Author's note: Those of you in the BGC newsgroup, or newcomers to Transformers fanfic, probably aren't familiar with my earlier "Stranded" story, to which this is a sequel. It doesn't really matter, or at least I hope it doesn't matter--I'm trying to write this story with enough exposition that newcomers can follow it. The premise of the original "Stranded" was that, after a spacebridge accident, four Autobots and a Decepticon found themselves in a world that was not their own, and had to work together to get the necessary equipment together to transport them back to their own world (or so they hoped). If you'd like to read it, you can find it in my webspace, at: Feedback is always appreciated. It might lead to the next episode of this story getting written sooner. :) For those of you who might not know, Nightracer was the 1995 BotCon Transformers convention exclusive figure, designed and written by Raksha. The toy is a Gen2-Bumblebee (Pontiac Firebird version) recolor--black auto body with blue highlights, silver engine & windows, yellow (though it was _supposed_ to be blue) gun and underbelly. TRANSFORMERS GENERATION 2 and BUBBLEGUM CRISIS STRANDED II: TRANSFORMATION IN MEGATOKYO Part One: Arrival By Christopher E. Meadows The city was a giant conglomeration of steel and concrete, with great artificial edifices and promontories jutting their way into the dark sky. Smooth, sleek vehicles of different shapes and sizes hustled and bustled back and forth on the roads and highways and tramways and subways that connected one part of the vast metropolis to another. Other vehicles plied the skies, rotors and hoverthrusters making whirring sounds, blinking lights signalling their positions. The vastness of the city made it seem almost like some great living thing, breathing quietly, murmuring in its sleep with the voice of the wind softly moaning among and through the buildings and streets. On a stretch of elevated highway devoid of life signs, with the only illumination provided by half a dozen flickering street lights that had clearly seen better days, space folded and twisted in on itself, then split apart, disgorging five humanoid figures. With a ripple, space righted itself, leaving the five to get slowly to their feet and look around. These five figures were not ordinary human beings, of the sort who, barring a complete lack of expectation of such an event altogether, might have been expected to emerge from a space-time distortion. These figures were approximately three to four times taller than the average human, metallic, and with features bearing a close resemblance to parts of human automobiles. The first on her feet was Nightracer, a slim, sleek, black and dark blue robot whose facial features were largely obscured by a grey faceplate. She looked around, and her optics narrowed. Rapido, a heavily-built red street machine, stood next. He glanced around, then busied himself with helping the rest of his comrades up. Turbofire, a stalwart turquoise-green pickup, Skram, the blue Corvette with hot-pink highlights, and Windbreaker, an orange and blue Camaro with an unfortunate name, stood and looked around. "Where _are_ we?" Skram muttered. "It looks like...Cybertron," Windbreaker gasped. "Are we home?" "If so, it's no section of Cybertron _I've_ ever visited," Rapido said. "Can you get anything on Decepticon comlink frequencies or the resistance channels?" Nightracer stepped a bit farther back from the group, pulling a blaster rifle into her hands. "It looks very much like we're home," she said. "_My_ home. Since Cybertron is Decepticon territory, I'm afraid that makes you all my prisoners." Skram's jaw dropped. "You--you can't be serious. After all we've been through together--?" Nightracer shrugged. "It's too bad, but we can't let our personal loyalties be swayed by emotional attachments formed under duress, now can we? Oh, wait, you're Autobots, of course _you'd_ say yes." She opened her commpanel. "Nightracer to Decepticon central headquarters. Please respond." "You won't get a response to that," Windbreaker said. "I've just been trying all frequencies myself. No matter what it looks like, this isn't Cybertron." Rapido turned to Windbreaker, seemingly ignoring Nightracer. "Then where?' Windbreaker toggled his commpanel output to external speakers. A female voice was heard, speaking in a rapid stream of hard-edged syllables, followed by some music. "Is that a human language?" Turbofire asked. "I can't make any sense out of it." "Sounds like...Japanese, wouldn't you say, boss?" Skram asked Rapido. Rapido nodded. "That would be my guess. Do we all have Japanese translation matrices? I'd hate to have to learn the language the Junkion way." "They were standard-issue with Jazz's Earth cultures class," Skram said. "I think we all went through that, right?" "Don't think she did." Turbofire jerked his