Nightwolf calls me an optimist. Maybe because I consider him a pessimist. They call me Ballistic, a name I earned back in basic training. I hate not having enough power. I'm not power hungry or anything, I just want to make sure I'm prepared for anything I have to face. That's why I took up designing weapons. I can build almost any weapon for any purpose. Blow up a building? Got it covered. Blow up two buildings? Give me a few hours and I'll think of something. Worst thing about it is I don't always know how much power I'm going to need, that's why I always want to make sure enough. Saying I was ill prepared for our return to Cybertron was an understatement. It's hard to prepare for a planet full of techno-organic psychos who want to reformat you. And I didn't exactly have a few hours to think something up. Unscheduled escape plans are like that. I wasn't built for diplomatic missions.

So there we were, recently escaped from the Citadel with some guy who claimed to be Rhinox. I had heard of Rhinox, I had also heard of Tankor, and from what I hear, he's dead. And if Rhinox is dead, who was claiming to be him? Once we were safely away from the Citadel, "Rhinox" told us to rest in some cavern. It looked like a dead end but the whole time he stood facing the far wall. I looked across the cave at Nightwolf, he kept motioning to Rhinox as if he wanted me to do the talking. Coward. I nodded and walked up to Rhinox who was examining the wall very closely, I knew Nightwolf was using every ounce of his strength not to comment. I could only imagine one of his smart-alec remarks so I started talking to keep my mind off of it,

"You said your name was Rhinox. Is that true?" I questioned. Rhinox stopped his inspection of the wall and said simply,

"It was."

"What do you mean 'was'?"

"I was once Rhinox, but Megatron stole that away from me, he took my life.....he made me a monster. Then once I was freed from that my spark had been corrupted, I had become as evil as Megatron himself. Finally, my suffering ended, but the suffering I had caused remained. I began to drift, unable to enter the Matrix for all I had done."

"Then how did you get here?"

"The Matrix sent me back, it gave me a second chance as its emissary, to undo the harm I had done. Once I've made amends for my crimes, I can rest in peace."

"The emissary of the Matrix? I don't understand. Why would the Matrix send you here?" I asked not sure ifI I believed his story.

"Optimus Primal was wrong, it wasn't the Matrix's vision to reformat Cybertron. Megatron was right about the Oracle, it's only a malfunctioning computer. It has great power but it isn't guided by the Matrix. Something has to be done about the reformatting soon, it has to be fixed."

"What will happen if Cybertron stays techno-organic?" Nightwolf asked.

"Cybertron will become unstable, and all life on the planet will die."

I can't describe it but something was making me believe him. Maybe I just wanted to believe anyone who was opposed to Destron and his insane vision. Call me crazy, but when someone tries to reformat me or kill me, I get a little touchy. Nightwolf looked at me and shrugged, I could tell he was trying to figure out if Rhinox was on the level.

"This is it." Rhinox said suddenly. We looked over to see his fist was glowing. He punched the wall and his whole arm went right through. As he drew it out, I could see a small room through the hole. That's what he was doing at the wall, but how did he know it was there? I helped him clear away the rest of the wall until there was an opening large enough for us to walk through. The three of us got inside and looked around, we weren't in a cave anymore, it looked more like a lab,

"What is this place?" Nightwolf asked.

"This was the lab where Project X was started and later abandoned." Rhinox said,

"Project X? As in Protoform X?"

"The same."

"Why have you brought us here?" I asked. Not that I didn't enjoy a history lesson but I get kind of edgy after an escape and I don't care much for sight-seeing.

"We've come here to find an ally. The Matrix said we would find him here."

"Great. Did the Matrix happen to give some specifics?" Nightwolf asked. Rhinox didn't answer, "Yeah, I thought so."

After a few minutes walking through the lab, I could tell it hadn't been affected by the reformatting. Maybe because it was so far underground. There were empty stasis pods lining the walls, they could have been rejects from the project. That didn't help my confidence much, it wasn't like Protoform X wasn't a reject himself. Rhinox and Nightwolf were lucky, they didn't have to hunt that freak down. I wonder where Primal dropped him off at? A sun hopefully. Depth Charge wasn't happy that an explorer was given the responsibility of dumping one of Cybertron's greatest criminals. Thinking about all of this was taking me on a trip down memory lane that was soon interrupted by Rhinox kicking a door in. To think, they call my methods reckless. In the last hour Rhinox had taken down two doors and a wall. Not to mention the Citadel security. I followed him into the next room where a large stasis pod was. He stopped in the middle of the room and closed his eyes. I figured he was talking to his buddies upstairs so I inspected the pod. No big X on it but it looked like the one they had put Protoform X in. I thought this might be the room he was built in but right then I saw something that made me think otherwise, the pod was occupied. Nightwolf suddenly ran in the room in a panic,

"Guys they've found us!" he yelled.

