[Location: Nemesis]
The pair tumbled out of the ground bridge and in mid-roll Elita got her feet between her and Knockout, kicking him off. Both landed on their feet and facing each other in the dark hallways. Knockout's look darkened as he ran his fingers over the scratched paint on his torso. "Remind me to return the favor."
Elita was focused on the foe in front of her, but glanced to the side as she heard the whirl of weaponry powering up behind her. Even more drones were behind Knockout the next moment, their weapons aimed at her as well. Realizing that she was trapped, Elita calmly stood up straight and placed her hands behind her head. This was a fine pickle she got herself into.
"What a delightful catch, Knockout."
The voice sent chills down her spine as she recognized it belonging to Megatron. The Decepticon leader stepped around her from behind, pausing dramatically to look down at the smaller fem.
"You are quite the puzzle, my dear," he began, holding her chin with his hand, "there is no record of you in any of our databases. So tell me, where do you come from?"
Elita just kept her mouth shut. The military had trained her to give her name, rank, and serial number in case of capture, but this wasn't the same. She couldn't let them know her origins. As she stared down the large Con, he eventually backed away first, but didn't break eye contact.
"You have spirit, but we have ways of making you break." Megatron rested his hands behind his back, still looking at the Autobot, "Take her to be questioned."
Elita kept eye contact with Megatron for a long as she could, and when he was out of sight she focused her icy stare at Knockout as they passed the Decepticon medic. One of the drones came up to its leader as she was being escorted away.
"Lord Megatron, we are coming up on the pick-up coordinates for the latest energon mine."
"Excellent," and the rest was garbled as she was turned down the hallway.
[Location: Autobot base] Current timeline: Armada
Bulkhead had checked into base prior to Elita's capture and since then they were not able to contact him the others began to worry that the Decepticons had planned to take them out one by one. Arcee had picked Jack up from work since she was able to get free of the traffic jam. Bumblebee had picked up Rafael and Miko from school, since Bulkhead was unable to. Everyone was on edge for the possible next strike.
Bumblebee, Arcee, and Optimus searched the area that the big green Autobot last reported from, only finding an empty energon mine via the giant hole left in the ground. Ratchet was constantly working the scanners with Rafael's help, searching for any trace of Decepticons, their warship, or Bulkhead. Until they found any one of them, they could not help their friends.
It wasn't until the next day that the scanners had picked up anything. But it was not what the Autobots were hoping for. No, it was coming from the last location where the Autobots engaged Megatron, Decepticons, and Airachnid with her Insecticon.
[Location: Northern tip of Idaho]
While Optimus and Bumblebee scrapped with the Insecticons attacking them, Arcee had set off to deal with Airachnid on her own when she noticed the helicopter spider Con had run off from the fight. It was now or never to settle the score.
It wasn't until after the duo had taken out the small army of Insecticons that they had realized that their friend was not with them. Optimus looked back at the mouth of the cave that the Insecticons had flown out of and without a word he and Bumblebee made their way into the opening.
There was only one place Airachnid would have fled to and that would be where the Insecticons had come from. And as sure as the Decepticon rogue was there, so too would Arcee. They ran into the large cavern just in time to watch Arcee lock Airachnid in the stasis chamber, both male bots making their way to their companion's side as she locked her arm blades back into place.
Bumblebee beeped and clicked as he rested a hand on Arcee's shoulder, making the blue motorcycle smile. "Thanks, Bee."
Optimus touched his ear, "Ratchet, we need a ground bridge."
[Location: Nemesis]
Elita was regretting on not eating before she left Jack at his job; also not getting a boost of energon before she left the base. Right now she only knew that she was hanging by her wrists, which kept her from accessing her weapons, and in a lot of pain. Between the shock 'treatments' that Knockout had given her and the faceless Decepticon Soundwave's attempts to probe around in her head she was beyond exhausted.
The only way she had kept Soundwave from accessing anything was to keep his search busy by playing anything and everything she had in her music storage device. Now in her worn state she found herself singing some Broadway show song by some peppy woman singing about being Popular or something of that sort. Or was it some angry woman's rant about not performing yet? Maybe she was mixing the two, what an interesting thought.
Right now it was Knockout that was standing before her, Soundwave in the shadows behind him. "You can't take much more of this, you know? The body can't handle it."
"Go stand in front of a train…" she mumbled, her head heavily falling forward. She was rewarded with another stab in the torso with that shocking staff he carried with him.
"Where did you come from, Autobot?" he asked again.
"If you want to get to know me try buying me dinner or a drink at least," she mumbled.
"What was that?" Knockout asked darkly.
Elita lifted her head, her eyes dimming a bit, "What…ever happened… to my part?" Her head rolled back on her shoulders, "It was exciting at the start! Now we're halfway through season two and I had nothing yet… to do!" She was stopped by another jolt to the torso, unable to cry out in pain anymore. She was saved from another jab when Knockout paused at the sound of a buzzing that was filling the ship.
"What is that?" the red Con asked, lowering his energon prodded staff. Soundwave's display began showing the radar reading of incoming attackers as the ship began to rock. "We'll continue this later, Elita," the Decepticon medic promised as he followed Soundwave out the door, it shutting behind them.
Once they were gone, Elita counted to one hundred before she released her human form from her larger shell, it falling weakly to the floor below. The helmet was still on her head and with how roughly she was jostled about she was glad of it. It took a moment for her to gather her feet again, but she looked up at her larger body to see how trapped she was. She thought about climbing up, but how would she cut the chains off?
