They stopped the Endeavor at a colony in order to refuel and to check on the colonies status, when there was a surprise Decepticon attack. Some of the troops left the ship to deal with the Decepticons, while the majority stayed on board to protect the pillars.
At the same time there was an internal situation developing. Cascade and Bumblebee were the only two in the rec room when Multiplicity walked in. She walked causally toward the energon dispenser, but then turned and made a quick beeline for Cascade. Cascade had seen the warning signs when Multiplicity entered. While Multiplicity was intelligent, she didn't have the years of training Jazz had to easily disguise her intentions and her frame betrayed her. Cascade knew Multiplicity was never poised like that unless she was going into battle. Cascade swung around blocking Multiplicity's sword as she brought her own up against her. Bumblebee let out a surprised cry and backed up from the table. He quickly called for backup.
"I thought you'd asked me why?" said Multiplicity trying to distract Cascade.
"I really don't care," said Cascade damaging Multiplicity's blaster with a swipe of her wing blades as she pulled it from subspace.
Jazz and Prowl ran into the room and Multiplicity used her illusion to confuse the bots around her while she withdrew from her fight with Cascade. Chaosbreaker suddenly walked in and tossed an item into the middle of the room. The item sent out a wave that temporarily cancelled Multiplicity's illusion. Bumblebee wasn't careful enough and Multiplicity had gotten behind him. She held a blaster to his head as she took him hostage. Jazz and Prowl separated moving to opposite sides of the room hoping to divide Multiplicity's attention. They didn't want to shoot if it meant they'd hit Bumblebee. Chaosbreaker tried to persuade her to give up so they could talk about the misunderstanding. Cascade used their distractions and her small stature to crash into Multiplicity sending Multiplicity and Bumblebee to the floor. Bumblebee scrambled away as Cascade took up a protective stance in front of him. Jazz and Prowl centered their blasters on Multiplicity and told her to surrender. Multiplicity edged toward the door blaster wavering between one mech and the other. She had nearly reached the door when Swingblade walked in behind her blade at the ready. With one swing of his enormous blade, Multiplicity's head went sailing from her body.
"Foolish femme," said Swingblade. "That's what you get for betraying me." He promptly went to his knees and then collapsed.
After Cascade scanned Bumblebee and determined that he was okay, she briefly scanned Multiplicity to make certain that she was offline. She also scanned Swingblade. "He's gone too and he was poisoned," said Cascade analyzing her scans. "Some type of corrosive chemical. It ate through most of his lines." She quickly removed both of their memory chips and scanned them. The chips revealed that Multiplicity had remained loyal to Switch even after she had joined the femmes. It wasn't surprising. Multiplicity was part of his original team and Switch could be very persuasive. Swingblade had wanted all along to take over as leader of Switch's group with the aid of Multiplicity, but she had reported his intentions to Switch instead. It was Multiplicity herself that had administered the poison to Swingblade after Switch had told her that Swingblade needed to be dealt with. Switch had once again gotten away with a crime because his subordinates were trained to do his dirty work. According to the memory files, Multiplicity had targeted her next because Switch had mentioned that she was an impediment. Cascade vented in annoyance. She quickly handed the chips over to Jazz and headed down the corridor to find UV.
She found UV alone in his room and asked him to come to the med bay with her. She pulled him into the med bay quickly. Only Jolt was present at the moment.
"UV, what is going on with your group?" asked Cascade staring him down. UV looked more than slightly uncomfortable and pretty reluctant to answer. "If it makes it easier on you, I can force a data transfer so you can claim that you didn't actually tell me."
UV looked immensely relieved and nodded. He quickly plopped down on the nearest berth. Cascade initiated the transfer and pulled the data and memories she needed. As it finished, she disconnected and Jolt quickly pulled her away from UV.
"What are you doing?" asked Jolt in alarm.
"Taking what I need," said Cascade brushing him aside. "Brig me later. This is important. I need to speak with Optimus immediately. Look after UV. He'll be slightly disorientated. Let him rest for a while before you release him."
"Jazz," called Cascade over the private comm.
"What's up?" asked Jazz.
