The Autobots were outside the police station as Fanzone explained about the theft situation in the city.

"It's getting completely out of hand," said Fanzone. "I used every single detective method in the book, and I can't find a single clue behind these thefts. No footprints, no fingerprints, not even a speck of dust."

"Would you expect us to do, Captain?" Optimus asked. "We're spread a little then; we have to continue monitoring Kaon, guard the Space Bridge and fix Omega Supreme."

"Plus, this is a human mess," Ratchet added.

Fanzone raised an eyebrow. "If I recall correctly, you helped ups before when Decepticons weren't involved."

"He's got you there, Doc bot," said Bumblebee.

"And we really do need to repair relations," Optimus sighed. "As S.T.E.A.M proved, many people still blame us for the damage that has been caused."

"And the Decepticons would have done a lot more damage if we weren't here," Moonracer added.

"And Megatron is getting bolder; I get the feeling he won't be trapped inside of Kaon much longer," said Elita.

"Still no movement in Kaon," said Ironhide.

"Which is even more suspicious," said Optimus.

"Look, Megatron is bad, no doubt about it," said Fanzone. "However, need I remind you that these thefts happened the moment you guys arrived."

"You blaming us?" Bumblebee asked.

"I'm blaming the guy. You would cease, and it would be the first time that he had stolen supplies."

"Dude's got a point," said Jazz. "Most of the stuff stolen was high-tech hardware. The Decepticon head honcho might be using that hardware to get around the lockdown."

"I still say it's a waste of time," Ratchet grumbled.

"Megatron has to remain our top priority, but Captain Fanzone isn't wrong," said Optimus. "It can't be a coincidence that these thefts happened after we crashed landed here."

"How about me and Jazz do some snooping," Moonracer suggested.

"Yeah, we might be able to find something that the police missed," said Jazz.

"Good idea, but take Ratchet with you."

"What?" Ratchet stared.

"We need some scientific expertise in this investigation," said Optimus.

"But I still need to fix Omega," Ratchet reminded him.

"Elita and Sari to take over for a little while."

Moonracer looked at Optimus, clearly not thrilled about this herself. "Optimus, you sure that's a good idea?"

"No, but if the Decepticons are responsible, you will need all the help you can get."

"Which is why I'm tagging along," said Fanzone. "This is still a police investigation, and I don't want to be left out of the loop."

"Great, the more, the merrier," said Moonracer sarcastically.

Fanzone took his car and escorted the Autobots, who were in vehicle mode, to one of the major crime scenes. They arrived at one of Sumdac Systems' warehouses, and if it hadn't been for the fact that certain equipment and missing, no one would think the place had been robbed.

"This is where the biggest theft took place," said Fanzone.

"What exactly was stolen?" Moonracer asked.

"Very high-tech stuff, so high-tech I can't even wrap my head around what they do," said Fanzone.

"Don't suppose you have a list?" Jazz asked.

Fanzone reached into his back pocket and pulled out a list. "Here."

Ratchet took the route list and used his medical eyepiece to read it. "Hmm, some of these are the basic components of a Space Bridge."

"You're not saying that Megatron is making another Space Bridge?" said Jazz.

"I don't see how that's possible he doesn't have a spy at the Nexus this time," said Moonracer. "Besides, according to Rattletrap, Megatron doesn't seem to care about conquering Cybertron anymore."

"At least not yet," said Ratchet. "And even with these components, it would not be enough for intergalactic travel."

"So you are starting to believe that Megatron is behind this," Moonracer noted.

"I did not say that," Ratchet snapped. "Like I said, even with these components, no one would be able to make a working Space Bridge. Also, I have yet to see any evidence that the Decepticons are behind the thefts. The last time the stall components they want exactly subtle about it."

"He doesn't have a point," said Jazz.

"Then how can you explain these thefts?" Fanzone asked as he stepped into the warehouse. "Me and my men have been going over this place with a fine toothcomb, and we haven't found any clue who could be behind this."

Moonracer activated her camera and examined the warehouse. "The Captain is right; no evidence that a human thief was responsible."

Ratchet used his medical eye to examine the ground. "Hold a click; I see something. There's definitely some kind of energy signature, but it's too degraded for me to determine who it belonged to."

"But it was definitely Cybertronian?" Moonracer asked.

"So it seems."

"So you are saying Decepticons are behind it?" said Fanzone.

"I can't tell what kind of energy signature it is, all Cybetronian have unique energy signatures, and it's far too degraded for me to get a good reading on."

