SEEDS of Transformation -Transformers/ Gundam SEED fic

[Sidewinder]

So THAT'S who Azrael was referring to when he mentioned "guests" with bombs implanted in their heads. (I thought LOGOS managed to capture an Autobot, without the others learning of this.) By the way, should I expect a Decepticon-Dalek showdown in a later chapter?

[Fanboyimus Prime]

Nemesis Prime stared at his new followers in the ruins of the old US Army base. He hoped the one with the equipment on his back would gain a better alt mode then wearing his back pack like it was a novelty over-sized hat.

The trio then screamed and acted like they were going through a detox program from hell.

"Hmm," Nemesis Prime said remembering something from his past life as Rau Le Creuset. "You're the batch that was drug enhanced."

The massive (to a normal Transformer) Gundams finished sparking with purple lightning. Their optics turned blood red.

"You will be my Riders of War," Nemesis Prime declared. "Our first act will be to commander a ship. We have something that must be gathered."

"And what would that be?" one of the former Calamity Gundam asked.

"Why, the lifeforce of our god that was treacherously spread across the universe due to the actions of Optimus Prime," Nemesis Prime stated as his eyes glowed brighter. "Once our lord regains his power he will be able to make all be one with him."

Through controls on their minds or not thinking about it, the four didn't consider if Unicron was beaten at full power if regaining would change things at all. That he had been beaten once by the Matrix Bearer, and that Optimus Prime could do that again.

What they know was that Autobot Island or the new Auto Dock was their best bet for to find a ship their size.

V-V-V

Great Shot was surprised when he came back on line. He thought that Whirl had killed him. Standing over him was the infamous Autobot doctor Ratchet. Relief filled the six changer. He could trust the Autobots to not put bombs or trackers any of that slag in him. And at this point he was very tempted to ask to join the Autobots. At least he won't be used for cannon folder like Galvatron and those humans used him.

And Grimlock would have just killed him and got it over with. Still it was best to know what they intended to do with him. Even if it was to ship him off to one of their prisons.

"Why?" Greatshot asked in a confused tone.

"Because we need to know what is going on," Prowl stated standing in the corner of the medical bay. The logical Autobot was out of the way exuded patience. Then again he was rumored to have had to deal with Grimlock every so often, so one learned how to deal with things or went crazy.

"A bunch of humans found us after we ended up crashing to this planet,"Great Shot snarled. "They wanted to know how we ticked and rebuilt us with bombs and tracking devices in our heads. They also gave us Decepticon symbols, which of course the real Decepticons didn't take too well."

Prowl looked at Ratchet. The medic held up a green sphere that smelled of smoke.

"I did recover a fried tracker and the arming device of his bomb disabled by Whirl's null ray," Ratchet said in a firm tone. "It was of Earth manufacture."

The last thing Great Shot expected was to hear an Autobot had a null ray. That was Starscream's signature weapon. And the Wrecker was known for various things but that wasn't one of them. And what he was hit with definitely wasn't an EMP shotgun.

"It's a module for his blaster he didn't remember until recently," Prowl said answering Great Shot's unasked question.

"As interesting as that is," Great Shot remarked. "The thing I wonder is what you're going to do with me."

"Optimus is speaking with the President of the Atlantic Federation," Prowl stated. "It seems they're very interested in you."

"No slagging way I am going back into human hands!" Great Shot bellowed as he started to get up. "Those carbon units can keep their grubby hands off me!"

"Which is why we're working to keep you with us," Prowl commented. He was completely unfazed by the six changer's outburst.

"I'll join the Autobots if you don't use me for cannon folder," Great Shot said as he checked his arm and moved his fingers.

"We have concluded when you took a hostage you never intended to harm him," Prowl said with the utmost calm.

"Why would I?" Great Shot asked. "His mobile suit was completely slagged and I just wanted to cut down the number of people trying to kill me."

Mirage and Checkpoint had been called in for this mess and so far Great Shot was willing to help would aid them in getting to the bottom of this.

The black and dark blue minicon was behind the CR chamber and carefully watching the mercenaries' reactions. He was extremely good judge of character and when someone was telling the truth or telling lies. So far the sixchanger was on the level with them. And Greatshot won't be the ideal Autobot but he could be trusted enough. Mirage wasn't so sure about that as he was invisible and standing next to Prowl.

Checkpoint valued and took a great deal of pride in his abilities but not everyone could be read. Or worse they could be a deep cover agent so deep under cover they didn't even know they were a spy. Rosanna being Flip Sides proved that was very possible. It was something that showed how far the Decepticons were willing to go with their spies. And of course there was always the cerebro shells of the Insecticon Bombshell or Mindwipe and his hypnotic powers. With Mirage worried even more about the methods of mind control the Decepticons had that they weren't aware of yet.

The Steelhaven then took off for Auto Dock, a former human colony. Whoever was behind the controlling of the mercenaries was likely to attack Orb and Autobot Island if felt it'd keep them secret. Optimus Prime of course didn't want to put anyone at risk and ordered them away from the Earth.

On Auto Dock there wasn't anyone human that could be in the crossfire and the DNA of George Glenn had been given to PLANT as they requested. Perceptor thought it was to help fix their genetic issues. There also were proper Cybertronian jail cells in case they needed them as well. Great Shot was to be made a provisional Autobot but they wanted to keep an eye on him for a while. And a place to hold him if that became necessary.

V-V-V

Athrun looked at the weapon his CGUE II had. It was an ax called a "heat hawk" that looked very promising. The weapon should cut through any nonphaseshift armor like it was butter. Something that he would be very useful. Still he looked forward to the Gundam he'd be getting. The weapons on Heine's test unit were impressive. He then sighed as he wasn't going to get a chance to test out his new mobile suit today.

The Supreme PLANTs council had ordered in depth information, so he told them about Primus, Unicron, and that anything in that vein. Athrun assumed it was the religious aspects and alien mystical artifacts supposedly used to destroy planet eating space god that was causing ripples. The galaxy seemed very strange and dangerous.

"And I wonder how Admiral Garcia deals with all this," Athrun mused. It was not a job Athrun would have wanted. Everyday it seemed like something completely and utterly insane came up. And the fact he was in command of the first mobile suit force of Orb, ZAFT, and O.M.N.I. troops along with the first eight Autobots to reach the Solar System.

Though Athrun would not be surprised if they managed to put back together a few more members of the Axalon crew like had been done with Drift. Transformers were very, very hard to kill permanently.

'Unless you had a weapon like Galvatron's main gun,' Athrun thought darkly.

The Decepticon leader had to be seething at how Kira had deflected his blast and survived encountering him. That made him glad his friend wasn't self centered or a coward. Athrun was sure that whining the Transformer's war wasn't theirs after defying and beating a Decepticon leader was the height of stupidity.

'Of course such a person would get one nasty verbal beat down from Whirl,' Athrun mused. 'I doubt he takes cowards very well.'

On the end of the scale, Flay's desire to use the Strike II to kill all the Decepticons she could was definite not a smart idea. It reminded him way too much of how he was before learning the hard way that humanity had to work together or get slaughtered by the Decepticons.

'Now I think I could live with the naturals that don't think like Blue Cosmos or are part of it,' Athrun thought. 'Of course now they think the Transformers work with us.'

"Athrun," Optimus Prime stated. "It is time to go."

Athrun nodded and walked with Prime to the Autobot shuttle waiting for them. The golden exterior gleamed in the morning sunlight. Unlike the ill-fated Blue Nixie, this shuttle looked like two enlarged Skygraspers with a massive box wielded between them. The rear of the box opened and inside Athrun saw Ironhide who the Coordinator red jacket believed was Optimus Prime's body guard. The only part that Athrun didn't get was how a robot from outer space could speak with a US Southern accent.

Next to Ironhide in the pilot's seat was Bumblebee. Though it took a moment for Athrun to tell Bumblebee apart from Bumper. Athrun sat down in a Minicon sized seat and strapped himself in. He hoped they remembered he couldn't take as many Gs as they could.

"This is the Darkstar requesting permission to launch," Bumblebee stated.

"Autobot Island Control here," Cliffjumper stared. "You are good go and starting countdown for your launch."

After the countdown ended, the shuttle rocketed through the atmosphere. The shuttle went faster then Athrun had ever gone, and was the smoothest ride he'd ever been on due to the internal gravity control.

He doubted they were happy with him at the moment. He wasn't sure what Prime was going to do or show them but he knew it was going to be interesting.

V-V-V

At the Yamato's home in Orb, Flay got to meet her boyfriend's parents without Kira's weird robotic friends around. The house was smaller and a lot more inviting in a homey way then her house had been. Though she did make wonder if Jolt was being left unsupervised to teach children new words. Even Roadhandler said he was going to rein in that.

Still that alone give her reason to not want to leave any of her own children with the Minicon. She then blushed as the image of what children with Kira would look like. Would they have Kira's unique purple eyes? Or maybe her hair color?

"Are you ok?" Caridad Yamato asked looking a bit concerned as she came back in the living room with drinks and cookies.

"Oh I'm fine," Flay said in a flustered tone. "Just thinking about the trouble some of Kira's friends might be getting into." She absently brushed the lock of hair out of the way and then back in front of her left eye.

Kira had a feeling Flay was talking about Jolt and shivered for a moment. He was sure a whole generation of kids would learn Cybertronian profanity if the yellow minicon had his way.

Then Kira's mother got a glimpse of Flay's scar and gasped. She nearly dropped the cup she was holding in shock. Kira had a good feeling why his mother was shocked and put his arms around Flay. Though he wasn't sure how they were going to explain why Flay got that injury.

"I just got this while in combat," Flay said softly, shrugging silently.

"You poor dear," Caridad whispered.

"I survived. And I'll be eligible for plastic surgery in a few months. Modern regenerative medicine is great," the young replied with a ghost of a smile on her face. "Kira helped me through the hardest point."

Kira took that cue to reach over and squeeze her hand in support. "So why did you want me to come home? You and father were being all mysterious when you called."

Harumo cleared his throat. "We were surprised when you brought Miss Allster with you. This is fairly personal."

Flay squeezed her boyfriend's hand back. That bolstered him up just a bit so he could reply. "Flay is very important to me. I want her to be here."

The parents shared a quick look, then nodded. Harumo continued slowly and carefully, trying to show empathy for the hard news he was about to impart. "You know that you are a first generation coordinator, of course. We never hid that from you. But we never explained that you were adopted. Your mother asked us to take you in if anything ever happened to her."

Kira blinked. This was not what he had been expecting. "I'm adopted? Why didn't you tell me before?" He had to relax his grip consciously on Flay's hand.

"For your own safety. Your father and mother were involved in the Mendel incident and there may have been people looking for you," Caridad explained. Then she smiled. "And we always wanted a son."

Flay's green eyes moved from Kira to his parents. "So what are you exactly to him?"

"Biologically we're his Uncle and Aunt." Harumo answered her.

"So that's everything right?" Kira asked. He could accept all that. It was a bit odd but things like that happen. Though he did wonder why people would look for him.

Caridad shook her head sadly. "I'm afraid not. You were made to be the Ultimate Coordinator."

"Ok...." Kira stated. "What exactly does that mean? I don't feel like the ultimate anything."

"Well it's no secret that Coordinators are having some problems having children," Harumo stated. "And your father worked on a way to fix those genetic issues." Among other modifications.

"Yeah, Perceptor mentioned something about that a few months ago," Kira remembered. "That unless fixed, the coordinators will die out." At least as a sub-species of humanity.

"That was part of what made this easier to tell you," Caridad admitted. "We wanted you to have a normal life, but maybe understanding how you'd been able to do what you did would be good enough."

"We didn't want you to feel that you had to sacrifice your uniqueness to save the coordinators," Harumo added softly.

Kira laughed and shook his head. "And I thought my life was becoming a science fiction series after all my adventures with the Autobots. It started way before that. "

The news shocked Flay. She then realized that her chances of becoming a teen mother were a lot higher then she first thought. As much as she loved Kira, having a baby now would get in the way of her revenge against Galvatron.

'And our child needs to have a shattered piece of Galvatron's optics over the mantle,' Flay mused.

The Decepticon leader needed die. He was just a robot and not some unstoppable force of nature. A very powerful and deadly robot, but he wasn't immortal.

It was the most important thing, above everything else.

Kira was unaware of his love's dark thoughts and desires as he hoped this was the last major shock he'd get involving his family. After all it wasn't like there could be more to that. With his trusting nature, he was sure that had to be the worst of it.

V-V-V

The Darkstar made its way to Aprilius-1. In the cockpit Ironhide watched the various mobile suits and ships on patrol around the PLANTs capital space colony. He frowned as none of this would really stop the Revenge and Galvatron if he showed up. Of course, by this point Galvatron would likely call in Trypticon or use that Ultra dreadnaught called War World to kill them all.

"This is the Darkstar calling Aprilius-1," Bumblebee stated. "Requesting permission to land."

"Permission granted, Darkstar."

"I don't like this Prime," Ironhide remarked. "Cons could blow this place up if they felt like it."

"Don't expect that to be an easy task," Athrun injected loudly. "The GINNs, and DINNs are being phased out for more powerful units. And very likely a new class of mobile suits are being made with the newer technology we are developing."

"Say that when you face down Trypticon, kid." Ironhide really was not impressed with the local Guardians.

"If he's one of your really, really big ones I'm sure if we hit it with enough siege and antiship weapons will be stopped."

A ghost of a smile appeared on Ironhide's face. The kid had guts. He was going to need them for when Galvatron made his big push with his fleet when it assembled.

The shuttle came in smoothly and landed. The back of the shuttle opened and the Autobots and Athrun found they had a welcoming committee. Athrun wasn't surprised to see his father along with members of the press. Bumblebee waved cheerfully to the crowd while Ironhide scanned it for any possible threats.

It did surprise him that Lacus was here and smiled at him. He gave her a warm smile back. Athrun hoped there would be time for him to see her after the meeting.

"Councilman Clyne," Optimus Prime said respectfully and extended one of his fingers for the head of the council to shake. It was the perfect image for a news soundbite.

While Athrun looked his father in the eye. Something seemed different to the red jacket. It might have been just avoiding being killed at Rau Le Creuset's trial or it could be more then that. He wondered if his father saw any changes in his eyes.

'One thing is for sure,' Athrun thought to himself. 'The Transformers forced everyone to look at their beliefs even more then the Space Whale fossil.'

Optimus Prime and the other Autobots then transformed to vehicle mode. Athrun got into Bumblebee. For some reason it felt right to Athrun to ride in the yellow Autobot. He sat back and enjoyed the ride to the great hall that had been altered to be used to for this meeting. They had to make the doorways big enough for a Transformer to get through.

After entering the grand hall, Optimus put a data disk on the table.

"What is this?" Patrick Zala asked.

"The cure to your genetic problems," Optimus Prime stated. "Much of it already had been done by a scientist on Mendel and Perceptor only had to fill in holes since the files weren't all intact."

"Yeah you're all jerks but we might as well be nice," Ironhide remarked. Many of the PLANT supreme council had to resist openly glaring at the rust red Autobot.

"Also included is a file on the thrusters for what has been dubbed the Shield Striker," Optimus Prime said to change the subject. He also gave Ironhide a sharp glance. "It should make your GINNs as good as that design can be."

That was something they were well aware of given Athrun's reports and frankly desired. Though it likely would only be a stopgap measure as they made more advanced mobile suits and pushed for the ZAKU design.

The Regenerate Gundam and Testament Gundam Projects were ended to give more manpower to the GuAIZ experimental arms, CGUE IIs, and ZAKU prototype. The Providence almost got canceled as the pilot considered for it had gone completely mad. Luckily, they had a replacement with an advanced spacial awareness.

"Now that is out of the way," Siegel Clyne stated. "We called you here to explain some very confusing things in the reports we have been getting. Primus and Unicron, in particular. Entities that can destroy whole worlds are something we must gain a deeper amount of intelligence on."

Athrun stayed quiet at that but really didn't like the implication that he was just making things up. Which to him if he was, would make a lot more sense.

Optimus Prime actually chuckled at that.

"There are members of our race that have trouble believing the same things you are speaking of," the Autobot leader commented. He then opened his chest. The PLANT Supreme council saw a glowing blue sphere of energy in a strange mental container with hand holds. He pulled it out of his chest and for a moment the light from the device illuminated the entire room. Then had another panel popped up in Optimus Prime and they saw a glowing ball of energy in his chest. The energy seemed to reverberate within everyone, taking their breath away.

"What... what are those?" Yuri Amalfi asked softly.

"What you see in my chest is my spark," Optimus Prime said softly. "What you call a soul. In my hands is the Matrix. It is a gateway."

"A gateway to where?" Athrun found himself asking out loud.

"Where all are one," Optimus Prime said in a reverent tone. "Where our creator Primus resides."

A hushed silence filled the massive hall.

"And Unicron? Is he really that dangerous?" Patrick Zala managed to ask. The stony silence the Autobots gave him was extremely unnerving.

"Yes, he is that level of danger," Optimus stated firmly. "Even after I opened the Matrix and destroyed his body he is still out there planning."

"Is your race always doing things that violently punch holes in scientific theory and theology?"

Bumblebee shrugged. "You think that's weird, you need to meet the guardians of some of worlds we've been to."

That was something that they really didn't want to think about. What insane things could be out there?

"Enough," Optimus Prime said in a commanding tone. "We are sorry if this is a trying process, but most races know and interact with others and already get informed on what goes on in the galaxy at large."

"That include your war?"

"That has made us the social pariahs of the galaxy," Optimus sighed. "And many races think it will never end."

"Well at the time scale you're fighting it," Siegel Clyne mused. "It pretty much is. You have been fighting this war longer than we have been humans."

"Still it is something has to be done," Optimus Prime stated firmly. "The Decepticons aren't the only threat out there. The universe is a dangerous place. On that note I suggest you avoid Planet Doom, Quintessa, and Skaro at all costs."

"The locals are really unfriendly," Bumblebee added. "No matter how much energon the Quintessons give you to drink."

"Five faced slaggers also claim to be our creators," Ironhide grumbled. "Just because they have their own knock off transforming servants."

V-V-V

"Nemesis Prime, the PLANTs news service is reporting that Optimus Prime is currently at their PLANTs headquarters," Calamity called out as his red optics read the information on a cobbled together screen in the old US Army base.

"Then this is the perfect time to attack the Autobots new space station!" the black and red Raider called out as he danced from foot to foot. "Let's go, go, go!"

Forbidden just glared at the too-hyper Transformer.

"Transform and Dominate!" Nemesis Prime ordered.

Raider turned into his flight-form, but more animalistic with movable claws and a vicious beak. The dark-copy of Optimus Prime straddled onto the foot pads that used to allow Calamity to fly on his back. Calamity and Forbidden actually merged with their the standard hover-wings. Forbidden actually looked like a monstrous form of a manta ray with claws, while Calamity looked like a flying brick with far too many weapons pointed towards the front.

Nemesis Prime started to laugh madly as they rocketed out the smashed base, almost striking a flight of Atlantic Federation assault Black Hawks choppers and Skygrasper assault jets. The humans did not have a chance to even fire they flew up. Down in the forests, the Strike Daggers at the edge of the proving grounds did take a few shots, but they missed by a wide margin.

Out in space at the Auto Dock, Grimlock was tapping his toes impatiently. "How much longer?" he demanded of Huffer.

"You were the one that wanted yer ship in top form," the other Autobot grumbled. He had been assigned by the leader of the Autobots to work on the Skyfire. The ex-Decepticon ship, painted in a garish parody of Optimus Prime's red and blue colors, had most of its hatches open as they brought it up to full capability. With the Decepticon fleet coming, the Skyfire needed to in tip top shape for the battles ahead. Next to the Skyfire was the barely started frame of a new Autobot star cruiser. With Huffer wondering why the humans wanted to call it the Enterprise.

Red lights starts to flash as human-made alarms blared out. The Transformer sensors had picked up three objects heading their way from Earth.

On the surface of the station, Jetfire saw the objects flying towards them. He transformed into jet mode and got a good look at what was coming at them.

"By the Matrix!" Jetfire exclaimed completely shocked at the obsidian figure riding on one of the Gundams. "It's Nemesis Prime!"

"Isn't he dead?" Jetstorm remarked as he flew in formation with the Aerialbots. "Really need to update the datatraxs if he's back."

"Open fire!" Silverbolt ordered. He didn't care if this was Nemesis Prime or someone taking his appearance.

The four Unicroniods were barraged in weapons fire. The Cyberium enhanced with transphase shift was tested by the assault.

Not a scratch.

Firelight gasped. "They aren't even dented!"

"Keep them from combining," Nemesis Prime growled. "Especially those five."

Raider surged ahead and rapid fire unleashed his laser cannons on the seven autobots.

"This would be a lot more fun if I wasn't in the middle of this," Calamity growled as he was hit with a laser blast from Silverbolt.

Forbidden said nothing and transformed to robot mode. He then slammed his fists into Jetstorm's nosecone. If there was air, there would have been a sickening crunch. To add insult to injury he fired his forearm mounted machine guns at the cerulean Autobot. He then fired his laser CWIS at the the Aerialbots to split them up.

Slingshot transformed and blasted the silent Gundam right in the face. That merely annoyed the Unicroniod and he tried to cut the headstrong Autobot flier with his scythe. Slingshot easily avoided the strike and Air Raid opened fire on the stoic Gundam. Calamity returned fire with all his weapons. The Aerialbots and the Elite Guard twins tried to dodge his laser spam but Jetstorm, Air Raid, and Skydive were hit. And the weapons packed a punch. Air Raid nearly lost his left arm because of that.

"What the heck are these guys?" he complained as he clutched the wounded limb.

"Die die die!" Raider yelled as he fired and surged around the Autobots and fired his machine guns. Jetstorm and Jetfire merged into Safeguard and hammered Raider with a burst of energy.

"Get me to the space station," Nemesis Prime ordered the spastic Gundam as more Autobots flew into the fire fight.

The Raider surged through space and Nemesis Prime leaped off and landed on the surface of Auto Dock's entryway. He considered it amusing that he had returned to his "birth place"and was closer to his goals then he could imagine. The former clone was driven from his musings by a fist to the face.

"I don't care how you came back or if you're a new one, but you're going to be reduced to scrap all the same," Grimlock growled and blasted Nemesis in the chest with a double barrel rocket launcher. It threw the insane Transformer back and Nemesis Prime let loose a barrage of laser fire from his forearm mounted blasters to give him some room to maneuver.

Grimlock transformed into his mechanical Tyranosaurus Rex form and charged through the laser fire. He sent Nemesis Prime slamming to the ground with a swipe from his tail.

An obsidian blade formed in Nemesis Prime's hand and he swung it at the Dinobot commander. It cut deep into Grimlock's side with a flash of sparks. However it didn't stop Grimlock from clenching his jaw down on Nemesis Prime's left arm and ripping the limb right out and sending the Unicroid skidding backwards thirty feet.

There was a shower of black sparks and then suddenly a new arm grew to replace the one that Grimlock had torn off. That surprised the headstrong Autobot enough to drop the severed limb. Nemesis Prime laughed darkly, sending a chill through the Dinobot leader's spark.

That set off his normal reaction to fear. Massive, overwhelming rage!

While on Earth in the Earth Alliance base, JOSH-A, the Archangel crew was just about to get ready for their new post when the alarms sounded. The ship had barely docked in the massive drydock just six hours previously.

"Now what?" Yzak grumbled. "We just got here!"

The hot-headed pilot then noticed the Red ASTRAY being loaded onto the Archangel. And at the hips were a pair of armored schienders like on the Tri-Strike.

