DUN DUN DUN! HERE WE GO!

REVIEW REPLIES!

AlphaTrion3145: Optimus will never give up on his family. Then why did… Never mind.

RoseBlade Vortex: I sometimes wonder why there are no Jack/Sierra stories?

Because no one likes the pairing.

haloangel21: Yes, Ratchet, roll out! xD

Let's go, Ratchet! :P

Neon: I like how Ratchet the no-longer-hatchet-cuz-Talida-is-there has taken away Prime's 'roll out' line XD

I always did like that.

Kairi-PrimeProtector: Grrrrr Cliffhangers…it's a love hate relationship. Lol

That's one way to put it.

Awesomo3000: Poor Talida. :( Gaah, you evil! But you tired too, so it's fine. Update when you can!

I'll keep updating till Tuesday. It's when I go back to school for the term.

MonkeyGirl13: please update update update update update update please update update update update

Take a chill pill.

storygirl99210: AWESOME CHAPTER! At least Talida is doing okay. She can't give up hope and neither can anyone else!

She'll give up when she's dead.

Transformers: Prime rightfully belongs to Hasbro and The Hub.

© Talida and other OCs rightfully belong to me unless I say otherwise.

ENJOY!

Knock Out and Breakdown thought they'd have an easy break with the Decepticons' second attempt to steal the power source from the military base. Technically, they were successful the first time. Then Optimus broke into the ship and stole it from under their noses before going on a rampage for revenge.

They shouldn't have thought the second time would be as simple as the first. First, they did have Bumblebee walk in the battle with a barely alive Talida. Second, they currently had the American military and their tanks to contend with.

Then the Autobots had to show up.

"Drop the power source!" Bulkhead ordered as he, Arcee and Bumblebee jumped out of the GroundBridge and charged towards them.

"Aren't you missing someone?" Knock Out teased.

"Not funny, Knock Out!" Breakdown barked as Arcee, Bulkhead and Bumblebee charged their blasters and aimed them at the two Decepticons, "That's Duckling's father!"

"You still care about her?" Arcee stammered in disbelief, "Your debts are paid off."

Knock Out and Breakdown didn't have time to answer Arcee's question. Originally, it was because reinforcements arrived to defend the two of them. However, after the Autobots defeated the three planes with ease, they realized that Megatron wasn't going to be happy if they didn't return with the power source very soon.

"Ready for that bridge!" Knock Out snapped into his commlink impatiently, causing one to be opened behind him and Breakdown.

Breakdown raced through the GroundBridge first with the power source. Knock Out, on the other hand, decided to stay and discretely throw Arcee an offer,

"We'll be sure to tell the Big O you said hello."

It didn't take long for Arcee to catch on to what Knock Out was giving her. Something inside her told her that Knock Out was luring her into a trap. However, the part of her that was desperate to see Optimus again decided that the possibility of it being a trap didn't really matter to her.

She only had one chance.

And she was going to take it.

"ARCEE!" Bulkhead called as Arcee transformed and raced into the GroundBridge.

Knock Out found out the hard way that his discrete offer was accepted when Arcee rolled off of the back of his head before landing on the ground and speeding down the hallways.

"You know that Megatron's gonna see her and have Soundwave evict her from the ship, right?" Breakdown asked Knock Out.

It was one of those times where Knock Out wished Breakdown had a dumb moment.

"Scrap," Knock Out grumbled.

He forgot about that.

"Where's mum?" Talida demanded as Bulkhead and Bumblebee walked through the GroundBridge without Arcee, "Bulkhead, what did you do?"

"Why do you always blame me?" Bulkhead wanted to know.

"Because most of the time, it's your fault," Ratchet stated dryly.

"We encountered Knock Out and Breakdown at the military base. They got away with the power source. But before leaving, Knock Out discretely gave Arcee a chance to sneak aboard the Nemesis and find Optimus," Bumblebee buzzed in explanation.

"What?!" Talida screeched, "Knock Out and Breakdown were there and you didn't ask to have me bridged over?!"