"But if it were the Decepticons, they would waste their time sneaking around," said Moonracer.

"I'm not so sure of that," said Jazz. "Soundwave has proven to be rather sneaky."

"Do we have any idea what the next target to be?" Moonracer asked.

Ratchet folded his servos. "Well, if we can assume that who is behind these thefts are indeed making a Space Bridge, they going to need a power source. Which means they're going to need to get their servos on techno-organic Energon."

"Ever since those strange crystals have been showing up, I've been guarding them day and night," said Fanzone. "We've got men and drones guarding those sites. Professor Sumdac has even installed a fancy security system to detect any Decepticons that might approach for a 10-mile radius."

"So no one can get in or out without you knowing it," said Jazz.

"Not even a fly can fly in without us knowing about it."

"Okay, but is there anywhere else where the Decepticons can get their hands on the Energon?" Moonracer asked.

Fanzone rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. "Well, there is an area in the demolished area of Detroit where we can't secure."

"Why?" Ratchet asked.

"Because a certain machine has taken up residence in that area and dismantles anything we try to build."

"What kind of machine?" Moonracer asked.

"One of you," said Fanzone. "Some crankcase name Wreck-Gar."

Wreck-Gar was in the demolished area of Detroit, standing guard over the Energon crystals. He was walking up and down whistling as Fanzone, and the Autobots arrived.

"So, who is this Wreck-Gar?" Jazz asked.

"He's a scattered processor that jumps from one job to the next," said Moonracer.

"You heard how the AllSpark brought to life certain machines," said Ratchet. "Wreck-Gar was one of them. Fortunately, he's not as hostile as all the others, and he's a good kid. But he does make you want to get your transistors when you talk to him."

"So why is he guarding Energon?" Jazz asked.

Fanzone shrugged. "We try to ask him, but he keeps on saying that he's Wreck-Gar I guard Energon."

"Maybe we'll have better luck," said Moonracer.

"Good luck."

The three of them then began to approach Wreck-Gar, and upon seeing them, he immediately took up a fighting stance.

"You will not touch the strange crystals," he said defiantly.

"Wreck-Gar, it's us," said Ratchet.

Wreck-Gar then immediately lowered his fists and smiled, waving at them. "Why hello, fellow Autobots. Are you here to help me strange the strange crystals?"

"You could say that, but first, how about telling us why you're here, Wreck-Gar?" said Moonracer.

"I am Wreck-Gar I guard Energon," said Wreck-Gar proudly.

"Let me rephrase, why are you guarding Energon?"

"Because I am Wreck-Gar."

"I can see what we were talking about," said Jazz, looking at Moonracer.

"Wreck-Gar, how would you tell us what happened after the Decepticons attacked Detroit?" Ratchet asked.

"Well, I was minding my own business cleaning the streets of garbage. You won't believe how messy the place was after the attack."

"Actually, I think we can," said Moonracer.

"Well, one day, the strange crystals began to form over the city. I tried to remove them, but they wouldn't budge, and they just kept growing. Then I suddenly saw this bright light telling me to guard the Energon?"

"Bright light?" said Ratchet. "What the slag are you talking about?"

"I don't know how to describe it; it just appeared in front of them, telling me to guard the Energon. Mentioned something that Megatron's thralls would try to steal it. Don't know who this Megatron is, but he sounds like a bad guy."

"Oh, is a bad guy all right," said Jazz.

"And you sure it said thralls, not his servants or underlings?" Moonracer asked.

Wreck-Gar shook his head. "No, it said thralls."

"As far as I know, all the Decepticons working for Megatron are his devoted servants," said Jazz.

Moonracer's optics widened. "What if they're not Decepticons?"

"What do you mean?" Ratchet asked.

"Rattletrap mentioned that Megatron would speak Minicon and began to serve him almost instantly."

"Yeah, now that you mention it, I found that rather suspicious," said Jazz. "The Minicons were treated like slaves when Megatron was running things in Kaon. After the Great War, we Autobots freed them, and they began working happily in any capacity."

"At least that's the impression we got," said Ratchet.

"No, they were definitely happy," said Moonracer. "I interviewed them before all this happened, and they said they were indeed happy working for the Autobots."

"You suggesting that Megatron somehow took over their processes?" Jazz asked.

"With Megatron, anything is possible, but if they are indeed the ones that this light warned Wreck-Gar about, then clearly, they can get in and out of Kaon."