thumb at the by now largely ignored Nightracer, whose gun was steadily beginning to lower in confusion. "Don't worry on _my_ account, Autobot," Nightracer snarled. "I have datatracks for operation in all major Terran nations." In the distance, sirens could barely be heard. "So, what's the plan, boss?" Skram asked. "Set up a base of operations, try to forage for spacebridge parts?" Rapido nodded. "Perhaps contact local authorities, if it seems likely they would help us." The sirens grew steadily louder. "Right," Windbreaker said. "They might be just as down on giant robots as some of the politicos back Earthside--our own Earth, I mean." "And what makes you think that Earth _is_ yours?" Nightracer asked archly. The Autobots ignored her. "Windbreaker, start monitoring as many frequencies as you can pay attention to, gather whatever information you can. Right now, I think we'd better--" Rapido broke off as the sirens grew loud enough to warrant his attention, and turned to face whatever was coming. He hardly had time to lower his sensor visor before a silver wedge-shaped vehicle streaked past with a high-pitched whine of turbines, narrowly passing between himself and Nightracer. Three similarly sleek vehicles bearing police markings followed a few hundred meters behind. "What in Primus's name...?" "...in the hell is that?!" Daley Wong yelled, barely making himself heard over the roar of the Road Chaser's engine as it raced full-out. "Looks like some sort of battlemovers," Daley's partner, A.D. Police Inspector Leon McNichol, replied. "Shit, it led us right into a trap!" "Damn, I wish Genom would let us _know_ when they come up with new crap like this," Daley opined, grabbing for handles on the seat and side of the car as Leon applied the brakes. "Whoa!" The Road Chaser passed right between two of the giant robots before skidding to a halt, slewing around in the road to face back the way it had come. The other interceptors weren't going quite as fast, and they managed to stop with a hundred yards or so to spare. Leon opened the cockpit of the high-speed custom interceptor and stepped partway out, putting one leg on the ground and gripping the side of the canopy with his left hand. "Funny...something about this just seems wrong somehow. I'd swear those aren't Genom designs..." Daley grabbed the radio mic from the dashboard. "This is Unit 1! Urgent! Get those reinforcements in here _now_!" As the police cars skidded to a halt all around them, Nightracer's first thought was that they were under attack. She instinctively threw her rifle to her shoulder and sighted on one of the two cars that had not yet passed them. "Nightracer, wait!" Rapido yelled. "They might be frien--" As four microhelicoptors rose up from below the elevated highway, and two suits of humanoid powered armor dropped out of the sky, Nightracer's doubts receded, and when one of the choppers opened fire on her with a gatling gun, they vanished altogether. Nightracer tucked and rolled out of the way and returned fire with her blaster rifle, knocking the offending helicoptor from the sky. "Slag!" Rapido swore. "If they were friendly before, they won't be now. Retreat!" "You cowards! Stay and fight!" Nightracer yelled, knocking down another minichopper and blowing up one of the interceptors. "Skram, Turbofire, get clear and wait for us!" Rapido ordered. "Windbreaker, cover me, but don't hurt the humans!" Skram and Turbofire transformed and raced away, past two rather startled human officers in the police car that had stopped beyond them. Windbreaker pulled out his cannon pod. "What're you--" "I'm gonna stop Nightracer before she kills anyone else!" Rapido ran toward the Decepticon while Windbreaker fired in the general direction of the remaining helicoptors, trying to keep them too busy dodging to get off any clean shots. Nightracer fired shot after shot at one of the armor suits, wearing away its defenses. "Hold still, you..." Then she sensed movement out of the corner of her eye, and turned slightly. As Rapido tried to tackle her, she turned the motion into a mechajitsu throw that landed Rapido squarely on his back on top of the remaining A.D. Police interceptor (whose crew had, fortunately for them, already deserted it). "Rapido!" Windbreaker gasped, then a sharp pain in his back and left leg told him he had problems of his own. In concentrating on distracting the helicoptors, he had entirely forgotten the other suit of power armor. Windbreaker turned, fired a burst at it, and then was caught from two directions by the helicoptors' gatling guns. The bullets chewed away at his armor plating, then at circuitry beneath, and several of Windbreaker's systems sparked and went off-line. "Windbreaker, retreat! I'll cover you!" Rapido ordered, getting to his feet. "Nightracer, if you--" But Nightracer had vanished, leaving a fallen suit of armor