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Chapter 5: Sweet Victory and Bitter Revenge

Deceptitron sat at the command post of the Utopia extremely pleased with himself. His mind was filled with thoughts of war, destruction and power. Power that would be soon be his. The Control room had been made to house a great Leader, a wielder of great power and above all the most powerful Predacon the descendents of the Decepticons ever.

“Shellshocker. Get the energon. I want to have Cybertron in my grasp at the end of this solar cycle.” Deceptitron said anxiously. He knew everything he had been planning would soon be completed.

“Right boss. Lets board our little friends and take there…eh boss…the energon it’s…it’s gone.”” Shellshocker said very timidly.

“WHAT!!!!!” Deceptitron roared. “FIND IT YOU FOOL!!!! BEFORE I SCRAP YOUR HIDE!!!”

“Right, Right boss.” Shellshocker said in a terrified voice. “Octobot get the long range scanners on maximum” He said over the inbuilt inter com.

“Yeah, yeah, keep your shell on.” Octobot said rather uninterestedly.

“YOU WORM HURRY! IF WE FAIL I’LL USE YOUR MECH FLUID TO WAX THE UTOPIA!” Deceptitron was angry, he was worried too. He could feel his power slipping through his fingers.

“Yeah, I’m on it.” Octobot said. The fear of loosing was spreading quickly through the Predacon ranks. Octobot booted up the scanners and found the energon carrier. It had almost reached Cybertron. “It’s almost reached Cybertron boss. The Maximals distracted us for too long. Octobot informed Deceptitron over the inter com.

“Thrusters on. Chase it; we must intercept it before it reaches Cybertronian space!” Deceptitron spoke to every Predacon now. “We must shoot it out of the sky and shoot it a sit crashes. Remember I don’t want it destroyed, just unable to fly. Move. NOW!”

The Utopia blasted forwards towards the energon carrier to get in firing range it moved effortlessly through the blackness of space and would soon be in range of the carrier. But the Maximals weren’t going to give up that easily.
“Eh Boss, we got a problem,” Octobot said looking at the scanners. 

Blue dots were appearing all over the scanners emerging from the planet. On the surface of Cybertron Maximal pilots were moving into nearly every Hangar on the east side of the planet and getting into Maximal star fighters. Small space cruisers with very fast boosters and powerful weaponry. They are quick and agile and travel in fleets of thousands and were going to attack the Utopia.

“Fine we test the Utopia’s strength. It’s the greatest Predacon war ship ever built; it can withstand an attack from a Maximal star fleet.” But Deceptitron said this more to convince him rather than the others. The other Predacons looked doubtfully and prepared for the worst.

“But boss,” Shell shocker cried, “We haven’t got time to take out an entire fleet and get the energon.”

“I know that DINGUS! We will plow through the fleet and take the energon. Shields up to Maximum. Boosters up. The fleet will be now match for us.”

“Why didn’t the Maximals do this before?” Shell shocker asked

“Because my slow minded minion, they didn’t think there would be an attack. They thought Lionheart was being paranoid. But we took so long to dispose of him they got time to prepare there fleet.” Deceptitron explained with no fear in his voice only determination.

Thousands of silver ships glistened as they sped forward towards the Utopia. They armed their weapons preparing to take it out. The weapons glowed orange as they charged them up. They swerved and maneuvered up and down coming at them from all directions. The Utopia made a huge blue sphere of electricity come around them and shield them from danger. The booster son the back of the Utopia glowed with light and soon immense flame burst forth from them and propelled the Utopia straight forward into the fleet.

“So it begins” Deceptitron muttered.

Air Commander Death strike, a loyal and proud Maximal pilot, sat in the lead Maximal star fighter and was fully determined to take out the Utopia. He picked up his radio and began to inform his fellow pilots of what to do. “Red team take the left flank of the Utopia. Green take the right. Blue go up and yellow down. Focus your fire at the Utopia’s weapons. This will weaken it greatly and allow us to get as close to it as possible and breach it’s shield. Remember we MUST take it down before it gets to the energon. Lets move out.”

After this there were several replies of “Roger.”

But suddenly the Utopia burst forward with tremendous speed.
“Slag,” Deathstrike cried, “Use evasive action!” He yelled as he just managed to pull his star fighter above the Utopia But some of his comrades weren’t as lucky as they collided into the Utopia and burst into flames. “Primus save us,” Deathstrike murmured ”Carry out the plan”.

