As an elite tracker and spy for the DECEPTICONS, HARDTOP has come into conflict again and again with AUTOBOT spy BUMBLEBEE. What began as a professional rivalry defined by the limits of their allegiances on opposite sides of a war became a full-fledged vendetta over the years. The two robots have played a punishing game of cat and mouse across the breadth of the galaxy; it is a little known fact that it was a shot fired by HARDTOP that took away his AUTOBOT enemy's ability to speak without pain.