System Corruptors Giant-Sized Annual #1 ********************************************* * * * ROBOT INVASION EPILOGUE * * * ********************************************* All Transformers characters are Trademarks of Hasbro. Used without permission, no violation intended. Do not sell or otherwise make money off this, or they'll have to sue someone. This story is otherwise copyright 1994 by Dave Van Domelen for Coherent Comics UnIncorporated. ============================================================================ PROLOGUE: "Talking Heads" [Timeline note: this story takes place during the course of Constellation #24, a few days after the events chronicled in Pliable Lad #18.] Two heads sit on opposite tables, connected by wires and fiber optic cables to the bodies under construction next to them. The bodies are easily ten meters long, and mechanical. Smaller drone robots swarm over the towering forms, repairing and replacing various parts. One body looks like it had been blown in half, the paint job not yet concealing the obvious meeting of old and new parts. The other seems to be unharmed, save that it was missing a lower torso and legs. On closer inspection, next to each head is a small box, perhaps half a meter on a side, connected to the heads by armored cables. It becomes apparent these parts have been removed from the bodies in order to keep them from harm during the more energetic parts of rebuilding. The head on the right seems active and aware, with the flexible mouthparts on the face twisted into a slight moue of annoyance. The other head is totally inert, but in a moment this will change. "skzzzzt...aiowww. I hate it when that happens," muttered the newly activated head. "Dipstick. Just because the squish can teleport doesn't mean you should engage in a teleporting duel. A few more centimeters and your main persona module would have been one with the dirt!" "Sorry, Terry, but I don't see you in much better shape. Squishies too hard for you without me?" Shatterwing's face frowned. "At least they underestimated our toughness. They left us for dead. Yeah, like blowing my head off is gonna kill me. Sheesh. Just cuz we're anthopomorphic in general..." "Hey, talk fer yourself. I ain't furry!" "You read to many comicbookfiles, Spacefold. I meant, human-shaped." "Oh." "Anyway, you know our brains aren't in our heads, and I know that, but the squishies didn't. Still, that Pliable Lad one almost got me...his blast fried my primaries and barely missed my secondary persona. Fortunately I moved my active memory to my hips, so I'm not missing anything. You?" "Um, I don't think so. Mua-ha-ha?" "Okay, you're not missing anything." "Narf!" "Or maybe you are. Sigh. I hate decoy missions." "Well, at least on decoys we can blow up whatever we want, instead of havin' to be careful of the objective. Even if it does mean making ourselves targets by stayin' in one place." "Yeah, explosions are pretty cool, even if it wasn't a fuel depot." Spacefold paused for a moment, lost in thought (an admittedly unfamiliar territory, to rip off another writer's metaphor). "How'd the Legion of Net.Squishies get ya? Did reinforcements arrive after I lost to Kid Squishily?" "No. One of the ones we beat earlier, the stretchy squishy, grew a gun and blew my chest out. Sucking chest wound city." "Heh. You said suck." "You've been hanging out with Thud and Blunder too much, 'Fold. But I been readin' some of the files left by our host, turns out this is kinda common for the natives." "What? Growin' guns?" "Well, that too, but the whole idea of suddenly getting lots more powerful for no very good reason, then being corrupted by it, then turning on your friends and eventually either losing the power or getting killed off. They call it the Darkening. Seems Acton Lord, the guy who got us here, makes his living on Darkenings." "How?" "Well, y'know what Lord Acton said about power, right? It corrupts. Well, if this Acton Lord took Lord Acton as an inspiration, he's gotta like the idea of power corrupting people, especially goody goody types like heroes and Guardians." "So ya figure he mighta set us up? Got us to come here and be a threat, prompting lots of local yokels to gain power to beat us, then sitting back and enjoying it? That stinks!" Spacefold's head rocked back and forth a bit from the force of his talking. "Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe we blew it for him when we took over this joint. He can't be enjoying anything too much in those little tunnels, right? Anyway, it looks like the only way most of the local Guardian types can get the power to frag us is to risk losing their minds and becoming menaces to their own side. The few what got enough power already we outnumber by sheer weight of numbers. Even the few Guardians I hear what came over here ain't gonna tip the balance too much." Shatterwing sighed inwardly as his speech patterns became less stilted. It