At this command a group of 10 star fighters turned sharply left and began blasting furiously at the Utopia’s weapons. As the blast of green collided into the Utopias turrets, the weapons exploded and fire began to stream out of the Utopia.
“No. They’re taking out our weapons. Return Fire. Man the guns. Blast them out of the sky!!!” Deceptitron bellowed becoming irritated by this Maximal retaliation.

“But sir,” Shellshocker fearfully said “Using weapons will drain the shield and thrusters. We may not survive.”

Deceptitron who had grown tired of Shellshoker’s fear. He grabbed him by the throat and pulled him face to face. “Man a gun fool. Or I’ll personally scrap your hide.” He then tossed him out of the Utopia’s control room and Shellshocker quickly hurried to man a turret.
The other Predacons now controlling turrets began firing on star fighter trying to destroy their turrets.

“C’mon suckers you want some you want some!!!” Beetelix yelled as he blew another ship out of they sky.

Deathstrike saw the ship explode and yelled angrily” Eat this!!” Then began firing at the turrets. Beetleix’s turret was blown sky high and he was thrown back into the wall of the gunning quarters.
“This is Blue leader. Come in Deathstrike. “Blue leader called over his radio.
“Yes come in Blue leader. “ Deathstrike replied.
“Only a few turrets left. The left flank is defenseless.”
“Excellent engage the left flank at point blank arrange.”
“Yes sir.”
“Yellow team come with me were going to take out all the turrets on the Right flank.”
On the right side were Shell shocker and Octobot. Octobot was happily blasting away at the Maximals draining the Utopia of the energy.
“Stop you fool.” Shellshocker cried, “Your mindless shooting drains the Utopia shield.”
“So” Octobot replied not really caring. But before Shellshocker could answer Octobot’s turret was destroyed and Octobot himself was thrown across the room.

Yellow Team and Deathstrike began swooping down the right side and blasting at the turrets. Deathstrike tried to evade the return fire form octobot by flipping his ship and rolling it up and down. He then got his ship stable and blasted at the final turret. It burst into flames and the term pulled away from the Utopia.
“All units. Gets as close to the Utopia as you can and fire them at point blank range.” Deathstrike commanded.
Deceptitron was now punching and hitting the computers in the control room.
“No. Nooo!!!!” I will not loose!!!! Computer how long till we intercept the energon.
15 Nano clicks
“Shield power?”
Shields at 20% and dropping

“No were not going to last-“He began but some stray fire from a star fighter hit the control room. 

This sent Deceptitron into a computer console and the electricity from the console began electrocuting Deceptitron. Deceptitron began to roar in pain and then entered immediate stasis lock.

The Maximal fleet was now all focusing there fire power on the Utopia. No area of it was left unhindered by fire power. The ship weaved in and out around the Utopia. Its energon reserves were now fully depleted and it’s boosters that had been getting it closer and closer to the energon were now no longer reeved in flame. Sparks were ejected from the thrusters and then they ceased to propel the ship towards its destination. The shields no longer protected the Predacons and the weapons were depleted of ammunition. The Utopia, the greatest Decepticon ship ever built was beaten.

Chapter 6 Out of the Frying Pan

Deathstrike tensed his firm hold on his Star Fighters trigger. One more order and he would be recorded in the Maximal archives. He would get glory and fame. He would be remembered. He put up his com link ad with gave pride gave his final order.
“All Maximals arm implosion missiles. Aim at the Utopia’s bridge. Tear her apart!!”
The other Maximals replied with buzzing “affirmatives” and “Rogers” as they too got their missiles ready and relocated their targeting computers at the Bridge.

“This is over!!” Deathstrike yelled a she firmly fired his missile heading straight for Deceptitron. “Give my regards to the pit!”