"She didn't keep the sword," Roadhauler said sounding disappointed. He loved being able to use one of those.

"Which you used poorly. Didn't look balanced either," Drift remarked as he recalled footage of Roadhauler using a beam saber and then that Antiship sword to crudely imitate things Starsaber had put on the datanet.

"Hey! Not like we could get any real sword smiths to make those," Yzak yelled. "Plus they were made for hacking up ships!"

"Isn't there supposed to be a guy in the graveyard that could make those mobile suit sized?" Nicol mused out loud.

"I thought that just a rumor," Kira commented as he saw Cagalli enter the mobile suit bay. He was fairly sure the whole thing with artisans living in a region of the debris field was just a story. Mostly because there would be no way for anyone to buy what they made if they lived in the middle of nowhere.

"Everyone to battle stations," Natale's voice called out over the intercom.

"It never ends does it?" Yzak sighed as he rubbed his forehead.

"Nope," Flay remarked as looked at the Strike II. "Still surprised they're showing their faces after the beating I gave them."

Drift rolled his optics at that. Cylonus and Scourge were beatable. And what Cyclonus called swordsmanship was lousy. The energy draining abilities of his blades were the only reason Cyclonus had any success with his blades.

The massive Earth battle-carrier's anti-gravity field had them in the air in moments even as the latest generation of thrusters rumbled to life. The humans felt a small lurch of acceleration as they broke MACH 1 in the first twenty seconds as they rocketed out of the armored entrance of the sub-base.

Captain Ramius nodded at the silent efficiency of her crew. "ETA to Auto Dock?"

"Five minutes, captain," Lt. Commander Badguiriel called out on the deck below. The lights dimmed in the CiC as she readied the Archangel's system fully for battle.

"Sit-Rep from Auto Dock?" she called out to her communications specialist.

"There are only four attackers, but they are putting up a very serious fight even though they are outnumbered so heavily. Three casualties on the Autobot's side already," he called back. "The Dinobots are moving to support Grimlock before he is sent into stasis-lock."

"I thought he was one of the most dangerous Autobots? Nearly a match for Optimus Prime? Is it Galvatron?" she demanded of him.

"Reports are of a Transformer matching the design of Optimus, but of black and dark-blue coloration. We've got a name now: Nemesis Prime," the communications officer called out.

"I've got a hit from the Datatrix download. Match is good, probability of it being this exact entity is low. Listed as some sort of corporeal malaise that took the form of Optimus Prime before it was defeated by him in single combat. Listed as having Dark Science powers able to regrow limbs and nearly impervious to damage."

"Sounds like a damn monster," Natarle muttered. "Update the downloads for all pilots. Let Commander La Flaga know what sort of situation he is flying into."

The silver and green Minicon, Grip-Lock, had a bad feeling about this engagement. It felt as bad as that time they had to deal with the Yautja and their favorite prey on Dahros. Swindle had armed the hunters with light Cybertronian weapons and they couldn't resist hunting something that any other attempt they had made failed horribly. Hunting Cybertronians.

"Hey I know who those other guys are," Roadhandler said at his bridge station. "It's those three mobile suits that have shown up twice."

"For booting up code," Grip-Lock muttered "Can't those guys take a vacation or something?"

It made a certain amount of sense to Murrue to turn those into Cybertronians somehow. Even before they were able to hold their in a fight with the Decepticons. And she had a sinking feeling as there was only one more time when Lacus was singing with Transformers around as to when these mobile suits were given sparks.

The only thing didn't make any sense was someone creating a copy of a dark version of Optimus Prime that looked like one that had already been destroyed. Especially since no one knew about it until now.

Yet here one was. And he already had proven himself to be dangerous to them all.

The pilots barely had time to finish reading the file on Nemesis Prime before the ship was in the middle of the battle. For a moment Tolle eyed the Green ASTRAY, but realized his Strike Dagger by this point had been customized more then it had been.

Nor did that ASTRAY have magnetic clamp at the hip for his Blacklight pistol.

'Which after how well it works for Flay and Tri-Strike everyone seems to be getting hip mounted weapons,' Tolle mused as he leaped into the cockpit of his black and red mobile suit.

The Blitz even had a pair of hip mounted mini-rifles now. It also had the lance darts upgraded to Armor Piercing Schneider spikes. It seemed like all the ASTRAYs and G Weapons had been upgraded in equipment due to the Autobots.

While in the Purple ASTRAY Kira felt a bit worried. As much as he was thankful for the modifications that the Autobots had done to the unit, it just wasn't as good as the Strike, now the Tri-Strike, and if Heine's unit had the exact same weapons as the mobile suit ZAFT was giving him for the duration of the war with the Decepticons, that one as well.

Nemesis Prime worried him. If even Grimlock needed back up fighting him then they needed more of the Strike II or the GuAIZ experimental arms. Or any more powerful mobile suits they were developing.

Inside the Red ASTRAY, Cagali readied herself for battle. She checked over the various weapons and systems of the mobile suit and picked up the Green ASTRAY's blaster/beam saber to use. It felt like the best weapon to use in this case. And in the back of her mind wondered what her father wanted to speak with her about after this battle. He said it was important and a part of her past, but she couldn't think of anything. Whatever it was, it didn't matter at the moment.

"Mobile suits... launch!" Murrue ordered.

As Nemesis Prime slammed Snarl into Auto Dock he felt Mu's presence. He was surprised after his transformation he still had that ability and Slag hit him with his flame breath. Nemesis Prime's armor started to take on a taffy like appearance.

It surprised the former clone a bit that his armor being heated up toward melting point hurt a lot less then when he went without his pills. The body Unicron had granted him was made of stern stuff as he walked through the fire and sent Slag flying with a hammer punch.

In moments his armor fixed itself and the obsidian Transformer relished a chance to destroy Mu Flaga once and for all. That was going to make things all the sweeter for Nemesis Prime. Only getting to kill his former pawns on both sides of the conflict right now as well could make it better.

He then opened fire on the Moebius Zero Omega that Flaga used. The upgraded mobile armor gracefully and nimbly dodged the attack and launched the enhanced gunbarrels. Nemesis Prime laughed until he was hit by the powerful blasters in the pods. He was knocked around by the pods as they kept striking him from another direction. Then the Blitz while still invisible slashed Nemesis Prime with his armored schneider spikes. They cut deeply into the back/cab of Nemesis Prime.

"Looks like you learned how to use that ability Nicol," Nemesis Prime remarked coldly. "Too bad it won't save you."

Inside the Blitz Nicol wondered how Nemesis Prime knew his name, and fired the the beam rifle in the Trikeros. That didn't do as much damage as Nicol had hoped.

Then Nemesis Prime leaped onto a Gunbarrel and hit the Blitz with a flying elbow. If it was a movie or a TV show there would be a loud clang as the Blitz hit the former colony.

"If I was still your commanding officer I'd be displeased," Nemesis Prime commented as he raised his sword that seemed to absorb light like a black hole to the cockpit of the mobile suit.

Before the former Rau could kill Nicol he was punted like a football by the Red ASTRAY. Then Cagali blasted him with her rifle. If anything Nemesis Prime looked exasperated at her attempt to hurt him.

"So the worthless extra is here too, along with the pathetic Ultimate Coordinator," Nemesis Prime snarled. "For a time I considered he could be useful and considered turning him into one of my minions but now he can witness the dismemberment and destruction of the Earth and everything living in the solar system!"

"Do you like listening to the sound of your own voice?" Cagali remarked as she fired on the Unicronoid.

"Well I do enjoy an intelligence conversation," Nemesis quipped as he transformed to truck mode and dodged her blasts. "And you're as pathetic a mobile suit pilot as you were a rebel without a clue, princess!"

Nemesis Prime then had tires blown out as one of the gunpods blasted him. It seemed his tires weren't anywhere near as tough as his armor and he flipped over and slammed into the ground. He transformed and got to his feet.

"You'll have to do better then that you wastes of flesh!"

Cagali was starting to see how Transformers could piss off Flay as felt her anger swell in her. She had no idea what this perverse copy of Optimus Prime was babbling about but could tell it was meant to be insulting. A SEED of potential seemed to explode within her, even as her mobilesuit reacted. Golden circuit patterns started to form on the Red ASTRAY and the optics of the mobile suit turned from green to blue. The optics then glowed for a moment.

"Impossible," Nemesis Prime gasped in total shock. "You're not even a coordinator!"

The Blitz rose up and fired the mini rifles at the immobile Transformer while Snarl hit Nemesis Prime with a solar beam. Nemesis was sent flying by the attack. Nicol wondered if Nemesis Prime could be his former commander or not.

And like she had teleported ala Skywarp, Cagali hit Nemesis Prime with the duel beam sabers. Nemesis Prime held arms up to block the attack. Sparks formed on his arms.

"Still got anything funny to say?" Cagali growled harshly as she cut both of Nemesis Prime's limbs off.

There was a total silence as the limbs regrew. The Blitz took that moment to turn invisible again.

"You are not the real daughter of the so called Lion of Orb," Nemesis Prime stated as he pushed the mobile suit off. "Your real father didn't even consider you for his project. He was rather set on making boys the ultimate coordinator. I will kill the pathetic waste of atoms that is your brother for befriending the Autobots."

"What?" Cagali gasped as Nemesis Prime stabbed the Red ASTRAY in the legs. That caused the mobile suit to fall and drop the beam sabers.

"Not that it matters since you'll be dead," Nemesis Prime mused in a icy tone. Red ASTRAY pulled out the armored schneiders and stabbed the black robot.

The blades penetrated the black robot's armor and stabbed through the torso.

"Slag off!" an echoing, double-voice yelled out firmly from the scarlet form in front of him.

It surprised Nemesis Prime as the Red ASTRAY then transformed into a Cybertronian jet form to rocket away , then back to strafe Nemesis Prime. Cagalli, on the other hand, was too far into her gestalt to even care.

'This is not going as I planned,' Nemesis Prime mused darkly as he found himself in a pincher attack from the Red ASTRAY and the Gunpods. And the Blitz waiting for the right moment to strike him again.

He just hoped his minions were doing better. Not that it wouldn't be hard.

Up above Heine unloaded on Raider with his railguns, beam cannons, his laser rifle, and a spare rifle. The withering amount of firepower ripped off one of the avian wings of the Transformer.

"Tricursedslagger!" Raider yelled so fast it was practically one word.

"Just shut up," Yzak snapped as he fired a spread of energon enhanced missiles at the former Gundam.

Even the phase shift enhanced cyberium of Raider was rocked by the force of the explosions. Safeguard took advantage of that hammered Raider as well with a massive burst of energy.

"Still think you're so tough slagger?" Safeguard yelled.

Raider transformed and slammed the gestalt with his mega-density mace and sent them crashing into the Tri-Strike. The pair demerged on impact. The former biological CPU then fired energy blasts from his mouth at the Whirl who did his best do dodge by flying like a madman. He also fired his shield cannon and the forearm mounted machine gun on his other arm. One of the shells hit one of Whirl's engines and the Wrecker crashed into Auto Dock.

Then the Forbidden detached the cannon on his back and it transformed into a SAW-like weapon and he blasted the Duel with it. The attack nearly melted the Duel's armored shroud. That also set off the remaining missiles in a large explosion that engulfed the mobile suit.

"Yzak!" Kira yelled. And to everyone's shock a heavily damaged and armored shroudless Duel still was there after the energon enhanced bombs went off.

"It'll take more then that to stop me!" Yzak yelled defiantly as the scorched Duel kept blasting away with its rifle to little effect.

Calamity sighed. If you wanted something do right you had to do it yourself. He transformed to robot mode and fired chest cannon, bazooka, shield mounted lasers, and to their surprise, optic blasts. Kira held up his shield and managed to block the blasts, deflecting off of it to blast the Forbidden. The bazooka blasts rattled the Purple ASTRAY's arms heavily, causing cracks to form in the armor.

Energy crackled just before it hit the submersible ex-mobilesuit, bending the attacks to strike Bumper. The blow was so powerful that the Autobot's frame was shattered. Purple fluids floated in space.

"What sort of energy shield is that?" Tolle shouted out as he held up his own golden shield as well.

Flay just charged ahead and let Calamity have it with the Blaster Striker. The cannons hammered at the Transformer. Still it didn't worry the former Gundam at all. None of these humans or Autobots had the kind of fire power to take him out. Even that bright orange mobile suit couldn't do it.

Riding on a GuuL Drift wished he knew crystalocution. He blasted the Raider in the face with an energy beam from his sword. The obsidian Gundam tried to blow up Drift's mode of transportion. Downshift fired and managed to get one of his missiles lodged in the Raider's open mouth.

"Think it'll do anything?" Hotshot asked as he dodged a swing from the Forbidden's scythe.

Drift blasted the missile with an emerald blast from his sword and there was a bright flash of light in Raider's face and he stumbled around like he'd been blinded, but had no damage to his super structure.

That was when the Aerialbots finally managed to merge to form Superion. The gestalt put full power to his primary weapon and everyone learned where Perceptor had gotten the idea for Aurum's stress fracture cannon as Forbidden started to resemble a toy car run over by a linear tank.

"Well that explains he he told us to not to let them combine," Calamity gasped. That had nearly sent him into stasis lock.

Superion blast out again, this time to take out the green Unicroid. To its amazement, its beam was dispersed by the powerful magnetic field. His heavy-railguns, powered by Cybertronian technology now, slammed into the giant white Autobot's knee joint. The powerful magnetic fields were suddenly used to attract him towards the gestalt in a blitz attack.

With a massive swing that shattered his scythe, Forbidden hit the weakened joint and dispersed the Autobot back into his constituent Aerialbots.

"You're not getting away!" Yzak bellowed as golden armor patterns started to form on his mobile suit. The Duel also appeared to be slowly repairing itself of the heavy damage done to it.

"You know I feel rather left out on that," Calamity remarked as he hit the Strike II with a roundhouse kick. "Why can they do that and we can't?"

"Who cares," Forbidden stated in a harsh whisper.

That was when the GuAIZ experiment arms unloaded on the evil Gundam trio again. Calamity attached his bazooka to his back and retracted his hand. A katar came out of it and he flew at Heine. A last minute pulling to the left kept him from being stabbed right in the cockpit with the melee weapon.

Faster then they expected the Duel flies over and takes Calamity's bazooka and blasts him with it. The blue Unicronian's left arm hangs limply. That sent him into a rage and he ripped one of the Duel's arms off and started to beat him to death with it.

"Just die you annoying water bag!" Calamity yelled as he threw the arm away and started crushing the neck of the Duel with his right hand.

Forbidden shook his head. His comrade had all those guns and he had to do it the physical way. He then gave Calamity cover fire as the Gundams and Autobots tried to save their comrade. The Raider also threw his weight around by blasting them or knocking them away with his mace.

"Get off!" Duel growled in a dual voice as with his remaining arm reached into Calamity's wound and yanked on anything he could get his hands on. The former Gundam let out a horrific scream of pain.

Suddenly there was a volley of laser fire as Nemesis flew by in a stolen shuttle. Calamity grabbed his bazooka and then kicked the Duel gundam away.

"Another time Coordinator!" Calamity sneered.

The evil trio entered the shuttle with a hail of weapons fire. And then it a flash it went to transwarp and was gone from the solar system.

"Primus," Jetstorm moaned painfully. "And I thought Liokaiser was bad enough."

That was a statement everyone agreed with.

V-V-V

Yzak took off his inner suit and got into the shower. As the warm water cascaded over him he was glad that due to Transformers technology they had their own gravity field. The Archangel was the most advanced thing in Earth space.

Then the silver haired coordinator noticed his hands started shaking as he realized how close he came to being killed several times in the battle. As a soldier he knew that he would face death in battle. It was something Dearka's passing made even clearer to him.

Still it hurt a bit to lose Rusty, Miguel, and Dearka. It also hurt because Rusty would have loved to work with the Autobots and have felt much better to have an enemy that the right thing definitely was to fight them. In his world made bright and vibrant by the coming of the Transformers it was kind of refreshing for the Decepticons to be so clearly evil and had to be stopped.

He had never had as many close calls as fighting those trio of former Gundams. Not even the battle where Dearka died. If the energon enhanced missiles had a bigger boom or the Armored Shroud wasn't as tough as it had been, he would be very, very dead.

"I'm lucky to be alive,' Yzak thought to himself.

He gathered up his courage after finishing his shower. There was something he couldn't put off any more. For all he knew that Unicron guy could show up in the solar system for their next fight. Or some other dark and insanely powerful entity or some alien race like the Borg that could swat them all aside like flies would attack.

He donned a clean uniform and then looked for Miriallia to tell her how he felt about her. He hoped she won't reject him. After a bit of searching the ship, he saw her and Tolle talking outside of the Strike Dagger pilot's quarters.

Yzak stayed around a corner watched them. He could wait for them to finish their conversation before asking Miriallia out.

"And now we got two new Transformers," Tolle said with an amused smile. "Of course Red Astray doesn't know what gender he is and Downshift remarked 'You Earth born transformers...first one of you doesn't have a name, and now one of you doesn't know what gender you are. Looks like we need to upgrade the datatrax we give you.' and Red Astray asked him why it mattered."

"I can understand that," Miriallia agreed and looked amused. "They're robots and doesn't mean anything to them."

Tolle shrugged. Then the pair kissed and Yzak could literally feel his heart shatter. Yzak avoided being seen by the pair and wandered the halls of the Archangel like a lost soul. It hurt so much and he was surprised when he found himself in the mess hall with Nicol and Thunderstick sitting next to him.

"By Primus, you look like the Pit," the blue minicon commented.

"If that's hell then I feel like it," the hot-headed coordinator admitted in a weary tone.

"You found out Tolle and Miriallia are dating didn't you?" Nicol spoke softly.

"You knew?" Yzak snapped. Thunderstick wondered if he'd have to restrain Yzak.

Yzak then sighed. "Sorry. I finally worked up the guts to ask her out and I find her kissing Tolle. My timing sucks."

"You do know that Shiho has feelings for you right?" Nicol asked his teammate. It wasn't a secret to him or anyone that she carried a torch for Yzak.

Yzak gave him a confused expression. What was Nicol talking about? She was a good friend, and a loyal comrade. Admittedly not the best shot with a ranged weapon, but he still would be glad if she was watching his back in fight.

"We are talking about Housenka right?" Yzak said recalling his nickname for Shiho Hahnenfuss. Nicol nodded.

"Really?" Yzak asked. "You're not just playing matchmaker and hoping for the best?"

"I do want to avoid seeing you moping," Nicol remarked to try to lighten the atmosphere. "But she does have feelings for you. I have no why, but hey, we can always say Cupid was drunk."

"I never knew had such a sardonic sense of humor Nicol," Thunderstick interjected. "I like it."

That got a chuckle from Yzak. And he started feeling a little better now. Though he wondered what was going to happen to the CGUE DEEP project given figuring out beam weapon was easy due to all the Transformer energy weapons that could be found or Transformers that could be asked how to make them.

"Well I'll ask Shiho out next time we're together in the same place," Yzak commented and made a note to avoid anything that involved shooting things on that date.

V-V-V

In his quarters on the Decepticon dreadnaught Twilight, Jhiaxus looked at an ancient (even by Transformers standards) data cube. The ancient knowledge stored within it had aided him in his quest for power many times over the solar cycles. The cube of Boltax was Jhiaxus's greatest treasure.

Long ago, Jhiaxus had learned of different ways without using Primus or his gateways to create new life. Spark singers and budding were two of those means. The first he was shocked there were beings that could do that. He wished to make use of that and other methods to create his own to create an army loyal only to him. Then he could take over as leader of the Decepticons.

He was more refined, more cultured, and far superior a being then that relic that lead the Decepticons how. He and his planned new generation of Cybertronians would turn the Decepticon Empire into a true Cybertronian Empire with members he saw useful from all factions united under one banner. His banner!

However he had to bury those ambitions for now. Soon he would be close to Galvatron, and other then Cyclonus, none of the generals wished to be anywhere near him. Starscream and later backstabbers being killed off with prejudice by Galvatron made clear what he felt of those and that he felt they made good throne parts.

His loyal lieutenants Skyjack and Mindset entered the inner sanctum of his ship. Both were loyal to Jhiaxus and willing to die for him if needed.

"I have an important mission to you," Jhiaxus stated as he stood up from his own throne. "When the grand battle comes, I need two to gather as many humans you can."

"...Sir?" Mindset asked, not understanding the reason for this.

"They have spark singers and since singing isn't a genetic trait we'll need as many as we can and they better hope they can sing well enough to give life to a new generation of Cybertronians," Jhiaxus stated in a cold tone.

"And where would we take them?" Skyjack asked politely without bothering to ask what a Spark Singer was.

"To a world that can support organic life I've dubbed Primus," Jhiaxus stated and brought it up on a holomap. "It, like the planet we are going to, is off the beaten path and has what they need to support themselves in large quantities. They will be kept in by a forcefield we've designed. The safer they feel the more docile and compliant they will be."

"That makes sense," Mindset admitted.

"My only question is how to hide this from the others," Skyjack remarked. The red and black seeker might be willing to die for Jhiaxus and his goals, but he didn't look forward to doing so on suicide missions.

"I have my ways," Jhiaxus cryptically commented to his minions.

"And they'll keep Galvatron from slagging us?" Mindset asked. The emerald and silver Decepticon wanted to know if they could do that.

"Oh, I'm sure they will," Jhiaxus stated firmly. "You have your orders."

V-V-V

On the planet Athenia, the Wreckers relaxed after their harrowing mission in Quintesson space. Roadbuster logged onto the datanet and was shocked by the message he got from Whirl.

"Hey bots you won't believe this," Roadbuster yelled. "Whirl's been having fun while with Perceptor!"

"That's possible?" Rotorstorm joked. The light blue Autobot was Whirl's replacement on the team.

"Found the inhabitants of a world he was to set up a safe house on have Guardians they pilot called mobile suits and things have gone crazy," the brown, orange and green Autobot commented. "Getting in the middle of a war between the locals, and one of them able to deflect Galvatron's particle energy blast with with a beam saber, an ancient myth turning out to be true, and one of the locals is a complete and utter maniac that tried to kill him... and turns that Whirl left us to to watchdogbot/bodyguard to Drift."

"So why did Drift need it?" Guzzle asked in a bored tone as he played with his gun.

"He used to be a con and some maniac might have had her lasercore in the right place trying to kill him but she nearly got Whirl in the crossfire," Roadbuster explained.

"And she's not dead?"

Roadbuster shook his head. "She's still alive but she disobeyed Optimus Prime and didn't stand down."

Every Wrecker winced. As gung ho as they were to leap into facing danger there were a few things even they weren't going to test their luck against. One of those was Optimus Prime given Springer, Broadside and Sandstorm in their early days impersonated Decepticons to prove how powerful they were.

Optimus wiped the floor with the three of them. It made the Wreckers respect their leader that much more.

"And the myth that is true is the one of spark singers," Roadbuster noted.

"That's an obscure one," Crosswise admitted. It was a myth barely anyone knew of. Crosswise had made it a hobby to find out any and all information he could about Cybertronian mythology when he was young.

"Did he say how Hot Shot was doing?" Arcee asked Roadbuster sweetly. It was a velvet glove over a fist of cybertitanium.

"He's not dead," Roadbuster admitted. "But he really didn't say much about the rest of his team. Though he did mention that Elite Guard combiner ending up stuck with them."

"Bunch of energy leeches," Guzzle grumbled. "They get combiners and we don't."