meant his primary core was replaced and on line, and that in turn meant is was about time for him to get put back into his body. About time. "Hey, hey, hey! Looks like we're gonna get back into the fray pretty soon now," commented Spacefold, looking over at Shatterwing's body. "Good thing too, since my sensors are pickin' up some heavy neutrino drops right now. Maybe those Guardians came to try and beat us up. HAW!" Shatterwing brought his sensor grid online and confirmed his partner's findings. Must be at least one gestalt in action right now, maybe two or three. "ComNet's scrambled, you're probably right. Drones, expidite repair process!" The drones scampered to jerry-rig things as best they could to get the two MACErs back together, trusting the internal repair systems to finish the job. Moments later, the pair stood and flexed their joints. "95% functional here," Shatterwing said smugly, knowing his more heavily- damaged partner wouldn't be so well-off. Spacefold frowned, confirming Shatterwing's guess. "76% here, and no teleportation." "Well, you did take alotta stress damage from that missed teleport. Can't expect those systems to be online right away, they are pretty sensitive. Let's hit the surface!" "And hit some Guardians...YAGH!" Suddenly, both MACErs were encased in bubbles of force and rapidly pulled through the halls. Niether could move, and thanks to his damage, Spacefold couldn't escape in his own unique way. At the speed they were travelling, everythign was a blur, but they saw a flash of green and red just before everything went totally chaotic. After a few moments of disorientation, the two found themselves standing on a metallic roadway. "Back on Luna?" asked Spacefold. "I don't think so. Too much gravity, and there's air. Hey, whatever we went through undid some of my 'stitches' or something. I can't transform. How're you on time until teleportation?" "Um, not enough...look!" Two jets arced out of the black, starry sky above, firing laser bolts in a strafing run. Shatterwing pulled out his sonic cannon and fired, but found the blast countered exactly by a sonic boom from one of the attackers. The other disappeared with an electronic whine, and suddenly was strafing from another angle, bracketing the two. ==23 seconds until jet mode is available== warbled the internal voice of Shatterwing's diagnostic dronemind. "Great. I don't think we're anywhere *near* Luna, Spacefold...." ========================================================================== CHAPTER ONE: "Something's Not Quite Right...." So, this was what a hangover must feel like, thought Firebrand as his sensors muzzily came back on line. He simply *must* devise a way to inflict this lovely sensation on the Guardians. ComNet connection was still down, and with it navigation. Tactile senses coming on line...microgravity, negligible gas pressure. Must be in orbit somewhere. That squishy's last attack must have been more powerful than he gave it credit for. If not for his genius in designing a last-ditch-ass-covering Defense System, he'd be so many flakes of lime-green metal now. Well, enough reminiscing, time to find out where exactly he ended up. Astrogation should work to make sure he's still in the neighborhood.... Stars were right. The nearby star had Sol's spectrographic fingerprint. But no planets within sensor range at the moment. Still no ComNet. This could be bad. He could be in for some DEEP HURTING if the Guardians find him before he gets back in contact with MACE. A few more systems came on line and confirmed that he wasn't still in that supersquishy universe. Maybe he was home. He tried the private fast-feed Commsystem to his assistant, AirHart. Static. So, either the triple-changing lunatic had fused his circuits again or Firebrand's systems still weren't working. Or maybe...just maybe...he wasn't home after all. * * * * Space was Quad's second home, so he'd been no more than inconvenienced when that ravioli somehow managed to send him, Traumastar and Emmexor all the way out to Pluto's neighborhood. Still, that meant he had to tow the slower Traumastar and carry the BallistiMACs if they were to get back to this new Earth in time to catch the real action. Unfortunately, the real action found them first. Just as they were finally in visual range of Terra, a strange force grabbed them and hurled them faster than any could record...to somewhere. Just as it seemed they had come to the end of their odd journey, the chaotic swirl of sensory input resolved into a single beam of light. A few drones that survived the ravioli's attack were swept into nothingness when they strayed from the light, so the MACErs decided to go where the light led. If it led anywhere. Quad wasn't much for philosophy...that was something squishies did. Still, he couldn't help but wonder: is this the path to the afterlife? MACs rarely died...they were intentionally hard to destroy, with multiple