"I need you to check on the status of the Allspark pillars," said Cascade. "I also need Switch's location. I think he might be making a break for it."
It was Inferno that responded back to her. "Allspark pillars are here and accounted for," he said.
"I'm with Red Alert right now," said Jazz. "Looks like Switch left the ship."
"Optimus," said Cascade over the private comm.
"Cascade?" answered Optimus.
"Permission to leave the ship and go after Switch," said Cascade. "He may not be able to give the Decepticons the pillars, but I guarantee he took information with him."
"Permission granted," said Optimus. "Cascade, don't go alone."
"Understood," said Cascade.
Hyperfall, Chaosbreaker and Cascade met up as they exited the ship.
"I knew this was going to happen," said Hyperfall.
"I'd like to know why it happened," said Cascade engaging her over armor.
"Let's go ask him, shall we?" said Chaosbreaker.
They got past the Decepticon ground troops as quickly as they could slaughtering the enemy in their path. In the distance they could see a Decepticon ship that was a fourth of the size of the Endeavor. They infiltrated it with ease since the majority of the Decepticons were on the ground fighting. It didn't take long for Cascade to hack the ship's computers and locate Switch. She then downloaded the Decepticon's plans and uploaded a virus to the mainframe to temporarily disable the engines. They then headed down the corridors and approached the door where Switch was located. The door opened and they could see Switch talking with a Decepticon. He was about to hand a data pad to the mech when Hyperfall immediately opened fire on the Decepticon while Chaosbreaker guarded their backs. The Decepticon was quickly offlined and Hyperfall walked in and grabbed the data pad from the desk.
"What are you doing Switch?" asked Cascade. "Isn't it a little early for you to be betraying the Autobots for the Decepticons?"
Switch hadn't moved from where he was sitting in his chair. "Hardly," he said. "I'm not an Autobot nor a Decepticon and I'll never be neutral. You're smart. I'll give you that. At least you didn't fall into their loyalty trap. It wouldn't take much to gain control and if you were to help me, we could control this universe. Two shots would be all that it would take, one to take out Megatron and the other to take out Optimus. The Autobots suspected me too much for me to get to Optimus so I figured I'd take out Megatron first."
"He's lost it," said Hyperfall moving toward the door as he heard someone coming down the hall.
"You'll only offline," added Chaosbreaker.
"Dying never mattered," said Switch shrugging. "Even now this is all a game."
"I'm sorry," said Cascade reaching a hand toward his shoulder. "I didn't realize."
"I'm sorry too," said Switch turning in his seat double cannons primed. The shot caught Cascade in the chest punching a hole straight through her and Cascade collapsed to the floor. Switch turned and fired on Hyperfall and Chaosbreaker and they were forced to retreat out the door. Switch stood triumphantly over the offline form of Cascade. She'd always beaten him in the games and now it was his turn. With her out of the way, he could take over the galaxy once he'd gotten all of the Autobots and Decepticons to kill each other. He didn't have his ability to switch places anymore, but manipulating others into doing his work for him was child's play. "Such a pity, but in this reality you can't use your death to beat me here," he said laughing as he looked down at Cascade. "This time I win."
"Game over," said Cascade's voice unexpectedly from below him.
The last thing Switch saw was a bright burst of light before his spark flickered and went out.
The surviving Decepticons retreated back to their ship as they were driven back by the Autobots and the ship had quickly flown out of the planet's atmosphere.
"Inferno, report," said Prowl as he sat with Optimus in the secondary control room. The Endeavor had followed the ship into space and they were preparing to fire on it.
"The only bots still unaccounted for are Cascade, Hyperfall, Chaosbreaker and Switch," said Inferno.
Suddenly a massive explosion rocked the Decepticon ship from the inside and it proceeded to disintegrate. A small shuttle mostly obscured by the ship's debris field made its way toward the Endeavor and the voice of Hyperfall requested permission to dock.
"There they are," said Inferno. "Never mind."
Three of the four missing bots returned on the shuttle along with five rescued Decepticon prisoners.
"Where's Switch?" asked Data as Hyperfall walked onto the ship.