Inside the Utopia, the beaten Predacons murmured and winced at the pain of being blown into 5 inch steel walls after having their turrets destroyed. Shellshocker was the only one fully active as he had abandoned his turret when he saw the fleet approaching for their final attack. Although the short Predacon was very much a coward he was still very intelligent and knew of a way to counter their attack. Any self respecting solider would know if you weaken your enemy you use your best weapon to finish them off. Shellshocker had read about the Maximals Star fighter and knew all to well about the Homing Implosion missiles. Every missile had a guiding system that led them straight to their target using infra red sighting mechanisms. However this mechanism was not made to advance as it would be a waste of time to produce highly advanced devices that will be destroyed. Because of this there were a few faults. The device was easily scrambled by any abnormal electro magnetic currents. This meant the device would malfunction and cause the missile to go in every direction, essentially destroying it as the overload of targets would make it detonate. The answer of how to get a big enough current quickly came to him when he remembered how the Maximals had malfunctioned their cloaking device. An EMP.
All the Maximal fighters jetted out small missiles heading straight for the bridge. Shellshocker quickly scrambled down to the Armory and began frantically searching for an EMP. Deathstrike watched as the missiles swerved through the air, waiting for impact. Shellshocker finally pulled out an EMP and switched it on. Nothing happened. The battery was dead. The missiles were now nearing the bridge. Deathstrike could taste the fame. They were so close. But the EMP then sprang to life, a wave a blue pulse ran through space detonating all the missiles just in front of the Utopia. The force of the blast knocked it straight away form Cybertron and hurtled to the electromagnetic storm. Deathstrike was livid
“NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!”

The Criscindo plummeted to the planet like an asteroid. As it fell through the atmosphere its sides were scorched and burnt. It fell to the ground with an enormous amount of force propelling dirt, scrap metal and debris over for miles around. After the tremendous crash there was no sound for what seemed like an eternity. Everything was a silent as if this was an uninhabited planet. Inside the Criscindo the computer activated and began scanning the inside of the base recognizing both Sharpshot and Xenon, but not Switchblade. It then detected she was a Predacon and began an alarm. Next the computer awoke Sharpshot from statis lock, but did not have enough power for Xenon’s revival. Sharpshot picked himself off the ground, aching all over. He was very tried and felt very stiff indeed. As he rubbed his neck in an attempt to revive himself he looked through the gun chamber only to see vast fields of grass spread out as far as the eye could see. He saw animals grazing in it, animals lounging in trees even creatures scuttling on the ground.

“Earth!” Sharpshot said at once.

He knew this because of Optimus’ eagerness to know of what happened to his father. One of the survivors from the first Beast Wars, Cheetor, gave Optimus a recorded disk of his memory circuits. It showed all the events that had happened on Earth and on Cybertron, but the Earth part interested him the most. The maximal elders had restricted all area around Earth as the Cybertronian wars had damaged it so much and any Transformer on earth could deplete earth of it’s energon. However the images in the disk ace a welcome insight into Earth and both shocked and reminded all transformers of Earth’s beauty.

Sharpshot moved over to the console and checked to see how much energy was left. The Maximal computer Oberon activated and displayed 5 energon containers nearly all empty except for a minuscule amount.

“Oberon, run data tracks for energon storage in gunning quarters.” Sharpshot ordered.
Oberon began searching through the old databases and found no criteria matching Sharpshot’s request.
No Energon on board it replied with a few bleeps.
“Great, just our luck”. Sharpshot groaned “Oberon, shut down all unnecessary programmes.”

As Oberon performed these actions, Sharpshot picked up Xenon and reactivated him.
“How’d you feel?” Sharpshot asked him.
“Xenon let his eyes adjust to the surrounding light and let his circuits began to work again before he answered.
“What no bed and breakfast?” Xenon laughed. Sharpshot could only manage a weak smile.
“That bad, huh” Xenon answered solemnly he had forgotten their dire situation.
“We got no energon on board and Oberon will have to shut down in less than a cycle.” Xenon looked down and then looked to the right through the gun chamber.
“It’s…”
“Earth.”
“I wish Optimus could see this.”” Xenon smiled. Optimus’ name brought great grief to Sharpshot’s spark. Xenon saw this and grabbed his hand.
“He died to save us. He died a hero. He wouldn’t let us loose hope. Remember what Optimus always said. There is always hope.”
Hearing those old words made Sharpshot feel less grieved in sorrow.
“Thanks buddy.”
“Anytime.” Sharpshot then noticed a sound stop. It was the alarm.
“Did you hear that?”
“You mean hear it stop, yeah.” They turned to Oberon who brought up a screen of the Criscindo. Next to 2 Maximal signatures was a Predacon one.
Alert. Alert. Predacon signature detected in base. Alert. Alert.
“Man I almost forget about the Pred,” Xenon said getting up and moving over to Switchblade. “Well what do we do now? She may want to kill us now we are out of harms way.”
“I don’t know” Sharpshot replied. “ I keep thinking about all this and it just doesn’t add up.”
“Oh?”
“Well like the way she attacked us. One Pred vs 5 Maximals isn’t exactly good odds. I don’t think any ones that good a fighter or even that naive.”
“So?”
“I think her one man…eh women stand was more of a punishment than a volunteered mission.”
“Well what did she do that was so bad?”
“I don’t know but we can ask her,” he said leaning over Switchblade to reactivate her.
“Wait, one thing doesn’t make sense. Why did she lower our shields? Seems to me she was doing a Pred favor even after a punishment.”
“No there’s a good reason for that.”
“Oh yeah well refresh my memory who threatened to scrap her for doing that.”
That hit Sharpshot hard and he did feel ashamed for doing that. Xenon felt bad too, he didn’t mean to throw it back at Sharpshot like that.
“I wasn’t thinking. I was over reacting. But all the power we were using in the guns and the boosters was being taken away from something else. Our shields. They were practically depleted of energy. We only survived because of her upgrade.”
Xenon frowned and finally sighed.
“Fine lets wake her up. But I hope your right.”