backups and the ready option of booting up a backup. In fact, even if this was his personal doom, Quad was sure that within a few weeks he'd be up and running in another body, with no memories of this failed adventure. But what happened to the minds that did die? Did MACs have the "soul" that squishies always went on about? If so, would his soul simply reappear in the new body? Or was this death for him? The whole concept of death was something Quad had never really pondered. Although, he supposed, he'd probably pondered it numerous times just before doing it. As one of the more powerful and useful MACErs, he'd been destroyed in combat dozens of times. And those last flickering seconds between the mortal damage to the body and the shutting down of the mind could stretch into a veritable eternity for a being with computer-fast thought processes. He'd probably considered death more than a squishy, when all was said and done. But he never would remember those thoughts, due to the circumstances under which the thinking had been done. But was this death? He felt a sick sensation in his innards, but that was probably just the BallistiMACs panicking. He spared a 'glance' back at Traumastar. Predictably, the bully was whimpering like a squishy...he never *could* handle anything he couldn't blow up. Suddenly, a diamond of blackness started to fold open in front of them. It grew rapidly, and then they were through it, into what seemed to be normal space! Quad quickly scanned the area. Metallic surface approximately 1500 meters below, probably Luna. And Terra.... No Terra. And this was definintely not Luna. And the figures rising to meet them weren't MACs. This could be bad. * * * * Corkscrew and Roughhouse thudded into the soft ground of Terra after being shoved back through the dimensional portal by...it looked like Spartacus, with some weird gizmo. Corkscrew stood up. "Roughhouse, you ever play one of those 'spot the mistake' games when you were a kid...oh yeah, you never were. Anyway, the idea was to compare two pictures and spot the differences. My systems tell me this is central Illinois. Can you spot the errors?" Roughhouse was in his vehicle form, and turned on his headlights to penetrate the late-spring evening gloom. "Um, I can't hear ComNet?" "That's one. Turn off those lights and look east. See that? Lights. A city of some sort. But the only squishy inhabitation in this zone is ChiPlex, and we're nowhere near him." Corkscrew flexed his arm, hit by a shot from one of those damn overpowered MiniMACs. Repairs underway, but it would be a few minutes before he could comfortably transform. "I'm picking up unscrambled radio signals across the band...hey, we're in the past! Pre-MAC Earth! And if this one doesn't have those lousy superheroes, we've got it made, Rough!" Roughhouse fired up his drivetrain. "Let's have some fun!" Corkscrew paused for a moment, thinking of his still-damaged arm, and the possibility that they might encounter resistance here too. But he was only the cautious half of this pair by a hair's width, and quickly abandoned his hesitation, transforming a bit painfully into his jet form. "Yeah, let's blow a few things up, see who comes running!" =============================================================================== CHAPTER TWO: "Reality's Gone In The Blender" Radiation hard enough to sterilize. Rain lethal to anything organic, and many things inorganic. What few landmarks existed tended to be shattered and twisted as if by the hand of a giant, playful child. The stench of death had long since been washed away, replaced by the slight musty smell of corroding metal and stone. There must once have been billions of corpses, but they had dissolved years ago. Here and there the occasional giant metal frame marked the impromptu grave of a mechanical lifeform, now its own tombstone. This was Terra. Anyone with a shred of humanity would be sickened by the sight of this ruined world. Something deep inside them would rebel at the thought of death and destruction on such a large scale. Firebrand found it rather cheery. However, he could see the potential of getting bored with it eventually. Hence, finding a way off this monument to the greatest achievement of sapient life was a very good idea. He had the plans for a dimensional gate, based on Acton Lord's devices, but lacked the parts. Not to mention, he still needed some kind of initiator...the gate device was designed to hold a portal open, and tune the dimensional frequency, but there had to be a pre-existing warp to exploit. That squishy had used his personal power to do this, but Firebrand didn't have that option. Not to mention, he didn't exactly have the time to putter about looking for alternate theories: if he was misplaced, so probably were all the other MACErs. While only a smallish force, it had represented some of the best MACE had to offer, and a large percentage of the command