(Please see all previous disclaimers)
Meanwhile, away from the others, Skywarp and Thundercracker showed up at the Con base with an "out of it" Aquaformer. They dragged the temporarily stasis locked femme towards where Megatron had his "throne." Megatron groaned when he first saw the two, figuring that the mission had failed. "Why do you dare disturb me?" Megatron barked at the pair. They could tell he didn't look too pleased to see them.
"Our mission was a success, Megatron, sir" Thundercracker answered before the pair dragged the stasis locked femme and lay her form in front of Megatron.
An evil smirk grew on the tyrant's faceplates. There was only one question he had now that he had the irritating femme in his grasp. "So, is she still online or dead?"
"not sure, we could only capture her after she grew weak from expending her energy" Skywarp replied, really not sure if she was online or offline.
"well, take her to the med bay and see what you learn" Megatron barked. He knew one thing, if she was still online, no matter how low on energon she was, that meant the Prime was still online. And he didn't want that. The seekers, not wanting to be beaten, dragged the femme to the med bay to see if they could determine if she was still online or gone. Once that was fully determined, Megatron would know exactly what he needed to do next.
Meanwhile, Skyfire and Powerglide rejoined up with the rest of the Autobots. They knew that it was important that the Autobots showed that they cared about their comrade who had been taken by the cons.
Once they all joined up, Optimus knew that they would need a very good plan if they ever wanted to get Aquaformer back and if they wanted the Prime to survive. "We must get her back, no matter the cost" Optimus stated, no only speaking as a sparkmate of the femme but also as a Prime who refused to leave any bot behind.
"But how are we going to rescue her, sir?" asked Huffer in his usual whiny tone.
Optimus thought for a bit as they would need to plan this very carefully, as the lives of several Autobots lay in the balance. "We must take this fight directly to the con base" Optimus replied.
"I think we should break into three teams" Prowl suddenly stated, though no one was too surprised as he wasn't the Autobots' lead tactician for no reason.
"Why is that?" Jazz asked, not letting Prowl explain and interrupting the bot.
"If you'll cool your pistons a bit, Jazz, Prowl will explain" Mirage offered up.
"Thank you, Mirage" Prowl answered, "as I see it, we need three teams – an aerial attack team to lure out the seekers and coneheads, a grounder attack team to lure out Megatron and the others, and a team to try and sneak into the base."
"Well, Skyfire, the aerial bots and I can cover the aerial attack to lure off the seekers" Powerglide stated to which prowl nodded, as that only made sense.
"And you and I can lead a team of grounder attackers to lure out Megatron, Prime" Ironhide stated to the Prime.
"But I want to rescue Aquaformer" Optimus replied, wanting to rescue his mate and lover.
"If you go to rescue her, we could lose you both, Prime" Ratchet added.
"How so?" Optimus asked, having not thought about it.
"Megatron is determined to get to you, Prime, and so you being on the team to save Aquaformer won't work. We need you as a distraction so that the team who sneaks in has a better chance of rescuing her" Prowl answered.
"I guess that makes sense, so who will be on the strike team?" Optimus asked.
"Jazz, Tracks, Hound and I" Mirage suggested.
"Sounds like a plan to me" Jazz answered, wanting to get going. "I suggest we get going while we still have the element of surprise." The others nodded and soon headed out. Optimus was just hoping with all that was in him as well as Praying to Primus that Aquaformer would last until they could save her.