"Cascade offlined him," said Hyperfall nonchalantly. "He didn't give her a choice. He turned traitor and tried to offline all of us."
In the med bay, First Aid, Ratchet and Jolt worked to repair the injured bots that had just returned. Finally finished, Ratchet stepped out of the med bay and vented.
"Are you well Ratchet?" asked Optimus as he arrived outside the med bay.
"Yes, just processing," said Ratchet. "The youngling gave me quite a scare. Any other bot would have offlined immediately from her wounds. She subspaced not only her spark, but most of the contents of her chest to save herself because she knew she would be betrayed. That's how she survived. Something like that isn't possible for any other bot. Her system is truly one of a kind."
"She told you this?" asked Optimus.
Ratchet nodded. "She lay there calmly and proceeded to pull out parts from her subspace so First Aid and I could fix her. She was remarkably calm, alert and online throughout the entire ordeal."
"Can I speak with her?" asked Optimus.
"Yes," said Ratchet.
Optimus wandered into the med bay nodding his head in acknowledgement to the bots that were still awake as he passed them. He stopped at Cascade's berth. She was currently in her smallest form with her wings folded up completely. She looked so small laid out in the middle of the berth. She turned her head and focused on him. "Cascade," said Optimus.
"Sir," responded Cascade.
"I would like to commend you on your actions," he said.
"No need sir," said Cascade quickly. "Switch was our problem and we were aware of his nature. I was merely waiting for him to switch sides. As long as he had the advantage, he pretended to be an ally, but I was aware of his grudge against me."
"Regardless, your actions saved a bot under my command and rescued allies of ours before dealing the enemy a crippling blow," said Optimus.
Cascade simply nodded in acceptance.
Jazz and Hyperfall were headed to the med bay to visit Cascade to see how she was doing.
"You knew this was going to happen," said Jazz glancing at Hyperfall.
"Yes," replied Hyperfall. "We didn't know when Switch would make his move, but we were ready for it. How do you think I got Cascade on board? She agreed to be bait for when he took action."
"You used her as bait!" exclaimed Jazz as they walked into the med bay.
"If she wasn't here, he most likely would have turned on another, Optimus, being the most likely target," explained Hyperfall. "Switch would have won the war for the Decepticons single handedly. We couldn't allow it since he'd already been responsible for two other deaths in our own group."
"Make that four," said Cascade handing a memory chip to Jazz as they reached her side. "Switch held no allegiance. He wanted to rule everyone. This was just the continuation of the game for him. Ratchet wasn't the only one to break through my memory block. Switch did as well. While he was a capable strategist in the simulation, the home life he created for himself was not so ideal. He didn't feel empowered there and this reinforced his continuous need to seek for more power."
"What about the rest of his team?" asked Jazz. "Could they become a problem as well?"
"I've asked Ratchet to examine Data, Charger, Stealth, UV and Sunburn," said Cascade. "If Switch messed with their processors, he should be able to tell. Stealth is the only one left from the original team though."
"I think I may have made an error when I kept only my original team," said Hyperfall thoughtfully. "I essentially forced the others to be on Switch's team. I'm going to offer the others a place on my team going forward."
Prowl came into the med bay to debrief Cascade about the occurrence after they left.
"Switch had what I can only call a type of paranoia. Jazz has his memory chip if you need to verify, but he broke through my memory block before I deleted his memories and made a copy of his organic memories. He tried to convince the core of his team that this wasn't reality and was simply the continuation of the game," explained Cascade.
"So having these organic memories caused him to glitch," said Prowl.
Cascade nodded. "I don't know why he chose for his organic life to be so unhappy and neglected," said Cascade. "Perhaps it had to do with his personality. His ultimate goal was to have the Autobots and Decepticons destroy each other until he rose to power. He wanted to win and anyone who got in his way was forfeit. The issue between Multiplicity and Swingblade was merely a distraction. Since he couldn't get to Optimus, he was going to use the information he'd stolen to bargain his way into the Decepticon ranks. Hyperfall gave you the data we recovered, didn't he?"
"Yes, he did," said Prowl.
"I wish we could have saved him, but we discovered the problem too late and he would have offlined us all without remorse," said Cascade sadly.