"Rhinox I think now is a time for retreat. Does this lab have another way out?" I asked. Rhinox opened his eyes and looked at us,

"We have to hold our ground." he said.

"Let me think a second, NO." Nightwolf said.

"Trust me. We can't leave without him." he was talking about the protoform locked in stasis. I started checking my inventory for a can-opener, because that guy in the pod wasn't coming out easily. The equipment controlling the pod was fried and so were we if our friend didn't show us the way out soon.

Rhinox, Nightwolf and I fired at the opening from the cave causing it to collapse. We had bought ourselves a few more minutes but we were still dead. I couldn't help but notice Rhinox had no weapons except for some kind of internal energy that he channeled through his fists. Where were the famous 'chain guns of doom' I had heard so much about? Rhinox motioned for us to walk over to him. We complied only to hear a pretty big bombshell,

"I have to reformat you." he said.

"Reformatting? Isn't that what we're trying to avoid back there?" Nightwolf said annoyed.

"Not that kind of reformatting. The Matrix has given me the ability to reformat you to be like me. Completely technological and unable to be reformatted into a techno-organic."

"Sounds tempting. But what good will that do us if they want to blow us to scrap?"

"It will give you more power than you have now. You'll be almost as strong as Megatron was when he landed on Cybertron." Rhinox said.

"If it will help keep us alive, I say we go for it." I said.

"I guess so." Nightwolf said. Rhinox's eyes started to glow and some strange energy came from his hands and started circling us. It felt like I was being turned inside out but when it was over I could tell something was different. I felt stronger, and I looked a little different. Better paint job. Nightwolf had lost his organic texture. I imagined he could no longer pass for a real wolf. His entire body was a dull silver color that looked totally seamless, just like my metallic blue structure. An improvement over my previous looks but I wasn't sure if it was all Rhinox had advertised. He skipped the naming part of the advertisement then but we later came to know these forms as "Trans-Tech". He said something about a "transmetal" or something like that being the blueprint. It was all alien to me but at least I was stronger now. The rhythmic pounding on the rock wall indicated that we might have to field test these new bodies soon. Rhinox walked over to the stasis pod and used that same energy to bring it back to life,

"This is an experimental protoform for the next generation of Maximal. It was about to go online before Megatron's attack but the war left it buried and forgotten. He'll be of great help to us if we can bring him online." Rhinox said. He closed his eyes again for another heart-to-heart with the Matrix. He started glowing again. I'll bet he's handy when you're looking for a flashlight. There was an object materializing in front of him as he stood there. The light started fading and I could make out what the object was, it looked like the Matrix of leadership. Rhinox held it near the stasis pod and he seemed to be sending more energy into the pod. What was he doing? I was going to ask but I was interrupted by a loud crash from outside. The Maximals were in.

"You two hold them off! This will take a while!" Rhinox said.

The best way to test a new weapon is to shoot something with it. I guess the same can be said for a new Trans-Tech body,
"Hey I think you guys have the wrong address!" Nightwolf shouted pulling out his new rifle and opening fire. Nightwolf could have you laughing hard enough to bust a couple of capacitors most of the time. But when you're in the middle of a heated battle, he sounds about as funny as Quintison stand-up comedy. I can't really blame him for wanting to lighten the situation though. It's hard to go into battle when you think you're going to die. I liked my new Trans-Tech weapon choice. Most of my old stuff was converted but twenty weapons is hardly enough against an entire army. And what fun is it if you can only shoot one or two at a time? The Maximals were in robot mode, if you can call that a robot mode. They were moving kind of fast so we needed something to slow them down. I tossed Nightwolf a small cannon hoping the recoil wouldn't put him out of the fight. He once told me that he's better at stealing weapons, not firing them. He claims he only uses weapons when he gets caught and he has only been caught three times. I think he's full of it. I pulled out my own weapon of choice, the MP Cannon, a bazooka I hold at my side. In ATV mode it rests on the top. The major disadvantage is I have to be standing still to use it or else have the break set in vehicle mode. Try using that kind of firepower without proper footing is a good way to throw you a few blocks in the wrong direction. I fired a shot into the crowd of soldiers, I don't think it did very much damage but they obviously didn't like it. The ones still standing immediately concentrated on me trying to take me down quickly. I knew I had found a soft spot. I waited a few seconds and then fired again, hoping to keep the weapon from overheating too quickly. I didn't build it for rapid-fire. Most of what I shot at only needed to be hit by that thing once. Nightwolf continued firing in a steady stream but he couldn't hold them back for very long. And pretty soon my trump card was going to be useless. It was already beginning to burn my hands from the heat it generated. I hoped Rhinox knew what he was doing because I really hate losing battles.