"The battle didn't last long enough, Tally," Bulkhead defended himself.

"Arcee to base. Need a GroundBridge ASAP."

"Mum, did you find him?" Talida asked eagerly.

"I'm sorry, honey."

That response alone let everyone know that Arcee's search wasn't successful. Wordlessly, Ratchet opened another GroundBridge and Arcee limped through the portal shivering. At first, they were confused as to why she was so cold. Then they glanced at the coordinates Ratchet had entered and realized that she somehow ended up in the Arctic.

As Ratchet examined her, Arcee explained everything that happened on the Nemesis. Upon her arrival and fleeing Knock Out and Breakdown, she encountered many Decepticon troops. None of them revealing Orion's location. Before she could continue searching the ship, she encountered Soundwave and she unknowingly jumped into a GroundBridge he had activated and found herself stranded in the Arctic.

After hearing the story, there were only some minor details Ratchet cared about.

"You weren't able to determine the Decepticons' location or if Optimus was even aboard ship?!" Ratchet exclaimed as he stopped scanning her.

"I…couldn't confirm," Arcee reported sadly, shaking her head.

Bulkhead had been close to losing it over the past two months since Optimus left. Hearing that they came so close but still weren't successful finally snapped him. Roaring in frustration, he pounded his fist onto a nearby table. Unfortunately for Ratchet, one of his drills just happened to be under Bulkhead's fist and was destroyed.

It started the release of tensions like a domino effect.

"BULKHEAD!" Ratchet yelled.

"What?! You needed that?! Only thing I need is our head honcho back!" Bulkhead roared, pounding his fists together over his chassis to prove his point.

"It's not your fault," Jack immediately reassured Arcee, after noticing that Talida was close to exploding herself.

"If any of us needed rescuing, Optimus would have found a way! I didn't! Simple as that!" Arcee retorted.

And if the situation couldn't get worse, Fowler decided to leave a message with even worse news.

"Ratchet! What happened out there?! Reports indicated at least a dozen wounded! The heat's on me to provide some explanation! You bots better get your act together or the Pentagon will make me shut down your base!"

If the prospect of never regaining their leader was bad enough, the prospect of losing the only home they knew as well was worse.

"Where would you go?" Raf wanted to know, knowing that the Autobots had nowhere else to go.

"Who knows?! Maybe they'll ship us off to some island! Or fire us into space! Wouldn't that be a welcome relief?!" Ratchet scoffed, only to cringe at the glare Talida was giving him about the last remark he made.

"I don't blame Fowler! Optimus would have evacuated all humans from the area before engaging the 'Cons!" Arcee pointed out.

"Arcee's right. We should have told them to pull back," Bumblebee concurred.

"We don't know what Optimus would have done because he's not here!" Bulkhead snapped.

"You're pretty good at stating the obvious, Bulk," Arcee said, standing up and approaching the former Wrecker in a dangerous manner, "Anything else you'd like to mention that we already know?!"

"Nothing I can say in front of the children," Bulkhead growled.

That caused Talida to finally boil over.

"HEY!" Talida snapped, causing all eyes to be on her due to how loud she was, "There's something good that we're overlooking! Everybody's stressing about Dad being missing that no one's talking about what Knock Out and Breakdown just delivered to the 'Cons!"

"Yes. We allowed them to finally acquire a power source for their Space Bridge!" Ratchet stated dryly.

"And how exactly would that be a positive?" Arcee asked Talida, still not seeing the point.

"We let them finish their Space Bridge," Talida began, shrugging as though it was the most obvious thing in the world she was hinting towards.

"Why?!" Bulkhead wanted to know, "So they can bring more zombies from Cybertron?!"

"No. So we can commandeer it," Talida corrected before revealing what she was hinting towards,

"And use it to get Jack and I to Cybertron."

Short. Sweet. To the point. Doesn't make that much sense. Evil cliffhanger. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how I roll.

Now, I'm gonna pop back over towards Fading Suns. I'll give you guys a long chapter for that one to make up for this. By now, you should know the drill. Review. Fave. Alert. Whatever.

BYE!