A/N
Hello dear readers,
I know you've been looking forward to the next chapter. This chapter took me a little longer to write than expected. Also I'd like to thank you all for your patience and continued support. I'm now at over 100 followers and almost 100 favs which is far more than I could have ever expected when I first started writing this fic.
Enjoy~
Arcee and the others had combed the base and found no sign of Jack or Abigail. Their only conclusion was that the attack from the spiderlings had been a diversion. The computer systems had shown the presence of another groundbridge inside the base and Arcee had found Jack's cell phone in a hallway that lead towards the hub. They gathered that Jack had been abducted through the groundbridge to wherever it had lead. The spiderlings that had attacked Bulkhead and the others had quickly retreated through a third groundbridge.
Arcee sat solemnly in the main hub, the shreds of Abigail's dress in one hand and Jack's cell phone in the other. The two people she cared the most about were suddenly gone. Her spark ached like never before, it felt as if it had shattered in two. Knockout came over to her.
"What do you want?" she snapped at him.
"I… I wanted to say that I'm sorry for being such a jerk," he said placing his hand on her shoulder. She looked into his optics confused about what his intentions were. "I am also crazy about you… But that's not the point," he added.
"Knockout what are you getting at?"
"I know how much he means to you and I want to help get him back. I just can't bear to see you like this,"
"So all this time you've been acting like a jerk is because…"
"Yeah," he sighed then paused for a moment. "Well anyway if there's anything I can do. Let me know."
Arcee stood up and hugged him which he hadn't expected. "Thank you," she whispered in his audio sensor.
Agent Fowler arrived at the base that afternoon by helicopter. He informed his wife of the fact her son was missing then set to work coming up with a plan with the Autobots on how to save the president and find Jack. As they were discussing the matters at hand they received an incoming transmission. Silas' face appeared on the giant console screen.
"Tick tock goes the clock. Only 19 hours left. Have you made up your minds yet? Oh and by the way the stakes are even higher now." The camera panned from Silas to Jack who was locked in a cell laying on the floor unconscious.
"Jack," Arcee called out but it was no use. The message was pre-recorded and ended abruptly. It had confirmed their worse fear that Jack had been abducted and taken to Silas.
"Now what are we going to do?" Smokescreen asked. "We can't save them both."
Arcee clenched her jaw in frustration. He was right, they were outnumbered and any attempt to rescue the president or Jack would mean they'd be killed.
"What about asking Ultra Magnus?" Bumblebee suggested.
"I doubt Ultra Magnus would want to get involved with issues on the planet Earth," Arcee said.
"But I know someone who might." Miko suddenly piped up. The room went silent and all eyes and optics were on Miko. "Wheeljack,"
"One problem though… the groundbridge and thus the space bridge is non-operational at the moment." Ratchet pointed out the obvious flaw in her idea.
"It's going to take at least a few more hours until Ratchet and I can get this fixed," Rafael added. "But if we do get it up and running then we could ask Wheeljack for help."
"Hmmm…" said Agent Fowler and looked to Bumblebee. "Silas did say all Autobots on Earth had to surrender. Do you think he knows about them?"
"It's highly classified," replied Bumblebee. The others were lost and had no idea what they were talking about.
"Perhaps now is the time to tell them."
Agent Fowler explained that somewhere off the coast of Maine was a place called Griffin Rock and that there were, in fact, other Autobots on Earth but they had been kept a secret. Only Optimus Prime, Bumblebee and Agent Fowler knew of their location. They explained that the town is a testing ground for new technology and that no doubt they had also witnessed Silas' public threat on TV. It was time to call in a favour. Agent Fowler went to his office to make a very important phone call.
While the others were trying to come up with a plan Arcee went over the Ratchet.
"I need you to do something for me," she said to him.
"What can I help you with Arcee?"
"I don't believe Abigail wanted to hurt me. Right before she attacked she apologised to me then grabbed the back of her neck. I have reason to believe that she is being controlled by Silas. Do you still have her bio-scans?"
"I do,"
"Good, then I want you to find out how he's controlling her and how we can stop him."
The medic nodded. "I'll do my best. Also, how are your servos doing?" he was referring to her shoulder that had been shot by Abigail.
"Still sore,"
"Here," he came over with a Cybertronian hypodermic gun and injected her arm. "That should feel better."
"Thanks, Doc. Dunno what we'd do without you."
Agent Fowler came back from his office. "Good news everybody and everybot: the rescue bots of Griffin Rock have agreed to help us."
"Woohoo," Miko yelled and made a victory fist in the air.