Sharpshot knelt over Switchblade and began tapping keys on her control panel. Maximal circuits were exactly the same to Predacons; it was the last similarity between the two races, but this meant Sharpshot knew what he was doing. Switchblades optics began to light up and she returned to consciousness. However she thought Sharpshot was tying her up so kicked Sharpshot in his abdomen. Sharpshot crashed into the chamber wall, but Xenon acted quickly and grabbed her in a full nelson lock, so her arms were safely locked.

“Easy Predacon.” Xenon said lifting her off the ground. “You ok Sharp?”

Sharpshot picked himself off from the floor and looked at Switchblade.
“You could of told us you were so grumpy in the morning!” Sharpshot chuckled trying to lighten the situation. Neither of the two laughed. Xenon gave Sharpshot a long confused stare. He thought Sharpshot was being an idiot still trusting the Predacon, even after she had attacked him. While Switchblade was touched. How could a Maximal still trust her even after she’d hurt him? She was not used to forgiveness.

“Xenon, you can let her go.” Sharpshot said brushing himself off. Xenon was slightly startled, he was so deep in thought he’d forgotten he was restraining Switchblade. He loosened his grip and she slithered out of his hold immediately.

Trying to change the subject Switchblade perked up “Where in the pit’s name are we?”
“Earth.” The two Maximals replied.
“Well have you started it?” Switchblade enquired.
“What?” Xenon scowled
“Duh, the DNA scan. If we’re going to go out there we need to have animal bodies.”
“You know about the Beast Wars?” Sharpshot asked
“Doesn’t everyone? It was the main topic for years.”
“Were not going out yet.”
“Why not?”
“Not enough power.” Xenon intervened. “We need to divert all power to Oberon until we find an alternate source of energy. Without Oberon were lost. A DNA scanner would drain the ships power.”
“Oberon?”
“Our Computer.” Sharpshot said.
“Wait if this is Earth why didn’t your Maximal elders send us a restriction message.”
Sharpshot and Xenon looked at the screen
“THIS AREA IS OFF LIMITS BY ORDER OF THE HIGH COUNCIL”

The two turned to Switchblade with pleased looks.
“Fine,” she moaned tuning her head away from them. Sharpshot moved to the screen and pressed a few keys.
“There’s something else here.” Sure enough 2 messages had been received.
“We’ve received a data camera from Maximal 5, a satellite orbiting Cybertron.” Sharpshot explained. He activated the film, but all he saw was a lot of distortion.
“Hmm can’t get a decent picture,” Sharpshot said turning the frequency dial. At one point he got two large objects and turned the dial back a bit to enhance the picture.
“By Primus…”

Chapter 7 Into the Fire

Xenon and Sharpshot looked at the screen in awe as they saw the Criscindo cower before the might of the Utopia. As the Utopia’s main weapon continued to power up the screen became lighter and lighter. The two felt their sparks tense as they would see their leader die once again. They prayed something would happen, something would save Optimus and their ship, but still it powered up. There was no stopping it. They knew what would happen but it seemed to last an eternity as the laser powered up. Doom was coming slowly. Still it continued, slowly, slowly, the ravenous beam taking it’s time to bring their grief. However it all stopped. For a split second they all thought something had gone wrong, Optimus had survived. But the beam poured out of the ship and blew into the main quarters of the Criscindo. Then the screen went white. Sharpshot frantically tried to change the picture but nothing came. The 2 looked back to Switchblade who turned away from them, pulling out her spear. Then the picture returned but only the Utopia was visible. Sharpshot touched the screen. “Optimus…”

Xenon put his hand on Sharpshot’s shoulder. They both looked down, neither knew what to say. They remained like this for a while. With Optimus gone the Predacons would get the energon and Cybertron would be conquered once more. They could do nothing and Optimus’ sacrifice would have been in vain.