"Meaning that they were the ones behind the thefts and were stealing resources for Megatron ever since we landed."

"So Kaon wasn't as secure as we believed."

"No, I'm certain that the Decepticon can't get out, but the Minicons no doubt know everything about Kaon. The proper used small maintenance tunnels and snuck out whenever they liked allowing them to do Megatron's bidding without us knowing the wiser."

"Still don't know the doing this willingly or not," said Ratchet.

"And we need to catch on."

It was now night, and a pair of Minicons were scoping out the Energon site. The entire place was completely deserted, and they began communicating with their unique language.

Once they were certain the place was deserted, they began making their way towards the site. Once they reached the crystals, they then produced mining equipment so they could extract the Energon.

They were just about to strike the first crystal when suddenly they found themselves being lifted up into the air. They began chatting ecstatically as they were brought over to Ratchet, as he was using his magnets to bring them towards him.

"Well, look what I caught," he said.

Ratchet soon returned to Omega and began to examine the Minicons with Elita and Sari's help.

"So, who's guarding the Energon?" Sari asked.

"Jazz and Moonracer are helping Wreck-Gar guarding the site," said Ratchet.

"Well, now we know who has been stealing around here," said Elita.

"Moonracer thinks, and I agree, that the Minicons are being controlled by Megatron somehow," said Ratchet.

"We know that you can speak Minicon; maybe that has something to do with it," said Sari.

"Learning a language shouldn't result in this kind of control," said Elita.

"That said, Minicons are possibly the most complex Cybertronians," said Ratchet as he showed them an image of their processes on the monitor. "Compared to ours, their processes are extremely complex; they can learn much faster than we can and adapt to situations 10 times as fast. In fact, we can barely scratch the surface of just how sophisticated their processes are."

Elita nodded. "I do remember reading a paper about this. I did always found it fascinating that they could repair systems much faster than any Cybertronian with so much detail."

"Now that I got a clear look at their processes, they seem to have similarities to that of humans," said Ratchet and turned to Sari. "Most precisely, there are far more similar to you."

Sari looked up. "Come again?"

"It surprised me as well, but ignoring your organic components, your processor is very much like that of a Minicons."

"How is that even possible?"

"It could be that your protoform belonged to a Minicon," Elita offered. "Minicons have a separate protocol than the rest of us Cybertronians. Given their size, that's not entirely surprising, but to my memory, there haven't been any new Minicons since the start of the Great War."

"In fact, in all Cybertronian history, no one knows where the Minicons came from," said Ratchet.

"So you're saying that I could be part Minicon," said Sari.

"Possibly, but that is a question for another time," said Ratchet. "Right now, we need to discover how Megatron controls these Minicons."

"I think I might have found something," said Elita as she looked through the data. "There does appear to be some sort of malicious code located in their processes. As far as I can tell, the doesn't seem to affect their function, but alter their perspective."

"Wait, you mean that Megatron flipped everything, making them believe that Autobots are bad and Decepticons are good?" Sari asked.

"That appears to be the case," said Elita.

"Then we need to create some kind of cure," said Ratchet.

"Then we had better hurry," said Elita. "It won't take long for Megatron to realise that these two failed in their mission. He might send more Minicons, and seeing as they are victims, we can't really hurt them."

Ratchet nodded and looked at Sari. "Kid, think you can give us a hand?"

Sari nodded. "Thought you'd never ask."

Sari placed her hand over one of the Minicons, and it immediately began to glow. "Hmm, a simple reboot should be able to restart the Minicons processes. You simply need to adjust your EMP to the right settings."

"Then let's get to work," said Ratchet activating his EMP generator.

Jazz and the others meanwhile still guarding the Energon.

"So, you think more of these Minicons will show up?" Wreck-Gar asked.

"Trypticon Prison was home to thousands of them," said Moonracer. "The only reason they haven't attacked us on mass is that they want to keep themselves hidden, but now that they discover they have no reason to hide."

"Yeah, and of course, we can't hurt them since Megatron is using them against their will," said Jazz.

"Poor little Minicons," said Wreck-Gar. "So when do you think they will attack us?"

"Now," said Moonracer.

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because my camera just spotted them coming towards us on full mass."

Moonracer had indeed launched a cam into the air to give them a birds-eye view, and she could see that a whole mess of Minicons were now advancing towards them.

