, to destroy Megatron because of his actions in on prehistoric Earth.

But even these events paled in comparison to the last battle of the Beast Wars where he had to go up against the mighty Decepticon war ship, the Nemesis, which was the very ship that shot down the Ark. During the battle both Depth Charge and Tigerhawk were lost, and if not for the actions of the second Dinobot, Megatron would have destroyed the Ark as well, but thanks to an Autobot Shuttle that he sent the location too of to the Maximal's, they were able to stop Megatron and end the Beast Wars once and for all, and after they returned Megatron's (the original) spark to him, Primal and his crew returned home to Cybertron, were they would soon face their old enemy in a new way, and they wouldn't be just fighting for their survival, but that of the rest of the planet as well.

To be Continued in the Beast Machines Section