as a remembrance. "Windbreaker, go!" Rapido pulled out his double-barrelled engine gun and fired dual beams at the pavement beneath the remaining suit's feet, pitting the concrete and knocking it to its back. "Right!" Windbreaker shifted to auto mode and ran for it, leaking fluids from a few bulletholes on his underbody. But fate had one last card to play, in the form of Inspector Leon McNichol, who stepped out from behind the car with a fairly large rifle in his hands. He aimed and fired, and Windbreaker's left front wheel exploded, sending the Camaro into a spinning skid. Before he could stop, Windbreaker smashed through the safety railing and went over the edge. "Windbreaker!" Rapido yelled. Then, as the helicoptors and armor suit started turning their attention his way, he reluctantly shifted to automobile form himself, racing away after Skram and Turbofire. As McNichol sighted his rifle again, Rapido fired a headlight laser, not at him but at the rear tire of his vehicle. It blew out with a loud BANG!, causing his shot to go wild. By the time he could fire again, Rapido had gotten away. "Well, shit," Leon muttered, throwing down his "Stomach" railgun cannon in disgust. "What're we gonna tell the boss?" Daley surveyed the still-burning cars, knocked over suits of armor, mangled safety railing, and other signs of destruction, and shook his head. "Maybe we should take a looooong vacation, huh pard?" "One thing's for sure," Leon growled. "That baka who opened fire without orders had damn well better hope he died in the crash." Another explosion in the city somewhere behind them punctuated Leon's remark. Megatokyo. Home of more Boomers than the entire rest of the civilized world combined--or at least it seemed that way sometimes. And Miriam...Miriam was in charge of selling them--at least, part of the time. For some reason, many of the businessmen who came covertly to Genom for their military hardware wanted to speak to one of the scientists who had developed it. Perhaps it helped them feel they were receiving more for their money that way. Regardless, it was very annoying, and it took him away from his true love--research and development. Not that he could really complain, of course--even with the sales duties added, this was a substantial promotion from what he had been doing back in Ebisu, and it certainly beat the Megatokyo prison he had inhabited for several months after that before the Genom lawyers could finally free him. He had at least risen to where a man of his talents deserved to be, and all because of the publicity afforded him when he had taken over the A.D. Police building for a brief time and nearly destroyed the Knight Sabers. Who said that crime did not pay? "Do you like what you see, Mr. van der Haask?" Dr. Miriam Yoshida asked the suit-clad businessman standing beside him in the control booth. On the big-screen monitors, several of Genom's newest battle Boomers zoomed down a Megatokyo street, wreaking havoc and destroying everything in sight. "Most assuredly, Dr. Yoshida," van der Haask responded in careful English. "I believe my country would like to place a substantial order." Just then, a labcoat-clad technician stepped in from the next control booth over, and gestured for Dr. Yoshida's attention. Miriam politely excused himself and walked into the other room--a very similar control booth to the one from which he had just come, save that this one showed pictures of a gleaming silver car--and something else. "Yes, what is it?" "Sir, we were operating the Griffin as ordered, when we caught something on the onboard camera." The technician gestured to another screen. "We accessed the satellite tracking network and...here, I'll show you what we found." "Very well..." Miriam waited patiently, crossing his arms and tapping his fingers on his shoulders in a gesture of annoyance. The gesture soon stopped when a view from above of five unfamiliar humanoid robots appeared. Miriam blinked. "Whose...?" "We don't know, sir. We can't get a pattern match with any known manufacturer or model...they're obviously battlemovers of some kind, but we can't guess at their origin." "Look at how they _move_, though," Yoshida murmured, watching the battle play out on the screen. "Even the D.D. is clumsy by comparison." "Yessir...but look what happens now." The technician pointed as the blue and green robots changed into vehicles. "Astounding," Miriam murmured. "I--er, Genom must have them. Were you able to track them?" "No, sir...we lost them in the metro area," the technician reported. "The orange one crashed under the elevated highways and we can't see it, but we have sent a retrieval unit out." "Excellent," Miriam mused, steepling his fingers. "Transmit the images to our Boomers, have them keep an eye out. If any of those battlemovers are found...I want to know about it at once." The two