Firming, she marched over to her body and began the climb, pulling one of the handlebars free from the knee joint where it rested. Elita looked in disbelief at what had happened. The handlebars were spare energy guns, human sized. "Thanks Vector Sigma," she mumbled as she slipped it the back of her shirt through the neckline and continued to climb.
The job was difficult enough with how tired and in pain she felt, but was made worse as the ship shook from the attack. Managing to get to her right shoulder, Elita aimed for the chain above her robotic wrist and fired several shots until the chain broke.
Her robotic form swung from the remaining chain, making her lose what little footing she already had as she swung wildly. As the battle outside the ship shook it, she aimed her weapon at the remaining chain and let loose a volley of shots. When the chain gave way, Elita crashed to the floor harshly, the smaller form managing to not get squished by the larger one. Again she was glad for the helmet as her head connected with the floor.
Together both forms pulled themselves off of the floor as things calmed outside. After locking the handle bar gun back in place Elita leapt up to the opening, grabbing a hold of the side to use it and the momentum to spin her around before she felt it close around her and the larger form become the primary feel around her. Fighting through the pain she moved out the door, her blades on her left hand at the ready, but not spinning yet.
Elsewhere on the ship… Bulkhead was rather pleased with himself that he managed to really avoid Decepticon detection, the encounter with Starscream aside, that he had gotten better at being stealthy. Shoot, even Megatron didn't see him! But he had to get off the ship and fast. He might have been lucky so far, but it was only a matter of time before his luck ran out.
He opened a hatched that let him drop into another room. Apparently I still have my luck, he thought as he looked over the edge of the platform at the Nemesis' power core. Breaking things had always been his strongest asset, and looking over the equipment below, it didn't take him long to determine the best place to strike.
Shifting his right hand to his wrecking ball, he prepared to jump. "One way or another, I'm getting off this boat!" Off the side of the platform Bulkhead flew, right into the weak spot. With a grunt, the former Wrecker struck with everything he had.
Elita grunted as she hit the hallway wall while the ship shook with massive explosions. Something happened and it wasn't good. Hearing more drones making their way towards her direction, she hid herself into a dark nook and waited for them to pass. The ship started to tilt in the direction she had assumed was nose first and so she let the angle do most of the work for her. Changing her left weapon back into its hand form, she then shifted the wheels at her ankles down and let herself roll with the downward incline.
When she ship began to level off she continued to skate towards the end of the hallway. Fortunately for her the Decepticons seemed to be busy taking care of whatever had happened and she was relatively alone, except for apparently one: Starscream. He passed her at an intersecting hallway as he held his side, looking at her before panicking and running off.
Having a feeling he was fleeing the ship she rushed to follow him. He knew where the exits were. She had lost sight of him as he turned a corner and the ship tilted again, but she could feel the wind rushing past her. She was close. As the ship hit the ground she was thrown forward, landing against a doorframe, the world going dark on her.
Bulkhead held onto one of the supports as the ship shook from the crash and waited for it to stop before high tailing it out of there. He had to get back to base to let them know what had happened!
Elita gained enough of her head to look up and see Bulkhead, reaching out to him, but he didn't see her and she watched him leap out of the ship, the squeal of his tires echoing. Willing herself to at least get on her hands and knees, Elita managed to crawl to the opening and slide down the wing fin to the ground. When she heard drones take to the sky she moved as quickly as she could under the fin to hide from their view, and she prayed, from their scanners as well.
[Location: Autobot Base]
Later that night Bulkhead gave a Miko-inspired cheer as home came into view, and pushed himself harder, laying on the horn in the tunnel to make sure that nobody was blocking the way and to convey his excitement. As soon as the main room opened up he transformed, "Guys! You are not going to believe the day I've had!" Then he caught the stasis chamber containing Airachnid, and then the somewhat shocked looks on Ratchet and Arcee's face at seeing him unharmed for being off grid for so long. "You too, hrm?"
"Bulkhead," Optimus was turning to his subordinate, "we are all curious as to where you have been."
"I was tracking a strong energon signal," the large green bot was as hyper as his human counter-part, "and then the Decepicon ship came up while I was checking it out and picked me up with the load. I had fallen and hit my head so I wasn't aware of what had happened until I woke up on their ship."
"You were on the 'Con ship?" Arcee asked urgently, leaving her trophy behind.
"Yeah!" he replied, "and brought it down hard!"
"Did you happen to find Elita?" Ratchet asked, his body language stressfully rigid.
Bulkhead was confused, looking between the three Autobots there. "Why would I have found Elita on the Decepticon's ship?"
"Because Knockout kidnapped her shortly after we lost contact with you," Optimus said gravely. Bulkhead looked as if he was punched in the gut at the news. Elita was on the ship and he didn't know. The Autobot leader placed his hand on his subordinate's shoulder. "Do not feel guilty, Bulkhead."
Bumblebee pulled into the room behind Bulkhead and Optimus, letting all three kids exit before transforming himself. He beeped excitedly at his green friend about his return while Miko hugged her bot's foot. They looked up as the proximity alert went off, letting them know that Agent Fowler was on his way down.
"Now we must plan our next move," Optimus said as things calmed.
[Author's Note]
I DO NOT OWN TRANSFORMERS PRIME NOR ANY CHARACTER IN THE SHOW. So, too, the songs mentioned in the story.
Now to begin tying it all into the series. I'll only be highlighting parts of the episodes as they need to fit into the story.