Sharpshot eventually looked up. He noticed something on the screen. The whole of space seemed to move around the Utopia.

“What the?” The two Maximals looked on in suspense as to what it might be and as they came into view they knew what it was.

“That Maximal Star Fleet,” they cheered.

They looked on with great joy as they saw the fleet weave around the Utopia, slowly weakening it and making it bleed. This site of revenge came as a great aid to their sorrow. To see their enemies plead for mercy when none was given. They felt the whole earth go silent as the ships assembled around the Utopia. They knew this would be the end to the war if they killed them. The missiles launched and flew closer in, but they exploded too early. The Utopia was blasted away form Cybertron air space and the Predacons had survived. The screen became distorted again and Sharpshot shut off the film. Xenon turned to Switchblade.

“You!” He grabbed her by the neck and lifted her up. He then pulled his axe under her neck.

“Your pals just slagged my commander. And then they escaped the Maximal Star Fleet. One Pred should die at least!!”

“No Xenon,” Sharpshot yelled. “It wasn’t her fault. Put her down.”

Xenon dropped her and buried his head in his hands.
“There, there old friend, we’re not giving up that easily. When we find a few manual DNA scanners we’ll head for the Ark and try to find an Autobot shuttle.”

“Yeah the Ark. There must be a ship in it somewhere."

“Yeah and if we can find Hippox’s old DNA scanners, we’ll survive.”

“No we won’t” Switchblade interrupted. “Gravity pulls everything in the same direction.”

“So?”

“That means the Utopia will be pulled into that electromagnetic storm.”

“And that means…”

“They are coming here.”

“We have to fortify the defenses. Move!” Sharpshot ordered.

Xenon and Sharpshot raced into the armory with Switchblade dragging behind. The armory was full of shelves that had toppled over and boxes of rifles and ammunition had been scattered across the floor. Xenon began digging through the piles of weapons and picked out a large sentry gun and tossed it at Sharpshot who caught it with ease. He then picked out another and tossed it at Switchblade. She looked at it uncertainly.

“It’s an auto gun, proximity alerted, however we can set them to only fire on Predacon signatures. If only I can find some data controllers...ahh here we are.”

Xenon said picking up two small cube computers. He tosses one each to Switchblade and Sharpshot. Sharpshot immediately attached it and activated the computer, but Switchblade looked at the computer dumfounded. Sharpshot noticed her bewilderment and helped her.

“You attach the left sleeve under the handle and the right under ammo compartment” He said holding her hand and moving it along to attach the computer.
“Then you press the button to activate it.” Switchblade looked at him uncertainly.

“Get off me…” she began, but the activated sentry gun sprung to life and fell out of Switchblade’s grip.

Target acquired
The sentry gun called and turned it’s scope towards Switchblade.

“Hey guys…guys!” She screamed

Target locked. Fire
Switchblade began to bring her arms in front of her face and tried to run but the sentry gun was too quick and began to fire.
However the only thing that happened was a clicking sound as the Sentry gun fired. Switchblade looked even more confused and turned to the others. Sharpshot and Xenon lifted up ammo rounds.

“You should know guns only work with ammo.” Sharpshot chuckled.

“That wasn’t funny.” Switchblade protested.

Xenon and Sharpshot smiled at each other.
“No it wasn’t,” Sharpshot replied, “But you’d better change your Predacon activation code to a Maximal one so when these babies start going off you don’t get blasted.”

Switchblade remained silent.
“C’mon do you still want to be a Predacon?”

“Maybe?”

“Maybe? Even after they punished you?”

“How did you know?”

“Taking on 5 Maximals on your own isn’t exactly a strategic mission” Xenon piped in who up until now had found a sentry gun of this own.

“Yeah I guess. But…”

“But what? Optimus trusted you? Were you going to become a Maximal when Optimus was here?”

“Yes”

“Then why not now?”

“Because you guys aren’t half as welcoming he was!”