echelon was with them. Firebrand didn't exactly have a whole lot of loyalty to his leaders, but he had no desire to have their absence lead to a Guardian victory. He wasn't exactly well-liked by those annoying do-gooders. Under threat of mindwipe better described his relation with them. The corpses here were very apparently not MAC in nature. Aside from having different markings, these beings operated on a technological level Firebrand admitted, to his annoyance, even he couldn't fully understand. Even corroded and pitted, the simplest of their components was far more advanced than its RoboMAC equivalent. Paradoxically, they didn't seem to have fully harnessed the applications of this technology before they wiped each other out. Perhaps they were creations of some other, and didn't fully understand their own nature? Possible. They may also have evolved in a manner similar to the squishies, unaware of how they did it. RoboMACs had a tremendous advantage in knowing exactly how their inner workings functioned, down to the smallest scale, but there was also the limitation that they had no mysteries within themselves to spur further evolution. Firebrand was one of the few MACErs to feel squishies had some value, but since he felt they were fit more for experimentation than anything else, a job with the Guardians was obviously out of the question. Firebrand kicked the remains of the latest corpse, a tiny robot barely larger than a squishy. It was so corroded he couldn't tell if it had originally been red or blue, but now it was dead, so that aesthetic question didn't really matter. And it had given little help in finding the technology he needed. It showed signs of a mass-shunt gate of some sort, one totally different from the gravitywarps used by RoboMACs, but the circuits were too burnt out to yield any real information. A small trickle of glowing fluid leaked out of the crack Firebrand's foot had put in the robot's side. Intrigued, he leaned down and extended a probe from this fingertip into it. Odd, a stable solution of energy in a liquid form! A more efficient method of energy storage than any he'd encountered before, and by a factor of at least ten! Not that he lacked for energy around here...the radiation kicked up even higher neutrino levels, and with no other MACs around, he could max out his neutrino sieves. But there were some rather interesting characteristics to this fluid...such as a very strong EM signature. He should be able to use his sensor array to find any other large stores of this fluid, which would lead him to other robots. One of which might have a functional warpgate! * * * * ==14 seconds until transformation sequence possible,== hummed Shatterwing's repairdronemind as he sought cover behind some twisted metal. Spacefold had recovered full teleportation capacity, and was currently in *another* teleportation dogfight. Shatterwing called out over shielded commlink, "'Fold, be careful! That's how you got cut in half the last time! And this ain't no squishy! He's gotta know the territory better than you." He felt his integrity field shudder as another sonic boom ripped through his vicinity. Down 4%. Odd, whoever this is must think his attacks do more good than this, thought Shatterwing. The lasers had been more effective.... ==Transformation sequence available, 78% confidence level.== So, he had a one in four chance of falling apart when he transformed? T'hell with it...he'd had worse odds. Flexing a mental muscle, Shatterwing leaped into the air and folded down on himself. His wings folded out from his back as his legs locked into the solid position needed for maximum thrust from his foot-thrusters. Arms locked to his sides for better aerodynamics. His sonic cannons deployed along his wings. His foe seemed surprised at his transformation, obviously figuring that he would have done it earlier if he could. Shatterwing suppressed his persona unit and let the battledrone take over his actions, slamming several powerful sonic beams into his foe before the opposing jet veered off in an evasive maneuver. Damage seemed minimal...the opponent must have defense screens. Spacefold's voice broke in over commlink. "Hey, Shatty? What's an Autobot? Mine keeps calling me that...I tried to say I wasn't one, but he must figure since I ain't one'a him, I'm one'a *them*." Okay, thought Shatterwing. Not only aren't we on Luna, we're somewhere where the whole MACE/Guardian conflict is unknown. "I dunno, 'Fold. We'll have to ask them once they stop trying to scramble us." Dodge, fire, accelerate. Automatic combat responses taken without engaging the persona module. What was his foe calling him? He couldn't tell, with the roars of both combatants' sonic weapons filling the air. He was scoring more hits, but doing almost no real damage. His foe would only hit occasionally, but the sheer power of his weapon nearly knocked through Shatterwing's integrity fields several