"Anyway, Whirl is asking for our help since the locals he and the others formed alliances with have shoved their foots up the Decepticons' reactor linkages and he's going to bring in a fleet to crush the place. Optimus Prime and Grimlock are already there with their forces."

Everyone turned to Impactor who was drinking a tall glass of energon. He put the clear glass on the table.

"Of course we're helping Whirl," Impactor said forcefully. "No matter what he's a Wrecker and he won't ask for our help unless he needed it. Wreck and Rule!"

"WRECK AND RULE!"

[LadyTevar]

Oh yes, let's get Arcee back with HotShot. Let the kids see how a 'old married couple' react.

[Fanboyimus Prime]

The trio of battered Unicroids were messing with repairing themselves in their purloined shuttle. So far Nemesis Prime considered them a good use of the null sparks. Though to his annoyance he was sure that the GuAIZ Experimental Arms was going to go from being a test bed to a standard production model given how well it did against his troops.

'Unless that ZAKU project got a huge boost in the arm due to the Autobots,' Nemesis Prime mused to himself.

That Athrun was going to get one of the Gundams armed with weapons like that bright orange mobile suit was going to be a pain the butt. Nemesis then threw out the idea of turning Athrun into one of his minions. The former clone relished the thought of throwing the battered and shattered Freedom or Justice Gundam at Patrick Zala's feet and seeing his despair before killing him.

'And here I thought he'd be useful for my plans,' Nemesis Prime pondered. It seemed like so long ago he was just a human with plans to destroy all of humanity. Space Whale aside, there didn't seem to be signs that aliens visited Earth space like it was a major way station as seen in fiction.

So when aliens from outer space showed up he caught off guard and never prepared for. He denied it to keep his plans to destroy all human life on track. That he had at the time killed one of them showed he might be able to destroy all of them in the Solar System.

Then Galvatron and the Decepticons came and utterly ruined those plans. Though now he had the chance to destroy the entire universe thanks to Unicron. The only thing in his way was the matrix in Optimus Prime's chest.

'I hate Optimus Prime,' the former clone seethed. The Autobot leader was such a 'selfless paladin' and 'save the day' hero. Such delusional beings needed to be killed. Especially since he'd inspire Athrun, Kira, and likely everyone that was a moderate on all sides to be the most heroic they could be. And of course that they all live together in relative peace and harmony like the Eurasian Federation. The Matrix Bearer was like the Lion of Orb merged with King Arthur.

Then Nemesis Prime laughed thinking about how much of a pain in the ass Optimus had to be to Blue Cosmos. He was almost tempted to let the Atlantic Federation fall into chaos due to the Autobots exposing the antigenetics cabal in charge it. And he was sure that one reporter Jess Rabble would sink his teeth into that story like a pit bull into the limb of a thief. That mess would weaken Earth's chances of survival.

'Still it just won't be as much fun as killing them all personally,' Nemesis Prime thought to himself.

That would be enough reason to destroy them at their strongest after he had gathered an army. So many people to kill and not enough time before Galvatron made his big push with his fleet. As easy as it would be to let Galvatron destroy the Solar System, Nemesis Prime still wanted to do it himself. He intended to destroy it anyway so he might as well finish that goal.

Nemesis Prime then noticed something on the shuttle's computers. A large amount of energy being gathered on the planet Quintessa.

"Quintessa," Nemesis Prime mused out loud. "This sounds like a good place to get started." And with a little luck there might be some beings worth recruiting as well.

V-V-V

Kira had been invited to ride back to Orb on her shuttle by Cagalli, which was a little surprising. The princess had been giving him odd looks after the battle. It actually made him feel a little uncomfortable to be honest. An awkward silence settled in the shuttle.

Flay had not been able to swing the free time, so had stayed back on the Archangel helping with the upgrading of the Green ASTRAY. A machine that was starting to be dubbed 'the fill in ASTRAY' by everyone. The Purple ASTRAY had been more damaged than it looked to begin with, it may need to be stripped down entirely to be fixed. And Perceptor had the idea of mounting the beam sabers in the forearms. It sounded as good of a place as any to put them to the purple eyed coordinator.

Meanwhile Cagalli studied Kira's face and compared it to her own. Could Nemesis Prime have been telling the truth? Did she truly have a brother? Was this what her father wished to discuss with her? Kira was a nice guy and all but she needed more proof then the word of a deranged Optimus Prime impersonator. That he also claimed to be a human also put his words into doubt.

Nicol's words that he knew him were worrying though. That made it slightly more possible that Nemesis Prime had been Raul Le Creuset, the deranged ZAFT ace who had been exposed as an illegal clone after the trial. And of Mu La Flaga's father no less.

Suddenly their shuttle found itself having a pair of escorts as Jetfire and Jetstorm flew beside them in jet mode. Kira was glad they weren't heavily damaged in the last fight. He considered them to be friends of his.

The Elite Guard members were hopeful as the Steel Haven had been sent out to search and see if there was anything and anyone salvageable from the Axalon. They prayed to Primus their comrades could be recovered.The twins did not want to see the dead remains of their friends.

Watching them from a distance was the Sweep known as Flail. He made note that another of those organic pilots was going to be away from the Archangel. It made no sense why they were weakening their forces so much to him. Still anything if it increased the chances of them attacking successfully.

That they had been reduced to hiding in the asteroid belt of this system angered Flail. They should be stripping this world dry or cyberforming it. Instead it was becoming an Autobot stronghold with allies that were able to defend themselves. Everyone felt Grimlock hit the jackpot when he found this race. And that scared the Decepticons.

V-V-V

Shockblast floated over to the Revenge and away from the Decepticons working on the huge Space Bridge deep within the sparce asteroids of the solar system. "Slagging stupid idiots. I wouldn't shoot them if they worked harder." It never occurred to him that he was adversely affecting their productivity by his presence. And then that idiot Smashling had insulted him for not having done better in the last battle.

They would be putting him back together for a few days.

"Shockblast, Galvatron wishes to speak to you," Scourge called out. He watched the psychotic Decepticon just amble off towards the throne room as if he did not have a care. Galvatron was going to ream him a new one.

"Sure, whatever,"Shockblast dismissively remarked.

On his throne, Galvatron glared at the member of the Mayhem Attack Squad. Shockblast had a strong resemblance to Shockwave, but had none of the restraint or logic of the infamous Decepticon general. There was a reason Shockwave was in charge of Cybertron after all.

"Shockblast," Galvatron growled. "Does your processor work or do you think I won't destroy you?"

"Really?" Shockblast said in a challenging tone. "Just send me at the Autobots and and those humans I'll keep them busy."

"You think I should reward you?" Galvatron almost laughed. "You're nothing more then a blunt hammer Shockblast and frankly... you need to be put back in the tool kit."

Shockblast clenched his single fist and his single optic glowed. It enraged him to be dismissed as being just a tool. The destructive, even by Decepticon standards, purple transformer sized up Galvatron. He then charged and kicked the Decepticon leader in the face.

Galvatron had rolled with the kick and then leaped from his chair and hit Shockblast with a blindingly fast punch that the darker purple transformer could hardly see.

"Damn, forgot how fast-" Shockblast started to complain when Galvatron's knee slammed into his chest with the force of a out of control shuttle.

"You dare raise your hand against me, Galvatron?" the enraged leader of the Decepticons shouted as his Unicron enhanced body started to batter the slightly smaller Decepticon, knocking off slivers of armor that cracked under the unrelenting attack.

Shockblast realized, too late, that he had never seen Galvatron in a state where his rage was so deep. "Mercy," he begged even as Galvatron's foot crunched down on his weapon arm.

"Mercy. How pathetic," the crowned ex-Unicroid said to the groveling underling. He raised up his cannon-arm and placed it up against his shoulder. "This shall be your mercy. You are nothing but a weapon that I will use against Optimus Prime."

The cannon blared as it blew off the manipulator arm. Galvatron then reached into the hole in the armor and channeled some of his personal energy into a pain-field, causing Shockblast to scream in pain.

The next thing Shockblast knew he was slamming into the floor outside the throne room, barely conscious and severely damaged, much to the shock of the Sweeps there.

From the shadows General Strika watched as a few of the Mayhem Attack Squad rushed to the aid of their fallen friend. With a frown, she moved down a shadowed corridor. "Blackarchnia."

"Yes, general," the assassin said from behind her.

"I think we need a fallback plan. Galvatron appears to be less stable than Megatron. How does martyr for the Decepticons sound to you?"

"He'll kill you if he finds out?" the black and purple Decepticon stated in a cold voice.

"Well, at least I'll be killed for something I actually did," she snarled right back.

Red eyes narrowed. "I take your meaning. How do you want to proceed?"

"We can always use the humans," Bludgeon stated calmly seeming to appear out of thin air behind them. "They can weaken him with their Guardians and allow us to stab him right in the lasercore."

"And there's always Leozack," Blackarchnia mused with a savage smile. "He's cast from the same mold as Starscream and with Liokaiser's might behind him could prove useful."

"Let's wait until the Space Bridge is nearly complete. Leozack is horribly at keeping secrets," Strika ordered. "After all, with the forces we are marshaling, the Autobots and their allies are just going to be a past data point in the Datatrix."

They all laughed at that.

In the shadows Scourge watched the 'rebellion' and was already formulating how to look good to either side if they won. He was frankly tired of being Galvatron's punching bag and probably the only being that was honestly loyal to the current Emperor of Destruction was Cyclonus.

'Still if Galvatron wins I can always claim I was watching them and waiting for the right moment to crush them,' the Decepticon tracker mused.

V-V-V

In his office Muruta looked at the plans for upgraded Aegis. The Gundam was to be made even more powerful and the plans were revised once again as more information on the weapons of the GuAIZ experiment arms had been gained. That combined with a positron bazooka based off the main guns of the Archangel class would make the Unlimited Aegis one of the most powerful mobile suits in existence. And this variant would have a limited production run.

Which would be the praetorian guard for him on Dominion Tyrantus. They should be able to handle even Galvatron working together.

It brought a smile to Muruta's face. He would become wealthy beyond belief if was able to have Galvatron destroyed. And he would not be limited to the Solar System. There was a big galaxy out there for the taking.

One thing that wasn't going his way was getting the corpse of that six changing mercenary. It seems the Autobots weren't giving it up. A pity but the real prizes were the pair with Pretender shells.

Another thing not going his way was the rogue trio of Gundams now that they had become rogue Transformers. Powerful ones at that. They had to be found and studied to find out what increased the power of their designs.

Murata then got a video call and saw Lord Djibril looking like a James Bond villain with that cat in his lap. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Report," Murata demanded.

"We have checked over all of the mobile suits exposed to the singing on the Moon," Lord Djibril said firmly with a nod of his head. "It worked. They all have spark chambers."

"Perfect," Murata smiled. "With a bit of luck we won't have to depend on the Autobots."

Things were turning out in LOGOs favor with the coming of the Transformers to the Solar System. New weapons, a galvanizing enemy that silenced any voices against increased military spending, and now soldiers that should be far more durable then the drug needing biological CPUs or the troops that needed incredibly extensive medical work to stay functional.

It was only marred by not being to understand the FTL drive that had more or less grown into the Archangel. That it would revolutionize travel and it would make them even richer.

V-V-V

A jet flew from Europe to Orb. Sitting in a window seat was a young man with extremely long black hair. He had a frown on his face. Canard Pars wondered why he was being sent across the planet to Orb. He had no idea why they had sent for him. 'Though he might be there,' Pars thought darkly. The perfect Ultimate Coordinator and hero of the Solar system Kira Yamato. It burned the young coordinator as he remembered being told why he was a failure and that there was a successful Ultimate Coordinator out there.

It hurt even more having learned of the successes on the battlefield that Kira had. He even had alien robots upgrading his mobile suits for him. Canard clenched his fist. To be honest it all made him sick. The only good thing about of it was his Hyperion was going to be upgraded to use energon and get some other improvements like more powerful thrusters.

Pars laughed. His original idea of killing Kira would not go well. Of course, for all he knew Lt. Yamato had Autobots small enough to worn on his person bodyguards. Given all the other abilities of the Transformers them breaking the rules on size and mass won't be that out there.

Canard looked out the window and saw they were about to land.

Pars was surprised to see a blue Autobot waiting as the plane landed.

"So you're the other guy," Whirl commented. "At least I think you're a guy. I think Flay has a shorter hair cut then you do."

"A pleasure to meet you, too," Canard said in a tone dripping with sarcasm.

"Sarcasm not appeciated," Whirl nearly snapped.

"Neither is becoming compared to him," Canard snarled.

"Well you're not dead, and don't have any terrible physical or mental disabilities because of the experiment... so I'd say you came out ahead kid," Whirl remarked to Canard Pars. The 'failed' Ultimate Coordinator pondered that for a moment.

Canard let out a sharp bark of a laugh. 'Well that would be one way to get the last laugh on those that called me a failure."

That amused Canard and reminded him of the phrase that the best revenge was living well. Though get checked to see if his ability to have children messed up due to his genetic alterations was something he needed to look into later. Of course if that was what made him a fail then Pars was going to be very unhappy.

"Why?" Whirl asked. "Seriously what did they expect you do above and beyond what a regular coordinator can do?" Though the Autobot frowned as he remembered that several of the pilots had exhibited combat abilities that seemed far beyond what their limited age and training should have allowed.

Canard stopped for a moment to think about that. He tried to recall if they ever said why he was a failure and not just that he was. Even that man that told him about Kira Yamato never made it clear exactly in what regards he wasn't as good as the O.M.N.I. lieutenant.

He wondered how exactly he compared to Kira Yamato in terms of intelligence and other attributes. It made him wonder why they wanted him so blinded by rage that he would kill Kira. 'Though I think the scientists were taunting me just to be pricks,' Pars thought to himself.

"Kira still doesn't even know you exist," Whirl told the Eurasian Forces pilot. "We only found out about you though the fragmented Ultimate Coordinator files. Primus, Kira didn't even know he was supposed to be that until recently."

That stopped Canard cold. "He didn't even know about this?"

Whirl nodded. "His adopted parents didn't want to burden him with having to save the Coordinators a viable branch of humanity and all that tricursed slag."

"They're kinder to him then what I got," Canard muttered. It beat his 'guardians' by a lot. It was starting to look like that black haired man was just trying to get him into a frenzy and kill the only other survivor of the Ultimate Coordinator project.

It really made him wonder why. Canard clenched his fist as he didn't like the feeling of being used as someone's pawn. He would get to the bottom of this.

V-V-V

Cagalli ran her finger along the top of her wine glass as she stared out the windows of her family's mansion. The sparkle of the light glinted off the Pacific Ocean along the pristine, white beach. "Father..." she started to say, but was uncertain how to continue. Jump into it with two feet then. "Am I adopted?"

Uzumi Athha, head leader of the Attha house of nobles and currently the elected head of Orb raised an eyebrow at that. "What brings up that question?" He took a sip from his wine glass as he relaxed with his daughter.

The blonde frowned for a second. "Well, I don't exactly take after you or mother, now do I?" She wanted to loosen her collar on her white dress uniform, but that would destroy her image of respectability.

"Yes, but you are no less my daughter for being adopted," the stern looking man said. His eyes took on a slightly haunted look as he remembered that day, long ago when he had taken in the girl for the Yamato's.

Cagalli had suspected being adopted for quite a while. In a row of portraits dating back over a century, only she had blonde hair and pale skin. "So what someone said about me having a brother is true then. Why did you keep this from us, father?"

"Who told you that?" Uzumi asked with narrowed eyes.

"A being that claimed to be Rau Le Creuset-"

"The clone of De La Flaga..." The elder Attha looked out into the no longer calming scene of the Pacific beachfront. "Yes, you do have a brother. But for his safety, you were separated. There were radical factions, Blue Cosmos and among the PLANTS, that would be threatened by the third series advanced genetic program of Mendel."

The young woman nodded even as she walked to the door and opened it. "Kira, you should come in now."

The young coordinator was a bit confused, but entered. "Representative Attha," Kira said, moving to shake hands with the leader of Orb.

"Kira... this might be hard to swallow, but I think you are my brother. It looks like we might have been separated at birth for our protection," Cagalli said slowly and in a soft voice. She really did have a brother.

The brown-haired teen blinked, looking between the two of them. "I- What?"

"Yes, no easing him into that, my little spitfire," Uzumi said with a grin. "Indeed it is true. My wife and I adopted Cagalli at the behest of the Yamato's after Via Hibiki passed away during that dreadful mess on Mendel. That's the colony the Autobots took over for their Autodock station. To protect you both, you were split up and were not supposed to meet, but life is funny that way. Never going exactly like you want." Something the Transformers made happen very easily.

"Father, what was the third series coordinator?" Cagalli asked abruptly.

"Not only was it Ulen Hibiki's crowning effort to fix the fertility issues of the Coordinators, but it was also a fairly significant increase in human abilities across the board. Faster neural response time, greater strength and speed along with an even more improved immune system while increasing mental stability as much as possible. I think he had stated that he believed he could get the human intelligent quotient up to about 250." Uzumi frowned at that. "I think he was pushing too far, too fast. But he appears to have succeeded in most points."

"I don't feel that smart," Kira complained.

"And it certainly doesn't give you common sense. I mean, you could do better than Flay," his sister said with a grin while bopping his shoulder. "Though she is only moderately crazy now in her quest to get revenge of Galvatron."

Kira looked like he was not sure what to make of the teasing from his sister, so settled for blushing. "Hey, now."

"We'll have to have supper tonight. I'll invite your parents, Kira. We'll talk of your parents. But I think Colonel Kisaka would like to have you evaluate his latest students of the M-1 series. The Autobots fixed up several issues with them to make them much more effective. And it's good you are here, as we are unveiling two prototype mobilesuits and I would like you to test them."

The Autobots had raised quite a stink with the quantum computers they were using, demanding that they be treated with full sentient rights. Not that he was adverse to that, but making 'Minicon' bodies for them was proving to be harder than it looked. Earth and Cybertronian electronics were radically different and it seems many Minicon bodies were able to transform into firearms that 'bulk' sized Transformers could use.

"I never realized how much training that soldiers do all the time," Kira admitted as his sister dragged him out of the room.

"I want to see those new mobile suits. I've been needing a replacement ever since Sky Shadow awakened," Cagalli said excitedly.

"That's an odd name for the Red ASTRAY to pick," Kira admitted. That he picked a name so quickly was a good thing. It also made him wonder when the Blue ASTRAY was going to turn into a Transformer.

Everything seemed to turn into a Transformer these days. It was not something that bothered him. He just accepted it as part of the era that they were in now.

V-V-V

Nemesis Prime smiled coldly under his mask as he took in the view of the strange energy processing plant. "So this is the source of the Null Energy?"

The five-faced leader of the Quintessons nodded, switching the face that was talking to the Unicroid. "That is correct. We have been gathering this energy for thousands of solar cycles and refining it into a liquid form."

In front of them was a dark purple, glowing liquid the size of a large lake. Spires of metal soared overhead, warping space and time to draw glowing black sparks out of hyperspace.

"Quite amazing," the avatar of Unicron said happily. "I'll take it."

"I'm sorry?" Quirlion asked in confusion, switching to a face that looked unhappy. "While we are willing to sell small doses, you do not sound like you want just a sample."

The Unicroids behind Nemesis Prime looked like they were holding back laughter.

"Were you aware of an item that is contained within the leader of the Autobots?" Nemesis Prime said conversationally. He wondered were some of his information came from, but it must have been programmed into his body by Unicron when he was transformed.

"We have heard of the Matrix of Leadership," the Quintesson replied stiffly.

"Its said to be a gateway to Primus himself and will only work for the chosen leader." The dark-shadow of Optimus Prime flipped open his upper chest panels, revealing a strange device within his chest. The sphere was just the size of his two fists with wing-handles on each side. "Unicron hates sharing his power, but to counter the Matrix decided to create his own Matrix. A Matrix of Domination!"

"What? You bring something like that to our planet?" They wanted Unicron's power for themselves, not to bring the attention of the Unbeing himself. "Sharkicons, destroy the intruders!"

The purple liquid was sloshing around as dark sparks of energy agitated within it.

Swarms of rotund, squat-limbed, shark-like creatures attacked the Unicroids. Raider laughed as he trashed them with his machine guns or just smashed them flat with his mega-density mace. The now hollow point Cybertitanium bullets ripped through the armor grade alloys of the Sharkicons like they were made of melting ice cream.

"You need to do more hit combos!" Calamity yelled as he destroyed large groups of the knock off Transformers with his bazooka and built in weapons.

Nemesis Prime darkly chuckled at the Quintessons. "Really, is that the best you can do?"

"Terrorcons, destroy them!" one the Quintessons called out in a panic. Avian, panther and dinosaur robots came enmass at the foursome. They were made of sterner stuff then the Sharkicons but not exactly useful for much more then cannon folder.

Still they gave Nemesis Prime an idea as he hit one of the dinosaur drones with a powerful null spark, sending it to its side on the ground. The Cruellock turned silver, brown and yellow.

"Arise Doomlock," Nemesis Prime commanded.

The newly named being transformed and got on one knee in front of the twisted reflection of Optimus Prime. "What is your bidding my master?" Doomlock asked with a harsh and animalistic voice, almost a growl.

"Destroy the Quintessons," Nemesis Prime ordered with a hint of amusement. "We are taking the Blood of Unicron with us."

Doomlock laughed and cut a Quintesson in half with a massive sun-colored energo blade. Blood and oil splattered onto the Terrorcon and he seemed to revel in it. The dinobot then threw the body into the pool of Dark Energon.

To the shock and amazement of everyone the halves rose up from the purple fluid and let out a primal and savage scream. Then the animal like Terrorcons and Sharkicons got away from the savage creature getting out of the Dark Energon.

"Well, that could prove useful," Forbidden quietly stated as he readied this scythe.

"Looks like fun," Calamity mused with an interested tone. "Wonder if a head shot will kill it."

Nemesis Prime took out the Matrix of Domination and held it out over the lake of dark energon. The entire lake started to rumble as oddly changed Null Sparks were drawn to the device.

"Transform and DOMINATE!" Nemesis Prime shouted. "Raise up an army that will destroy the Decepticons and the Autobots!"

[Sidewinder]

The Quintessons finally got what they deserved, with the possible exception of the one Doomlock threw into the Dark Energon pool. Good riddance. Now let's see Rau le Creusset/Nemesis Prime get an energo-sword shoved up his exhaust pipe- I hate that Char Aznable wannabe.

By the way, does Nemesis Prime still transform into a black version of Optimus' vehicle mode, or is the color change NOT the only thing preventing people from asking, "Why did Optimus Prime paint himself black?" I'm thinking something like Robots in Disguise Scourge (Car Robots Black Convoy).

[Fanboyimus Prime]

The Quintessons finally got what they deserved, with the possible exception of the one Doomlock threw into the Dark Energon pool. Good riddance. Now let's see Rau le Creusset/Nemesis Prime get an energo-sword shoved up his exhaust pipe- I hate that Char Aznable wannabe.

Grimlock tried doing that to Rau. His healing ability is the only thing that kept Rau from being turned into a large pile of scrap metal.

By the way, does Nemesis Prime still transform into a black version of Optimus' vehicle mode, or is the color change NOT the only thing preventing people from asking, "Why did Optimus Prime paint himself black?" I'm thinking something like Robots in Disguise Scourge (Car Robots Black Convoy).

Optimus Prime turns into a red PLANTS cargo hauler with trailer (a design I'm sure the Earth Alliance and Orb use, if not something similar) while Nemesis Prime is a copy of the Armada Nemesis Prime. And yes he will have an "Overload" and "Jetfire" to merge with.

Though Optimus is going to get some upgrades too...

