The Maximals return to the R-chambers in Crystalla sector, and are patched up. As Darkwave's repairs will take longer than expected due to his size, the unit is deferred to Armageddon. He allows Optimus to explain the current situation: the Predacons are already inside the citadel, and the building has been evacuated. The Maximal army is gathering outside the complex, so Optimus says he plans to join them. He also mentions that he's contacted Blackarachnia, Cheetor, and Silverbolt, all of whom should be in Prime sector, but cannot get a hold of any of them. Starfire seems gung-ho about joining up with the teams at the capitol, so the uninjured Maximals head out.
The Predacons finish off the Maximal guards that had been posted in the front of the citadel. While they are at their work, a "transmission" comes out of Stalker's mouth, from Tarantulas, warning them that their outside communications have been cut off. The Predacons soon realize that, not only can Tarantulas not receive the video feed through Stalker's necklace, but their radios will not function, and a force field has been erected around the entire building. However, since they are already inside, there is little they can do but press on. They arrive at the weapon-check station, and try to look for a way around getting their mechanisms deactivated by the security system. Stahldrache eventually simply blows a hole in the mechanism shut-off device, which prevents some, but not all of their mechanisms from going off-line. Meanwhile, Medusa contorts herself around a conveyor belt, heading towards the weapons storage area. She attempts to repair a few of the off-lined weapons stored in the back area.
Optimus and his team arrive at the perimeter of the citadel, and GuardianWing points out Agent Scanner, who is in charge of internal affairs. Scanner tells the Maximals that the Predacons are in the building, and the current plan is to trap them within once they reach the prison area. However, he accidentally lets it slip that the citadel prison is the one containing Megatron, surprising the Maximals who assumed he was being held on a far-off colony. He also mentions that he was unable to evacuate levels five and up of the complex. Optimus is shocked at this, well aware that the experimental equipment and protoform research is startioned in Level Five, the same area where Protoform X was developed.
The Predacons head into the main antechamber. Here, they encounter a public terminal, but it will take some hacking to discover where in the building Megatron is actually being held. When Upgrade, hanicapped without Oblivion's assistance, fails to crack the citadel code, he gives Stalker a chance. Medusa arrives from weapons' storage, plus a few extra guns, and Stahldrache leads a team into the main council hall. They are a little annoyed to find the entire hall empty, and Stahldrache, in an act of defiance, shoots at Magnaboss's chair. When Swiftsting arrives to check the source of commotion, he notices that there is a hollow space inside the seat. He orders Stahldrache to climb down inside the gigantic opening and see what might be at the bottom of the tunnel.
Outside the complex, the gathered Maximals seem to be under the effect of a group drowsiness. Before Starfire can fall completely asleep, however, his Transmetal II senses go haywire, and he senses the presence of female Transmetal II hypnotists effecting the crowd. He screams to awaken his comrades, and rushes over to the spot where he thought he saw the hypnotists, but no one is present. He attempts to extend his senses, as the other Maximals follow his lead. Starfire eventually locks onto and manages to grab one of the cloaked hypnotists, fighting with the invisible mass as another female uncloaks behind him. Though she attempts to convince him to drop her ally, he takes off into the air. The captured hypnotist uncloaks as well, but manages to use her power to convince Starfire that she is a friend and ally. Meanwhile, the other Maximals seek the uncloaked female still in the crowd.
Back at the military base, Darkwave, Tusk, and Miriam complete repairs. Darkwave tells one of the Maximal technicians to contact Rattrap for him. Thundercat has a call placed as well, to Rhinox, as he feels he is ready to travel to Iacon. Rhinox meets up with him at the greenhouse, and the pair begin the trip to the south to Autobot City. They arrive at the ancient city, and are surprised to find it locked down. Luckily, Thundercat remembers the code to enter. Once inside, they realize that Eldred Cyrix is nowhere to be found. Thundercat, scanning through walls, realizes that Metroplex himself is still off-line, so the pair assumes that Eldred must have retreated down to Iacon.
Rattrap arrives at the Maximal base, and speaks first with Tusk, asking where he's supposed to meet this commander "Darkwave." When Tusk points out the commander in tape deck mode against a wall, Rattrap does not know what he is looking at until it transforms into a twenty-foot robot. Seeing Darkwave as a Decepticon, he panics, and fires his pistol into the commander. Tusk punches him in the head, sending him for a loop, while Darkwave is undamaged by the small energy bursts. Miriam, sensing combat, tries to get involved, but Darkwave rectifies the situation. Yes, he had wanted to frighten Rattrap, who antagonized him before, but he didn't want the Maximal to be hurt. As Tusk's punishment for starting a fight that could have been finished more easily, Miriam is ordered to bring him down again.