times. And no metal known to MAC science could withstand the kind of energy discharge that jet was putting out. Fortunately, it didn't seem to have divorced combat and persona functions, and Shatterwing surprised it several times with standard anti-ravioli tactics. Ones designed to nail humans in Robo suits. But scans showed no pilots in those jets. Odd. "'Fold, they fight like squishies! Let's see if we can get them to nail each other!" "You got it, Shatty!" A few manic maneuvers and foolhardy teleports later, Shatterwing managed to dodge out of the way of a shot and get the satisfaction of it striking Spacefold's sparring partner. For a moment he though the odds had shifted, but when the other jet recovered stability, it showed only minor damage to its fuselage. "You see dat? No WAY he got a field that coulda stopped that bolt so good!" shouted Spacefold. "He doesn't seem to have one at all, eh? Just really hopped up metal armor! I dunno how they did it, makin' metal that tough, but these guys don't have integrity fields! And you know what *that* means, right?" A vicious grin spread over Shatterwing's face, concealed as it was within his jet form. Spacefold replied, a laugh in his voice, "ROCK AND ROLL!" In unison, the two MACErs dropped to the ground and transformed to robotic form. Their foes, while staying in mid-air, followed suit and transformed into robots that looked like they could be brothers. "So," sneered the light blue one, "You Autobots gonna surrender, or do Skywarp and I have to get nasty?" The purple one, Skywarp, laughed and said, "Not like it makes a difference, Thundercracker. Their weapons couldn't hurt a Cybertronian Silica Gnat!" Spacefold and Shatterwing looked at each other, then at Skywarp and Thundercracker. Saying nothing, they initiated an old favorite tactic of theirs, one which they hadn't used in decades. The invention of limited defensive screens made it largely useless against MACs, but against anything defended by mere matter it was devastating. The first thing that was apparent was a horrible screeching sound. The Decepticons covered their audio sensors with their hands, and one shouted over the din, "This guy's nicking Frenzy's act!" Then the sickening rolling sensation kicked in as the very fabric of space started to ripple, ever so slightly, under the pounding pressure of Spacefold's gravitywarp generators. Normally used for flight and teleportation, they could also send out ripples on the pond of spacetime. The integrity fields on any RoboMAC could easily ignore these waves with their own gravity warps, but again, against mere matter they were like the pounding surf. Skywarp was the first to realize something was terribly wrong, and tried to teleport away. But his teleportation was really more akin to lightspeed transport, and his navigation was totally thrown off by the ripples in space. He materialized only a few lengths away and crashed to the ground. The sonics had started to resonate with the Decepticon's armor, and flakes of it started to rain down like dandruff. Thundercracker tried to fire on the MACE pair, but he was too disoriented to shoot straight. The kick from his own blaster knocked him over. One fact of Cybertronian geology had been overlooked by the MACErs, or perhaps never figured out. The planet was really like an onion, hundreds of shells built up on a small rocky core. Even as the hardened armor of the Decepticons was starting to give way, the much thicker, but less-hard surface finally decided it had taken all it could. Weakened by the initial sonics, it finally powdered under the relentless tidal effects of Spacefold's gravity generator, opening up a pit hundreds of meters across into which the MACErs fell. Barely still alive, the Decepticons made good their retreat while they could. Deep in the pit, Shatterwing dug his way out of the metallic dust which had fallen with him. He then extended a helping hand to Spacefold and got him clear. Then they high fived. "We BAD!" * * * * The massive robot leaned against the wall of the canyon. It was larger than anything intact which Firebrand had seen here, although nothing to touch the CityMACs. It had no face, merely a plate where one would be on a more anthropomorphic robot. One of its giant, clawed arms lay in the dust meters away, the twisted edges indicating it had been torn off by a drill of some sort. Six smaller robots lay scattered about, stomped flat. No doubt by this slumbering giant. Several resembled members of the Destruction Team...perhaps they had been the local reality's analogue of that group? In any case, they were far too damaged to get anything from. A great deal of energy remained in the hulking frame of the victor, enough for Firebrand to be doubly wary of scavenging it for parts. Instead, he hung back and made scans of this giant, hoping to find if it would be worth the effort. Very quickly he determined that this robot was