(Nevada)

Blackwolf flew as fast as he possibly could, Nitalia was having slight difficulty hanging on to his bars that held on both sides of his attack chopper alt-mode.

"Wanna talk about what we just listened to?!" she tried to calm him, but it was no use, he was desperate to get back to the base.

"There's nothing to talk about Nitalia, the base is under attack and we have to hurry!" he pushed his rotors to fly them faster. She only silenced herself, knowing it would no good to argue. All they could hope was that they weren't too late.

(Half a cycle later)

Blackwolf transformed and landed in front of the base with Nitalia at his side, but the entrance was melted open. "No!" he growled, and ran into the destroyed door.

"Dad! Wait!" she ran after him, he turned the corner, and almost fell to his knees. The base was in shambles, their tech was thrown everywhere, most destroyed, but what worried him more, was the energon on the floor, and splattered against the wall.

She finally caught up to him, and her reaction was no different, someone had come into the base and attacked Team Prime. He looked closer on the floor and saw something shine, he ran over to it, and this time, actually fell to his knees.

There in front of him, was one of Arcee's knee spikes, and next to it, he picked up her necklace that he had made her for Christmas the year before. He felt like weeping, where was his sparkmate and his family?

But then, startling her, he roared in blind rage, it echoed through the base, and nearly sent her to her knees in fear, she had never seen her father so angry. But they were alerted when they heard footsteps come closer, he stood, and readied his defense, but they were both startled to see Steeljaw come around the corner, but he didn't look like he was there to fight.

"Well, this is strange..." he thought aloud, Blackwolf however leaped to his feat, and slammed his brother against the nearest wall, holding him by his neck which shocked Nitalia.

"Where are they?!" he yelled, his optics flashed red, which shocked his brother and Nitalia.

"I don-don't know-gah! I'm just as confused as you are!" he stammered, feeling his neck nearly dent due to Blackwolf's relentless strength. But his brother dropped him, and calmed himself.

"I'm not your enemy little brother, but I originally came to warn all of you." he admitted, this made Blackwolf turn back.

"Warn us about what?" the Prime asked, the larger mech hesitated before answering his question.

"There's something coming, I tracked a ship entering orbit, neither Decepticon nor Autobot. But it seems that I was too late..." he lowered his helm, surprising his brother.

"what ship? Whose ship is it?" he quickly asked.

"That's exactly what I don't know, but I wish I knew." he looked around the wrecked base, trying to make out anything that stood out.

"Check the base, find anything that may tell us where, or what took them." the Prime ordered his sibling and daughter. They looked in every corner, trying to find anything to help them, but Nitalia noticed something lying on the floor, she carefully picked it up, it didn't look familiar to her.

"Dad, I think I found something." he walked over to his daughter, and slowly took it from her grasp.

"It's a recorded message, we mainly used them as reports to keep ourselves sane during the war." he activated something on his arm, and placed the recorder on the device. It seemed to download the current data on it.

But suddenly a clicking sound came from it, and a voice none of them had heard came from the recording. "Hello Blackwolf, if you're hearing this, it means that you've found your base in shambles, and none of your dear family members aren...present. If you ever want to see any of them alive again, come to these coordinates that I programmed into the download, but if you call anyone on Cybertron for help, I kill your sparkmate, Arcee, slowly and painfully. Oh, and Blackwolf, my partner and I are very impatient so...don't keep us waiting." the recording ended, leaving them all in shock, but Blackwolf downloaded the coordinates and set a destination on his hub for the location.

"Where do you think you're going?" he heard his brother ask.

"I'm getting my family back." he answered sternly.

"By giving yourself to whoever or whatever this is, is that what they would want?" he asked his brother in a very angry tone, but Blackwolf looked at him in an expression that said, 'frag off' all over it.

"Don't talk like you know any of them well, and it's all I can do, unless I want them to die, then I've got to go." he lowered his helm in defeat. Steeljaw knew he was right though, they had no other choice.

(Three hours later, Nevada)

The three Cybertronians stood in the middle of the desert, all waiting for whoever asked them there to arrive. But they were alarmed when the sound of thrusters could be heard. They looked overhead to see a large Cybertronian ship hover down and softly land before them.

Minutes later, the hatch opened, and soft ped steps could be heard. A figure appeared from the entrance of the ship, but once the lone Cybertronian was in full view, Blackwolf's spark skipped a pulse.

She was a femme, in fact, she was identical to Arcee, except she was mostly orange in color, and her head point, knee spikes, and wrist pieces were black. But once he thought about this femme, he remembered her all too well.

"Flamewar..." he growled, activating his battle mask.

"Hello, Blackwolf, so nice to see you." she smirked demonically.

"Nitalia, get behind me." he ordered her calmly, which she complied as she slipped behind him and Steelaw. Blackwolf reached to grab his spear, but she raised her servo to stop him.

"I wouldn't if I were you, if you even lay a dent in me, then your sparkmate's life is on the line." he growled, lowering his servo, watching her every movement, never taking her out of his sight. She noticed this and her grin only grew.

"Now, let's get down to business, I have your family hostage, and you have no advantage over me, so you're really out of options here." he gritted his denta in frustration.

"Dad, who is she?" Nitalia quietly asked.

"Flamewar was a failed Decepticon experiment, she was too dangerous to let around other Cybertronians during the war, so they locked her away. But we later noticed that she broke out of her cell, but the Cybertronian to put her back in the asylum, was Arcee." he stood his ground.

"Ah yes, I remember how she locked me back in there for quite some time, so now, I'm going to make her pay for those centuries taken from me." she hissed, he stood defensively in front of Nitalia when he saw her palms spark with small flames.

"And you, oh how you've changed Riptide." her grin returned to her faceplate.

"I don't wear that name anymore Flamewar, my name's been Blackwolf ever since I joined the Autobots." he growled, not giving her any ground.

"Oh don't act as though you had no glitches, may I remind you of your old programming?" he grew angrier with her.

"That's the old me, I'm a different mech than I once was." he defended himself. She only chuckled, it put fear into Nitalia's spark hearing her laugh, it was filled with insanity, and cruelty.

"But you didn't think I captured all of Team Prime alone did you? No...I had help, from an old friend of yours." this really confused Blackwolf.

"What the frag are you talking about?" he asked, this time in a worried tone. But behind him, at the entrance of the ship, another figure appeared.

"It has been a long time...old friend." Blackwolf's optics flew open at hearing that voice, humans would say it was an Asian accent, but he knew only one Cybertronian it belonged to.

He slowly turned around to face none other than his old mentor, a blue mech that resembled a samurai, and had a golden faceplate.

"Drift..." he mustered.

"It is good to see you, after all these years, we're reunited." he smiled, but Blackwolf was lost in his mind, the memory of seeing Drift get shot down.

"But...how? You died, in the ship crash, you tried to get those civilians out of the Decepticons' territory, but the seekers shot you down. I watched you die!" he was truly lost, it was too much information to receive now.

"Your question will be answered in due time, but I have a request of you." Blackwolf listened, wondering what he meant by request.

"Join us." Blackwolf's optics widened again, his thought to be dead best friend just asked him to join a cause he knew was wrong, but he would have to choose his next words carefully.