[Fanboyimus Prime]

Two ten year old kids called out to a roving vending machine near their park. High above them, the artificial lights of the lunar base shone UV saturated sunlight on everyone.

"Hey, vendor-machine! I want a Hershey Bar!"

The machine turned and looked at them with a single red optic. It then fired several Hershey Bars, bags of Skittles and used Hershey Kisses like shotgun pellets.

It started to feel better as it expelled the organic substances at high velocity that had been stored inside. With a clacking ratchet, it turned into an eight foot tall robot quadruped and started to lope off.

Then a toaster ran past with flames spewing out of it as it had accidentally set itself on fire. It's squealed and shrieked beeps. Electric razors moved across the ground like slugs, then turned into rat-like robots that scampered around even faster like robotic rats.

Everywhere you could see, unattended machines started to come alive.

And all without any higher reasoning then animals or even the chimp level intelligence of the Haro known as Mr. Pink.

Deeper within the Lunar base known as Ptolemaeus a gunmetal gray cube started to form with glowing emerald runes on it. Not that anyone of the remaining humans or feral robots would know but those runes were Ancient Cybertronian, millions of years old and nearly a lost language. If anyone could read it they would see it read... Caretaker.

V-V-V

On the bridge of the huge, slate-gray battle-cruiser, The Sea Slag, stood the throne-like captain's chair was the infamous pirate leader, and suspected Decepticon, Cannonball. Or rather a Cannonball given there had been ten of them over the years and each successor had been personally trained by the last one.

The current one had originally been named Barricade and he clenched his fist as he remembered why he wasn't a Decepticon anymore. And the shame he felt for why it happened surged through him.

That fall was the fault of Bumblebee and the Throttlebots; completely and utterly defeated him and his forces on Skalorr for that Vector Sigma node. Thanks to that the Autobots were able to rebuild their forces and retake Cybertron's moons. Some of which they still held to this day.

The former leader of that group being in the star system was just one of the reasons they journeyed here. To rip the laser core out of Bumblebee and crush it was a very pleasurable desire he had, but business came first.

Standing next to the gold and obsidian pirate leader was the emerald form of Mega Octane. The Commandos had been altered to look like the Combaticons and even combine like them, yet they were a pale copy of that gestalt team and Ruination was a lot easier to knock down then Bruticus.

So they left the Decepticons and joined his pirate band, hoping for easier targets and loot to amass. And they'd done a great job. Too great as the Elite Guard sent a ship to deal with them. It was through a spy named Triton they had learned that. An informant that had now gone silent.

'Of course, Galvatron destroyed them,' Mega Octane thought with amusement. 'Now to raid this system of everything of value before the Decepticon forces destroy it all.'

That the legendary leader of the Autobots was in the system as well as the Dinobots was worrying. It also limited the amount of targets they could hit before having to make a quick exit. There was no profit in getting slagged before they could enjoy their spoils or spend them.

Rollbar then seemed to appear next to them. Mega Octane wondered why all martial artists enjoyed doing that. He personally found it rather annoying.

"We have found a shipment of energon being sent to a space station run by a minor force in this sector," the green Commando stated softly.

"Samples of their technology and energon," Mega Octane mused out loud. That would be very useful to them. And that would also be extremely profitable given effective the technology was proving to be. As Galvatron would be forced to admit.

"Detritus send us in," Cannonball ordered. "Bombshock and Mega Octane get that energon shipment."

The tan Junkion at the helm nodded and piloted the Dread-class vessel at the space station Ame-no-Mihashira. About the huge space station lay the ORB battle-carrier the Izumo itself, the Marseille-III class freighter the Lazy Sue and a lonely Drake-class cruiser, the Idaho. In the cargo bay of the Sea Slag was Steamhammer, Darkstream, Doublepunch, Movor, Ro-Tor, Armorhide, Smolder, Mudslinger, and Skullgrin.

Mudslinger looked completely and utterly bored. He was a bot of action and he was itching to see if humanity's mobilesuits were all they were rumored to be. And, of course, to test his might against them. It brought a savage smile to his face as he thought about crushing the human Guardians.

Bombshock and Mega Octane entered the cavernous bay. Bombshock looked at Doublepunch with a guarded look. It was one of his playing both sides that had gotten the obsidian Transformer nearly slagged and part of the Sea Slag's crew after all. And he looked to still be doing that every chance he got.

"You all know we intend to do," Mega Octane remarked. "Not that it's that different from what we always do."

"So let's get it over with," Steamhammer said in a gruff tone. "I can't wait to show up the other Constructicons with my drones."

"Is the pool open for when Devastator slags Streamhammer still open?" Smolder asked Mega Octane, not caring said bot was standing right next to him.

With a snarl the lime green Decepticon grabbed Smolder. The pyromaniac didn't seem to mind at all. In fact he had a vaguely amused expression on his face.

"Enough!" Mega Octane bellowed at the pair. With a look of annoyance Steamhammer dropped Smolder.

"We have more important things to do," Bombshock drawled.

"And you trust them with drones?" Skullgrin mused with an exasperated expression. Not that he wanted drones to merge with for himself. That core of bestial rage he kept within him didn't need the poor bot's version of a combiner added to it.

"Not like we really have a lot of choices," Mega Octane stated with shrug. "Had to make do with what we got."

"Nor are most of us able to be a knock off of an actual combiner team," Smolder said in a harsh tone with his axe in hand. He then found himself face first on the ground.

"Thanks," Mega Octane told Rollbar. Movor wondered why they kept Smolder around anyway.

"Now that the scrap is done, it's time to combine and get to work," Rollbar commented.

Steamhammer nodded and several construction vehicles drove out and merged with him. He stood five heads taller and clenched a massive fist. Bombshock, Mudslinger and even Smolder then did the same.

"You take care of the tanker for energon," Mega Octane ordered. "Ruination will deal with the mobile suits of that base."

Mudslinger was already flying out of the hanger bay for the Lazy Sue as fast as he could move.

"And the third ship?" Skullgrin asked as he shook his head. "The one that probably will shoot Mudslinger?"

"The Sea Slag can handle that lightly armed ship," Mega Octane remarked confidently. "Just keep an eye for any of those guardians it can launch."

V-V-V

The speakers on the carrier Izumo blarred overhead, "All units prepare for Decepticon attack!"

Ghina Sahaku looked almost giddy. His plans to make Orb become the power of the Earth had been in his mind set back, but now he could get his hands on Cybertronian technology and give his mobile suit a proper test.

His custom ASTRAY looked like what in the normal time-line was a larger version of the Blue ASTRAY's Second G Revise form with the M1A ASTRAY's flight pod instead of the tactical arms and with a pair of swords at the hips. The more tyrantically bent Sahaku twin quickly entered the mobile suit. The gray color and white color changed to black and gold as the phase shift was turned on. It was an option that would not be available to the mass-produced M2 ASTRAY which was to be based off Ghina's unit, but he always had the best especially for mobile suits.

However Ghina didn't really care how much the M2 ASTRAY would be like his unit at the moment as he launched. He considered his ASTRAY equal to any of the G Weapons and if the prototype ASTRAYs weren't coming alive and transforming he'd consider his better then them as well.

The powerful ASTRAY fired on Mudslinger with a blaster/dual beam saber. The bright green Decepticon barely avoided being hit in the chest by twisting to the left.

"Better luck next time slagger!" Mudslinger called out in a mocking tone.

And Decepticon was hit by a silver and red M1 ASTRAY armed with a hyper bazooka. The HEAT round shattered the connection port for the drone in his left arm. It made his team mates doubt his boasts of being a tough bot. The now free flying drone tried to make it back to the Sea Slag but was cut in half by a beam saber.

"The weapons here are good," Darkstream noted with a bit of a respect.

"That... or Mudslinger is full of scrap on how much damage he can take," Skullgrin remarked as he dodged heavy ion cannon fire. It was clear that the Sahaku forces weren't playing around with the Decepticons. Doublepunch strafed them in his jet mode. A blast from a sniper rifle clipped one of his wings and an another ASTRAY unloaded John Woo style on him with a pair of minirifles. Fluids flowed from the wounds and it made him angry.

Behind them, the EA Idaho shuddered as it shook from several hits from the Sea Slag.

"A Seeker you definitely aren't," Darkstream remarked as he came in low and strafed the surface of Ame-No- Mihashira space-station with blaster fire and HEAT missiles all around him.

"I thought you were supposed to deal with the tanker?" Skullgrin yelled as he barely avoided being hit with an energon enhanced missile. The next attack however didn't miss and Ghina struck him hard with the dual beam saber. The energy beams cut deep into him with the metal at the edges of it turning molten hot. The pirate let out a nearly primal scream of rage and pain which only amused Ghina. It was proving how powerful his mobile suit really was.

"You will scream my name, robot," Ghina cackled evilly.

Then came the cry of, "Ruination awakens!"

"Oh you're in trouble now," Mudslinger crowed happily as the gestalt knocked Ghina Sahaku's mobile suit aside with ease and started attacking the space station. The pair of blasters were different in that one only had three barrels while the other had five of them. The guns unleashed crimson plasmaized laser blasts at a rapid fire rate.

A squad of ASTRAYs tried to send the laser fire back at the combiner with their golden laser deflector shields but it was causing horrific damage to the arms of their mobile suits. Behind them, the Idaho suddenly rippled from energy expanding inside, then it suddenly exploded with energon-explosive force, much to their surprise.

"Sir, I..." was heard over the comm as well as a loud crunching noise as the arm of that ASTRAY came off.

"Launch the Calamities," Ghina ordered. It was time to see if they truly could stop these combiners that the Transformers used. And if they living up to everything his allies said they were.

From the space station four mobile suits launched. Each was silver and black and looked like the new Unicronian Calamity. The mobile suits flew into the fight on hip mounted thrusters based off the Cybertronian thrusters of the Sword Striker.

Then the Sword Calamities opened fire on the Decepticon pirates with their chest mounted Scylla energy cannons. The energon powered weapons were only 35 % as effective as the Calamity's pre-transformation specs but they got the Decepticon's attention.

The Sword Calamities then fired beam boomerangs at the pirates while the regular Calamities powered up their main guns. The Decepticons tried to fly away from the Gundams.

"Come get some!" Steamhammer bellowed defiantly at the oncoming Gundams as he pulled back.

He was hit dead on by the dual ram cannon of one of the Calamities and sent flying backward in space. Then he saw the energon powered main guns of the Calamity to the left of him charge up.

"Oh slag," Steamhammer got out before pulling some insane moves to keep from being hit. To shock of his teammates, they were effective.

"I told Mudslinger and Steamhammer that neon green was a bad idea," Smolder remarked. Everyone else on the Sea Slag considered those two insane for picking some of the easiest colors to be seen. And now they finally were paying for such a poor choice in colors.

One of the Calamities then fired on Ruination. The assault nearly blew the combiner apart with the sheer power. The other Calamity kept the drone-using Decepticons at bay with a withering barrage of fire. In the fog of war the Decepticons lost sight of the Sword Calamities. That was a bad thing as they stabbed through Darkstream and Bombshock's chests with the swords. Blue sparks danced off the blades.

The Sea Slag shuddered as the Archangel ranged in quickly. Twenty minutes had passed more quickly than either side had really though possible.

It didn't make the pirates feel better when a completely new and gold mobile suit launched from the the infamous starship with the Strike II, Purple ASTRAY, Blitz, Green ASTRAY, GuAIZ Experimental Arms, and several Strike Daggers. The Akatsuki was fitted with a golden ASTRAY flight pod given the pair of packs being designed for the suit weren't ready yet. Whirl, Huffer, and Safeguard also launched on the NuGUULs and the cranky engineer was scanning the odd but useful additions the pirates were using. Huffer then opened his chest plate and fired a barrage of missiles at Doublepunch. Several of his payload hit the obsidian Transformer and it sent him flying and spinning out of control.

"Shiny," Smolder remarked in a bemused tone as he saw the Akatsuki. He wondered if it was vanity like some Transformers fell to?

That distraction got him blasted with an energy blast from Safeguard. The force of it knocked Smolder in an out of control flight and he slammed into Doublepunch. The GuAIZ then opened fired on both pirates.

"Just shoot it!" Steamhammer bellowed.

Energy beams were fired at the golden mobile suit and sent flying right back at the Decepticons with just as much power behind them as they had going at the Akatsuki. The pirates were shocked such a thing could exist. Cagalli took advantage of their shock and fired her Hyakurai beam rifle. The rifle packed a punch as it hit Skullgrin and sent the Decepticon flying off.

"Show off," Yzak muttered in the cockpit of the hastily repaired Purple ASTRAY. He was regretting using the suit instead of a perfectly fine and completely usable Strike Dagger. He really didn't want to test the limits of the repair work in the arms, so stuck mostly to using the speed of the Shield Striker, head mounted laser machine guns, and the claw shoes as his main weapons. The razor sharp claws cut into the already injured Mudslinger with ease.

The wounded faux-combiner punched the Purple ASTRAY with his still functional arm. Suddenly the drone arm was cut off by Ghina's ASTRAY. Yzak cut the neon-green pirate from crotch to head with his toe claws. Various fluids leaked out of the heavily wounded Transformer and Mudslinger looked like a complete mess.

Ghina laughed in amusement at that when on screen inside his cockpit Cagalli appeared. She was wearing a full space suit but he could easily see the extremely annoyed expression on her face and the glare in her eyes. That killed his laughter as he knew this wasn’t going to be good news for him. Of course, the princess never really liked him much to begin with.

"We're going to talk after the battle about you having Gundams, Lord Ghina Sahaku," the blonde haired princess stated firmly with a razor sharp edge to her tone.

The male Sahaku twin nearly growled. It had not been his intention to reveal his trump card against the other houses. Especially now that he knew how powerful and effective they were.

The black and gold ASTRAY unsheathed a waist mounted sword and Ghina vented his frustrations on Ruination. He flew under and behind the combiner. There were sparks as his razor sharp blade cut into the metal of the fusilateral penta-combiner and the ASTRAY flew around to the front and stabbed giant in the chest to the hilt. The battered gestalt bled energon from the cuts. Ruination's optics narrowed and he slammed his foe with a roundhouse kick.

Ghina found his stock flight back was having some trouble stopping his momentum and his head was ringing, but his gold and black mobilesuit's Phase Shift took the damage without any note. Still he was pleased Astray was able to fight a gestalt on it’s own, though he really wanted the weapons of that orange mobile suit he saw on the battlefield.

Safeguard unloaded on the dinged up Ruination with a massive blast of energy. He then split into Jetstorm and Jetfire when a massive fist came at him. One of the Sword Calamities flew in and struck Ruination’s backside while his focus was on the Elite Guard members.

The annoyed combiner moved and blasted the gundam with his back mounted pair of blasters and then threw the mobile suit at the space station. The GuAIZ was able to catch the Sword Calamity before it collided.

Whirl transformed and literally ran up the torso of Ruination at high speed. When he reached the eyes he slashed one of the optics and got out of there at maximum burn. Ruination let out a scream of pain as he held a hand over his ruined optic. Energon leaked and started to freeze on the massive appendage.

"You really seem to enjoy doing that," Nicole remarked with a long-suffering sigh while in the Blitz as he fired on the pirates.

"Hey, it works," Whirl replied in the middle of a barrel roll and barely dodged a barrage of fire.

"Die, Autobot!" Ruination screamed and didn't notice in his rage and in his blindside that four mobile suits were flying right at him. The first inclination he had was blacklight beam hitting him on the left leg around the connector point for Mega Octane and Armorhide. The misshapen golem snarled as it was tired of being shot at by organics and Autobots.

Ruination turned and tried to blow the Strike Dagger with that weapon up using the five barrel laser blaster. The Akatsuki flew right in the line of fire and sent the attack right back at it. Ruination was so shocked he didn’t get out of the way of the energy blasts.

The Green ASTRAY fired a heavy ion cannon, along with the Striker II using an improved Launcher Striker. The Striker Pack had a quarter of the power of Megatron's fusion cannon and the damage it was doing brought a smile to Flay's face. With the beating the Commandos had taken it was enough to force them to demerge.

"That just slagging blows," Movor grumbled as he tried to retreat to the Sea Slag, but was cut off by the purple mobilesuit. He also saw an orange mobile suit with a lot of firepower in close formation with the purple one.

The Calamity Gundams suddenly surged forward and raised their bazookas at the five pirates.

"Oh, slagging glitches," Mega Octane muttered softly in an almost whimper.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Ro-Tor gasped as the GuAIZ and Calamities guns started to power up.

The next thing they knew was that the Akatsuki got between them and the Calamities.

"We are taking them alive," Cagalli commanded. "After all so many people have joked about the ASTRAYs should be a combining team, we might as well see how that works."

"You guys might want to surrender," Huffer told them. "Because its this or the scrap yard. Not that I care if you knock offs get melted down into coffee tables."

In the Green ASTRAY, Mu was surprised to see the Commandos raise their hands in the air. He then winced as there was still a sword in the chest of Mega Octane. It looked really painful to him.

While the pirates were all focused on the battle; Swerve, Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, Hot Shot,Downshift and Wheeljack along the sentient mobile suits launched and headed for the Sea Slag using Mirage Colliod equipped GUULs. It was a hope that this mission would go better then the 'Wreckers' attack on the Space Bridge.

"Are you sure the yellow bandoleer is really a good look brother?" Tristrike asked Aegis. "And I really don't think the use of Optimus Prime's face as a symbol on them is very... tasteful. And I doubt it is something he’d find very respectful."

"Well I like it," Aegis remarked a bit defensively as he had what looked like a 'beam rifle on steroids' in his hands. It was weapon Perceptor had designed with Ironhide’s input to have the firepower of detachable cannon of the now Transformer 'evil trio of Gundams'. Aegis just looked forward to field testing it.

"Mute it," Downshift ordered as Wheeljack used the Mirage Colliod to hack the controls for the Sea Slag's cargo doors.

In seconds they were inside the ship. Swerve and Hot Shot took point. Behind them were Sunstreaker and Sideswipe. The pair of brothers worked as a well oiled machine as they served as the rear guard.

"Now all we have to do is get them to run to the cargo bay and our friends and jump them," Sunstreaker said shaking his head. "Can they even fit inside this ship?"

Wheeljack shook his head. "And effectively fight? No."

"Then why are they here?" Sunstreaker questioned as he threw a grenade down the hallway. With a loud clank it landed outside the doors to the cargo bay.

"In case these pirates are hiding any large surprises in the cargo hold," Wheeljack stated a bit absent minded. "Such as headless guardians."

"Nasty," Swerve remarked as the explosion set off the alarms. A loud screech filled the hallways.

"And to draw them to thinking we broke out of the cargo hold with a bomb instead of leading them into a trap," Downshift dryly noted.

They then used the folded up Guul disks on their backs to turn invisible. Sideswipe grinned. The technology the humans had was interesting and inventive in a lot of ways. At least their recent technology they'd developed.

The corridors of the Sea Slag were bathed in a crimson light as the alarms kept on going. Sideswipe slammed any pirates that got to close to them with his piledriver.

"How far to the bridge?" Swerve asked Downshift softly. The battle hardened vet took a moment to remember where that was located on a Dread class ship. It had been awhile since he’d assaulted one.

"Not too much further," he replied as he loaded his blaster. "Should see it in a click or two."

"I can see it," Sunstreaker remarked with a savage grin as he looked down the hallway. "Let’s say hello to Cannonball."

Suddenly a trio of bright purple, green and yellow Seekers dropped out of the vents above them and attacked. Sunstreaker looked at their paint jobs and was disgusted by anyone inflicting colors that loud on anyone. They were ugly even for the standards of the Skomiloch Territories that the Cons held.

"Hey, slaggers, you might have been invisible but we could still hear you," the optic-burning green one said with a harsh laugh. Downshift’s response was a barrage of missiles to the face of Rainmaker. The flier found himself knocked into a wall by the force of the explosion. Then the last thing he saw was a fist strike his face.

Wheeljack decloaked and blasted the purple pirate with his gyro destablizer. Metal Burn crashed to the ground and Swerve stepped on his head. There was a horrific noise as Swerve put more and more pressure on the pirate’s noggin.

The final Seeker looked a lot less brave after seeing what happened to his comrades. Before he could make a break for it, he was grabbed from behind and then slammed face first into the silver flooring. He could feel a gun on the side of his head and someone holding his arms behind his back.

"There a secret knock or a code for the bridge?" Sideswipe asked in a conversational tone.

"I..." Supernova started to say when they heard the sound of an optic shatter and Metal Burn scream.

"Sounds like your buddy is about to need a trip to the repair shop," Sunstreaker remarked. "Maybe if you tell us we might be able to talk Swerve out of crushing his head flat."

"The code is 2125!" Supernova yelled.

"Thank you," Hot Shot said, and then slammed Supernova really hard face first into the floor. He shot the former con in the leg to make it harder for him to cause trouble later.

Wheeljack quickly put in the code and the CNC doors opened. They were a bit surprised to see a Junkion as part of the crew, but him opening fire on them made it clear he was there willingly.

"Get off my ship Autobots!" Cannonball roared as he used his laser arm on them. Wheeljack fired his shoulder mounted missile at them.

"Oh scrap! That’s Wheeljack" Storm Cloud yelled as he ran screaming from the weapon. Cannonball and even the Autobots couldn’t fault the raw fear Wheeljack’s attack caused. Especially since the missile exploded with incredible force and knocked everyone around.

The pirate hacker ended up colliding with Sunstreaker. The yellow Autobot shot Stormcloud and shoved him off.

"Thanks for the dents, slagger," Sunstreaker grumbled.

"Oh, the infamously vain Sunstreaker," Cannonball snarled as he fired at him. "I’ll give you something to really whine about!"

Hot Shot got to his feet and his hands were surrounded by what looked like a heavy armor boxing glove. While Cannonball was focused on killing Sunstreaker, got across the room and hit the pirate in the back as hard as he could. Cannonball screamed in pain and slammed Hot Shot with his laser gun arm.

Hot Shot was knocked back and Cannonball shot him in the chest.

"I am scrapping-sick of yellow Autobots," the pirate bellowed. He then screamed as a missile exploded in the wound Hot Shot had made. Sparks of green energy and purple fluid flowed easily from the hole in his back.

"Tough slag," Downshift remarked and let loose on the gold and obsidian pirate. He then blasted Cannonball in the face.

The dazed pirate didn’t have time to recover as Swerve and Sideswipe opened fire on him. They made sure that Cannonball wouldn’t be able to focus on one bot. Sunstreaker made sure to keep Detritus and Storm Cloud were unable to help Cannonball or stop Wheeljack from hacking into the Sea Slag’s computer by shooting them.

Which wasn’t working very well as Detritus opened fire on Sunstreaker and Wheeljack. The phase disruptor of the tan Junkion sent Wheeljack flying.

"You’re one ugly... Do the Mario!" Detritus stated aiming his gun at Wheeljack’s chest.

Sunstreaker had a questioning expression. "What the slag did he just say?"

Suddenly Detritus burst into flames. Wheeljack, instead of using the flame retardant in his arms, used the rocket fuel he also had and poured it over the burning pirate. Once more there was an massive explosion and the Junkion’s head collided with Cannonball’s and staggered the pirate leader.

"Wow, that worked better then I thought," Hot Shot sheepishly grinned as he looked over what his napalm and Wheeljack’s rocket fuel did to Detritus. Even with the ability to rebuild themselves out of scrap metal, that Junkion was wrecked and in stasis lock.

Downshift cut loose on Cannonball and the pirate hit the floor. Downshift stepped on the the Decepticon’s laser arm with all the force he could generate and ruined it. He then punched the down privateer in the face.

