Rhinox's History
Rhinox was the second-in-command of the Maximals during the Beast Wars and an original crew member of the Axalon.
Rhinox was a crewmember of the exploration ship Axalon when captain Optimus Primal got word that the Predacon criminal Megatron had stolen the Golden Disk and a ship with transwarp capabilities. The Axalon was the closest vessel that also possessed a transwarp drive, so Rhinox's ship was sent to engage them. After following the Predacons through a transwarp portal and appearing above a mysterious planet, both ships were damaged in the ensuing space battle, and before both ships crashed into the planet's surface below, the stasis pods carrying the rest of Rhinox's crew were ejected into orbit.
The planet was rich with energon—so much so that prolonged exposure would short out their bodies, so the Maximals and Predacons were forced to take organic forms from the local creatures. Rhinox took the form of a rhinoceros. He soon took part in a rescue mission to retrieve Cheetor after the young Maximal ran into the Predacons, and forced Rattrap to give Primal cover.
During Optimus's battle with Dinobot, Rhinox pulled the pair to safety after they almost plunged off a ledge. The Maximals subsequently were forced to tail the Predacons, and when Dinobot almost accidentally slagged Rhinox, it caused the ex-Predacon and Rattrap to come to blows. The two factions eventually reached the mountain topped with energon and fought over it while in their beast modes, until Megatron ended up destroying it.
Being the most mechanically enclined of the crew, Rhinox quickly developed a new comlink to overcome the problems with energon interference. After Cheetor got into trouble while testing it, Rattrap gave the cat a hard time, causing him to race off, and Rhinox pointed out that Cheetor was about to do something stupid. He ordered Rattrap to go after Cheetor. hinox's next developments were some energon monitoring devices, though Optimus initially scrubbed the mission to install them. After Cheetor went anyway, and a series of events almost destroyed the Maximal base, Rhinox and the other Maximals thanked Cheetor for preventing the explosion.
Rhinox had to dive for safety during a battle at the Standing Stones, after Terrorsaur blew up the energon cache at its center. After Primal went missing, Rhinox had to break up a fight between Dinobot and Rattrap over who would lead, insisting on a secret ballot. The ballot ended in a deadlock, but they were then contacted by Primal, who'd become trapped in an alien probe at the Standing Stones. Rattrap was placed in charge during the bossmonkey's absence, and his command to Rhinox was to build a device to extract Optimus from the probe. Whether or not this device would actually have worked is unknown, as shortly before he had a chance to use it, Rhinox was ambushed by Waspinator, but turned the tables by blasting the Predacon with his chaingun. Waspinator stumbled into a stone, and Rhinox realized the whole structure was a mechanism as it caused the probe to disgorge Optimus Primal.
When Cheetor reported that Terrorsaur had found a flying mountain, Rhinox theorized that the high concentration of energon on the top of it might be responsible for the strange gravity-warping effect. After Primal was taken out by a Predacon sneak attack, Rhinox, Cheetor and Rattrap headed for a crashed stasis pod. The trio were delayed further, and beaten to the pod, however the protoform had already been awakened as Tigatron. Like the other Maximals, Rhinox was shocked by Rattrap's apparent defection to the Predacons, but as it turned out, it was a ploy to discover how the Predacons had been spying on the Maximals, and they were soon rescuing their comrade.
Rhinox later developed Sentinel, a hi-tech security system for the Axalon, which unfortunately went berserk when its control panel was damaged in a struggle between Dinobot and Rattrap, forcing the Maximals from their own base. Rattrap however, was able to infiltrate the now-heavily guarded ship and deactivate Sentinel, which was then repaired and made fully-functional by Rhinox. The Maximals were forced to restrain Optimus after he was infected by a rage virus in a cyberbee developed by Scorponok and Rhinox was unable to work out how to remove it. After Primal undertook a one-bot assault on the Predacon base, Rhinox took part in the mission to rescue their leader, laying down suppressing fire to allow Cheetor to slip inside the base.
He was unsuccessful in contacting a Maximal temporal probe which flew past the planet. Though he blamed himself, he and the other Maximals rallied themselves to build a communications array on Predacon soil. Unfortunately while they were doing so, Tarantulas's latest invention the Transformation Lock Lens, prevented them from sending the signal before Megatron destroyed the array. When a Predacon plan to fake a Maximal victory was exposed, Rhinox was dismayed when Optimus and Cheetor insisted on leaving the Axalon with liftoff imminent in order to rescue Dinobot. Tigatron attempted to go as well, leading Rhinox to order him to sit down. Liftoff eventually occurred without Primal, however Megatron got on board and damaged the controls. Rhinox attempted to control the ship and, with some assistance from Optimus, managed to get it down at least in one piece, though it would never fly again.