an older model than most he had encountered. Tremendously powerful, to be sure, but less advanced. And no real warpsystems. A pity...aha! At the edge of his scans, what looked like a small ramparts. A ring of metal at the end of a buckled and corroded metal strip. It had the taint of age and corrosion on it, to be sure, but apparently had been protected from the worst ravages of the past decade or so. It almost seemed to be in working order. Carefully, he approached what appeared to be control panels. As he'd feared, the slumbering giant stirred. For a nanosecond, he started to initiate defensive systems, until he noticed the rate of energy expenditure in his potential foe. Even with its massive reserves...massive compared to the kind of energy most MACs had to keep...it was burning it at such a rate that it could barely get into a standing position from where it was, much less mount an attack. And it didn't seem to even be trying to stand. What it *did* do was emit a burst of gibberish on communication frequencies, then wait. Putting a subprogram on the task of deciphering the gibberish, Firebrand continued to approach the control panel. When he was about to reach it, the behemoth spoke again, this time in English. "Halt...you are...not...one of us. Go...no...fur...ther...." Firebrand stepped up to the controls and started to open them, jauntily replying, "So, how'd you guess that? Brain the size of your head, or something, big guy?" "You...speak not...Cybertronian. Yet...you speak...Terran. How...can... this be? No Terrans survive...to create you." Continuing to tinker, Firebrand said, "Oh, I wish. I'm not from around here, bunky. And this thingy here, whatever it is...." "Space...Bridge. I...guard it. Stop...leave." "This Space Bridge, as you say, is my ticket out of here. If I stop, I can't leave, right? Besides," he paused to gesture at the landscape, "It doesn't really look like anyone else has a use for it right now, does it?" "NO! Must...stop...you...!" The giant guardian lifted one massive arm and trained an equally massive cannon on Firebrand. The muzzle started to glow, but Firebrand smirked as the glow died down. "I...failed.... Omega... is...no...more.... Primus...for...give...me...." The arm crashed down again as all light left the faceplate of this Omega character. Energy readings were at zero. Firebrand snickered, "Some people are just too job-driven for their own good," and continued his tinkering. ========================================================================== Chapter Three: "Opposites React" For the third time that minirev, Onslaught was distracted from his tactical simulations to deal with some crisis or another. The first time had been to reign in Brawl, who had been baited into a fight with Frenzy. Fortunately for Frenzy, Onslaught had arrived just before Brawl drew a bead on the annoying little member of Soundwave's brood. He certainly could sympathize with his subordinate...no real action for revs, Frenzy's practiced taunts...but still and all, discipline was a vital part of any team. Brawl simply needed to learn to cope with these long lulls in the action. Onslaught coped by running his simulations. Vortex and Blast-Off honed their flight skills. Swindle... well, Swindle's way of coping had been the cause of the second interruption. He'd apparently had the bad judgment to try and cheat Tantrum out of some energon on a deal. Why Swindle was dealing with the Predacon in the first place was beyond Onslaught. But the fool should have at least predicted the reaction of someone named "Tantrum" to being cheated. Just because the Preds were animalistic didn't mean they were totally stupid. Swindle had managed to climb halfway up the main tower of Vilnacron before Onslaught had arrived with Rampage to separate the two. Hopefully this latest disturbance wouldn't be his team's fault. And if it meant real combat, that would help cut down on the trouble later on. Disconnecting himself from the SimNet, Onslaught transformed into his Terran vehicle mode to make better time to the surface, where the sensors told him the problem was. More data came in. An unauthorized activation of the Space Bridge! And it didn't seem to have a source point...just an endpoint. <> commanded the Combaticon leader into his intercomm. Anyone capable of jumping on to a Space Bridge without leaving an origin trace certainly would have some advanced technology...the question was, was that technology also suited to combat? Onslaught frowned mentally...he disliked so many unknown variable in his battle plans. He selected defense deployment nu-rho-theta to meet the incoming intruders and sent the commands out. It was now approximately twelve Terran seconds since the alert had first sounded. Introspection and decisionmaking don't take very long for a robot geared toward combat, after all. Swindle finally responded that he was moving into position, once again