armor-suited figures touched down lightly on small tongues of flame near where the orange Camaro had smashed through the roof of a locked warehouse building. A quick laser blast was sufficient to cut the lock open, and the two operatives moved in. The light-blue-suited figure stood straight and aloof as the one in dark blue and pink cleared a tumble of boxes off of the car. "I don't believe this!" she reported. "It fell fifty feet, through a concrete roof, and it's barely even dented! There's some damage from cannon shells, of course, but that's to be expected. The windshield's cracked, but the frame's not bent at all." The other nodded. "Good construction. Can you move it?" Her voice was also female. "Hmm...hold on, let me see...the damage doesn't seem too bad from the outside...except that wheel's been blown clean off." She moved around to the driver's side, and tried the door. It opened, and she slid onto the seat. "Whoa...look at this dashboard display. I'm going to have some fun puzzling this out." "Can you move it, Nene?" the other repeated coolly, but with a touch more emphasis. "We need to leave before Genom or the AD Police arrive." "Not with that busted wheel I can't...better get Mackie to bring the truck around." Sylia Stingray nodded, moving back out to the warehouse entrance to signal to the eighteen-wheel truck waiting up the street. She dropped back to the shadows near the warehouse entrance, keeping a watchful eye out for signs of trouble. In Windbreaker's driver seat, Nene shoved the outer faceplate of her helmet back and looked with some puzzlement at the array of display screens and touchpads that made up the dashboard of this otherwise ordinary-looking late-20th-century car. Not that display screens and touchpads on antique-seeming cars were an oddity; the recent wave of twentieth-century nostalgia had endowed some very retro vehicle designs with the latest in modern electronics and gasohol engines. Even Sylia's small collection of genuine antique autos had been mostly retrofitted with modern electronics--ruining the antique value, but Sylia preferred functionality to aesthetics. What was unusual about these displays was that they were displaying in no earthly language Nene had ever seen. Already she was itching to patch in her neural net computer and try the translation- decryption algorhythms she'd written...but there would be time for that later. Sliding her helmet shut again, Nene reluctantly slid back out of the car to help Mackie and Sylia load it into the truck. She would have her chance soon enough; as the premier computer hacker of the Knight Sabers, it fell to her to delve deep into this strange new battlemover's OS and find out just who had manufactured it. It was already looking like it would be quite a puzzle--which suited Nene just fine. If there was one thing she liked, it was a challenge. Well, actually if there was _one_ thing she liked, it was chocolate cake, but a challenge was a close second. Nightracer moved quietly through the city streets, the lighted buildings and concourses of Tinsel City reflected in her mirrored windshield surfaces and the chrome of her motor. She scanned around her, taking in her surroundings and analyzing them for tactical implications on one level, while on another, her mind reeled as the shock of the last few hours began to catch up with her. This city looked like nothing she had ever seen on Earth; the architectural style was too vast, too complicated, too...different. They had missed again. It was typical, so typical of Autobot incompetance--the spacebridge that had been supposed to send them home...had not. Furthermore, it had not even come with them--so even if they had some clue how to return to their own world, what mechanism would they use to do so? As if that were not bad enough, the world they found themselves in now seemed to be hostile toward their kind--and was properly equipped militarily to deal with them. As she drove aimlessly along the city streets, watching the people scurry back and forth like insects in a giant colony, Nightracer felt more lost than she had ever been in her entire existence. All her friends, her superior officers, her subordinates...would she ever see them again? Where were they, what were they doing now? Had she been missed yet? Was someone even now clearing out her quarters so that some other Decepticon could be moved in? This last thought was simply too much. Nightracer forced them all from her mind, taking a firmer grip on herself. Such panic did not do credit to a Decepticon, and it would certainly not improve her situation. For the first time since they had arrived, Nightracer began to consider what course of action might lead to the best chance of survival and even self-improvement. She would need a steady supply of repair parts, of course, and new slug-throwing weapons, unless she could