When Soundwave and Megatron got to med-bay they saw Knockout and Breakdown standing in front of the screen with some Cybertronian text on it, one Megatron recognizes very clearly. Megatron walks up to the pair while looking at the screen, "Slave encoding?" He asks as his optics run over every bit of information in front of him.
Knockout and Breakdown quickly turn around to face him, "Yes my lord. It's known as the best way to control any Cybertronian, and the Autobots would need to do a lot more to reverse it if they can. Slave encoding is known to be very hard to reverse, it would take a very skilled doctor..."
"Like Ratchet?" Megatron asks with a slight growl.
"Uh well, if he knows how to..."
"I assure you Knockout, Ratchet is more than capable of reversing it."
"But they would have to get her back in order to do it and that would be very difficult to do since she's always watched." Breakdown adds in.
Megatron turns to the Vehicons that are in the room with them, "Go get Arcee out of Soundwave's room."
The Vehicons bow before heading out of the room and heading to Soundwave's room.
Arcee sits in Soundwave's room with the cube of Energon Soundwave gave her before he walked out. She stares into the Energon as the words of her partners run through her processor, she must fight back. She's not sure what it is the 'Cons plan on doing to her that could make her lose her true self but she really doesn't want to find out. She starts thinking of ways she could try to escape to prevent whatever the 'Cons plan to do with her as she takes a sip of her Energon. A moment later the doors open and she looks up to see a couple of Vehicons walk into the room.
"We need you to come with us, Lord Megatron requests your presence." One of the Vehicons says as they move closer to her.
Arcee just sits there and watches them move closer to her as the words of her partners continue to run through her processor. Fight back. She throws the cube at one of the Vehicons catching him off guard and causing him to stumble back, while she jumps off the berth and throws a swift punch at the other Vehicon landing her fist right on his helm which knocks him to the ground and she throws another punch with enough force to go right through his helm and offline him. The other Vehicon comes at her swinging his arm to knock her out but she jumps up and dodges it while bringing up her knee to plant it right in his faceplate. She makes contact and knocks him back, hitting the ground with her knee smashing through his visor and crushing his helm.
She gets up and runs out of the room before transforming into a motorcycle and drives through the corridors heading straight for the groundbridge control room. She knows she has to be careful because she doesn't have her weapons, Knockout had disabled them after she was brought back from her last battle with the Autobots, her team, and they destroyed the chip that was implanted in her processor. So now all she has to fight with are her fists and her feet. Also her tires.
She comes across another Vehicon who instantly transforms his servo into a gun and starts firing at her, she swerves left and right dodging each blast that comes her way. She pops herself up to where she was on her back wheel only and headed towards the 'Con, she hits him with enough impact to knock him down and she drives over him then drives off leaving him unconscious on the ground.
As she makes her way through the corridors she comes across more Vehicons and she takes them all down. But she hears one of them call Megatron to let him know the situation so she knows she's gonna have Megatron and Soundwave on her tailpipe soon. She goes as fast as she can while keeping an optic out for the warlord and his sound chief, but surprisingly there has been no sign of them. She makes it to the groundbridge control room and takes down the Vehicons that are in there before going over to activate the groundbridge.
Just when she presses the button to open the groundbridge she hears the doors open, she looks back to the doors to see Megatron and Soundwave standing then. Megatron is giving her the meanest glare she ever saw as he growls lowly, "Soundwave, stop her!" He yells as he looks over to the mech standing beside him.
Soundwave sends out one of his tentacles to capture her like he did the first time but Arcee isn't foolish enough to fall into the trap again. She swiftly dodges his tentacle as she jumps into the groundbridge, the last thing she sees is Soundwave running towards her before she's consumed by the all too familiar light which sends her to another location. She comes out on the other side and finds herself in a cave, an Energon mining cave that the Decepticons had been mining for a while. She doesn't know exactly where the cave is located because she was just pressing buttons and didn't pay any attention to what she was pressing, she was just trying to get off the ship before she was caught. But she doesn't really care, she's just happy she was able to escape and she finally got a taste of freedom.
But her joyous celebration was short-lived as she heard the groundbridge reopening behind her. She knows it can't be her comrades because they wouldn't be able to get a reading on her with the location she's in, also they're too out of shape from the last fight they had with her to do anything at the moment. So it has to be one of the Decepticons. Her suspicions were confirmed when Soundwave came flying through the groundbridge with it closing behind him. He transforms in midair and lands right in front of her.
Arcee glares at him as she gets into a fighting position, ready to defend herself, "I'm not going back, Soundwave!"
Soundwave looks at her, wishing there was another way around this. If only she hadn't escaped he wouldn't have to do this, "I'm sorry." He says as he once again sends out one of his tentacles straight towards her.
But once again she was determined not to get caught up in his tentacles like before so she dodges it and runs towards him with her fist ready to strike. She throws her fist at his visor but was unsuccessful at making impact as Soundwave lifts an arm and blocks her attack. She throws a few more punches with Soundwave blocking each one before he grabs her servo and slams her into the cave wall. She hisses in pain but quickly recovers and brings up her knee to ram it right into his abdomen. Soundwave was caught off guard by her quick recovery and wasn't able to block in time so her knee landed right on target which made Soundwave release her servo and stumble back a few steps.
