Unknown Territory (TFP)

20.

ENTRY:4/5/2021

DECEPTICONS' BASE: NEMESIS

"STARSCREAM!" Megatron roared. The seeker obediently came forward, wings down. "Y-Yes my liege?" he stuttered, afraid of the angry warlord. "WHERE IS LIGHTBLADE?" Megatron all but roared in his face, making the SIC cower in fear as he raises his digits. "She- She's ... gone... I-I mean is it not good my lord? We no longer need her! She's clumsy and useless! We already have K-Knockout." He said earning him a slap on the faceplate by the steaming warlord.

"You don't get to DECIDE THAT YOU IMBECILE!" Megatron said as he kicked Starscream, making the seeker tumble and crash into the wall. "She is our medic! We may have Knockout but we need her too to tend the Vehicons you useless scrap metal!" Megatron seethed, Knockout watching by the side-lines, not wanting to get in the way of the angry warmonger. The Decepticon leader turned and looked at the red medic.
"Knockout! Bring her back to base! I will not accept any failures! Understood?" he said as he glared darkly at Knockout. "Yes, my liege." Knockout said before leaving the place, getting ready to welcome home his assistant. 'Megatron have a point this time. Ioa's the one who's been tending with the Vehicons, but now the work are left to me since she's gone! Starscream is such an idiot, serves him right to get pounded by our master!' Knockout thought to himself as he walked through the Groundbridge courtesy of Soundwave to Jasper,Nevada.

He has a medic to hunt.

THE MINES

"Autobots, be on guard. The Decepticons might be here." Optimus said, guns raised as he and his team were scouting a cave. The energon detector was beeping loudly, signalling that the energons are close. They soon reached to their destination, an empty energon mine. Not a single Decepticon was there, and the size of the mine is quite massive too. Getting the tools ready, they split up and collected the energons as quickly as they could, time was essence to them. Optimus felt very off. 'Not a single Decepticon in the vicinity. This energon mine is huge,the Decepticons should have picked up something by now.' Optimus thought as he continued to be on the look out as his teammates were extracting energons.

After a while, the Autobots got 3 cart-load full of energons, enough to sustain them for a while. Prime quickly commed base for the groundbridge, unsettling feeling in his tanks rising, but no one answered. His dilemma worsens when a group of armed humans appeared, holding various bleeding edge weapons at them. The leader stepped out of the shadow, his grin wide as he aimed his weapon in front of the Optimus.

"Hello Autobots, we meet again."

AUTOBOT BASE

Ioa tossed and turned but she could not fall into recharge. 'Something's wrong. I can feel it...' she thought as she sat up, worry plastered in her faceplate. She walked out of her berthroom to go meet Ratchet, wanting to know her teams' statuses. She quickens her pace as she spotted Ratchet in front of the computer.

"Ratchet!" she called. "No need to shout Ioa, I can hear ya very clearly!" Ratchet replied annoyedly. "Ratchet! Contact Optimus! Something's wrong! I can feel it!" She ignored his snarky remarks as she asks him to comm Optimus. "What do you mean you can feel it? They just went on an energon scouting! Chances are they meet some Decepticons and if they can't hold it-" Ratchet's sentences wasn't finished as Ioa pushed him away and rushed towards the computer, only to see Optimus calling. She answers the call only to hear an eerie voice through Optimus's commlink. "Hello Autobots, we meet again." The voice spoke, making everyone in base silent. Ratchet could only stare at Ioa incredulously as she continues to listen through the commlink.

"Just a small, teeny energon mine and you bots rush over it like flies over rotten corpses! But I must give my thanks to all of you for coming. After all, you robots are going to be the reason to my success in replicating your technologies!" the voice said, making Ratchet growl. "MECHS! Those vile humans! We have to get them out of there! It's a trap!" He said as he tries to activate the groundbridge, but the nothing happened.

"It seems to me you're in trouble Optimus. Can't seem to get a portal start up? Well guess what? My scientist are jamming the signals, so you can tell your friend in base to stop his futile effort. I know they can hear us, your commlink is on, isn't it? We made it so that they can hear our lil' talk before you guys are melted down into our techs!" The voice mocked. "Get them!" he said as bullets started firing. Ratchet growled animalistically as he can't start up a groundbridge no matter how many times he tried. He tried searching for the coordinates earlier only to come up empty. Ratchet was busy with the computer along with Raf as they hurry to think up a solution, their friends' life at stake here. Ioa stood still as she watched the whole scenario played out. She walked towards the computer stiffly as she closes her optics and raised her servos to the computer screen. Electric circuits rushed towards her as she downloads all the information from the computer. Jack and Miko watched as glowing blue and green currents flow through her digits. Suddenly, Ioa snapped open her optics as she forced everyone back.

"Get back! NOW!" Ioa said as Ratchet rushed to get the kids and him away from Ioa. She concentrated as a large groundbridge opened in front of her. A familiar yellow bot flew out, followed by a blue and pink bot and an olive green one, blue and red bot came last as stray bullets managed to get in before she closes the gate. The bots that came in were all confused as they looked around tiredly, some bullets managed to scrap their plating but they were fine. They turned around to see a Lightblade, but her paint job was inverted. Instead of white and gold with hints of dark blue, she was now dark blue and white with hints of gold. She scanned her surroundings, before returning to her original colour and passed out, again.

"IOA!" Everyone exclaimed as they rushed to her side. Ratchet rushed to her side and took her vitals, only to hear a groan from the petite medic. "Ugh... What- OH! They are back! You did it Ratchet! You saved them!" She said as she sat up only to grip her helm in pain. "Ow... I think my helm is splitting..." she groaned as she rubbed her helm, trying to sooth the pain. Everyone especially those who were in base looked at her worried. "Ioa, don't you remember? You opened a groundbridge!" Miko said, worry etching her face as the medic look at her innocently.

"Huh? Wasn't it jammed? Without a coordinate I can't open a groundbridge Miko." She said, helm tilting. "You placed your fingers at the computer and some weird circuits started flowing through your body! Something like how you did with the vehicle mode thing!" Jack said, defending Miko. "I-I don't think that's possible Jack! I don't remember doing such action, nor do I think it's possible to achieve such feat. I may have use that for my vehicle mode, but I have never ventured out more than that!" Ioa said, getting worried.

"What's wrong? What happened? What's going on?" She asked, feeling anxious.

'Yeah, what's going on?' was everyone's thought as they looked at the frightened femme.