"He down for the count?" Sideswipe asked as he stasis cuffed Storm Cloud. The hacker looked surprised to still be alive at this point.

"He better be for his sake," Swerve remarked dryly.

"Wow, they really are behind on their security upgrades," Wheeljack muttered as he was soon inside the Sea Slag’s computer network.

"Well, what we going to do with this ship?" Hot Shot asked. "I mean the firepower is pretty light."

"Always turn it over to the humans," Downshift shrugged. "After cleaning out the cargo hold of anything really bad like Nucleon shock gauntlets or Furmanite."

All the bots shivered thinking about how big of a mess humanity could make experimenting with those items. It was not pretty it all.

"No kidding," Swerve commented. "They don’t need that slag. Especially the ones that think putting bombs in people’s heads is a good idea."

V-V-V

Athrun was happy to be back on Autobot Island but surprised that the Archangel had left for JOSH-A. Really the outpost isle was going to be where the Decepticons would go first. He wasn't sure if they would even want the EA's biggest base.

"Something weird happened while you were away," Kira told his friend as they were in a cafe in the space port.

"You know, I got a feeling of dread when you do that," Athrun admitted. "Every time you say that anymore means something out of this world happened."

"Remember Cagalli?" Kira asked with a slight smile.

Athrun gave his friend a look.

"Ok, silly question," Kira admitted. "Well it turns out I'm not only adopted, but Cagalli is my sister."

"Only you, Kira," Athrun said shaking his head. Athrun had to admit that his best friend's sister was extremely attractive. Maybe if he wasn't supposed to marry Lacus he'd think about trying to date her. Still he enjoyed being with Lacus and their relationship was going extremely well so he wasn’t complaining about his love life.

"I know," Kira laughed and then looked serious. "And it seems I could call myself Kira Hibiki."

"As in..." Athrun gasped as his advanced mentality immediately recognized the premiere geneticist from his father's ramblings.

"Yes, that is my biological father," Kira nodded. "Though his zeal to fix the coordinator's problems and not being against anything that give him a lot of cash for his projects worried me a lot."

"That isn't a good thing," Athrun muttered. He had a gut feeling whatever those money making side projects were, it bit Doctor Hibiki in the rear.

"And your former team leader has resurfaced," Kira commented. "Or there's one very screwed up Transformer out there that thinks he used to be human."

That threw Athrun for a loop. And here he was thinking that would be nearly impossible given the weird stuff the Transformers do all the time. Of course which person was to be a former human also filled him with dread. Rau La Flaga, as was now known to be the man’s real name, was the last person that needed the power of a Cybertronian body.

"And Nicol already wrote the report," Kira added for emphasis. Athrun looked visibly relieved at that.

It was a relief as Athrun didn't want to know how that was possible. That AI designed using the preserved brain of the first coordinator was weird enough. It probably make the current split of humanity look like nothing if people could get their minds and souls uploaded into a Cybertronian body. Which baring murder or lack of energy or repairs was immortal.

That would cause even bigger problems for them all since then someone would use a mobile suit as their body. One armed with heavy weapons or using a Striker Pack with all the others merged together like he heard they were planning to do.

'Might as well just mount them all on the mobile suit and get it over with,' Athrun mused on that idea.

Kira smiled. "Hey you think using a mobilesuit to scare the hell out of my sister's boyfriends would be worth the trouble I'd get into?"

"Given your sister has her own mobile suit and is a lot meaner then you are... not really," Athrun admitted with a chuckle.

"This is going to be weird," Kira said as he sighed while shaking his head. "I just hope all the details of my past are over and finished. I mean the fact I hang out with alien robots to save the world is the most normal part."

"Have you told Flay yet?" Athrun asked his best friend in a concerned tone.

"This is all stuff you tell someone in person," Kira replied. "She did learn the first part, but I have to tell her I have a twin sister."

"So she got the really strange part first," Athrun said with touch of amusement. "So I guess your relationship with her will be fine."

"Oh there's a 'failed' Ultimate Coordinator around," Kira remarked shaking his head. "Just one and it turns out he got told all about me and before Whirl talked to him was really angry about a lot of things."

"Which begets then question," Athrun stated quietly. "Who knows about that whole project and why would they want the only other survivor wound up enough to kill you in cold blood?"

"That's something I'd like to know," Kira commented. It would be a good idea to know who wanted him dead. And why. It was a loose end he needed to tie. "Oh, I did hear some new good news. Our latest mobilesuits replacements from the PLANTS are arriving."

"Really? That means they finished them over six weeks ahead of schedule," Athrun said happily. "They've assigned me the Justice, right? And even tuned the Phase Shift to my red?"

"Exactly. I've even got this Justice unit set to my Tristrike's colors. Though Mu did not look very happy at finding himself in yet another new mobilesuit. But he's really the only one that has a chance of using this Providence. I think he can even match us both in it."

"That's the one with the remote dragoons, like his old Moebius Zero Omega, right? He should be right at home. The pace of mobilesuit development has been crazy, but thank goodness we've had a technical leg-up, or these would have never hit production so fast."

The two friends departed, heading down to to the main mobilesuit bay of Autobot Island, where a group of Autobot technicians were giving the mobilesuits a one over.

All four were there, laying in a row. The ZGMF-X10C Freedom Gundam sat in a special cradle, as it was not able to lay on its back easily, due to all of the vector-thrust units that could also double as blasters. Dual-beam sabers and a dual-function gold-reflector buckler and shield positron deflectors were on both arms. Built into the chest was a multiphase beam cannon.

Athrun's ZGMF-X09B Justice Gundam was in nearly the same mold of menacing, angular features that was starting to be known as 'Gundam' in looks. His back-flyer had been upgraded to actually turn into a small robot, piloted by one of the freed sentient quantum A.I. computers. They had decided to give it a slightly heftier punch, giving it a five-shot scylla cannon equal in power to his original mobilesuit. To give it slightly better melee ability, it was fitted with a beam-saber spear, coated in reflector-gold. It had the same bucklers and positron reflector set up. On the knee and foot of each leg were the beam generating units for the leg beam blade.

And there was the ZGMF-13C Providence Gundam. It too was in a special cradle given the massive DRAGOON unit on it’s back. From what Athrun could recall the unit was less bulky then the original design specs and faster as well. On the wrists were the shield positron deflectors. On the inside of the forearms were mini-rifles for pointblank defense. Mounted on each leg was a beam saber powered by an energon fuel cell. In the hands of the mobile suit was a high power energy rifle and was so far the most powerful rifle ever created for a mobile suit.

And finally there was the ZGMF-X999B ZAKU. The unit was to be the new standard for ZAFT mobile suits to replace the CGUE IIs and GINNs. The first unique feature were the grenades on the hips. They came in several varieties such as smoke, glass gas, thermite incendiary, fragmentation, high explosive and flash grenades. What the four grenades on the ZAKU were, Athrun had no idea. The ZAKU also was able use Striker Packs, and it even had a few new ones made specifically for the unit. It also had phase shift as a standard feature. On one shoulder was a large shield, and in the hands of the unit was the beam axe. It was a the bigger and more powerful version of the beam tomahawk planned for the ZAKU. The mobile suit also had a beam rifle that was an early model of the planned rifle for the Providence, and the prototype mobile suit it was planned for had been scrapped after ZAFT’s weapon designers got the specs for quantum controls for Mu’s Gunbarrels. Kira looked surprised that was to be a regular production model mobile suit and not specialized unit like the G-Weapons had been.

They had done an incredible job with the suits and Kira wondered how anyone could top those four mobile suits. But he had a feeling they would somehow, sooner or later.

V-V-V

"This is 'Around Cybertron' and I'm your host Rook," a boxy blue and white Autobot stated warmly. "With me are a unique group that have managed to hold back a Decepticon invasion of this world."

"All in a day's work," Hot Shot said with a cocky smile and a thumbs up with the background of the Archangel's mobilesuit bay in the background.

"Didn't he wash out of the Elite Guard?" Jetstorm stage whispered Jetfire. His brother shrugged. A bunch of decent Bots failed to make the cut. Elite wasn’t in the name only because it sounded good.

That made Hot Shot's smile more restrained. The bright-yellow (and temperamental) Autobot also gave the combiner pair an annoyed glance.

"Being a member of the Elite Guard or a Wrecker isn't everything," Downshift firmly and clearly said to the pair.

"Guys we're getting off topic," Swerve interjected.

"Correct," Rook remarked. "In any case these eight Autobots are not the only heroes here. Also here is a group of the local life forms. Their guardian sized battle suits, called mobilesuits, have proven to be to battle the Decepticons head on."

Flay smiled at that praise. She then wondered exactly how many star systems were getting this broadcast. And if everyone in the solar system was watching this. Her fingers twitched with the desire to make sure her hair was covering her scarred half of her face.

Nicole, on the other hand, looked a bit overwhelmed. The green haired pilot recalled anything his father told him about saying cool while on TV. He then turned his head to see how everyone else was doing. Tolle looked even worse and Nicole wondered if the Strike Dagger pilot needed a paper bag to breath out of.

Cagali had a slight smile on her face and wondered if her deflecting a laser blast from Shockblast right back at him would be mentioned. The Decepticon was so shocked that he didn't move out of the way. The Akatsuki was going to be a nightmare for the Decepticons. Those pirates worked well for a test run of its abilities.

"A first I didn't believe it to be honest," Yzak admitted with a sheepish smile. "I mean giant robots from outer space? And I found out that truth is stranger then fiction the hard way."

That his former mobile suit was now called Shadow Wolf also helped bring that home for him. It surprised him that they fused a Sword Striker onto the Armored Shroud for the new Transformer. After Drift had modified the sword to something akin to a properly weighted and designed sword at that. He was now working with Erica Simmons on creating a proper sword for mobile suits.

"And the myth of the Spark Singers has been proven to be true," Rook stated directly to the pickups. "It is a very obscure myth that the original thirteen Transformers when they sang and worked up powerful emotions could breath life into the lifeless. Behind me are Transformers given life this way."

"Hi," Aegis said with a slight wave. The red mobilesuit looked quite at ease.

"Hey you," Shadow Wolf called out to Mu's Mobile Armor that was in the background. "We're on intergalactic TV, come on and say a few words."

Much to the surprise of everyone (including Shadow Wolf who had just been kidding), the Mobile armor sighed. He then transformed into a fairly odd looking and spindly robot with four guns on his shoulders and his heavy, linear railgun still attached to his upper torso. "Call me Umbra."

"He... he's already a Transformer," Tolle gasped in complete surprise.

"I honestly didn't want to show myself until after the Cybertronian Civil War had left the Solar System," Umbra stated in a firm tone. "I will fight to protect the Earth but I no desire to get into a corrosion of war that has lasted longer than civilization has existed on this world."

"You do realized that Neutrals that believed that got slaughtered. By the pit, they were hunted down to be tossed into the Smelting Pools in Polyhex to feed the Decepticon war machine," Whirl said in a heated tone. You were part of the solution or you were part of the problem to the cerulean Wrecker. The idea of not fighting the Decepticons to the bitter end disgusted him. He felt Umbra was a coward.

"Trust me kid," Downshift added in a firm tone. "You don't want to see what the Decepticons do. I'm sure you're aware of the term terraforming. They've cyberformed whole worlds after they killed every living organism on them."

The humans and mobile suits turned Transformers all winced thinking of those two things. The Decepticons proved to be more nasty and disturbing then they had thought before. That they could turn the Earth into a copy of Cybertron worried them greatly. And that it still could happen if they failed probably would fill their nightmares for years to come.

"They'll get the business end of my stress fracture cannon if they try," Aurum nearly snarled.

"We will all do our part to save the Earth," Tri-Strike said softly. "It is our home. Not Cybertron. We are allies of the Autobots, not just another subordinate unit of yours."

That stunned even Rook into silence for a moment. It wasn't often Transformers refused to help battle the Decepticons across the galaxy. Heine looked at the sentient mobile suits for a moment.

"Well I'm sure there's an abandoned colony or two you guys can use as a house if you need one," the orange-loving coordinator remarked.

"We can work on that later," Sky Shadow told them. "We all got offers to be part of O.M.N.I. at the moment with free repairs like Tristrike."

"Or ORB's military like I am," Aurum interjected.

"Same thing," Umbra noted with a slight shrug. And he was correct as the ORB living mobile suit forces were kept in the same command structure as before they gained sentience.

The only real difference was that they doubted ORB's factions with OMNI would be putting bombs into the heads of Transformers. That didn't mean it was impossible, only that they put more credit in being a person, even if you were metal.

"Right..." Jetfire remarked as he tried to recover from the shock of finding out these new Transformers weren't going to join the Autobots.

"So now-" Rook said when the alarm sounded.

"All crew are to return to the ship for immediate deployment. I repeat, all crew return to the ship for immediate deployment," Natarle Badgiruel stated over the intercom.

"Looks like our interview is over," Sky Shadow remarked with a hint of amusement. Umbra just shook his head slightly.

"Well then," Rook said as he recovered. "This is Rook from Around Cybertron. Till all are one."

V-V-V

"Ironhide, how goes the Autodock project?" the leader of the Autobots called out from the main entrance to the engineering heart from the Alpha Quadrant half of the human colony that had been dubbed 'Autodock'.

"We're going to make that deadline, Prime, just you wait," the Autobot engineer called out. "Bulkhead, Perceptor and I are working night and day. I'm still not sure of the refined energon fuel. That stuff is unstable in the long term. We have rules on when and how we use it. Bulkhead is personally supervising the Beta Quadrant installation right this moment."

"Your posturing is immaterial. Optimus Prime has followed the exact rules you mentioned. Energon Extract has been specifically created for our project. It will be completely consumed and not stored longer than absolutely necessary," the monotone voice of Perceptor called out with almost a hint of anger.

"We'll have those energon catalysts working in time, Prime. Promise. Autodock will be fully functional for your plan. But this isn't like you," his old friend said.

"Trust in me, Ironhide. Our next battle with Galvatron, Autodock will play a pivotal role," the blue and red Autobot said while putting his hand on the smaller Autobot's shoulder.

"Query? Do you not have a meeting with the president of the Atlantic Federation in ten minutes?" Perceptor asked.

"Indeed, I do. But I'll be using the new Land Bridge. It's one of the innovations that the humans noted in the technical specifications. With a high enough sensor resolution, you can do short range teleportations out to three hundred thousand miles without a receiver. It is... convenient," Optimus admitted.

"Definition clarification? I understood that it was designated the Earth Transportation Uncoupled Gate Bridge?" the scientist asked.

"Everyone's been calling it the Land Bridge. Sparking easier to say," Bumblebee shouted out from where he was working on a panel.

It was a quick trip for Optimus Prime to use the new, innovative form of local transportation. He walked into the heavily armored building that had been built in Washington D.C. for just these sort of meetings. The level of security and the number of mobilesuits were both heartening... and worrisome. Entering the meeting chamber, he took in the man in front of him.

Optimus Prime looked down at President Jonathan Doors and wondered if he should ask to speak with who was really in charge. It would not be subtle but he got the feeling that the president was only leader in name only. Especially when compared to the leaders of ORB and PLANTs, though that may just indicate an old government system in place. The thought of being elected Prime only for a Vorn was nearly impossible for him to wrap his core around. "Mister President,why do you have such an interest in Great Shot?" Optimus Prime asked to get the issue out in the open.

He loomed over him, even in the special meeting room where the humans were on a platform up twenty feet. On the human side, a conference table with refreshments had been set up, while underneath it lay energon cubes for Transformer food. He had to admit, at least they made the effort to be polite in meeting them.

"So that's his name?" President Doors responded with a question. A bead of sweat was trickling down his forehead.

"That is correct. We have granted his request for asylum as he has stated that he feels he would not be treated fairly by the people that implanted bombs in his head." Optimus Prime's eyes glowed brilliantly for a moment. "Such actions are closer to the more despicable of the Decepticons, not the actions of an enlightened society." His voice had not raised an iota, but you could tell that this was not a matter he would bend on. "Great Shot will stay under Autobot supervision. I would suggest that you perhaps investigate this matter and perhaps do some house cleaning, President Doors."

"Or what?"

"There is no 'or what' at this time. But these sorts of actions by shadowy power-blocks within your governments are damaging our mutual association. It is up to you to look at mending the paths between our peoples."

"I... see..." Doors said meekly.

"You are the leader of a nation President Doors, and as such I expected someone made of sterner stuff," Optimus Prime said in a soft tone.

Ambassador Alexis Thi Dang watched in silence as the president was told basically to grow a pair. It was a strange experience, to be honest.

"Now what can you tell me about the three Gundams at are now allied with Nemesis Prime?" Optimus asked. "Besides the sales patch involving them against the Dinobots to sell more mobile suits to O.M.N.I. and other interested parties like the Sahaku royal family of ORB."

"You... you know about that?" Doors gasped.

"Mr. President, it was not exactly a hidden message. In fact Grimlock felt if they wanted to use him as a spokesman for combat ability of Cybertronians, they just had to ask," Optimus Prime remarked in a dry tone. "He's thinking about producing his own videos about that. The space pirate population being what he intends to use for target practice. He also notes it’ll keep one of his troops out of trouble."

Alexis wondered if there would be enough left of the pirates for the Junk Guild to sell them replacement parts after the Dinobots were done. It was a dangerous galaxy out there, even with removing the local threats.

The PLANTS and the Earth Alliance were both looking at armed cruisers to explore the galaxy when the current conflict in their space ended. Although, their exploration was just going to be the nearby fifty light years and the hundreds of stars around them. It won't do to discover some distant threat and bring it home.

"Well, at least he's keeping some humor involved in the progress. I'll be frank, Optimus Prime, in that there are elements within our nations that do not see eye to eye. But as an enlightened society, we try to let people live their lives while trying to not limit freedoms. Radicals and extremists unfortunately exist, along with other criminal elements. Even worse... they have lobbyists that put the trappings of civility upon their agendas."

"Hmm. It appears your political system is more... complicated than I had realized, Mr. President." Optimus primed put his hand to his metal-masked chin. "And the players change so fast by our standards."

"I can't say that. Our lives are so infinitesimal compared to robots that have lived millions of years, so we have to live them to the fullest." President Doors stood up, wiping some sweat off of his head. "I'm going to set up a task force to investigate these people. The survival of our planet is too important to let be jeopardized in any shape or form."

"I can agree with that, Mr. President. If you do not mind, I have other matters to deal with." The large robot nodded to the group of human politicians.

V-V-V

Checkpoint quietly made his way into the heart of Heaven's Base by crawling along the ceiling of the larger bays. While it wasn't the primary base of the EA, it still was a very vital one. It was likely to have the information they needed on the biological CPUs and who put bombs into the heads of the mercenaries.

A thought suddenly hit Checkpoint. The pair of mercs with pretender shells had two heads. Did they put the bombs into the ones for their Pretender shell or their actual heads? With the control they had over their shells, and the fact they could move all their cerebral circuit memories and such to secondary units in their chest and be just fine.

The Minicon suddenly had a very bad feeling. It wouldn't be hard to find them if they went on a rampage, but he doubted they'd leave the computers in good shape. Or that they won't be purged before the humans ran off. That made Checkpoint move faster. It was vital he get to the bottom of this mess and the files those computers would have were the keys to do that.

Checkpoint used SONODAR to scan for any hidden areas of the base. Given the Earth Alliance hadn't asked about it, they had no defenses to the sonic based sensing technology and the hidden areas suck out like rusted thumbs.

That the base had such hidden areas didn't sit well with him. It added to perhaps the Earth Alliance was the ones who had found the mercenaries. The Minicon had a bad feeling about this.

He was right as deep within the base lay the bodies of Blue Baccus and Black Shadow. They were waiting for the right moment to come back on-line and kill every organic being in the base before leaving for space.

Unfortunately, it appeared someone in charge had a lot of paranoia as the area was patrolled by soldiers and mobilesuits. Each was armed with anti-Transformer weapons the Earth Alliance was creating.

Checkpoint watched from a grill overhead as scientists and technicians worked as best they could to repair the damaged machines while discovering as much of the Cybertronian technology. They were writing off Axer as a loss since he was crushed like a bug. The GINN's heavy sword proving to be that effective on a cybertronian super structures.

Then a scientist burst into the repair bay being used to study the Transformers. Checkpoint could tell he was extremely excited about something.

"Situation Sigma-Beta-Two has happened as expected. Ptolemaeus base and the surrounding areas are being swarmed with Proto-Transformers! The possibilities are endless!"

That they weren't completely and utterly shocked at that it happened give Checkpoint a very bad feeling. He took note of where the mercenaries were held and slowly made his way out of Heaven's Base. Optimus and the others had to learn of this new development.

[Fanboyimus Prime]

V-V-V

"I just had to open my vocoder and complain that I had not had a chance to fly," Flail said as he flew through space, weaving through the space-defense grid around the human space colony. The Sweep was keeping his sensors peeled, threading through the most advanced scanners that humanity could make.

Sadly, that only made them semi-competent in comparison to Transformer technology. So with care, could be avoided.

"Lot of chatter on the human's radio frequency." Flail narrowed his red optics as he studied the layout of Ptolemaeus. There were not a lot of places big enough for a Transformer to sneak in.

Transforming from his space-ship sled form into a robot, he slammed into the ground on the surface of the Moon. With a skid of sand and dust, he examined the nearest point of the base. "Guess I'll just have to cut my way in and then seal it behind him. A couple of pulses of to knock out the sensors and..." he talked to himself. With the sensors knocked out, he quickly cut a whole in the armored wall of the base, then pulled it closed behind him. A few quick bursts of his blasters sealed it.

Inside the human city-colony, he crept from shadow to shadow. "This really weird," he said to himself. "Autobots!" He pressed his back against the wall as he saw Bumper and some humans heading towards the center of the city. Okay, an Autobot.

"Mrs. Hampton, this really is outside of any known experience. Transformer life like you are describing just does not spontaneously erupt," the bright yellow Autobot stated. "Even though the Spark Singing done in this star system can appear that way and honestly stumped most of us."

"Well they are doing a terrific job of tearing the city apart. We are in a near crisis trying to keep the life support functional," the older human said, her gray hair up in a neat bun.

"And about as smart as antdroids," Bumper muttered.

"You mean you have animal life on your home planet?!"

"Of course," Bumper stated firmly. "Just be glad none of these proties running wild have cyber-venom like a razor snake. It won't harm anything organic but the machines you need to live here would be another story."

"Oh, joy," one of her advisers said. "Venomous killer robotic lifeforms. The things we get to look forward to."

"You think that's bad? There's trees on Animatron that are as tall as Liokaiser that are a threat to Transformers, much less a human," Bumper remarked shaking his head. "That place is just nuts."

"Are there any planets that aren't crazy?"

"Well Eternia isn't too bad," Bumper admitted. "Though the local would-be despots that want to take it over are a pain in the turbocharger. On the bright side, the local guardians are really nice."

The small group had entered the main repair bay of Life Support Number One which looked like it had better days. Cabling and wires hung from the ceiling and small robot life forms were rummaging around the area. Luckily, Bumper seemed to spook the larger and more aggressive protoforms.

"This really is amazing, but I just can't imagine what is causing this. Though, it does appear to be natural. I haven't seen a single Decepticon trace anywhere," the yellow Autobot was explaining. "And I can't ever recall seeing this much robotic animal life. There might be this much on Quintessa." He probably should not mention that was not such a nice place to visit. The natives were starting to be quite upset and freaked out.

A laptop computer turned to a cat let out a digitized hiss at Bumper.