Arcee runs at him and jumps up slightly while bringing up her legs and she connects her knee and foreleg to Soundwave's chassis, knocking him back and slamming him into one of the big rocks that were sticking up from the ground. The impact was so hard it caused cracks to form in the rock and Soundwave could feel a wave of sharp pain shoot through his back. Arcee brings up her fist to give him another punch but Soundwave wraps a tentacle around her arm and slings her back causing her to land hard on the ground and go sliding. Soundwave stands up and walks over to her, watching her as she starts to get up. Arcee jumps to her feet and brings up a leg to give him a hard kick to the abdomen but Soundwave suspected it and he catches her leg, he then pulls her and slams her to the ground.
Arcee could feel her air cycle escaping her as she makes impact with the ground. All she can do is gasp and hiss in pain as her systems try to recover from such an impact. Her vision is a bit blurry and she's starting to see double as she looks around for the mech that just took her down. She soon sees Soundwave come into her line of sight and just stand over her, watching her. She shakes her helm to get rid of the double vision and blurriness and starts getting up. But before she can get to her feet the ground starts to shake.
Arcee and Soundwave look at each other as the shaking gets more violent, "Earthquake!" Arcee then exclaimed. She learned about earthquakes from helping Jack with his homework, there was one time he was studying earthquakes and learning how they work and she learned about it too as she helped him. Also, they've been through a couple of earthquakes while being on Earth so they all pretty much know about it.
The two watch as cracks form in the rocks around them and the cave starts to crumble. Soundwave notices the ground starting to fall apart underneath them and he runs over to Arcee to helps her up and they start moving. They manage to get away before the ground swallowed them up but before they can get too far rocks fall in front of them, blocking their way out. A really big rock falls from the top and Soundwave pushes Arcee away just as the rock makes impact. The shaking then stops and Arcee looks around to see she's trapped, piles of rocks all around. She looks over to where Soundwave was and sees nothing but a pile of rocks, with his digits and a bit of his helm sticking out.
"Ratchet! Ratchet!"
Ratchet slowly opens his optics to the sound of Raf shouting his name, "What is it, Raf?"
"Optimus is waking up!"
Ratchet fully opens his optics and shoots up out of the berth he was sleeping on, completely forgetting about his injuries. Boy does he regret it now. He fell back onto the berth as very sharp pains hit him and he puts his servo on his chest. But he bares through the pain and gets back up so he can go check on Optimus.
"Ratchet... Please don't strain yourself on my behalf." Optimus says as he watches his friend struggle.
"I may be injured but I'm still the medic and the only one we have. I need to check you over. Besides, my injuries aren't that bad." Ratchet says as he walks over to where Optimus is laying. He then checks his vitals and the patch up he did, "Everything is looking good. You should start making a recovery soon."
"That's great to hear!" Bulkhead says as he walks over.
Ratchet then turns to Bumblebee, "Let's see about you now." He walks over to 'Bee and looks at the injuries, "You're already making a good recovery, but you also didn't have that big of an injury. It does seem that we're all starting to recover."
"That's great news." Optimus states, "Have there been anything on Arcee?"
The three mechs look downcast, "No, nothing..." Bulkhead replies.
"Actually..." Raf pipes up getting all the bots' attention, "...that's the other reason why I woke you up Ratchet."
"There was a beat on Arcee's signal." Jack put in with hope in his voice.
The bots look at the kids in disbelief, "Really? Are you serious?" Ratchet asks.
"Yeah, it was very faint but it was her signal." Raf replies as he messes with his glasses.
"Where? Where is she?" Bulkhead asks with joy and excitement rising in his voice.
"In a cave that could possibly be an Energon mine." Raf responds as he brings up the location he picked up, "The signal lasted only a few minutes but luckily it was enough time to get the location. Though I couldn't get her exact location, could only get the surrounding location. But I'm pretty sure it's a cave with Energon deposit because I was getting Energon readings while looking into the location her signal came from."
"The Decepticons probably already discovered it and been mining it already. The signal may not have been much but at least we got something. Nice work." Ratchet says as he looks into the location Raf showed them.
"Now the question is, can we investigate it?" Jack starts wondering.
"Of course. Why wouldn't we?" Ratchet responds with his normal sassy tone.
"The only one in good condition to go is Bulkhead and there's the issue of the Decepticons possibly being there. If the 'Cons show up Bulkhead will most likely be outnumbered." Miko states with great concern for her partner.
"I can very well take care of myself, Miko. I know how to deal with them."
"Of course, but even you can't handle a gang of them on your own."
"Miko is right, you can't take on a group of them alone. But we also need to investigate, we can't lose this opportunity to get Arcee back." Optimus adds in.
"Since Bumblebee is already making a recovery he can assist Bulkhead." Ratchet informs before looking to Bumblebee, "Just don't do anything that could mess up the patch and reopen your wounds."
Bumblebee just nodded before getting up and stretching, he's just happy he can go out into the field and not be cooped up inside the base.
"Alright, it's all settled then. Open up the groundbridge to the location, Ratchet." Bulkhead says as him and Bumblebee head over to the groundbridge. Ratchet activates the groundbridge and the two go through with hopes of finding Arcee and bringing her home.