Some time later, when the Maximals found themselves cornered by a Predacon ambush, Rhinox was able to take out their attackers with a carefully aimed spray of chaingun fire. Megatron was so impressed that he decided to make Rhinox a member of his merry band of thieves, by force. Rhinox was captured by Tarantulas and then reprogrammed into a Predacon by a device designed by Megatron called a "Transmuter". However, the newly malevolent Rhinox proved to be too much for Megatron to handle, as Optimus Primal had correctly predicted. He quickly dispatched most of the Predacons, working his way up to Megatron himself in an attempted coup. Rhinox very nearly succeeded, but fortunately, Megatron was able to revert him back into a Maximal using the Transmuter, and Rhinox escaped to rejoin his Maximal comrades and smell some flowers.
The Maximals arrived back at base after being sent on wild goose chases by Megatron's clone of Dinobot, only to find that the clone had already been dealt with by the real Dinobot. Later, a stasis pod crash landed in a barren wasteland. Rhinox intercepted it and, with the help of Cheetor's locking chip, managed to save the protoform Maximal's spark. The protoform then became Airazor, who repaid the favor by saving the weakened Rhinox from Terrorsaur.
While Rhinox was communicating long distance with Tigatron, his fellow Maximal was attacked by Waspinator and Terrorsaur, leading the Maximals to discover the existence of a flying island. Blackarachnia briefly took control of the island and piloted it towards the Axalon, forcing Rhinox, Cheetor and Dinobot to evacuate the base. The only thing Rhinox took with him was a potted plant. When the island's destruction sent a beam into space, the Maximals wondered who received the signal and what they'd do next.
At one point, a magna pulse triggered by Tarantulas knocked out the power in the Maximal base, and Optimus Primal left Rhinox struggling to get things working again. The loss of the Axalon's rectifier coil forced the Maximals to stay in their beast forms at all times, which resulted in their beast instincts taking over and sending them off to wander the jungle. It was only with Tigatron's help that they deleted the programming blocks separating their core programming, and they were able to fight the Predacons who were hunting them.
When Scorponok detonated a pile of energon near a group of Maximals, rendering them blind, it was Rhinox who led the group on the dangerous trek back to the Axalon, teaching them how to use their other senses. They were able to overcome the obstacles both nature and the Predacons could throw at them, and succeeded in reaching safety. Afterwards, Rhinox again went off to smell some flowers. After the Maximals were ousted from their base by the Predacons assisted by a Starscream-possessed Waspinator, they attempted a ruse to get the Axalon back, resulting in Rhinox and the others mounting an assault on the Predacon base.
Later, Tarantulas infected Rhinox with an energon discharge virus, which made him expel his energon reserves via his nasal passages in bursts powerful enough to tear through the hull of the Axalon, threatening both to destroy the Maximals' base and completely drain Rhinox of energy. Rattrap and Dinobot were dispatched to acquire a countervirus, while Rhinox ate some wild bean vines to keep his strength up. When the bickering duo nearly failed in their mission, the other Maximals, including Rhinox, showed up, and the rhinoceros blew away the Predacons with a massive energon discharge from his rear, which was caused by his ingestion of wild beans; Megatron would remember this moment as the most humiliating defeat in his entire career. Rhinox was later cured by the countervirus via a Cybertronic beer hat.
After Megatron called a truce, Rhinox assisted "non-violently" in helping Tigatron escape after infiltrating the Predacon base to find out more information. He non-violently held up a sheet of metal for Terrorsaur to crash into, and then non-violently sat on him. Tigatron reported that the aliens were coming. Indeed, an alien construct appeared and, while the other Maximals were investigating it, Rhinox and Dinobot were bushwhacked in the Maximal base by Tarantulas and Blackarachnia. The rest of the Maximals found their two comrades webbed to the ceiling, and placed them in CR chambers. Rhinox stirred in his chamber as he sensed Primal's impending destruction.
Protected by the CR chamber, Rhinox avoided being upgraded into a Transmetal by the quantum surge. After recovering, he took leadership of the Maximals to forestall any bickering and sent Rattrap and Cheetor out to protect the base against Megatron. Unfortunately Inferno was already loose in the base, and managed to blast Rhinox before fighting Dinobot. Rhinox quickly recovered, throwing a badly-battered Inferno out and forcing Megatron to retreat. Rhinox later initiated a dangerous plan to bring the recently deceased Optimus Primal back to life by using the hole in space-time caused by the destruction of the Planet Buster to astrally project his spark into the Matrix. Rhinox followed the transition left by Primal's spark and led it back to the land of the living, where it was reborn as Transmetal Optimus Primal. Primal was able to come to the aid of the Maximals right when they were on the verge of defeat.
Rhinox conducted tests on Optimus Primal to attempt to determine what the new Transmetal forms were capable of, with limited results. His research into the alien sites predicted that there would be one located in an area Tigatron and Airazor were patrolling, however a Predacon jamming tower prevented the Maximals from warning the pair, who were shot into space by some sort of alien planet device. While the others were off the base, Rhinox was attacked by Megatron, Blackarachnia and Inferno, who made off with the Golden Disk. After repairs, Rhinox and the other Maximals went to the alien site, only to be blasted by the alien construct that appeared. The Transmetaled Maximals recovered quickly, and Silverbolt and Cheetor took Rhinox and Dinobot back to base for repairs. Rhinox was barely recovered when he was again pressed into action, attacking the alien construct which Megatron had taken over, to allow Rattrap and Tarantulas to slip inside.