"I should have let Swerve handle this," the yellow Autobot grumbled.

Flail had been following behind as carefully as possible and was quite amazed at what he was seeing.He wondered what could cause all this. Yet as he watched the various animals he felt... to be honest he had no idea what the emotion was. But he knew that these animals wouldn't be any good for the Decepticon army. Even the Terrorcons of the Quintessons were more intelligent then these life forms.

'Not that would stop Galvatron from using them as cannon folder. Frankly I think everything is cannon folder to him,' Flail admitted to himself. He then figured the best course would be to lie and say there were just some protoforms that gotten loose in this colony. A white lie and half truth that would cover this.

"We'll probably need to get you something to corral off this area, use some mobilesuits to herd them. I'd suggest that you look at electroshockers to scare them off. We might even be able to make them small enough for human use in self protection," Bumper was saying to the mayor.

"We'll have to build a new life support station and keep them out of it," the female leader mused. "That's going to be expensive."

"Ah, I'm pretty sure we can whip something out with Cybertronian technology. That should make it a little more resistant to these tykes," the yellow Autobot said as he snagged a transformed go-cart and pet it like you would a cat.

"Do you think that we could come to a trade agreement? These are just nuisances to us, but to you it's an oasis of life like yours." Rebuilding a new Ptolemaeus City would be a chore, but if they could improve it while paying for all the new technology, it might be worth it.

"I'll have to talk to Optimus Prime, but he might be willing to bend on this."
V-V-V

The Actaeon Industries plant was on lax on security, he thought. Gai watched the factory from safe distance and under cover. The soldier of fortune combat-coordinator was glad Reed's intelligence ties told them of a new Aegis variant being produced here.

Normally this would be for pay, but for once this was not for business but for personal reasons. Dealing with Elijah's killer Gai required a state of the art mobile suit. The Calamity Gundam becoming a Transformer made that even more important then ever before. He needed the most firepower he could get, especially if rumors of Nemesis Prime were true.

Loretta Aja shook her head from the command post they had set up ten miles away. "Gai, this is not like you. Revenge is just going to get you killed." Loretta took a moment to look at her six year old daughter that was working on the Sys-Ops for the intrusion on a portable computer.

"It's my decision, Loretta. Besides, you are getting a pretty penny for your work. All I want is that Gundam they are developing here. What I do with it is none of your business," the combat coordinator noted from his hunter's nest up in a tree.

The other seven members of Serpent's Tail just shook their heads.

"All right then. It's showtime," Loretta called out. Team Alpha, move in for the first stage of the distraction."

With that GINN upgraded to the most powerful they could be launched. A siren sounded at the mobile suit production plant. The security forces fired napalm rounds and used anti-armor weapons against them. Gai frankly wasn’t impressed. It would take incredible luck or incredible ineptness for these weapons to affect even the weakest of mobilesuits.

Then came several Strike Daggers. That mass produced mobile suit didn’t impress Gai as the souped up GINNs held their ground against the mobile suit riding security forces. Of course, the thruster upgrades alone made the GINNS like greased lighting as they dodged the blaster fire of the Strike Daggers.

Though when he took a closer look it was the fact the GINNs were faster and the Serpent Tail pilots were more experienced with those machines that allowed them to hold out against the Earth Federation mobile suits.

"Security systems scrambled,” Loretta told Gai over his headset.

The Combat Coordinator made his way out of his hunter’s nest and to the ground several displays of incredible athletic moves. He quickly checked to see if the service door he was looking for was guarded. It didn’t appear to be, but Gai didn’t let his guard down.

He sprayed a white substance over the keypad next to the door to see what the most used numbers were. The finger prints all over certain keys made it crystal clear to him what those numbers were.

After a few tries, Gai got the password right and was inside the production plant. He quickly went for where the new Aegis Gundams were being stored.

‘Looks like someone made a big order,’ Gai mused as he saw even with the fire fight outside the production lines were at full speed and building various mobile suits.

Suddenly there was a round of gunfire and Gai rolled into a corner to avoid being shot.

"This is a waste of resources,” one of the gunmen called out. "With some headhunting you could have been hired to pilot one of these mobile suits.”

Gai simply opened fired on them with an assault rifle.

The sunglasses wearing mercenary was on the ground in pain.

"I’m sorry, was I supposed to throw quips and banter with you?” Gai asked sarcastically. He then shook his head. Not very professional of this bunch to do that.

Gai then entered the storage chamber with all the Unlimited Aegis Gundams in it. There were eleven of them all fully armed and ready to be shipped. They even had their positronic bazookas attached. Gai smiled slightly as he leaped over the railing into the Aegis closest to him.

"Interesting,” the combat coordinator mused out loud as he replaced the OS with one he got from the Junk Guild member Lowe Guele. "This variant doesn’t need to transform to use the main gun.”

Gai powered up the Gundam and checked the energon levels. They were enough to get him where he needed to go.

The Aegis forced the doors open and made it’s way into the Pacific Northwest forests. Slipping out while the rest of the Serpent's Tail was causing a distraction was a snap.

V-V-V

With a sound that anyone who had traveled with a Time Lord would know by heart, a cabinet with an electronic lock reappeared on the ReHOME. The ship was searching for the remains of the Axalon. Even with her more advanced technology, the Professor knew restoring to life any Autobots they could find would be a challenge.

The female Time Lord had used her TARDIS to start looking for recruits for her group. She shivered for a moment thinking of making Lowe a Lord Time Guardian. The Doctor was bad enough but he at least was more of a realist then Lowe every would be.

'Though I want people that desire to help others,' The Professor mused. 'Maybe I will make him a Lord Time Guardian but not give him his own personal TARDIS."

The Professor exited her office and smiled as she saw Kisato studying the sonic tool she had built. After all the Doctor had proven how useful those could be.

"Oh Professor," Kisato stated sound a bit nervous. "I've been looking all over for you."

"Really?" The Professor stated.

"There's a guest that came in a TARDIS and said he needed to speak with you."

The Professor just hoped it was not a future version of herself. Time was too fragile for the of knots teaming up with different versions of herself could cause. Or be dire enough to have her do that.

The young man in front of her was no one she was familiar with. "First Guardian," he said politely as he stood up. "I'm a young man you are about to recruit into your organization. But to do that, you are going to need to fix a cloning defect."

"I see," The Professor stated. "And you are?"

"Ray Barrel," the young man said. He looked out the window into space. "Isn't space just too silent? And you can't even get a decent radio station these days."

"The Junkions seem to like what signals they can get," the Professor mused as she understood a hidden message there. And considering there was only one singer of any note that would be involved in that battle...

"They're kind of weird and warped to be honest,' Ray admitted. "Not bad, but just very strange."

"Any other things you need to inform me of?" the Time Lord asked.

"To quote Doc Brown, ‘You’re about to see some serious shit’ very soon and be careful, First Guardian," Ray stated dead serious.

The Professor looked unsurprised. She actually smiled slightly.

"Also beware Sideways,” Ray said as he looked the soon to be "First Guardian” in the eye. "From what we’ve gathered humanity has played a large role in Cybertronian affairs across the multiverse and he might try to destroy all places inhabited by us to end that influence in at least one reality. The scary part is he has human technology from another reality where splitting open planets and taking their resources is common built into his flagship.”

The Professor hoped that was all Sideways had from that reality if she recalled right. Those markers would make everything far worse then it already was. Necromorphs were even something she’d heard of.

"Oh and when when the mercenary shows up to get his mobile suit upgraded, do it,” Ray told her. "He’ll need it for his task.”

She absolutely hated it when people told her things like that. Now how far should she upgrade his mobile suit?

V-V-V

Counter Punch crept along the corridors of The Revenge, keeping an ear out. The stress among the Decepticons was starting to build to a critical pressure. He slipped into a dark service passage near the front of the ships where several unhappy Decepticons were just happening to meet.

"General Strika, if Galvatron gets wind of this meeting, he'll drag us to be tortured personally-" Leozack started to say in a loud stage whisper when he was interrupted.

"Shut it, you fool," Blackarachnia stated as she glared at the simmering incompetent. The group of traitors was meeting in the forward repair bay, all of them having minor maintenance attended to. The chief medic, Knock Out, was busy with more critical cases elsewhere.

"That is enough. Both of you. The fleets will all be in position and ready to transit in just one and a half deca-cycles. The Decepticon Grand Fleet will form at that point and then traverse this solar system to destroy Optimus Prime, Grimlock and their allies in one overwhelming move," Strika explained even as she soothed their egos. "They can fight us, but they don't have the forces or weapons to defeat us."

"And that is when we will strike?" the brown and gray Chop Shop asked, imagining the accolades they could get for winning this battle. Especially if they were forming a new galactic order.

Leozack nodded. "I've seen the simulation plans that we have been drawing up. It's an impressive force."

"It is indeed, Leozack." Strika rubbed her orange manipulators together. "Galvatron does not appear to have noticed us. Hence I am one hundred percent certain he is aware of our actions, but has finally made a tactical blunder. In not showing his worry, we know he watches us. I have specifically requested that we be assigned to the the secondary reinforcement or convince him to move us to the wing positions to support the attack."

"That's useless!" Leozack shouted.

"Exactly. He immediately moved both of our teams near him, much to my voiced displeasure. He believes he has temporarily thwarted my plans and has actually fallen into our energy-web." The hulking, female Decepticon's red eyes glowed brightly in triumph.

Counter Punch listened carefully through the ventilation duct, but they were starting to break up and might run into him if he did not depart immediately. He had to let Optimus Prime know of the attack day. Only one and a half deca-cycles!

He passed through the main recreational, but did not see Blackarachnia watching him. She watched the spy, but since he did not appear to be heading to talk to Galvatron, he must have not overheard them. She followed Counter Punch closely, but it looked like he was heading outside to work on the second Space Bridge.

And indeed, the fake Decepticon was. He marveled at the more advanced design. A full ring, almost twenty kilometers wide, attached to the back of an asteroid. It was perfectly invisible from Earth and should have been a total surprise.

Counter Punch carefully (and seemingly casually) aimed his laser blaster at the receiving satellite thousands of miles away and quickly sent his message before drifting back around the asteroid. "I hope you got that, Optimus Prime. Because a Grand Fleet is nothing to sneeze at." Such a fleet had not been seen in over fifty thousand years.

He was just getting his game-face back in place when a massive purple blast struck him from behind, ripping his right arm right off and shattering much of his torso. He barely had a chance to look over his back to see the purple and gray monstrosity that had downed him. "No! Galvatron must know- This is a trap."

Another blast ripped off both legs and sent him tumbling through space.

Galvatron smiled as the Decepticons at the construction site all milled around nervously. "Decepticons, prepare to receive the Grand Fleet in twelve-hundred Breems. Thank you, Punch, for letting Optimus Prime know... so that he does not have time to prepare." He laughed loudly as Decepticons started to cheer at the Virulence Space Bridge. "Take that trash to be interrogated after the battle. He might know something useful, even if he was pathetic as a spy."

"As you command Lord Galvatron,” Cyclonus said sincerely. A feat that most Decepticons would have trouble not letting hints of sarcasm into their voice.

V-V-V

Optimus Prime stared at the coded screen. "It is time." He punched a button, sending a message to O.M.N.I. He hated to lie to them, but it would be better if they only thought the attack was in ten days like Punch had reported. But his recommendation that the fleets be in position in three days for a brief training exercise would put them into position early enough. Galvatron would attack shortly, as it had been obvious for a while that poor Punch was likely compromised. "Autobots, prepare for battle."

His optics were very focused on Cerese, but that did not leave him unaware of the long range sensors that were detecting a large ship only a few days out itself from the direction of Quintessa.

"Punch, I hope you survived. I hate having to use you like this," Optimus Prime stated softly. "But a spy you were and as a spy you must fight."

In deep hyperspace, that sensor echo moved ever onward. The black and purple Nemesis Prime stood in the center of the ramshackle bridge of that ship. A ship of monstrosity the size of a large space station, groaning under the acceleration of its mighty but untuned engines. It was on a one way trip through hyperspace.

Purple-optic Unicroids filled the ship, with barely room to move. This did not bother the ex-human in the slightest. Soon his evil cocoon would hatch, unleashing hatred, bile and anarchy upon his enemies.

"Optimus Prime has no idea that I will return so quickly. I shall sweep his forces from the field of battle and then crush Galvatron’s life spark from his body. And Genesis will be mine for the taking."

The super weapon and the Genesis Alpha prototype would make fine servants of the Unbeing.

[Sidewinder]

Looks like the Mother of All Battles is coming. I'm surprised how poorly the Robots in Disguise Commandos (Car Robots Combatrons) did against mobile suits. Personally, I expected the Decepticon pirates to inflict heavier casualties.

I'm impressed with the knowledge you have of obscure Transformers, however- it's admittedly greater than mine. Nice touch on the drone combiners (personally, I dismissed the toys as poor substitutes for traditional combiners, and am unlikely to use them in a story).

I wish Gai had resisted the urge to steal a new mobile suit- not for moral reasons, but for practical and logistical ones. Sunrise keeps forgetting that machines need maintenance- complex ones, especially so. A supergenius of a mechanic is NOT enough- the WW2 Luftwaffe needed at least five unit-level maintenance personnel for every aircraft it had, and the more successful US Air Force, eight.

[Fanboyimus Prime]

Looks like the Mother of All Battles is coming. I'm surprised how poorly the Robots in Disguise Commandos (Car Robots Combatrons) did against mobile suits. Personally, I expected the Decepticon pirates to inflict heavier casualties.

To be honestly they got knocked around quite a bit in Car Robo/RID.

I'm impressed with the knowledge you have of obscure Transformers, however- it's admittedly greater than mine. Nice touch on the drone combiners (personally, I dismissed the toys as poor substitutes for traditional combiners, and am unlikely to use them in a story).

The tfwiki is a huge help on that. Also the drone combiners in the story are purposely a poor bot's combiner. In that respect they worked wonderfully for a story. And yes Huffer will have his own copy of that for the final battle.

I wish Gai had resisted the urge to steal a new mobile suit- not for moral reasons, but for practical and logistical ones. Sunrise keeps forgetting that machines need maintenance- complex ones, especially so. A supergenius of a mechanic is NOT enough- the WW2 Luftwaffe needed at least five unit-level maintenance personnel for every aircraft it had, and the more successful US Air Force, eight.

Well given his target is now an agent of Unicron, Gai will need all the firepower and more he can get.

[LadyTevar]

So when's the next chapter?

[SAMAS]

That's what I'd like to know. This is where he left off when he was posting it on Spacebattles.

[Fanboyimus Prime]

That's what I'd like to know. This is where he left off when he was posting it on Spacebattles.

Chapter 20 currently is being written. The final battle is at hand, and don't expect everyone to walk away from it.

Except for Optimus Prime given his death has been so overdone there's a tfwiki page literally called "The Many Deaths of Optimus Prime" across the various Transformers versions. I kind of see his death having no real dramatic value or power after being done far too often.

[Sidewinder]

Except for Optimus Prime given his death has been so overdone there's a tfwiki page literally called "The Many Deaths of Optimus Prime" across the various Transformers versions. I kind of see his death having no real dramatic value or power after being done far too often.

Something I wish a lot of other writers would remember. I mean, the Punisher dying and then being resurrected THREE TIMES? TWICE as an inhuman killing machine (agent of Heaven the first time, a Frankenstein's monster wannabe the second)?

[cs_strike]

Except for Optimus Prime given his death has been so overdone there's a tfwiki page literally called "The Many Deaths of Optimus Prime" across the various Transformers versions. I kind of see his death having no real dramatic value or power after being done far too often.

Even if the deaths of Primes has no real valuable instance on the story but still Prime is always be a Prime no matter what. They still manage to recognize his primal abilities that no other bots had.

[Fanboyimus Prime]

The Unicroids knew that their master was going to be returning shortly. So their time of planning had to come to an end. Optimus Prime had to die. The Matrix could not be allowed to be a threat to Nemesis Prime. That this same being had critically wounded the Unbeing himself also made it paramount that he was destroyed. Nemesis Prime wanted to personally destroy the traitor Galvatron himself, and left Optimus to his underlings.

"Finally some action!" Raider proclaimed loudly with his left foot tapping against the metal flooring of the Autobot shuttle. The waiting had been driving him crazy.

Forbidden just glared at him while Calamity was playing a cybertronian first person shooter on a monitor. The game soothed the twisted being.

"What?" Raider snapped harshly. "None of them can hurt us other than Superion and he's not here."

"He does have a point, as shocking as that is," Calamity remarked as he blew up a Decepticon Seeker with ease.

"Hey!"

Forbidden sighed. "Fine, let's go then."

While Earth Optimus Prime took a moment to look at the capital of the Eurasian Federation. The city and the nation it was in was a land with a history that reminded him in many ways of that of Cybertron. With the meeting place being in an ancient fortress turned capitol building. They had modified a door for him to get in and out of. The Autobot leader was meeting them alone since everyone was working on the preparations for the all out assault that was coming.

"Moscow is as good a place as any to kill the Autobot leader," Calamity said as he hovered several hundred feet in the air with a sniper rifle.

A sudden rainstorm caused his active camouflage to start shorting out. It was something they had taken from Quintessia along with the ship Nemesis Prime was riding in. "Well crap," Calamity muttered as he was suddenly uncloaked. "I didn't know that weakness of the mirage-colloid system. It has the same problem as every other cloaking system? Even the ones those little yellow hunters use?" He really however was happy to be able to kill Optimus at much closer distances anyways. He wanted to see the flare of his optics die. "Time for Plan Beta!"

The purloined shuttle screamed in from over the hills even as he charge forward into the heart of the city. Raider leaped out of it and with a loud cry "DIEDIEDIE!" as he fired a pair of blaster rifles. The rapid fire spray hit the area surrounding Optimus Prime more than the Autobot leader. Concrete shards were sent flying into the air as well as a thick light grey dust.

"Aim you idiot!" Calamity snarled at his 'brother" with a sharp glare. Taking his optics off Optimus Prime for a moment could not matter, after all. The former Gundam retracted his hand for a katar as he started to turn back.

Suddenly Optimus Prime came out of the dust and hit the heavily armed Calamity with a text book perfect metallikato kick. The Unicronian screamed in pain fell to the ground with a loud clang.

"What....what was that?!" Calamity gasped as he clutched his chest. The pain he was feeling was beyond what a mere jump kick should be able to cause, let alone give him any damage due to his transphase shift. That he could even be wounded by a non-gravimetric or non-hyper-dense weapon like a foot should be impossible. And yet the pain and the impression on his torso made it clear it did happen.

They were starting to see why Optimus Prime needed to be eliminated ASAP.

Raider landed in the thinning grey fog and fired at any noise he heard. Suddenly there was a loud crunch and Raider blasted it.

"You..." Calamity screamed in pain as he appeared, his katar held high as he was about to run through Raider.

"Stop this right now!" Forbidden yelled over the comm link.

"Shut up!" Calamity screamed as he stabbed Raider. "SHUT UP!"

A barrage blaster fire suddenly hit the pair. Calamity growled. You couldn't get some peace and quiet while you killed someone anymore.

The grey fog lifted and a platoon of blue and white Buster Daggers fired their energon missiles at the pair of Gundams. The missile barrage only enraged the Gundam further.

"Toys! They think these toys can handle me?!" Calamity yelled as he detached his main weapon from his back. Raider looked to be pondering using his new scythe on Calamity or the mass produced mobile suits. Then a Hyperion slammed into him while activating its Lightwave barrier, driving Raider through the side of a building and out the other side, sending debris flying through the air and into the screaming crowd.

Inside the cockpit Morgan Chevalier narrowed his eyes as he realized the Unicroid was still active.

"Looks like phaseshift doesn't stop something being moved by a force field," he remarked.

Raider fired from his mouth blaster at the Hyperion and swung the scythe at the mobile suit. Neither penetrated the barrier and Raider looked completely shocked by that.

While flying above in the shuttle, Forbidden was trying to find Optimus Prime. The Autobot leader had vanished and from the datatraxs on him, it had not have been due to being a coward.

"Where did he go?" Forbidden grumbled to himself. He saw a reflection on a monitor for a nanoclick and turned the chair around. He fired at the intruder and gasped.

Optimus Prime was now Gundam sized and retracted his left hand for a yellow energy axe.

"No," Forbidden yelled and leaped at Optimus. The Autobot leader easily got out of the way of the ill planned rush and stomped on the Gundam. Forbidden transformed into its manta ray form and tried to rip into Prime's body with his crab like pincers. He was able to dig into Prime's legs. Sparks flew and Optimus grabbed Fobidden's head with his free hand.

There was a loud crunching of metal as the digits of Prime created their own handholds. The former Gundam had a sinking feeling he underestimated Optimus Prime. Then his alt form head was ripped right off.

"That's impossible!" Forbidden yelled as he transformed.

"Glass gas nozzles in my fingers," Optimus stated with slight hint of humor.

"I guess I better kill you," Forbidden remarked before firing his CIWS and letting loose with a barrage of laser fire. The Autobot leader waded through the hailstorm of blasts and panels on his legs opened up. Massive dual gun energy cannons came out and Forbidden hoped they'd be as effective as most Autobot weapons. That proved to be incorrect as massive blasts slammed into him and forced him into the shuttle controls.

Then there was a massive splash of dirty water as the shuttle came down in the Yauza River at the edge of the Red Square. Water came in through the hole.

Optimus had cut to get inside and the Forbidden slashed Prime with his scythe in a rushing, spin attack.

"Argh," the Autobot leader called out. Optimus held his hand to the glowing and sparking wound it left in his side. He then gripped the handle of the weapon that caused that wound. Forbidden found himself fighting to keep his melee weapon. There was then the groan of metal and the scythe was shattered.

"No..." Forbidden gasped in shock as he looked at the piece of the handle of his weapon in his hands.

And before the Gundam could process it, Optimus Prime picked him up and threw him out of the shuttle. He flew out of the water like an ICBMI launching from a 'Boomer' and crashed into the ground outside the renowned Pushkin State Fine Arts Museum.

The Forbidden moaned in pain. "Where...where did this guy come from?" Forbidden said in pure and utter fear as he started to crawl to his feet.

Blaster fire then rained on the Forbidden as the upgraded Hyperion of Canard Pars unloaded on the transformable mobile suit. The black torso and white limbs of the powerful Gundam were quite vivid in the gloomy light.

The Forbidden looked at the Hyperion in annoyance. Powerful magnetics crackled to life to bend the plasma bolts right back through the lightwave barrier and struck the Hyperion hard. There were sparks coming off the left shoulder, and the sensors went fuzzy for a moment before correcting.

Canard was stunned by that. "How the hell did he do that?"

"I am a horseman of the Unbeing and I am not going to die at the hands of some Eurotrash mobilesuit!"

That enraged Canard Pars. "I've got this trick just for you." The shield-barrier emitter flared to life on the Hyperion's right-arm even as it charged, shrugging off the rail-rounds and even the massive scythe. "Got you!"

The Hyperion suddenly sent his arm into a sweep, cutting the scythe off just above the grips.

"This is looking bad!" the submersible Unicroid gasped.

Canard then smiled evilly as he brought the back mounted Forfanterie beam cannons into position and fired on the Forbidden. The cannons had been improved by the Autobots and spewed forth a massive burst of energy. The evil Gundam was knocked back and fell to the ground.

"Ok maybe it isn't trash,"Forbidden stated weakly.

Raider had transformed and was strafing overhead with blasters and a flurry of micro-missiles. "This operation is a bust! Human reinforcements are only minutes away and they are saying that the Archangel is going to be here in ten minutes!"

