Transformers re-Prime-d (Season 1)

Stronger, Faster

Bulkhead and I were talking in the main area.

"Now do you wanna race cops?" he asked me.

"No thanks Bulkhead, besides," I jested, "You'd probably lose anyway."

"What, no? I'm a great racer!"

"Yeah, no. If I wanted a good tag team for racing, I think I'd pick Striker."

"Why? You don't think I could beat a cop?"

"You sure as scrap couldn't beat that laser fire."

"Come on! Those were vehicons!"

"Yep... That those were."

"Talking about yesterday... did you ever teach Ratchet how to get the formula out of the storage device?"

"I explained to him that I honestly didn't know how to. I told him that Shockwave designed it, so it would probably take another scientist I.E. him to do it."

"So, you basically captured the info in a device that we can't transfer it from?"

"Well Bulkhead, we could always transfer it back to another cybertronian, but both Ratchet and Optimus were completely against that idea."

"So then," he pointed to Ratchet, "What has the doctor been up to?"

"He's been trying to complete the formula. He kind of gave up on trying to find a way to get it out of the device."

"And the device itself?"

"In storage. Prime fears that the cons could probably find a way to obtain the data from the device."

"Do you think they can?"

"Who do you think advised Prime about the dangers of the Decepticons' ability to retrieve the data? Megatron could do it with a 5% chance of failure, Knockout with a 30% chance, and Shockwave with a 0% chance."

"Good thing we have it in storage right? Hahaha... and that Shockwave's dead."

"Yeah, about that... There's no proof that the scientist is actually dead. Starscream was the last con to see him, and you know how bad Starscream is at killing his comrades."

"Yeah, good thing—"

Alarms sounded.

Arcee walked up to the screen, "More energon on the move."

"Again?" Bulkhead complained.

"Their recent activity suggests a familiar pattern." Optimus announced, "The Decepticons are desperately scouting for new deposits to mine. Autobots—"

"Optimus," Ratchet interrupted, "If one of you comes back injured this time, well, our energon reserves are nearly depleted."

"Understood." Optimus said in a grave tone. "Activate the ground bridge. Autobots, Roll out!"

Ratchet opened the ground bridge. We transformed and drove through. It was dark. A full moon hung in the sky. The ground bridge brought us to a narrow path in a valley. On both sides, rock walls stood extremely high. In front of us, Breakdown and Knockout drove through the valley. We followed. As we got closer, I noticed that Breakdown was carrying a large energon cube on his jeep form's roof.

"Optimus," I called, "Can I transform into my jet form? I think it's the best way to catch up."

"No Shadow," he ordered, "That would expend more energon. And we cannot allow our current reserves to go to waste."