“What!” Xenon and Sharpshot yelled

“Sharps been constantly trying to welcome you in. It’s sickening. He is trying to trust a Predacon. You don’t know how hard that is for us. So don’t you dare say he is not welcoming.” Xenon protested. Sharpshot was quite taken by his friends act of loyalty and Switchblade was shocked by his words.

“Fine,” she muttered

She went into statis lock and her computer alerted the 2 of her defection. After a few seconds she came back online.

“Right well lets get to work.”

They began to search once again through the armory looking for any guns that could be manned or controlled by Oberon. Also they searched for batteries that could be used to power Oberon. There was no energon on the ship so they would have to take power from other devices. Xenon was underway separating the Criscindo’s main weapons from the ships power source. They knew if they had to fight the main weapons would drain to much power from their energy reserves, so the guns would need their own independent power sources. Sharpshot was busy rummaging thorugh the armory with Switchblade. Neither of them had said much after she had changed her activation code. Switchblade was always averting her eyes away from him, but Sharpshot kept shooting her glances. Switchblade picked up a long device with a rather large handle and a screen on one end. She looked at it uninterestedly and was about to start tapping a few of its keys when Sharpshot noticed her discovery.

“Alright you found the DNA scanners.” Sharpshot called to her

“Eh..yeah” she replied.

Sharpshot moved over to her and began searching for the others. Eventually he picked up 3 similar.
“I’ll go take these to Xenon, you just keep searching.” Sharpshot said as he left her on her own

.
Switchblade kicked a box across the room and slumped in the corner. What was she doing here? What was she going to do? She should be on Cybertron right now, not on this dirtball with 2 useless Maximals. Why had she taken up the bounty on Deceptitron? What would she of done with the money anyway? She knew deep down the money didn’t matter, she just wanted Deceptitron dead. His crazed ambition was going to get all Predacons killed Megatron had started all this trouble and Deceptitron was finishing it off. She liked it when Maximals and Predacons lived pretty much in peace. Many of the Predacons were through with universal conquest, but the stupid belief inside the Predacons that they need to rule prevented peace. So why hadn’t she killed Deceptitron when she had the chance. She could of fire on him when she was manning the guns. But why couldn’t she. Was she too close to the Predacons to kill them now? Or did she feel they would take her back? Of course they wouldn’t. They had sent her to die and would rectify that inequity when they land. Her best chance was with the Maximals now. She knew that. But why can’t she accept it.

“The kid’s been nice to me and I treat him like slag.” She started, but simply buried her head in her hands. She sat in silence for what seemed like years, but was only a few seconds. She heard a faint knocking at the wall of the armory. She looked up and did a heat seeking scan at the wall. On the outside there was what seemed to be a large sword fish.

“Oh great we’ve landed in a puddle. The ship will either sink or rust.” Switchblade then noticed a DNA scanner on the floor.

“What the hell.” She sighed. She picked up the scanner and aimed it at the wall. Nothing happened. She shook the scanner, still nothing happened. Getting slightly irritated, she tapped a key and a socket opened revealing two wires. She attached them to them the outlets on her wrists, as she noticed the similarity’s between them. Finally she tapped another key and a small wave was given out from the scanner. It swept throughout the armory and to the outside into a small lake. It had found an appropriate body and began to replica the animal. The scanner sent it’s programming through the wires in Switchblade’s wrist to her core consciousness. She began to scream.
Sharpshot walked into the gunning room and dropped the DNA scanners next to Xenon.

“Hey you found them.” Xenon said laying aside his spanner and wrench.

“Actually Switchblade found them.” Sharpshot replied.

Xenon didn’t reply.

“You still don’t trust her,” Sharpshot asked.

“Nope.” Xenon answered without a moments pause.

“Thanks for sticking up with me, back there.”

“No Problem. I’ve reattached the main weapons to a separate power source. But even with less power draining Oberon, we’ve only bought us a few cycles more. Were going to need energon soon.”

Sharpshot noticed he was straying away from trusting Switchblade and decided to let the subject be. 

“If we can fix these DNA scanners then we will get Oberon back online.”

“Then what?”

“Pardon?”

“Even with our computer online we haven’t got a hope to fight against 5 powerful Predacons. And when little miss traitor realizes this she’ll ditch us faster than a Predacon out of a crashing space cruiser.”

“Don’t think like that. Optimus died so we could fight on. And I for one am not going into this battle thinking I am going to loose. We have the advantage of crashing first. This will gives us time to fortify our base first.”