The walking gun platform snarled as Morgan Chevalier's Hyperion Gundam kept his shield active so that two mass produced Strike Daggers could use him as a portable barricade. He leaped up into the air. "Let's get out of here!" Calamity could already taste the upcoming pain that Nemesis Prime would inflict on him.

The cybertronian jet swooped in and caught the green Unicroid even as Forbidden dove into the river to retreat his own way.

"Are you alright, Optimus Prime?" Canard called out on the open communication frequency.

The huge Autobot nodded. "I'll survive. My extra armor served me well. It's good to meet some more heroes of Earth." He shook the hand of the Hyperion Gundam.

Feeling very odd, Canard Pars let them shake. "I'm just a soldier."

"All soldiers that are worth anything are heroes. Never let anyone tell you otherwise," the big blue and red Autobot declared.

Carefully nodding his head, he agreed. This was the sort of leader he could follow into hell. Which, he thought suddenly to himself, was probably a good thing. Because hell was on its way. Or whatever the Transformers called it.

Canard then checked his energon levels and they were almost completely empty. He was sure the other Hyperion's energon levels were the same as his.

In the waters of the Yauza River, Forbidden seethed even as he struggled to stay alive. He was leaking energon badly. It was only by the tips of his armored fingers that he'd escaped the Prime. In his head, Forbidden swore he'd get his revenge. And nothing would stand in his way of getting it.

V-V-V

The personnel-sized Space Bridge on Autobot Island activated and out stepped one of the most infamous teams of Autobots in existence. Though that was mostly due to their unauthorized chronicler Fistitron and his Wreckers Declassified datalogs. They were like rock stars to the more war-like Autobots. The Decepticons respected them enough to emulate the group several times. For Whirl it was finally seeing friends again after far too long. Especially one in particular.

"Roadie," Whirl called out happily when he saw Roadbuster.

"Hey Whirl, it's been too long," the orange and brown Autobot replied with an audible warmth to his voice. With Flay gasping as she saw the Pathfinder gun that Roadbuster used. The massive gun was almost the same size as her Gundam's mini rifle. And it hit her that thing probably was as powerful as her improved Launch Striker pack. If not even more powerful.

'And those are all Whirl's friends....' the copper haired woman thought and had a feeling Whirl was the one who called for them to be here. And of course the fact he really didn't like her very much and all other things she'd heard about them.

"Arcee!" Hot Shot yelled and a blue lithe body transformer hugged him.

"I thought she was supposed to be pink," Yzak whispered to Swerve.

He shrugged. "She was the last time I saw her."

They all took a close look and they did indeed see some pink on Arcee on her gauntlets, forehead, shins, and elbows. Though it was not enough to consider a pink colored transformer.

"I ended up needing a complete body rebuild after the last mission and figured I could use a change in color," Arcee remarked. "Lancer and Firestar were more surprised than anyone about that."

"You mean... Elita-One and her team are going to be here too?!" Whirl exclaimed in shock.

"Isn't she Optimus Prime's life mate?" Kira asked as he recalled that name.

"Yep," Downshift stated firmly. "She's been a nasty bur in Shockwave's rotator for a long time. It's definitely dire if she's being called in along with Starsaber and Ultra Magnus."

That was a surprise given how vital Elita-One had been on Cybertron. It also spoke to how important Earth had become to call so many infamous Autobot warriors from across the galaxy to the Solar System. A battle that would affect more than just if there was going to be life on Earth, but the direction of life in the entire galaxy.

Kira put an arm around Flay's shoulders. The copper haired mobile suit smiled and felt assured at gesture.

Then Impactor looked down at Flay. He was a menacing figure, which was surprising to the Earth pilots given the Wreckers legendary leader was dark purple, orange and white. The hook hand and the energy cannon on his shoulder helped but he just had this presence to him. An aura of audacity and resolve that when all hell was breaking loose he'd be in the eye of the storm.

"So you're the one that's been keeping Whirl's processors sharp," Impactor remarked with a gruff tone. He sounded amused of what he'd heard of Flay.

Roadbuster was a different story as he glared at Flay. His body language screamed, 'You try that scrap again I will end you with my massive gun.' The pilot of the Strike II held her ground and defiantly stared at Roadbuster. If he was going to throw down the gauntlet then she wasn't going to show him any fear.

"His dull personality needs sharpening," she sniped right back as if she was totally unaffected by the menacing figure. Roadbuster's optics narrowed and he audibly clenched his dark green fist.

"Enough! Save that for the Decepticons you two," Kira said in a firm commanding tone that surprised even himself.

"You would have made one hell of a red jacket Kira," Yzak remarked in a respectful tone.

Kira took Yzak's comment for the praise it was. "Thanks Yzak."

The silver haired red jacket smiled. "Let's just win this battle and then have the party to end all parties." That was something Yzak looked forward to.

"You all prove to be as good as Whirl says you all are and I'm sure we will," Guzzle commented as he inspected his massive hand cannon blaster known as The Judge.

"And Whirl does not give praise lightly," Impactor remarked with a slight smirk and a slightly brighter glow in his optics.

"Slagging straight," Whirl interjected loudly.

V-V-V



Just minutes later, two carefully stealthed and positioned Decepticon cruisers had slipped into position, with a heavy load of Decepticon shock troops. Deep in their bowels, specially tuned gravity generators from a Space Bridge activated and then pulsed as they spun up to full speeds.

On Earth, the effect was immediate as the personnel space bridge cut out just as an Autobot reinforcement team from Tipicutus 2 were turned into gamma rays as they suddenly became one with the cosmos.

"What was that?" Lowe shouted out.

"That's impossible! You can't block a Space Bridge transmission!" Rad gasped even as he rapidly interacted with the space bridge diagnostics.

"What's impossible?" the human technician shouted as an energon transformer blew out, knocking over a Transformer and a red ASTRAY.

"The Decepticons have figured out a way to warp space locally within the orbital range of Earth and the Moon. Diabolical! It causes a 8th dimensional gravity sheering that causes an overload in the meta-stage converter. Normally, you only need five hundred percent redundancy, but this causes over two thousand percent load bearing. And it's a critical, deeply buried component that we can't just just rip out. Oh, slag! Optimus was depending on us and we are letting him down!" Rad continued in a rapid-fire manner. The red and grey Autobot was shocked that this had happened.

"Someone call Wheeljack!" Lowe called out. "And Bulkhead! NOW!"

There was a roar of a jet, and a purple jet flew in and transformed to white and purple robot. Lowe noticed the Autobot had a very Gundam style face.

"Name's Skyfall, " he stated as he tried to find some way around the jamming before more Autobots died. Things would be dire if the Cons had an unbeatable way to disrupt the Space Bridge.

"We need to warn the Autobots that are about to enter the Space Bridge!" an aquamarine and orange Autobot named Gobots yelled. If the situation was less dire Lowe would note that Autobot spoke with what people considered be a TV upper class British accent.

"Primus," Skyfall gasped as he tried to hack the system to get around the part making the Space Bridge travel so fatal. It was a lot harder than he imagined.

That was when Wheeljack made his presence known and was quickly brought up to date. "I've only seen this done once by a group of Autobots on Merkur IV. They only disrupted a smaller area and it overloaded quickly. We need to shut down the Decepticon's jammers."

The purple and white Skyfall narrowed his optics behind his uni-visor. "Let's start an immediate scan for the battleships. Someone let Optimus know what's going on."



V-V-V



Alarms started to whoop and wail as two dozen multicolor ramshackle ships appeared just outside the orbit of the Earth in a burst of hyperspace transition energy.

"Wowza, that looks like a real prime piece of recyclage," the scratchy, electronic voice.

Wreck-Gar nodded happily, even as a light started blinking on the hodge-podge of controls in the main ship. "Fix that alarm, bweeooop. We're going to live it up big, yeah we are, with that pile of bling."

One of the Junkions smacked the console, which actually made the light glow brighter. "Huhz. Message from the top. You have mail. Incoming!"

"You have mail?" Wreck-Gar asked in his static-filled way.

"This is Admiral Andrews of OMNI to the new fleet, please identify yourself and your intentions," the woman's voice called over in standard galactic with only a hint of hesitation.

"It's Late Night with Conan O'Brian with special guests the Junkions," Wreck-Gar called out, almost dancing in glee. They were really going to visit the world of Earth!

The admiral realized that it turns out TV had made a race of robots talk in complete and utter gibberish.

"That translates to hello, we're the Junkions," a grey Minicon stated next to the admiral. Over-Run was one of the better translators of the mishmash that made up the Junkion's mode of speech. Hot Rod was better than him at it, but he was busy elsewhere preparing for the upcoming attack.

"I sort of got that. Even if it is archaic. I mean, Conan O'Brian? You might as well have mentioned Jack Benny." Admiral Andrews closed her eyes for just a second. "Junkion fleet, please state your reason for entering Earth Space?"

"Welcome back to 'Junkyard Wars', the only show on television with more heavy metal than an OZZY OSBOURNE CONCERT! We clean, we shine, we even do windows! You junk is our treasure!" Wreck-Gar said gleefully.

"Frazzit-spangler! I think he's here to set up a new Junkyard planet," Over-Run explained.

"Earth is not a junkyard," Andrews said coldly and sharply.

"Its like that trash island you have in the Pacific Ocean, only with more heavy metals and you can walk on it without going straight through it," Over-Run remarked. "In fact if we can land bridge that whole thing into space, and they get a few huge chunks of the destroyed space colonies, they will pretty much have a new planet... which kind of scares me."

"There are plans, Mr. Over-Run, for cleaning up the debris field after the war. Earth is not a junk planet," the light-haired admiral declared in a hard tone.

"Here's Johnny! Raring to go and no place to go to!" Wreck-Gar called out again.

"Well, maybe they can help clean up the place a little bit before it becomes a Junkyard Planet?" Over-Run said hopefully.

"But I think we had better mention the imminent battle that is about to happen," the admiral noted casually. "Mr. Junkion, we might be able to broker some sort of agreement for you to help the Junkyard Guild and reclamation services clean up Earth, but I feel I should warn you that we are looking at at a large scale battle with the Decepticons here in the near future led by Galvatron."

"Woohaa! Welcome to the Jungle, Baby! Rock and Roll! You can't handle the truth! It's showdown at the OK Corral!" the Junkion leader replied eagerly.

"I guess he's okay with that," Andrews said in a long suffering tone.

"Huh, I would have thought he would have had more problems with a major Decepticon fleet action," the eight foot tall Minicon noted. Over-Run struggled to remember something. Hadn't Galvatron wiped out some Junkions only a decade ago?



V-V-V



Long range sensors were still pointed at the asteroid Ceres and had been weeks, trying to get a glimpse of the Decepticons as they worked. Even the arrival of the Junkions had not really interrupted that.

"We've got a contact," the Earth Federation sensor operator called out. They were deep in the bowls of JOSH-A, where OMNI headquarters was situated. When it rained, it poured, the operator thought to himself.

"Make that two contacts. Backlight scatter off of other asteroids in the area shows that the Decepticon Space Bridge was only deactivated for five seconds. Estimate that this is fifteenth fleet transport in the last one-twenty-six minutes."

General Andvers nodded. "When that Space Bridge stays deactivated from two minutes, start the counter. How is the evacuation order going?" For once in humanity's history, every human would be involved in this attack. Every civilian would be evacuated to shelters and every soldier readied for battle. Every completed mobile suit and mobile armor was going to used in this all out assault. Win or lose, the Decepticons would never forget about humanity. No matter how hard they tried.



V-V-V

"Inform high command; Decepticon Fleet has departed Point Zulu. We're sorting out the numbers and speeds, but it looks like over one thousand ships. I repeat that the Decepticon Fleet numbers over one thousand ships," the sensor operator stated trying to sound calm.



V-V-V



Canard Pars grumbled as his Hyperion was in the middle of a heavy repair thanks to the Unicroid attack on Moscow when the Decepticon fleet was moving into Earth space. It was going to be at least four hours and held together by spit, chewing gum, and bailing wire. Then he noticed a CGUE II being wheeled out. Yet it didn't look like a normal one as it had a gold Armored Shroud on it along with a pair of Armor Schienders at the hips.

"This is for you," one technician stated. That surprised the 'failed' Ultimate Coordinator. He then was handed a note.

Pars looked over the note and found the mobile suit was to be used by Athrun, but he got his new Gundam before even taking the CGUE II for a test run. Wheeljack took the sitting around unit and created an Armored Shroud with a shoulder mounted ion rifle, similar to Optimus Prime's rifle, a missile launcher filled with glass gas missiles, a set of thrusters like the GINN final upgrade got, and clearly had the laser deflective mirrors on it. The knives could drain energy like Cyclonus's swords.

Canard smiled. "Oh this work just fine."

The Eurasian mobile suit pilot then laughed as he was getting a personally Autobot upgraded mobile suit like Kira. He couldn't wait to use this CGUE II in battle.



V-V-V



The hidden research bay was forgotten as everyone inside JOSH-A was preparing for the upcoming invasion of the Earth Alliance. All eyes were looking outward and skyward.

That was a mistake as the crimson optics of Blue Bachus and Black Shadow lit up.

"Well that was remarkably unpleasant," Black Shadow groused as he sat up. "Too bad Great Shot couldn't do the same thing."

"Hey he can save his own aft in that situation," Blue Bachus remarked. "Gaihawk on the other hand is a dead bot when I find him."

"He was just following orders," Black Shadow sighed.

"He nearly blew one of my legs off!" the blue and black Decepticon shouted and clenched his fist.

"You nearly did the same to him on Trolla!"

"That was an accident!" Blue Bachus retorted angrily.

"Well maybe you didn't guzzle enough high grade energon to power four minicons that wouldn't have happened!" Black Shadow complained loudly, at least until the doors opened to admit a couple of normal, human soldiers. "Oh, right. Supposed to be killing arrogant meat-bags for trying to deactivate us."

"Right! Let's kill them all!"

Black Shadow laughed in amusement as these humans lacked any anti-Transformer weapons and were as easy as crushing antdroids. In fact he did crush some of the guards under his heel. They made a bit of a mess and their fluids messed up his finish.

"Eww," Blue Bachus remarked. "Just shoot them and get it over with."

"Hey I just wanted to see what would happen," Black Shadow grumbled as anti-tank rockets slammed into them.

They both turned and started firing their blasters, killing the soldiers instantly. The booming treads of their robotic feet could be felt and heard for hundreds of feet.



V-V-V



"General! General! Decepticons have invaded the base!" a soldier shouted as he ran into the control room. "They are only two levels down! They somehow broke through the research block."

General Holdwin felt as if someone had grabbed his heart. "Recall enough heavy weapons to defeat them." Damn that Muruta! He could rot in hell for all he cared.

"Sir, all the heavy weapons are on the perimeter, prepared for the attack," a comp-troller called out from her control panel.

"General! You said this was the safest place in the Earth Alliance," one of LOGOS's main leaders shouted out. They had been 'observing' their money in action.

"Squishies! We are here!" the blue Decepticon called out as he kicked his way through the solid concrete wall into the control room. "Oh, yeah. This is the stuff we were wanting."

Black Shadow just started shooting the humans, killing them all in cold blood. "A control room. I bet we could turn the fixed defenses against them here."

"That's an awful lot of dead water-bags. I like it," his partner exclaimed even as he extruded a computer interface.

Out on the surface of the base, rocket launchers and remote anti-aircraft guns rotated and started firing at the nearest 'friend' in sensor range. Absolute havoc erupted as Federation soldiers suddenly found themselves fighting their own defenses.

And the inside of the base was no better as the internal defenses opened attacked everyone.

The now formerly 'safe' high council of LOGOS were gunned down by the armed cameras. Not even screams could escape.

In only a few minutes of work, the pair of Pretenders had finished their grim work gleefully. Black Shadow finished surveying the area when he had a great idea. "Say, you remember what we did on Pakur IV?"

Blue Bachus nodded. "Yeah, shouldn't be hard to set this up as a trap. We can kill the relief force pretty easy. We just need to find where the main reactor is, set the energon taps and the explosives. Heck, it will probably work better against these water-bags. I think I remember that they can't even take any radiation."

That set both of their evil sparks to merriment.



V-V-V



The mood was tense in the hangar bay. Everyone from the pilots to the techs could feel it in their hearts that this was the big one. The make or break for the solar system, as well as the galaxy. The battles with Decepticons so far were just a savagely brutal prelude of what was to come.

Kira realized it was now or never to tell what he wanted to tell Flay. He saw his love going over some last minute prep work on the Rouge Strike. The driven woman wanted her mobile suit to be in perfect shape for the battle ahead.

With some athletic gravity eating leaps Kira made his way to her open cockpit. He coughed loudly and Flay instantly looked up from her monitors at him.

"Flay...there isn't a good way to put this," Kira said with a sigh. "Cagalli is my twin sister."

Flay's eyes widened at that shocker. She had this odd thing of Kira's life being like some crazy sci fi soap opera. And this was the most normal of the things she'd found out about the man she loved.

"Is she...like you?" Flay asked him softly.

Kira shook his head. "No, she's a Natural. Though there is a 'failed' Ultimate Coordinator out there. The Eurasian Federation give him a less than loving upbringing. He's...bitter."

"Yes let's give self esteem issues to someone would could break your neck like it was made out of cheap plastic," Flay groused. She had no doubts that Kira was understating that other man's problems. He was like that.

Kira focused on the task at hand. "Flay... don't die on me out there. I know you want Galvatron dead, but I'm not sure if I want to live without you..."

Tears formed in Flay's eyes. "I'll try Kira...."

"That's all I ask," Kira said softly.

Flay smiled brightly Kira. "Don't ever change."

Kira felt relieved and gave Flay a loving glance before going over to the Freedom. The mobile suit made Kira feel more sure that they were going to win. He turned his head for a moment and saw pink. He knew who that was and landed on the ground.

"Hello Lacus," the ultimate coordinator said warmly.

Lacus smiled in sincere caring at Kira.

Kira felt Athrun was a lucky, lucky man to have Lacus. Women like her were not easy to find. He could easily see himself falling in love with Lacus if he didn't have Flay, and Lacus didn't have Athrun. He wished his best friend happiness and a more peaceful life after the upcoming battle.

"Hello, Kira. I understand that there is a custom among pilots to take a picture of a loved one in your fighter. Or mobilesuit. So I'm looking for Athrun." The young woman had a printed out picture in her hand which was odd and archaic.

"He was sending one last message to his father. There he is. Athrun." Kira suddenly wished he had Flay's picture. And that he had a picture to give to his young love.

"I wonder if any of the Transformers turn into a device that can take pictures," Kira muttered. Given all the things he'd seen them turn into, it won't surprise him to see that could do that. He then realized he could take a picture and print out.

It almost made Kira smile as it showed he wasn't perfect. He was as human as anyone else, and no amount of genetic engineering was going to fix that. Some might call him a marvel of science, but he still had the same flaws and positives as anyone else.

Athrun stating "We would like you to be the best man." drove the Ultimate Coordinator from his thoughts.

"Sure I'd love to," Kira replied shocked but honored. "But I didn't think either of you wanted a wedding."

"People are going to need something hopeful after the upcoming battle," Athrun admitted and showed having a politician for a father had taught him a few things. "Also I have been kicking around the idea in my head since the Minicons mentioned it months ago."

"I was never against that idea," Lacus said with her usual sunny smile.

"Let's just hope the bachelor party doesn't have the Dinobots show up," joked Athrun.

"And I so wanted to invite Slag," Kira managed to say with a straight face. After a moment the trio burst out into laughter.

Lacus's expression turned serious for a moment. "You two take care of yourselves out there."

"We will," Kira told her trying to sound confident. He remembered the last time he tried to assure someone everything was going to be fine.

And this would likely be the final battle of the entire war in the Solar System. Kira hoped for the best, and prepared for the worst.

It was all he or anyone else could do now.



V-V-V



Work on the Dominion had gotten frantic as the Decepticon threat had gone from 'looming' to 'about to kill everything'. Azreal Muruta sighed as the conversion of a Drake class ship into a massive gun for the Dominion was not going to happen. It would be finished a month after the Decepticon's big push would happen.

The only good part was that the massive forward cannon that would be used for the rifle was fully operational and worked like a charm. That was going to be needed for the battle ahead.

'Still what really matters is done,' Muruta thought with a smirk. They had found Lockdown's lasercore from the wreckage of his ship and installed it into the Dominion. Everything was ready for him to become the most powerful being in the galaxy.

The feelings Azreal had as he imagined the power he'd gain were intense. The near drug-like high of becoming so far beyond a Coordinator in power was quite enthralling. He was deep in a room, hidden from any prying eyes. Most of the soldiers did not realize that such drastic modifications had been created and crafted with such dark malice.

The blonde captain of industry sat in a black chair and donned a silver helmet with blue wires in it.

And then he screamed as purple and red glowing circuitry seemed to flow onto his skin from the helmet and up into the control panels of the Dominion.

Dark and twisted laughter echoed throughout Azreal's head.

"Fool," a familiar voice echoed through the ship, even as wires and cables started attacking the Earth Federation soldiers aboard the ship. "I live! You thought to tame a god, to make it a slave!"

In the middle of a fleet, the Dominion seemed to vibrate and then started to fracture into component pieces as it 'stood up' on leg, curved wings extending over its back.

"I am Lockdown Supreme! I am judgement!" the crazed and enraged Transformer shouted. He pointed an arm and extended the two barrels of the heavy energy canon, sending green beams into a Bernard-class cruiser and blowing it up. "DIE!"

"The Dominion appears to have gone rogue! All units, retreat while engaging in suppression fire! Launch beam dispersion flack! Someone try to raise Commander Fontaine!" the admiral in charge of the fleet shouted out.

This couldn't have happened at a worse time. The Decepticon Grand Fleet was nearly upon them!

On the Archangel, Commander Natarle Badgiruel had a cold feeling in her stomach. She could have been on the Dominion if she had not been passed up for the position. There were not a lot of people with her experience.

"Lockdown Supreme?" Grip-lock gasped. "Someone was insane enough to put his spark into an Archangel class ship?!"

"Sir, the Eternal is opening fire on the Dominion! And so is the Kusanagi!"

The pair of space ships launched mobile suits at the rampaging Supreme. A GuAIZ Experiment Arms launched from the Eternal and blasted Lockdown Supreme right in the face. The onslaught of all the weapons on the mobile suit staggered the mercenary for a moment. Somehow, though, the addition of a Spark had increased the toughness of the Dominion's frame greatly as the alien energies continued to suffuse the ship.

The metal where the mobilesuit bays on the Dominion were started to glow. Lockdown looked as if he was suffering from heartburn before the metal was blown through by the Aegis Gundams and explosive decompression inside the new Supreme shot fragments into space..

The remaining seven Aegis mobile suits fired into the gaping wound on Lockdown.

"Pour it on!" newly promoted Lt. Sven Cal Bayang commanded as he fired his Aegis's massive bazooka. A massive burst of energy slammed into the inner workings of the new Supreme.

Lockdown let out a scream of rage and pain, as that hurt for Cybertron's sake! A hand the size of a landing field swatted out, hitting one of the Aegis Gundams and knocking him clear across the battlefield and nearly depleting the energy in his Phase Shift sub-system.

"Great now if only we had about twenty more of those," Sven's teammate Shams Couza remarked. He smiled as he blasted Lockdown in the face with his main weapon. He made sure to hit where the GuAIZ had already wounded the colossal Transformer.

The mercenary growled in pain, and faster than Shams expected it, the hooked hand of the Supreme went for his grey, green and red mobile suit.

The glasses wearing man saw his life pass before his eyes when something hit the hook and caused it to shatter.