find someone who could machine shells to her specifications. At least she would not have to worry about Energon; she was equipped with the same catalytic converter system as most other Autobots and Decepticons assigned to Earth duty. A good source of high-voltage electricity, or even petrochemicals in a pinch, would do her just fine. And those would be found in plenitude in this place, if the other human metropolitan areas she had observed were any example. But even before all that, the first thing Nightracer needed was information. She turned on her radio receiver and dug deep into her memory banks for the Japanese translation protocols Soundwave had given her so long ago...there. She loaded them, and the twittering gibberish on the FM wavelengths resolved into speech she could understand. Nightracer mentally nodded as she scanned the bands. Radio broadcasts and newspapers would do for starters, but for the longer term, she would need access to a computer network, perhaps a library. As Nightracer turned up a street, a blonde woman standing atop a nearby rooftop grinned slightly, eyes glowing red. A quick pattern-match with the burst-transmitted data confirmed that the vehicle had been ordered to seek had just passed her location. The woman turned toward the giant pyramidal edifice that dominated the eastern horizon, and those eyes flickered more red as twin beams of coherent light were exchanged through the smoggy air. When the transmissions ceased, the woman turned and walked toward the stairs. Her orders were to follow and observe--the reinforcements that Genom was sending would do the rest. TO BE CONTINUED AUTHOR'S NOTES: Well, a new chapter in the "Stranded" saga begins, and once again I get to put my own unique spin on two different universes. The original rationale behind "Stranded" was that I wanted to write a "straight" crossover story, between Transformers and some other animated show, to respond to the perpetual fandom question of "who'd win?" I decided to keep it to a smaller scale, with just a few characters from either side, as those stories are the most interesting, and it is oh so hard to write for a large cast of characters (as I imagine the writers of the original Transformers TV show & comic book found out). As I said in the author's notes for the original "Stranded," I chose the Transformers Generation II "Autobot Cars" (aka Axelerators) because I think they're interesting characters who never got a chance to appear in any "official" Transformers publication, as there was never a G2 cartoon and the comic book folded too quickly. Nightracer, who has appeared in a couple of other fanfics of note, I chose because I like the character, and her creator, and hope to do them both credit. (I also enjoy the challenge of making a "bad guy" sympathetic while still keeping her true to herself and her own motives.) I chose Bubble Gum Crisis for this iteration because I've always liked its cast of characters and its mecha and, thanks to the BGC RPG from R. Talsorian, I finally have the reference material I need to try my hand at a BGC 'fic. I drew elements from a couple of my favorite BGC episodes (most notably #4 & #8), and also owe a good deal to the "Bubblegum Crisis DYNs" that someone posted to alt.fan.bgcrisis a good while back for pointing out various errors and contradictions in BGC which enhanced my enjoyment and got me thinking about a few things. Anyway, the action will heat up a bit in the next episode, and a few things should become a bit clearer. I hope that if you liked this story, you'll give me enough feedback to convince me to write the next episode. :) "Stranded II" is copyright 1997 by Christopher E. Meadows. Permission granted for free electronic distribution via Usenet and associated archival, as long as no fee is charged and this notice remains intact. For further permissions, such as inclusion in "Con-Quest" or on an archival webpage, please contact the author, he would likely be more than happy to oblige. :) The Transformers, Rapido, Windbreaker, Turbofire, and Skram are registered trademarks of Hasbro and Takara, and Nightracer is a trademark of Raksha and Plumed Serpent Productions. Their unauthorized use here is not for profit, and not meant to infringe upon those trademarks. This is _not_ an official Hasbro-endorsed story, please don't think I'm trying to pass it off as one. (There, that should make the Hasbro lawyers happy. :) Bubblegum Crisis and A.D. Police are copyright 1987-1990 by Artmic, Inc. and Youmex, Inc. The Knight Sabres, Leon McNichol, and other associated trademarks are also their property. Their unauthorized use here is not for profit, and not meant to infringe upon those trademarks. This is _not_ an official Artmic/Youmex-endorsed story, please don't think I'm trying to pass it off as one. (And that should make the Japanese lawyers happy too! :)