Jazz immediately reached for his com-link. "Uh, Ratchet, it's about a bad scene down here. We've got a whole mess of Minicons coming this way. If you found a way to wipe those bad vibes from their processes, now would be an excellent time."

"We think we've got something," said Ratchet as he finished adjusting his EMP.

He then fired his EMP at the captured Minicons, and the moment beat them, they shut down. However, a few seconds later, they woke up, and their optics were now blue instead of red.

"Did it work?" Elita asked.

The Minicons then began buzzing with their strange language excitedly.

"I don't know, I don't speak Minicon," said Ratchet.

"There say that they are sorry for what Megatron made them do and that they are great that we have freed them from his grip," said Sari.

"Wait, you can speak Minicons?" Elita stared.

Sari looked at her, confused. "It sounds like perfect English to me."

"Guess this is even more proof that her protoform was indeed that of a Minicon," said Ratchet and then quickly accessed his com-link. "Jazz, we have a cure."

"That's great because the cons have sent an entire Minicon army!" said Jazz.

Sure enough, advancing towards them was an entire army of Minicons, who was slowly advancing towards them.

"Just hold them back into I get there," said Ratchet.

"Uh, how are we going to do that?" Wreck-Gar asked.

"If anyone's got any ideas, I would like to hear them," said Moonracer.

"We're going to have to fend them off. Just try not to hurt them," said Jazz.

"What about them hurting us?" Wreck-Gar asked.

Jazz then performed a spin kick knocking a few Minicons back. "Just try not to hit them too hard."

Moonracer and Wreck-Gar followed his lead and began to engage the Minicons, making sure not to hit them too hard. Unfortunately, just coming, they found themselves being pushed back until they reached the demolished building.

"This is not how I thought I would go out," said Jazz.

"It was nice knowing you guys," said Moonracer.

Then suddenly being hit the Minicons, and they collapsed; they quickly spun around and saw Ratchet had arrived. He was using his EMP generator, firing at the Minicons.

"Don't let any of them get away," said Ratchet.

"You got it," said Elita, who was fighting her own EMP generator, no doubt copying Ratchet's powers.

The two of them kept on firing the EMPs, hitting all the Minicons that they could see. It took a while, but they finally managed to hit all of them.

"Your timing was perfect," said Jazz.

"Are they going to be all right?" Wreck-Gar asked, looking at the unconscious Minicons.

"They'll be fine; how to increase the focus on the beam to hit all of them, but they should be back on the feet in the next megacycle," said Ratchet.

"So not only have we protected the Energon, but we also freed the Minicons," said Moonracer.

"I am also pleased to report that the repairs on Omega are almost complete," Elita added.

"So we're one step ahead of the bad guys?" Wreck-Gar asked.

"Sure seems that way," said Jazz.

Then suddenly, there was a huge explosion which knocked them off their feet. They looked up and saw a Harrier jet flying down towards them, which then transformed into Slipstream.

"Oh, I would like nothing more than to take you offline, but I have explicit orders," she said.

She then grabbed a large chunk of Energon before anyone could stop as she quickly took off with it.

"Perhaps I spoke to you soon," Jazz groaned.

Moments later, everyone was back at the plant, and Ratchet was attending to everyone's injuries while they reported what happened to Optimus.

"So Starscream's fembot clone is working for Megatron now," said Optimus.

"As if Soundwave was bad enough," Elita groaned.

Optimus closed his optics. "With a piece of Energon that size is no telling what he could do."

"Sorry we let you down, OP," said Jazz.

"At least you were able to free the Minicons; we'll Space Bridge them to Cybertron as soon as we're able."

"Actually, some of them want to stay here and help," said Sari. "Some of them are even helping repair the damage to the city."

"And Wreck-Gar is eager to help as well," Ratchet added.

"Well, I get the feeling we're going to need all the help we can get," Optimus sighed.

Slipstream soon entered the Ground Bridge with the Energon she nabbed and was met with Shockwave.

"One piece of techno-organic Energon as requested," she said.

"Excellent, you are certainly more reliable than Starscream," said Shockwave.

Slipstream smirked. "That loser got what he deserved, then I'm afraid the plan didn't go entirely without a hitch. The Autobots have freed the Minicons from Megatron's control."

"No matter, we have everything we got from them," said Shockwave.

"So what's next?"

"I'm afraid going have to wait until after Megatron's operation to find out."

"And how long will that take?"

"Oh, it should be soon, and the Autobots will find themselves in trouble very soon."