Ignorance is Bliss

Chapter 6: Revelations

"His signal just went offline!" Arcee yelled.

"Optimus!?" Bulkhead shouted, his hand on his ear.

The groundbridge spun to life and the three warriors ran through quickly, their eyes sweeping across the jungle landscape.

"OPTIMUS!" Arcee yelled.

"Search the area!" Bumblebee instructed, running toward the trees.

In the base, Ratchet weakly stood up from the medical cot. He pulled the energon tube from his wound and grimaced slightly. It had finished the transfer, but he was supposed to be resting anyway.

This was more important.

He stood at the console, monitoring everyone's signals and comms in case someone found Optimus and/or needed a groundbridge. A vial of red sitting not far away caught his eyes.

Ratchet frowned slightly and scanned it before looking back at the monitor. The data took a moment to come in, not used to being used on organic substances.

The first thing that came up was energon.

Ratchet's eyes widened and he scanned it again just to double check, the same exact results pulling up. Livia's blood was infused with energon.

He glanced at the girl, who was talking to Raf calmly.

Perhaps Olivebranch had exposed her when she was very young and Livia had built up an immunity for it. Livia's distaste for the food Nurse Darby brought in suddenly made sense.

If Olivebranch had been taking care of the child for this long and did not know that energon was toxic to humans, then it made sense that Livia would have... consumed energon instead of normal human foods.

Autobots also did not need energon very often, unless they were burning it faster by driving quickly and using their blasters. That would explain why she had not eaten in a while.

Ratchet's thoughts went to contacting Optimus immediately, but then he remembered that the Prime was still missing and the others were currently searching for him.

Ratchet examined Livia more closely now, looking for anything out of place.

Jack and Miko had been talking about Livia's eyes. Bright blue. They were the same shade of blue as Optimus's eyes. Energon blue.

Ratchet failed to notice anything else, besides the dark circles that were growing under Livia's eyes. She had also been less snippy as of late. And the sleeping that all the humans were complaining about.

Livia hadn't eaten anything the entire time she was with the Autobots and if she hadn't eaten anything for a while before either, then it made sense that she would be exhausted.

Her symptoms were similar to a watered-down version of stasis lock.

The monitor blinked again and Ratchet looked away as a message appeared on the screen. From Olivebranch.

Give me the human child and I will give you Optimus's coordinates.

Ratchet immediately activated his comm. "Guys, Olivebranch has Optimus. She's asking for us to trade Livia for him."

There was a silence on the other end.

"Optimus wouldn't make that trade. Bridge us back and we'll fake a trade to force her to hand over Optimus." Bumblebee said.

Ratchet nodded in agreement and bridged them back.

Livia looked over, hoping to see Optimus walk back in with the others, but she had no such luck. The other humans had their attention on the bots as well.