With the groundbridge still down the Rescue Bots had to travel by air and arrived at the base five hours later. In the meantime, Ratchet had discovered that Arcee's theory about Abigail was right. He bought up the bio-scans of her and showed Arcee that in the back of Abigail's neck was a neurotransmitter. He'd managed to determine the frequency at which it operated and was working on a frequency disruptor together with Doc Green, who Agent Fowler had put him in touch with. Doc Green was a brilliant scientist from Griffin Rock whose whacky inventions often ended up causing mayhem on the island.
"Everyone," Agent Fowler addressed the group assembled in the hub. "I would like you meet the Rescue Bots." One by one each both introduced himself along with his human partner. There was Heatwave, a fire-bot, Chase, a police-bot, Blades, a copter-bot, and Boulder the construction-bot. Their partners were Chief Charlie Burns and his children: Kade, Dani and Graham. His youngest child Cody was back at Griffin Rock. Doc Green had also joined them on the mission, mostly to help fix the groundbridge.
"Impressive place you got here," Chief Burns complemented them. "and an impressive team too."
"Thanks," said Agent Fowler.
Blades was already idolising Bumblebee and asking him all kind of questions. Knockout complimented Heatwave on his finish to which he simply grunted a thanks. Smokescreen didn't quite know what to say to Chase since Smokescreen wasn't the best at sticking to traffic laws. Ratchet and Rafael introduced themselves to Doc Green and the three intellectuals immediately set to work on repairing the groundbridge. Bulkhead and Boulder got on well as both were into construction, which kind of made Miko feel a little left out.
"Hey," said Dani coming over to her. "I see you're also one of the few girls on the team." she smiled warmly at Miko. "Us girls have gotta stick together."
Arcee didn't join in the commotion around her, her thoughts were on Jack. With a little under 14 hours left, time was running out.
Once the chatter died down the humans gathered some tables and chairs together and set them in a square shape so that they could come up with a plan. The Autobots stood around them and Fowler began by explaining the current situation.
"So let me get this straight," chief Burns summarised the situation. "Silas has an army of cybertronian human hybrids. He wants all Autobots on earth to hand themselves over or he will kill the president of the US and your college Jack. Any attempt to try to take him out will also cause him to execute the president and Jack."
"Correct," agent Fowler said.
"He also has my daughter," Arcee added. The rescue team looked at her somewhat confused so she quickly explained the situation with Abigail.
"Agent Fowler, is there any chance that Silas knows about us?" Chief Burns asked.
"Negative, you've been kept completely off any records."
"Good, then I think we might have a plan."
The chief explained how one of the humans would sneak inside to start a fire at Washington DC. The rescue team would masquerade as normal emergency vehicles and respond to the 911 call. They would instruct the building to be evacuated and during the evacuation they would smuggle the president out before Silas realised that they were Autobots and not rescue vehicles.
"Sir," Chase interrupted. "Isn't arson against the law?"
"In this case, Chase, we'll be making an exception." Chief Burns replied calmly.
"What about Jack?" Arcee questioned their plan. "If Silas realised what we are trying to do then he could kill Jack."
"That's why we have to time everything just right."
"But we don't even know where Jack is. We can't even detect his locator chip."
"Actually, I think I know a way." Doc Green butted in. "Ratchet how does the groundbridge function?"
"Well, to put it simple it slices through transwarp to create a tunnel between two sets of coordinates." Ratchet explained.
"So it's kind of like a wormhole."
"You could use that analogy if you want but it's far more complicated than that."
"Ratchet, is it possible to detect the source of a groundbridge?""
"I'm afraid can only detect incoming groundbridges."
"Well if a groundbridge cuts through subspace, or transwarp as you call it, then it is likely to leave a trail through time and space. We need to look for the interdimensional distortions, they are like ripples in the fabric of time and space."
"I don't have the technology here to do that…"
"But I do." Doc Green said giving them hope. "Let us get your groundbridge up and running then we can head back to my lab and assemble the equipment we need."
"Okay but once we are able to find Jack how are we going to get him out of there?" Agent Fowler asked.
"If we can disable Silas' control over Abigail then she might be able to help us," Arcee suggested. "Ratchet, if you're going to Doc Green's lab then try to see if you can finish the frequency disruptor too."
"Got it, Arcee."
There were nine hours left, Silas had reminded them again at the 12-hour mark that time was running out. Ratchet, Doc Green and Rafael had repaired the groundbridge and had built both the frequency disruptor and the transwarp distortion detector. They were standing at the last location of where Jack's cell phone had been found.
"Ready?" Doc Green asked.
"Ready," Rafael and Ratchet answered and activated the distortion detector. It hummed and suddenly Rafael's laptop beeped.
"I've got a location, Arizona, but I'm afraid it's not very precise. The groundbridge opened up 15 hours ago and the signal is very faint." he began typing away on the laptop and thinking aloud. "In order the run their own groundbridge they're going to need a huge source of power if I could find one nearby..."