The MP cannon finally gave out. I switched to my second strongest weapon but it didn't have nearly the stopping power. We were fighting an uphill battle that we were soon to lose. We started moving back towards where Rhinox was hoping to get a little more room to fight, but that only meant we were losing ground. Then a ray of hope shined through...okay so that was corny. But it was a ray of something.

"Ballistic! Nightwolf! Get out of the way!" Rhinox yelled. We ran away from the door to the main lab just in the nick of time. A beam of energy that would put the MP cannon to shame ripped through the door and hitting the Maximals. Some of them fell to the ground heavily damaged, the rest were literally picked up off their feet and thrown out of the cavern,

"Remind me to buy one of those." I said to Nightwolf. Then a tank burst out of the wall and transformed into a large red and blue Trans-Tech Transformer. Rhinox followed him out and introduced us,

"Nightwolf, Ballistic, I'd like you to meet Orion Prime." Rhinox said.

"Uh...hey man." Nightwolf said still in shock,

"Sorry about that, Rhinox told me you needed help so I used the strongest weapon at my disposal. Are you alright?" Prime asked us.

"We're fine." I said. I then turned to Rhinox, "This is the protoform?"

"Yes, the Matrix has chosen him to lead Cybertron into a new age. That's why he was given the Matrix of Leadership."

"No offense Prime, but if you were just brought online, how are you going to be very helpful to us? We need someone who knows Cybertron like the back of his hand." Nightwolf said.

"The Matrix contains the knowledge of Cybertron and unlike before, the knowledge from this one can be used by its owner." Prime said as we started going back out of the cave the way we had came..

"Then maybe this grand plan the Matrix has will work after all. Whatever the plan is. Either of you have any clue?" I asked.

"So far the visions I've received have been very vague. I don't know if-"

"Now you die techno scum!" we looked to the lab opening where a lone Maximal stood. He must have avoided the blast. In his hand was a grenade. He activated it and reared back to throw it. We got ready to dodge it but before the Maximal could throw the grenade there was a loud growl like some kind of feral creature behind him. We couldn't see very clearly but sparks flew as some sort of blade sliced into the Maximal's techno-organic back causing him to drop the grenade and fall to the ground. When he fell, I caught a glimpse of someone behind him but I couldn't make out who it was. Rhinox had a look of amazement on his face,

"Dinobot?!" he said in surprise. The shadowy figure turned and ran in the opposite direction, back into the lab. "Wait! Come back!" Rhinox yelled running after him. We prepared to follow but before we could, the grenade exploded resealing the cave. The three of us stood there trying to make sense of what had just happened. Knowing there was nothing we could do about it, Nightwolf turned his attention to Prime,

"So......you play poker?" he asked.

A soldier, a thief, an emissary and a Matrix-appointed Prime. We were a very unlikely group of bots. All of the doubts I had about Rhinox had vanished, I now believed that he had really been sent by the Matrix. We had an objective, undo the damage done by the Great Reformatting. The words sounded simple but the truth was it was a tall order, especially because we had no idea how we were going to accomplish this goal. We had a leader now but we had no idea where to start. We gained a powerful new ally as well as a friend but in the same battle we had lost track of Rhinox who was chasing after a shadow. Who was that guy? How does Rhinox know him? Where do we go from here? I couldn't do anything but think about those questions because I couldn't find the answers. The only guarantee I had at that point was that it was going to get a lot worse before it got better.
 

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