"So, where were you two off all alone?" Miko said with a sly and teasing tone.

"Save it!" Arcee snapped. She and Prowl ran to Ratchet's work station.

"Location!" Arcee told Ratchet, who jolted seeing them both swarm him.

"You sent a groundbridge to Detroit, Michigan. The exact city where I'm from, in the future," Prowl said.

"So, maybe that's not just a coincidence?" Arcee added.

Ratchet paused. The Autobots had all been trying to figure out what caused the groundbridge malfunction for a while.

"Well?" Arcee asked, impatiently.

"What you are suggesting is that the missing key we've been looking for is location?" Ratchet said.

"Maybe it's not. But it's a possibility. That's more than what we've had so far," Prowl said.

"Okay.... okay, let's think this through," Ratchet said, and Arcee could tell he was switching into science mode. "If two groundbridges are sent to the same coordinates at the same time, a rift will occur and transport any travelers to an alternate shadow dimension. This we know. But if two groundbridges are sent to the exact same coordinates at different times...?"

"That's the idea," Arcee said.

"But that's preposterous! We've been sending multiple groundbridges to the same coordinates for eons and nothing like this has ever happened!" Ratchet said.

Prowl frowned slightly. Something had to be different this time... his visor lit up. "But it wasn't a groundbridge," he said.

Ratchet looked exasperatedly over at the groundbridge sitting in the base that he himself constructed.

"No, I mean on my end. It was a spacebridge, one that we were testing for functionality," Prowl said.

"And Spacebridges are far more powerful than groundbridges... the crossing of which could have caused an anomaly," Ratchet said.

"Precisely," Prowl replied.

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"In our defense, Lord Megatron, the Autobots had a new member with them. We were out gunned," Knockout said and glanced around nervously.

"A new Autobot, you say?" Megatron said in a low growling voice. He turned around sharply at Knockout and grabbed him. "And just how do you propose a new Autobot appeared out of thin air?!!!" Megatron bellowed.

Knockout tensed and quivered with fear. "I'm not sure, L-Lord Megatron. Maybe a ship slipped past our sensors??"

"Nothing gets past Soundwave without him noticing it," Megatron pronounced threateningly.

Knockout smiled sheepishly. "O-of course, Lord Megatron," he said quickly.

Megatron released him and stood up straight. "Soundwave! I want you to monitor this planet closely, and come to me the instant you find anything relating to this supposed new Autobot," he said.

Soundwave, who was standing nearby, nodded and left to his workstation.

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Soundwave stood at a computer console. He remembered the Autobot from the cave, the one he hadn't recognized, but thought it best not to bring this up at the moment since Megatron was not in an understanding mood.

There was definitely no ship that had landed. Even if it had been cloaked, he would have detected it. The security footage from the power plant was still intact so he went over it and found the new Autobot on it.

Soundwave scanned the footage and ran the scan through every bit of surveillance footage he could from around the world looking for a match.

Nothing came up.

Next, he ran the scan of the new Autobot through old Cybertronian Autobot enlistment records and battle logs to find the name of the Autobot.

Nothing came up.

This was odd. Soundwave went over the footage again. The bot clearly had an Autobot insignia. He was a mech and definitely Cybertronian.

Soundwave went through document after document, record after record, security footage, war propaganda, flight manifests for off world transports, everything he could possibly use to identify this mystery Autobot.

Nothing checked out.

Soundwave stood there processing all of this, then went to inform Megatron of his findings.

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"What do you mean he doesn't exist?" Megatron said to Soundwave after hearing a collection of recordings Soundwave had played.

"He doesn't exist," Soundwave played back and ran document after document over his screen showing nothing relating to Prowl.

"Stop," Megatron said. "What are you trying to imply?"

Soundwave stood quietly for a moment. The truth was he couldn't think of any plausible explanations for this. He popped an error symbol on his screen.

Megatron scoffed slightly in frustration. "I can usually count on you to solve any situation I present you with," he said.

Soundwave nodded slowly. His form seemed to droop disappointedly. An idea came to him though, and he told Megatron.

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"I've run a significant number of simulations but so far nothing has suggested that such an anomaly as this would occur in the presence of two spacebridges sent to the same coordinates but at different places in time," Ratchet said.

Team Prime stared at him with glazed eyes.

Ratchet sighed exasperated. "In other words, I still don't understand what's going on here!"

"But there must a connection between these two instances," Optimus said.

"I know there must be..." Ratchet said but didn't sound hopeful.

"What if," Prowl said. "The spacebridge in my time was still in its testing phase. Now, it had been functional, but there could have been a slight flaw or glitch that caused the spacebridge to be unable to tell the times apart when being sent to coordinates previously used by a groundbridge."

Everyone was quiet but then suddenly Ratchet turn around and began entering data into his computer console hurriedly.

"What is it Ratch'?" Bulkhead asked excitedly.

Ratchet didn't answer but kept inputting data then ran another simulation. He waited then his optics lit up. He smiled and stepped back away from the screen.
"I solved it."

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Hehehhehehehehhe finally!!!! I was so excited to write this chapter! :D

And Merry Christmas!!!!!!!!! Hope you all like the chapter!

Anyways, thanks for reading!!