being the last to break off his off-duty activities. Twenty seconds. Onslaught was just emerging onto the surface, and the space bridge had irised completely open, a purplish diamond hanging in the sky above Vilnacron. Ransack, Powerdive, Blast-Off and Vortex were arrowing up to their assigned positions ringing the gateway. Brawl had locked his treads and cycled into antiaircraft Calliope mode, ready to fire several dozen bursts of flak on command. Swindle was still moving into position, but his cannon was autotracking the Bridge opening as he moved. Onslaught trained his sensors on the gate, trying to get an estimate of the arriving force early enough to modify tactics. Several hazy forms became visible, a fraction of a second before they would leave the light beam. Their size and number suggested a threat at least equal to the forces Onslaught had arrayed on the field. Rapidly, he shifted to robot form, so as to expedite merging if necessary. In the tenths of a second he had left, he shifted his focus back to the gateway. The forces had dwindled to a mere dozen! Either they were merging to gestalt form in the light beam, an impossible task, or more likely they were being lost to the interdimensional void. What exited was an even smaller force, a mere two vehicles. However, each was quite large, and could conceivably carry many inside. One bore a passing resemblance to Astrotrain, the other was a giant sphere split down the middle. <> commanded Onslaught, aiming his rifle for the center of the spherical one. * * The last of the drones disappeared as they left the bizarre tunnel. Immediately Quad was greeted by the sight of odd vehicles flying up to attack. Two helicopters, a smaller space vehicle similar to his current mode and a propeller driven plane? Below him was an immense fortress on a planet that at first seemed to be Luna. But he'd never seen that fortress, and he could immediately tell there was an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere on this planet. Suddenly his musing was cut short, as energy bolts lanced out toward him and Traumastar. He narrowly evaded an intense air vortex while Traumastar survived a direct hit on his midsection. Well, they're certainly not friendly, and this isn't the afterlife. But if these new robots have their way, Quad would certainly get to experience it for real, and soon. "BallistiMACs, get out! We have bogeys!" shouted Quad over his interior speakers as he opened the bay door in his belly. Snidewinder, Silkwyrm and Traumahawk assumed their animal forms and quickly exited, followed closely by Hateriot and PolEris in Robo forms. Quad quickly shut the bay just before the propellor from that airplane struck him in the belly with a mighty explosion. It nearly breached his integrity fields, and it wasn't even tuned! Damn, Quad thought, if they get our frequency, we're toast. "Guys, they're detuned... I'm running sensors on them to figure out what their freak is, but until then, detune yourselves for max power," Quad said. No one of their group was really qualified for leadership, but as the most versatile, the task fell on him. 'Star had been trying to retreat into the closed passage after his first few blasts had no effect on his tormentor. Now, however, he stopped wasting energy trying to disrupt his foe's integrity field and let loose with a raw blast of power. * * These unknown robots had opened with a rather ineffective volley, and despite their now equal numbers, Onslaught felt confident that a standard delta-chi-beta strategy could capture them with minimal damage to his forces, and leave at least one alive for questioning. Even the largest didn't seem very well armed, and Onslaught had actually shrugged off what appeared to be the sphere's best shot. Bracketing it with his own shots, he forced it back into Blast-Off's line of fire. Then his sensors screamed a warning: the energy character of his foe's attack had just shifted. The incoming blast was an unknown quantity. Avoid! Onslaught abandoned his bracketing maneuver and dove to the side just before the section of ground he had been standing on was totally vaporized by the searing blast from between the two hemispheres of his foe. Resonance told him that the hole extended down approximately five levels! Whoever this was, it had been toying with him, baiting him into a trap. And like an Autobot, he fell for it! DAMN! Ransack was in a tailspin, caught by surprise by an unexpectedly powerful blast from the shuttlecraft. <> His Combaticons broke off from their fights and arrowed towards him as he leaped into the air. Ransack had recovered and was firing rotors to block pursuit, while Powerdive actually scored some hull damage on the giant sphere. <> * * The other robots were breaking off for some reason. Perhaps they didn't expect so much firepower after the initial pitiful volley of tuned bolts. Odd, sensors couldn't pick up any integrity field