“You think that will be enough?”

“I know so.”

“Maybe….” But Switchblade’s scream interrupted their conversation.

“What the?” The 2 rushed to Switchblade’s side. She had collapsed to the ground. Sharpshot propped her on a stall and pulled the DNA scanner off her wrist.

“She’s been reformatted.” Xenon murmured.

“It shows the DNA scanners work.” Sharpshot perked up as he inspected Switchblade’s new body.

“But at what price? Is she damaged?” Xenon asked

“She’s in statis lock. I say we find beast forms as soon as we can. Our energon coil can’t hold up forever.”

“First we need to make sure the DNA scanners are safe. I don’t want to get fried like Switchblade.” Xenon said picking up the scanner and taking off its cover. He began to adjust wires and change switches.

Switchblade began to stir again and Sharpshot helped her up. 

“Love the new look.” Sharpshot joked at her.

Switchblade looked at her hands and body. “Oh great I’m, a fish” She moaned. “Well let’s start getting some energon.”

“Hey Xenon and I aren’t beasts yet. We all need to get out there.”



Xenon had finally fixed the scanners while Sharpshot and Switchblade had prepared all the weapons they’d need to defend the base. Switchblade had approached the pod hatch, but Sharpshot and Xenon were still looking out for any animals out on the plains. A falcon flew across the sky and Sharpshot immediately scanned it. Electricity surged through Sharpshot and his whole body began to glow brightly. His metal exoskeleton began to morph and deform. Feathers took the place of metal and on his chest a strong beak could be seen. The others looked at Sharpshot who simply replied “Hehe. Cool!”

“Oh no these scanners are running out of juice. C’mon one animal just appear!!” Xenon roared. No sooner had he said this when a giraffe paraded across the plain. Xenon moaned. “Man...”

Xenon too reformatted and in a same glowing manner patches appeared over his body and so did a huge long neck.

“No one say a word” Xenon grumbled as he progressed to the pod hatch. Xenon already hated being a giraffe. “Beast mode.” The 3 said as they prepared to depart. Sharpshot turned into a falcon, Xenon a giraffe and Switchblade a sword fish. However Switchblade slumped to the floor and began to wriggle frantically. The 2 Maximals looked at her. 

“Maybe not the best beast mode.” Sharpshot began but suddenly rockets appeared out of Switchblade’s lower back and she lifted off the ground.

“Hey why can’t I fly,” Xenon moaned. The 2 ignored him and the hatch burst open. The 3 were blinded by a burst of light, but as there optics got used to the new light, they once again enjoyed the beauty of Earth. Its clean air, healthy plants, amazing animals and unpolluted lands.



Xenon picked up an energon tracker and it immediately began to bleep. “This way” Xenon nodded as they marched away from the base. Sharpshot looked at the base’s location. They had managed to crash into the bottom of a water fall. 

“It’s going to be easier to defend the base than I thought.” Sharpshot thought.

The 3 Maximals approached large outlet of energon. Most of it was buried under a lot of rocks.

“Maximize” Sharpshot said and he began to uncover the energon. Xenon sighed and he to Maximized but instead fired his Bazooka at the largest rock uncovering all the energon.

“Whatever” Sharpshot rolled his eyes. Suddenly both Xenon and Sharpshot were shocked by energon surges.

“Eh, energon build up, let’s revert to beast mode.” Xenon instructed and the 2 both transformed. They then grabbed a huge piece of energon each and carried it back to the base. They repeated this procedure until they had enough to fill the power reserves. Sharpshot began to enter all the energon into the reserves, while Switchblade and Xenon began setting up the sentry guns. Although all the while Xenon kept looking over his shoulder to see if Switchblade was up to something.



They all worked long into the evening and as the tropical storm began to pour down on them they all made their way to the highest peak in the area. Any would think they were simply star gazing and enjoying the night sky, but that was far from the truth. They were all dreading the oncoming doom of the Predacons. For a long while the sky was still and only the sound of rain slowly hitting the ground. But suddenly a huge object came crashing out of the sky. It was clearly the Utopia. It filled the sky in all its horror. It seemed so close but in reality it was thousands of miles away. The Utopia plummeted to the ground and sent a shower of rocks and debris in the air. Sharpshot turned from the scene and began to fly back to base. He knew they were coming and didn’t need to see it. The battle would come. Was he ready?