When Protoform X's stasis pod was discovered, Rhinox worried that its contents had survived the crash. Rhinox calculated that the transwarp wavefront from the Planet Buster explosion would soon be reaching Cybertron, though the good news was tempered a short time later when Dinobot perished saving a group of anthropoids from the Predacons. Rhinox's tests on Transmutate were not promising, and he suggested putting the creature in stasis. Silverbolt wasn't happy with the suggestion.
Continuing to track the transwarp wavefront, Rhinox and the other Maximals celebrated their impending rescue, however instead they got Predacon agent Ravage. After fighting off the Predacons, Ravage helped the Maximals storm the Darksyde and arrest Megatron. With Ravage's defection, Rhinox and Rattrap found themselves under heavy assault in the Axalon. Some daring-do on Rattrap's part saved the day, but the Maximals had to chase Megatron. Rhinox was forced to ride on Primal's surfboard, much to his visible discomfort at the height. They tracked Megatron to Mount St. Hilary, where the Predacon leader had located the Ark and attempted to reach the ship first. Though Rhinox physically forced the ship's doors open, they were too late—Megatron had blasted Optimus Prime, causing a timestorm as history began to change.
With Blackarachnia's help, the Maximals stabilized Prime ad Rhinox stayed to supervise the repairs while the others went to defend the Axalon. His work was interrupted by Silverbolt's "situation"—Blackarachnia had been shot by Megatron during the conflict, but as Rhinox pointed out, she just needed repairs. The Axalon, on the other hand, was lost, and the Maximals were forced to set up base in the cavern housing the Ark.
Rhinox had difficulties interfacing Maximal and Autobot technology, and expressed doubts that help was still on the way, though it did turn up in the form of Depth Charge, who'd come looking for Rampage. An attempt by Rhinox to rig up Teletraan I's force field to protect the base failed, forcing the Maximals to attempt to salvage Sentinel. He later had to restrain Rattrap from trying to attack Depth Charge, who had caused the mission to fail.
Analysing the cyber raptor which Primal had encountered, Rhinox reported that it was fused with Transmetal technology. Once the others had all left the base, he and Rattrap found themselves under siege from Megatron and a group of Predacons. Rhinox finally made a desperate attempt to see them off with a barrage of chaingun fire, only to be blasted backwards. Depth Charge fortunately came to the rescue and saved them both.
When the Maximals thought that Cheetor had been killed, Rhinox told Primal not to give up hope, and went to get the long-range sensors online. As it turned out, his optimism was correct, as Cheetor later turned up outside the base. After Cheetor was apparently spirited away overnight by a strange creature, Silverbolt and Blackarachnia went out looking, but to Rhinox's surprise, didn't find anything.
Rhinox scanned Blackarachnia's internals, with a view to extracting her Predacon shell program and restoring her to a Maximal state. Some time later, he and Primal discovered that she had overheard their conversation about the concept, and fled in the belief they'd force her to go through with it. A huge buildup of energy on a mountain top caused alarm for the Maximals, who braced for a possible attack, but all that happened was that the top of the mountain exploded.
When Blackarachnia's attempts to become a Transmetal caused her shell program to deteriorate, threatening to erase her core consciousness, Rhinox carried out a very delicate procedure to surgically remove the shell program directly. Unfortunately, certain failsafes installed by Tarantulas, combined with a Predacon attack, caused the operation to fail. Fortunately, Blackarachnia was mysteriously resurrected anyway by the Transmetal driver. Megatron's next gambit involved Quickstrike remote controlling Optimus Primal. Once this was achieved, the subverted Primal's first order was for Rhinox to order everyone back to base, where Quickstrike was able to knock them out and stick them in a cage. Fortunately Blackarachnia was able to free Primal and the others and they fought off Megatron, who had upgraded himself using the original Megatron's spark.
Detecting an alien signature inbound to Earth, Rhinox realised that it meant that Tigatron and Airazor were coming back. Indeed, the Predacon base was soon destroyed by Tigerhawk, the emissary the Vok had created using the two Maximal sparks, though Rhinox wasn't in the mood for celebrating. Once the situation was sorted out, the Maximals began searching for Megatron and his scattered forces. Rhinox monitored the situation from base, as the others discovered that Megatron was attempting to raise the Nemesis. He and Rattrap were overjoyed when Primal reported that Depth Charge had taken out the warship, but it turned out the news was premature.
Rhinox was ordered by Optimus Primal to execute Operation Eternity, which apparently only Primal and he knew about. The purpose of the operation was to "move the Ark" by activating its engines and taking off; little is know beyond that, because the Maximals failed when the Ark's engines proved beyond repair. However, Dinobot II downloaded emergency data to the Ark about an Autobot shuttle hidden within the Ark. Rhinox piloted the shuttle and flew it directly into the bridge of the Nemesis, taking down Megatron and causing the warship to spiral out of control and crash somewhere beyond the horizon. Thus, the Beast Wars were won. Rhinox and the other Maximals left prehistoric Earth aboard the aforementioned Autobot shuttle and began the voyage home to Cybertron.