A few moments later he said: "Palo Verde Nuclear Power Station. It's in Arizona. Silas must have his base nearby."
"Good work, Raf," Doc Green said. They headed back to the hub and were able to use imaging satellites to locate the entrance of a base in the side of a mountain. It was barely visible but infrared satellite scans had revealed that it went very deep underground.
"That's got to be where they are keeping them," Agent Fowler said once Raf and Ratchet had explained their findings to the team.
It was decided that Bulkhead would head to Neo Cybertron to bring back Wheeljack, the Rescue Bots would carry out the plan to save the president and team Prime would save Jack and Abigail.
Smokescreen, Knockout, Bumblebee and Arcee would use the phase shifter to infiltrate Silas' base and use a virus, which Rafael was working on, to take out his security systems. Once the system went down they'd split into two teams; one would locate Jack and Abigail, and the other team would locate Silas and take him out. Bulkhead and Wheeljack would function as a back-up team. It seemed simple enough but they knew it would be far from simple. They also had to coordinate their efforts with the Rescue Bot team because if any of them were detected early then Silas would have both his hostages killed.
"Are you ready?" Agent Fowler said with both teams assembled.
"Ready," they replied.
"Miko, you're up first." Agent Fowler instructed. Miko smooched Rafael goodbye then got into position in front of the groundbridge.
"Wish me luck," she said with a wink and headed through the groundbridge. She found herself in the west wing of the White House where the president was being kept hostage. Luckily there was no one in sight and she quickly set to work starting a fire which tore through the White House. Soon she could hear the sound of sirens in the distance, it meant that the Rescue Bots had successfully groundbridged nearby and were heading towards the White House. She signalled to the base and they opened up a groundbridge so she could return.
"Phase 2," Arcee said. "Let's head on out." The groundbridge materialised again and when Arcee and her team went through they stepped out on the mountainside that contained the base. The four bots held onto the phase shifter and passed through the mountain. Moments later they found themselves inside the base. Just as they re-emerged on the other side of the wall the phase shifter sparked and stopped working.
"Scrap," they said in unison. It obviously wasn't made for use by four Autobots at the same time and its energon powercell had overloaded.
"Come on, we've got to stick to the plan," Arcee told her team. "We need to find a computer access point."
The team crept as quietly through the base as they could, trying their best not to alert Silas of their presence.
"Watch out," Arcee gestured towards a security camera above them and they carefully sidestepped.
"In here," whispered Bumblebee pointing to a small room. They took out the two men inside and Arcee plugged the USB stick Rafael had given her into the computer. The virus immediately started to upload itself. They watched the loading screen as it slowly went up percent by percent until it finally went up to 100%.
"All clear," Arcee signalled Rafael.
"You've got 10 minutes, guys." Rafael broke into the computer system using the virus to open up a backdoor into the system. He immediately hacked the security cameras and started searching for Jack. At the same time the Rescue Bot team had signalled that the White House had been successfully evacuated but there was no sign of the president. The fire had also been put out.
"Guys, I think we have a problem," Rafael said looking at the monitor in front of him. "I've found Jack and the president."
"What?" Agent Fowler said next to him.
"Scrap," said Arcee.
"Seems like his plan was to lure you to his base all along," Rafael said.
"Come on, we've got to get to Jack. Knockout, you're with me. Bumblebee, Smokescreen you find Silas." Arcee commanded her team.
"Got it," Bumblebee and Smokescreen left. Rafael explained the way to the prison cells for Arcee and Knockout the follow. He warned them of spiderlings up ahead and the swiftly took care of them. There was no sign of Silas near the prison cells so they continued, for now, Jack and the president were still safe.
"Almost there Arcee," Rafael said. Suddenly Bumblebee contacted them on the commlink.
"Arcee, get out of there now. It's an ambush!"
"What?" Arcee and Knockout readied their weapons. Back at the base Rafael bought up the image of Bumblebee and Smokescreen, both were pinned down by spiderlings and chimeras. Then the image cut out and he'd been thrown out of the system.
"Rafael? Do you copy?" Arcee tried to contact him. "Scrap," she swore.
"Now what?" Knockout shrugged.
"Now you surrender to me," came a voice from behind them; it was Silas.
"Double scrap," Arcee said as they were quickly surrounded by spiderlings. They fired at as many as they could but were soon overwhelmed as well and immobilised by silk. Knockout and Arcee fell to the floor.
"You walked right into my trap and now thanks to you I now know that there are even more Autobots on Earth than I had previously thought." he gave them an evil grin as he towered above them.
A/N The way the groundbridge works is based on various sources on the Transformers wiki and other sci-fi shows like Stargate.
Since the Rescue Bots and the Transformers Prime cartoon is set in the same universe I decided to add the Rescue Bots but only gave them a minor role as the main focus is on Team Prime.