At the Citadel, Stalker hacks into the first level of computer security, and makes her way through the second. Meanwhile, she uses her link with Tarantulas to describe to him what she is finding. When she takes note of laboratories on Level Five of the complex, Tarantulas insists she investigate. After she scans the files and finds the location of Megatron: subbasement thirteen, accessable from an elevator on the right side of the chamber, she asks Upgrade if she has permission to explore. As he is trying to wire the elevator to allow him to access the lower basements, he dismisses her. Medusa asks if she can come along, but Stalker tells her she would be a target upstairs, since Stalker is planning on using her cloak. Therefore she infiltrates the upstairs level alone and invisible. As she passes the locked lab doors, she hears some commotion coming from a lab marked "Chemical Research." A scream of pain, followed by some indefinite mumbling. After a while, she recognizes that the one in pain is none other than ex-commander Cheetor, with Pantora at his side, concerned. Very amused, she enters the lab next door, where researchers are working as quickly as possible on completing a working Transmetal II Inhibitor. She manages to knock one of the researchers unconscious, alerting Pantora and Cheetor to her presence and breaking one of the reasearchers' prototype hand-held weapons. When the two felines enter the room, they know the familiar scent, and chase Stalker back into the hall.
Outside, Armageddon starts an earthquake that shakes the entire sector, waking most of the sleeping Maximals. However, he fails to trip up his intended target, the hypnotist, who attempts to blend herself with the crowd. He chases her down, and GuardianWing lifts her up into the air. As he has her only by the head, she attempts to break free, removing one of his arms with a handblade and dropping into the crowd. Thinking quickly, GuardianWing throws the detached appendage as a weapon, damaging her before she is able to reactivate her cloak. Starfire takes his prisoner to Optimus just as the rest of Darkwave's team finally arrives. Optimus knows not to make eye contact with the hypnotist, and asks Darkwave to question her, believing his blindness may be an asset. However, Darkwave simply knocks the female unconscious, hoping that getting Transmetal II Inhibitor for her will make the task a lot simpler.
Underneath the Citadel, Stahldrache makes an alarming discovery: six subbasements below the main chamber is a single room with what appears to be a drone decoy of Maximal Mangaboss. As he examines the drone, Blackout follows him down, and arrives in time to be amused by his removal of the Magnaboss's head. Stahldrache then reports to his commander what he's found. Swiftsting allows him to keep the head as the group travels back to the elevator, which Upgrade has finally rewired.
As the Predacons take their elevator downward, Thundercat takes his as well. He and Rhinox finally reach Iacon, but discover that its force-shield protection is raised. They send a message inside the gate, and it is answered by a female voice: one neither of them have heard before. When she hears that Rhinox has come, she allows the pair inside. They discover that the dome of Iacon and Teletran II are now being guarded by a female Autobot, who identifies herself as Evalina. Thundercat remembers her as being the lab assisstant and "daughter" of Eldred Cyrix. She explains that Eldred used Rhinox's Procedure to restore and revive her, but before he could do the same for any other Autobot-kind, he was destroyed by some small female assassins that swarmed Autobot City while Eldred was trying to bring Metroplex back on-line. Evalina does not know the Restore Procedure, but fears that the females that killed her creator came looking for that knowledge. Rhinox and Thundercat realize that the assassins must have come looking for the Restore Procedure after their failed attack on the greenhouse. Rhinox also explains that the assassin that tried to kill him was danger even after death, and it was contact with that tainted spark that made him ill before. Thundercat realizes that the killers must have been sent by the Daughters, and their goal was the revival of Tarantulas. After this is resolved, Thundercat accesses Teletran II and the Covenant of Primus, looking for information that will help him find mystical sites that might be the seals on Cybertron. He is able to get coordinates for both the Plasma Forge and Vector Sigma, two important ancient places that Autobots revered. Rhinox is, naturally, very pleased at the prospect of getting to commune with Vector Sigma.
In the fifth level of the council hall, Stalker ducks into a protoform research lab, hoping to lose her feline persuers. However, Cheetor manages to follow her, and injures her severely. Luckily for her, an ally decloaks at her side; a Transmetal II healer that Tarantulas had sent with her to keep her safe on the journey. The healer downs Cheetor with venom, then gestures for Stalker to take cover in a locked room in the back as she takes down Pantora. However, Stalker hesitates; she'd prefer to run for cover, but she's interested in the prospect of killing Cheetor while he is down...
The Predacons reach the bottom basement of the Citadel, and are attacked by automated defenses and the Maximals' last-line guards. The guards fight to the bitter end, but when one of them breaks Sellsword's blade he kills two of them purely out of spite. Blackout attempts a fatality of his own, but only causes a guard immense pain. Luckily, that makes him that much easier to interrogate, and the Predacons are able to secure the passcodes for Megatron's cell. They get their soldiers in position, one for each of three terminals in the underground prison, and deactivate the defenses, and the great dragon rears his head once again.