on these robots...wait, five of them are coming together. Quad instantly recognized the maneuver, as did his BallistiMAC teammates, who silently initiated their own. Gestalts. Whoever these robots were, they had Gestalt technology as well. Aha! Now the integrity fields come on. They must only use them in Gestalts. They certainly don't use them regularly...this one had a laughably easy frequency to crack. Even someone who wasn't a multitalented genius like Quad could do it. "Guys, this joker's using a static field frequency of 132435.8 cycles!" sneered Quad into the commlink. "WE NOTICED," boomed the oddly discordant groupvoice of Emmexor. "THIS WILL BE LIKE STOMPING SQUISHIES." "Hey, I've got some odd readings...a power surge belowground," said Traumastar, still a little shaken. "Some kind of reinforcements?" "Probably," agreed Quad. "Get down to ground level and be ready for fight or flight," he commanded, knowing full well what Traumastar would do if the reinforcements seemed too tough. Emmexor's wings (courtesy of Silkwyrm and Traumahawk) spread wide to focus a gravity pulse at the frequency of the enemy Gestalt's integrity field. They flared redly just as Emmexor's fist met the arm raised to block it. The arm was torn off with a mechanical scream. Twin cannons popped out of the enemy's shoulders and punctured Emmexor's wings, putting an end to the gravity pulse. The two stepped apart for a moment, to evaluate their positions.... * * Onslaught felt the pain as Vortex was torn away from Bruticus. This stranger had found a way to nullify the fusilateral bonding field. Thinking quickly, he overrode Brawl's weapons control and fired secondary weapons at the wings of his foe. The bonding field regained normal levels. Vortex had transformed into robot mode and was laying on the ground, in obvious pain. If the enemy fired on him, he'd be dead. And with him gone, the Gestalt mindmerge was incomplete...they were no longer one mind. Confusion reigned for a nanorev, then Onslaught commanded them to step back and regroup. He needed an opening to recombine.... He got it. Trypticon had apparently lacked the patience to actually leave Vilnacron by a door, and made his own. The giant green dinosauroid Decepticon roared as it burst through the ground right next to the enemy Gestalt. <> he shouted mentally. Bruticus fell apart into the remaining four Combaticons, who grabbed Vortex and dashed for cover as Trypticon tore into the stranger, tearing one wing completely off before the wings were furled into protective sheaths. Energy cost be damned, these interlopers would not beat him! * * Oh damn, thought Quad as he sparred with the remaining enemy fliers. That thing must be the reinforcements 'Star sensed. A FortressMAC, Stadium-class easily. The other Gestalt had broken up, but even if they stayed out of it, this monster alone could probably trash them all. "Emmexor! How are you on energy?" FortressMACs had this rather annoying tendency to overstrain the neutrino resources of their locale, depowering other foes and making them even stronger by comparison. "WE ARE BUSY, QUAD," spoke the groupvoice. "BUT ENERGY IS NOT A PROBLEM. THIS FORTRESS MUST BE OPERATING ON BATTERIES, WE DETECT NO DROP IN NEUTRINO POPULATION. TRAUMASTAR, GET YOUR COWARDLY CARCASS OVER HERE AND GIVE US A HAND," finished Emmexor. Traumastar slowly started moving toward the active conflict, but wasn't stingy with his powerbolts. Golden solar blasts rained down on the green and purple monstrosity, actually getting its attention. Not exactly what the bully MACEr wanted, and he certainly didn't want the twin beams of devastation that lanced out from the monster's mouth and punched right through him. "AAAAGGGH!" he screamed as injuries forced him to assume Robo form or fall. Traumastar seemed on the verge of retreat. Emmexor was taking heavy damage from the Fortress. Quad wasn't able to get out of his fix long enough to be a real help. And the enemy gestalt seemed to be regrouping. Things looked really bad. Then a voice began to hiss and crackle over ComNet frequencies, a voice Quad hated, but right now he could hardly have been more pleased to hear it. Firebrand. "...dimensional gate...ening in three sec...ove you. I can on...ld it open for a few sec...e fast!" Quad sounded the retreat. "Everyone, make for the sky! Firebrand's getting us out!" Traumastar shot upward like a balloon with cut strings, using emergency agrav systems. Emmexor split apart, squirming individually out of their foe's powerful grasp. Snidewinder commented, "Firebrand's helping us? Maybe we're better off with Barney's big brother there." The sky tore open again, this time not in an orderly diamond shape, but like a rip in space. It had the same purple glow of the previous portal, but quivered like a squishy at gunpoint. Below, several volleys of energy shot past them, but miraculously none hit. Seconds later, everything went white.