Transformers re-Prime-d (Season 1)

Rock Bottom

"Do we have an understanding?"

"Yes my Lord."

"Then get back to your post."

"Right away Lord Megatron."

"Remember drone, fail me, and you die."

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"Oh, come on Optimus!"

"I am sorry Shadow, but I cannot relieve your grounded status."

The femme sighed and stormed off towards the humans.

"You coming or what?"

"You heard Optimus, Miko."

"I know. I was asking about the rock concert afterward."

"About that..."

"Bulkhead and I are going to tear it up! Did you know this is the only American date Slash-monkey will preform?"

"Come on Miko, quit pestering her."

"Who asked you Raf?"

"I think I'll just stay here."

"Fine, be lame and do that."

Arcee and Jack drove into the compound. Miko turned to her guardian.

"Bulkhead, we ready to rumble?"

Miko ran off.

"Staying here isn't lame. Don't let her get to you."

I watched the ground bridge open briefly, before closing behind Arcee, Bulkhead, Jack, and Miko.

"It's not fair."

"It's a scouting mission."

"So? I want to go. I don't want to be pent up here. You know I used to actually be a scout? I could have been useful."

"You can still be useful. Ratchet and I were going to run some diagnostics on our system. You could help."

"The entire system?"

"No. Mainly radio."

"Oh, so like scanner stuff?"

"I don't exactly know. Let's ask Ratchet."

We walked over to the doctor. He was talking to Optimus. We waited. Optimus called over to Bumblebee. The two left out of the main entrance. Ratchet acknowledged us.

"Rafael, are you ready to run the system checks?"

"Yeah, I've configured my computer and everything. Could Shadow also help?"

"We always need help on the Decepticon tracking system. Shadow, you can stand over there," he pointed to the NAV system hardware, "and work on that. If you have any questions, you can bother us over here."

I nodded and moved.

"Ratchet, that's not very nice," Raf said behind me.

I paid them no mind. I worked. I saw that Bulkhead and Arcee's beacons went offline. I knew it was the cave systems. I had witnessed similar during the war. I toyed around with the system. I was checking new frequencies and to summarize the boredom: imagine playing a game of battle ship in which your opponent's ships are constantly moving. I got two consecutive hits. Each was scrambled, probably high level Cons. I looked more into their reflecting signals. I noted that one was more covert than the other. I ran diagnostics on the secretive one. His beacon was not transmitting out. Not to anyone- not even to the Nemesis. I tried to crack the signals, but could not. I walked over to Raf and Ratchet.