"Get moving," Aurum called out. "We got work to do."

"Deeds, not words," Sky Shadow mused before Lockdown's cannons started to glow. "Oh slag."

"DIE!" the enraged Supreme yelled as he unloaded on the gnats that were bothering him.

Purple bursts of energy obliterating anything in its path, be it Coordinator, Blue Cosmos, or Transformer.

Lockdown then chuckled darkly. It soon became a full maniacal laugh. "None of you can stop me!" the mutilated Transformer called out in a crazed tone, as he was drunk with power.

Then Mark III nuclear 'slammers', a heavy ship-to-ship missiles, was fired from the Archangel. One managed to fly into the gaping hole in Transformer's body while the others merely exploded around it..

"Fire in the hole!" Sven called out as everyone got back as there was a massive explosion inside the Supreme.

Everyone could feel the horrific scream of pain and pure rage that Lockdown let out. Even with the horrific damage done by the energon enhanced atomic missiles to the Supreme, it had not finished him off. Anti-protons were powered up inside chambers while two, large beam ports opened at the top of Lockdown Supreme's legs.

"Die, insignificant bugs! Die! Die!" he screamed out in a tone that made Galvatron sound as cold and collected as Shockwave.

"Every! Get out of his sight," Aurum called out even as she fired flares to distract the Supreme-class Transformer.

"Evade to port, full power to all thrusters," Lacus Clyne called out in a voice that seemed far too calm to the bridge crew of the Eternal. People actually trained to do this on purpose?

The scarlet and white Sky Shadow transformed into his cybertronian jet form and rocketed around in a loop, then dove through the flares to bodily slam the form of the white, gold and black ex-ASTRAYs. Aurum and he were barely on the edge of the anti-proton bombardment that in actuality, only hit one Aegis Gundam and a Drake-class cruiser.

In one of the remaining upgraded Aegis Gundams, Mudie Holcroft flew in and drove her mobile suit through one of the crimson optics of Lockdown and and slashed at any and everything with her suit's built in beamsabers.

To the Blue Cosmos trained operative's complete shock, she found herself with an orange, tiger-striped GuAIZ Experimental Arms giving her cover fire as minicon-sized versions of Transformer 'antibodies' tried to remove her.

Inside the GuAIZ, Aisha wondered if the 'brains' of this Transformer were in his head.

Human-built damage control systems were calling for the evacuation of the Dominion that Lockdown was inhabiting, as structural damage was reaching critical levels.

And that was when what was supposed to be the rifle for the Supreme, the Drake-class cruiser named the Texas, opened fire with the Hydra class Proton Cannon that had been attached to it. The massive emerald burst of energy literally cut the damaged left leg of the Supreme clean off.

"Everyone pour it on!" the Tristrike called out on all channels.

In the mutilated core of the Dominion, Lockdown's essence railed against dying and being sent back to the void of non-existence, even as explosions from the fleet's attack continued to rain down upon the outside. Energy crackled as the spark actually rebuilt the area into an escape pod, just as Lockdown Supreme... exploded!

Rachet could only shake his head as he continued to rain blaster fire into the dying, shattered hulk. "We need to get this fleet back into formation. The Decepticon Grand Fleet is almost here!" This could be a catastrophic attack, leading to all of their deaths if they could not recover fast enough.

[Fanboyimus Prime]

V-V-V



The Decepticon fleet was approaching at a desultory ten percent of the speed of light, so had taken almost six hours to arrive as the Human and Transformer fleet had tried to deal with Lockdown. This was not out of any desire to avoid battle, but to shake out their formation.

Galvatron stood in front of his ghoulish throne. "Decepticons, it is time to smash the Autobot leadership and their new allies before they can mass and attack us. Let us, instead, destroy them utterly! Decepticons! ATTAAAAAAK!"

In the command center of Genesis, Patrick Zala looked over to the comptroller. "Men, this is why we built Genesis; to defend our homes. The barbarians are at the gate and the battle is about to begin. Prepare to fire!"

"Genesis is entering final firing stage! All clearances from the PLANT Supreme Council are confirmed!"

"Initiating gamma burst!"

Inside the cloaked asteroid, generators ramped up to full power even as counter-jamming allowed an incredibly blast of gamma radiation to be created by the pulse of a massive nuclear bomb. The barely focused radiation struck the floating dish-shaped lens and converted it into a massive GRASER that lashed out towards the Decepticon Fleeting.

"Power build up detected!" one hapless Decepticon sensor tech managed to get off.

"Shields!" Galvatron ordered imperiously with a gesture.

The lethal, sharp shape of the Nemesis was in the center of the blast. A full 15 % of the Decepticon Grand Fleet was utterly vaporized, with another 5 % taking shrapnel damage and sensor burnout.

General Strika had sudden hope that these exceedingly dangerous humans might have solved her problem, only to see the battered form of the fleet command ship reappear, trailing smoke and debris. The Revenge was proving to be as hard to kill as its master.

"Priority orders, destroy that bombardment weapon," Galvatron demanded from his throne room, snarling at the sparks, smoke and damaged panels on his wonderful ship.

Strika growled deep in her processors on the bridge of her own command ship. What would it take to kill that blasted maniac?

Suddenly another Nemesis class cruiser started to shift and change into the shape of a massive, black, robotic Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaur.

"Trypticon... destroy!" was transmitted by the colossal beast before it opened its mouth and fired gigantic beams of destruction from the blasters in its massive maw.

Aegis transformed and put his full power to his primary weapon and unloaded on the huge Decepticon warrior. The obsidian paint was ruined and showed the gun metal grey of the armored hide of Trypticon... but that was it.

Far faster than something that big should be able to move, Trypticon hit Aegis with his tail and sent the red Transformer rocking uncontrolled through space. A feeling of dread filled the Autobots and human forces that totally crushed their momentary hope at the Genesis blast on the fleet.

"You have any glass gas grenades Yzak?" Tristrike asked as he loaded the grenade launcher on his beam rifle.

"I got two," Yzak admitted softly. "Doubt they'd be enough for that guy."

"We just need to make a door and crush him from the inside," Aurum said as she got what Tristrike was planning.

"Sounds good to me," Safeguard spoke up. "Primus knows we don't got anything better for a plan."

They then were attacked by a squadron of Seekers that had upgraded their alt modes to Skygraspers with Launch Strikers attached. The weapon they had packed a punch, and actually made them more powerful than the old-style Sweeps. A fact that they enjoyed immensely. They were tired of that new "Elite" fighting force showing them up.

And then literally thousands of jet corps of the Decepticon Grand Fleet and almost all of them had upgraded to the Skygrasper as their jet form launched from their ships. The colorful jet corps opened fire on everyone. The command cruiser Andrew Jackson suffered a death of a thousand paper cuts before the Nelson class ship exploded. They were relentless as they pushed into the Autobot and human forces.

"For Galvatron!" a hulking emerald and polished silver Seeker yelled as fired a massive SAW-like heavy weapon. Skyquake lead the charge and blew up a Strike Dagger. That brought a slight glow to Skyquake's optics.

Then the Seekers Corps were assaulted with a barrage of fire from 105 Daggers using the Doppelhorn Striker Pack. The cheap and easy to mass produce Doppelhorn was as effective as the original Launcher Striker Pack and more than enough to pulverize any Jet Corps Con they hit. Aurum added to the carnage by firing her stress fracture cannon into the Decepticon ranks.

Skyquake's elite team known as the Predators were at the front of those ranks.

"Oh Sla..." Falcon stated before being blown to chunks by several laser blasts.

The bright purple Hyena transformed and flew the other way as fast as he could. Unfortunately for him he went right into Safeguard's line of sight.

"Oh slag," Hyena muttered as a massive energy burst from the combiner slammed into him like a fist of Primus himself.

Skyquake proved to make of stern stuff as he charged forward at his enemies. A Red CGUE II with a golden Armor Shroud opened fire on massive Seeker. Skyquake growled and focused on that mobilesuit to make an example out of it.

Canard dodged and weaved the rapid the best he could. The antilaser armor shroud deflected most of the oncoming fire, proving once again how that was the bane of a Transformer's existence.

"Got you!" Pars yelled out and he pulled out a Armored Schiender.

Skyquake was unaware of that declaration as he barely avoided being blown up by Doppelhorn fire. The knife running him through he did notice and coughed up energon as he tried to stay alive on pure force of will. His last thoughts were for his brother Dreadwing to avenge him.

"This is not good," the extremely bright red Snare called out as he did his best imitation of Whirl to avoid being slagged.

Yzak cut Snare in half with his massive axe as he rocketed in from above. "Wow. With this ax I rule!"

"Pat your back later!" Tristrike remarked a touch harsher than he intended. "We got a giant to kill first!"

That was underscored by Trypticon unleashing a hellish burst of energy from his main guns in his mouth into the Autobot and human fleet. The heavy weapon smashed a Drake-class cruiser, almost coring the poor ship.

"Too bad he couldn't have stopped in the sights of Genesis Alpha," Thunderstick commented in the Green ASTRAY. The Earth Alliance wasn't happy that PLANTS had a pair of massive death rays of course, and everyone was sure there was going to be a lot of talks surrounding the issue of them. That was if there was a later to hold said talks.

The Green ASTRAY then fired one of the machine guns of the Assault shield at a stocky green Decepticon who had a small and rail thin red partner. Unlike the last shield Thunderstick used; this one had a pair of rockets on the underside of it. He was saving them for when he needed them most.

The upgraded CGUE DEEP ARMS suddenly flew in and fired its pair of shoulder mounted laser cannons at Scourge. The energon powered weapons had enough of a punch to send the huntsman flying into the side of Trypticon. The obsidian behemoth didn't even notice the impact.

"Thanks," Yzak grinned. Shino blushed a bit at the praise.

Tristrike blasted the dazed Scourge with his energon battle pistol. The Unicronian was battered by the up-scaled weapon.

Then the four Calamity Gundams, regular and sword, attacked Trypticon. They were now a standard ORB unit though under the command of Ghina's thankfully more stable twin sister Mina. The main guns of all four mobile suits fired on the massive Decepticon juggernaut and the regular Calamities were able to wound him.

However they were insect bites to a human, and only served to enrage further the Titan of Devastation. He roared another blast hit a ZAFT Gamow-class cruiser in the center of the Genesis defense fleet as the Decepticons moved ever closer. But the annoying Transformer-sized gnats just would not die. They were just too fast in comparison.

The Autobots and the Earth Alliance mobilesuit pilots then were called into the breach by Ultra Magnus. "Autobots, roll out! We have to take down Tripticon!" The high ranking Autobot fired a massive gun at where Yzak had wounded the huge Decepticon and metal stripped away under the sheer force of the blast.

"Throw your glass gas grenade," Ultra Magnus then commanded. Yzak didn't need to be told twice and threw the glass grenade at the side of the giant.

"Yeah, I got it. Man, you give as many orders as Athrun." The ZAKU then sliced open a door with its mammoth battle axe. The beam weapon felt natural to Yzak.

"Concentrate your fire now at the damaged area!" Ultra Magnus yelled as he was already in the mobile suit sized hole. His huge obsidian blaster unleashing a hellish barrage of fire on the Decepticons inside the giant.

"In three breems I want you and anyone else you can get to come in guns blazing," Safeguard told Tristrike. "Trypticon has to be scraped one way or another."

"I understand," the former Gundam replied.

Roadhandler was the first behind the infamous Autobot, and giving him cover fire with his copy of Aegis's massive rifle. His red and black Armor Shrouded Strike Dagger easily fit into the massive interior of Trypticon, which brought a savage smile to the minicon's face.

Pieces of the flooring were ripped off and flung at the Decepticons inside. The Strike Dagger slammed one Seeker against the wall with the ad hoc shield with a loud crunch of metal on metal.

A Junkion was right there with him. "Set it up, knock it down!" it called out pithily with its electronic tone, sounding quite happy. At least until a mostly black Decepticon blasted its faceplate off.

Thunderstick in the Green ASTRAY then fired on Wind Sheer with his twin sword rifle.

"Are you alright?" Ultra Magnus asked the Junkion. He gave Magnus a thumbs up.

Then a near blur kicked Magnus to the ground and then kicked the green mobilesuit in the back of the head with a spinning attack.

"You really think human toys will help you Ultra Magnus?" the unseen figure taunted.

A bright cyan and white female Decepticon with an energon blade slashed the ZAKU in the back. Lyzack knew she had to get the location of Deathcobra out of these humans. He was as much her friend as he was to her brother Leozack.

"What the?" Yzak called out as Lyzack tried to drive the blade in deeper.

The Blaster Striker Pack's namesake weapons swiveled back and Yzak blasted the Seeker with the powerful weapon. Lyzack flew back from the force of the blast and collided with a loud clang into a wall.

However the mysterious figure just laughed at that. Then a purple and white cougar pounced onto Ultra Magnus and tried to rip out the Autobot general's throat. After that failed, the cougar transformed to robot mode of the Decepticon again.

Huffer with his upgraded drone-limbs attached then slugged the Decepticon ninja with a crunch that pleased even the pessimistic engineer.

"Nice toys," the Decepticon remarked as he leaped to his feet with ease. "Going to have to see how they work later."

"Who is this guy?" Yzak inquired.

"By the Matrix," Thunderstick called out in shock. "That's Sixshot!"

Yzak sighed. Really, they can't tell his name was not enough information? He was a Coordinator not a Mentat.

"He's a six changer and a ninja," Roadhandler supplied as he laid cover fire. Sixshot transformed into a massive laser pistol and sent the Armored Shrouded Strike Dagger flying and with sparks from where the blasts penetrated the armor.

The ZAKU charged at the ninja, but Sixshot transformed into his car mode and drove off. Yzak swore softly and what looked like a blue and white long box with guns at the front flew by and opened fire on the ninja.

"They were telling the truth," the car remarked. "You did become an Autobot. How could you Greatshot!?"

"After what I've been through it was the best choice Sixshot," Greatshot commented dryly.

"Death would be more preferable!" Sixshot screamed as he transformed into robot mode and slammed his fist into the top of Greatshot. A pair of laser blasts hit the Decepticon ninja.

"Sorry we're late," Sideswipe called out. "But Sideburn was distracted by the femme with a sword."

"What?" the blue Autobot remarked at the glances he got. "It was hot!"

Then a jet black Seeker with a pair of purple cannons over his shoulders let out a shrill laugh. Sideburn blasted him and he fell to the ground.

"That wasn't the plan," Zardak groused on the ground.

A bright orange and lime monster covered in energon leaped out from the walkways in the massive chamber and landed on Sideburn with a loud clang. The squat and blocky beast fired his black mounted laser rifle at Roadhandler's Strike Dagger.

The Strike Dagger's shield was raised and took the energy bolt dead on.

"Get off me!" Sideburn yelled.

"The Dark Assassin, Devourer of Souls, Propagator of Infinity shall destroy you all!" the deranged Decepticon called out spitting energon from his mouth.

"Shut up Blip," Ultra Magnus remarked as he fired his shoulder missiles at the maniac.

The deranged Decepticon was knocked off Sideburn and looked annoyed. He then got a double barrel blast and was sent flying over Zardak.

The obsidian Seeker fired at the leader of the invading force of Autobots.

The lavender missile was barely dodged by Ultra Magnus and hit Trypticon. The explosion, flying shrapnel, and the titanic Decepticon's roar made it clear his internal parts were not as armored as his hide was.

Yzak felt hope that they might be able to win at that. With renewed hope he charged forward with his massive ax and drove into Trypticon. Once more the titan howled in pain.

"Forward!" he called out.

Sideswipe retracted a hand and a piledriver came out. He slammed it into the ground and tore through the armored floor. Trypticon's growls of pain were music to Sideswipe's audio receptors.

That was not a sound the Decepticons like to hear however. Frankly it almost terrified them.

Arrows began flying through the air, striking at the innards of Trypticon. Several of the shots narrowly missed the Mobile suits and other Autobots. Sixshot was grazed by several of the arrows.

"Hey give me some warning next time Atomizer!" Roadhandler yelled.

"Hey I didn't hit anyone," a brass, crimson, and silver Autobot remarked. "Well at least on our side."

Ultra Magnus shook his head. "I really should have taken that tricursed crossbow from him."

"No kidding," Sideburn muttered.

"He won't need it when I'm done," Sixshot growled as he transformed into jet mode and strafed Atomizer.

The crackshot Autobot took several blasts as he tried to roll away from the Decepticon sixchanger.

"AHHHHH!" Atomizer howled in pain.

"Don't worry about the pain...it's about to get a whole lot worse," Sixshot cackled with glee.

Greatshot transformed into his gun mode and unloaded a barrage of fire. Ultra Magnus and Sideswipe joined in and Sixshot was barrel rolling to avoid being hit.

"The rest of you go!" Ultra Magnus ordered. "We'll hold off Sixshot. Gut Trypticon!"

"Die!" Trypticon roared.

"Looks like he doesn't like that idea at all," Roadhandler remarked to cover how much that scared him. Having a mobile suit for a pseudo bulk body wasn't as reassuring as he'd like right now. Then again he was using a mass produced one and not one of the premium one like Heine's or a Gundam.

Yzak didn't need to be told twice and made his own doorway with his axe.

The passageways were still thankfully big enough for the mobile suits to use and Yzak figured it was so when Trypticon transformed they didn't have to worry about anyone inside being crushed.

Thunderstick opened fire on the Energon lines of Trypticon. The beastly Decepticon howled in pain and cut off sections before they exploded.

"Figured he'd be using the more potent and explosive blends," the gold and blue Minicon remarked with satisfaction.

Out of the smoke came a purple and bone white three headed dragon, spitting bright green acid from each of his mouths.

"Great the President of Six Shot's fanclub," Sideburn groused before being grazed by one of the acid balls on the shoulder. He yelped in pain as it cut through his armored hide.

"I think he's as big as Grimlock," Yzak warned as he opened fire on Hun-Grr.

A roar of engines was heard coming towards them, dopplering as got closer.

"Now what?" Yzak groused as five ground vehicle Decepticons charged at them. With the black cargo truck in the lead.

"Stunticons," Thunderstrike stated as he opened fire on the rough and tumble combiner team.

"Great," Tristrike muttered as he gave the Green Astray cover fire. The energy fire didn't seem to be stopping the five heavy metal maniacs as they swerved to avoid it.

"Talk about being between a rock and a hard place," Sideburn muttered.

"Leave it to me!" Safeguard yelled and unloaded on Motormaster. The self proclaimed King of the Road had his windows and tires blown out by the force of the attack.

"You aren't stopping me that easily!" Hun-Grr growled out of all three mouths.

"We'll see slagger," Safeguard called out trying to sound confident.

"Not if I get them first," Motormaster snarled.

"Oh shut up," Hun-Grr snapped at his fellow combiner commander. "Your 'rivalry' with Optimus Prime is a joke."

"Well there goes any chance of us beating them," Deadend stated morosely.

Wildride ignored his pessimistic teammate and slammed head on into the ZAKU. High speed metal met phase shifted cyberium covered alloys. The Stunticon came out the worse of the pair.

"Phase shift is meant to stop bullets and other projectile weapons," Tristrike commented. "You're not faster than a speeding bullet."

"Enough banter," Huffer called out as he hammered Rippersnapper. The snarling white humanoid sharkbot really didn't like being beaten on by a knock off combiner.

"Die!" he growled as he got up. Huffer knocked him down again.

"Too bad I can't do this all day," the pessimistic Autobot grumbled. "It might actually be fun!"

"Well that scares me," Greatshot commented.

"Hey I can enjoy myself," Huffer snapped as he kicked Sinnertwin into the air. Atomizer let fly a barrage of arrows into the Oruthusian looking Decepticon.

The orange and blue two headed canidae looked like a pincushion, and let a snarl of rage with fluid flying from his snouts. Greatshot transformed into his rhino form and gored into the sadistic Con. A bone crunching sound filled the air as the horn worked deeper into the Con's body.

"Stop the Stunticons from merging," he called out.

"Easier said than done," Safeguard remarked as he flew into battle against Motormaster. The combiner commander growled and opened fire on the Autobot.

"Die," Motormaster growled.

"Fat chance Motorbreath!" Safeguard shot back. Motormaster had a gut feeling that nickname was going stick if he didn't kill all the Autobots that heard it right here and now.

"Kill them all," Motormaster snapped to his troops. "Crush them into scrap metal!"

Roadhandler wished he had the ZAKU's rifle or huge axe as he tried to hit Wildride. The crazy con drove like a maniac and fired back at the GINN II.

"I should be able to hurt you!" Wildride cackled as the older mobile suit as it lacked the phase shift and heavier amount of Cyberium armor of the ZAKU. His scatter blaster torn into the mobile suit with noises that excited him. He aimed for where Sixshot had already damaged the armor to inflict even more destruction.

His eager and twisted enjoyment was clear on his face and Thunderstick didn't like that look so he blasted the dark grey and red Stunticon.

"Keep the scrap away from my friend you glitched hard drive!"

"How impolite," Cutthroat growled. "Going to change that forever."

"Like you know what polite means," Sideburn called out before blasting the savage Decepticon.

Thunderstick joined in and Cutthroat found himself in need of help.

Yet none was coming as none of his fellow Cons were able to disengage from other Autobots or humans and frankly didn't want to.

"Stunticons," Motormaster yelled. "Merge into..."

Yzak tried to gut the combiner leader but barely missed.

"Menasor!" the gestalt called out.

Yzak put full power into his blasters and unleashed a hellish burst of laser fire at Menasor. The combiner was staggered and enraged by the attack with wounds on his chest leaking fluids.

However that was it and he violently slammed the ZAKU against the walls of Trypticon. Yzak responded by shoving his axe into somewhere that'd be very uncomfortable on a human being. Menasor had a pained expression and clenched his fist. The Blaster Striker Pack laser cannons pivoted up and unleashed a barrage right in Menasor's face. The giant robot was stunned and Safeguard took that opening to hit Menasor with his primary weapon at full power.

The sound of Menasor slamming into the ground echoed throughout the cavernous interior of Trypticon. Roadhandler flew in and shoved his sword through Menasor's head. Though the right optic in fact.

"Not quite was Starsaber would do, but pretty amazing nonetheless," Thunderstick remarked. "Just hope you got him pinned to the floor.”

"He better if he doesn't want to be killed by him," Huffer interjected as he grappled with Hun-Grr.

"No kidding," Sideburn set the gunk and various fluids on Blot's exterior ablaze. "Huh and didn't think that plan would work."

Blot ran screaming away from the Autobots and humans.

"Think that will be enough proof for Landfill to actually clean himself more?" Roadhandler mused outloud.

"If it doesn't nothing will," Huffer stated firmly. Yzak mentally put Landfill under the title stinky bot.

"Enough jawing," Safeguard yelled as he flew forward. "We got to take out this beast!"

"Menasor kill you all," the gestalt yelled as he was literally stuck to the floor and found the sword too small for him to easily grab the handle.

Before Hun-Grr and his troops could react a second wave of Autobots and humans attacked.

"We'll kill you all!" the number Sixshot fanboy growled as he fought TriStrike.

"Good luck on that," Sideburn called out before transforming to his car mode and burning rubber.

The gestalt let out a horrific scream of rage that echoed nearly as much as his fall had. The invading Autobots and humans put being afraid of that for when there was a later. Now they had bigger things to deal with as the internal defenses of Trypticon now took them as being a threat.

"We need to get to one of the Rossum's Trinity parts," Roadbuster called out.

"So spark, cerebral module or transformation cog," Yzak stated. "So which one is the closest?"

"If Trypticon's inner workings are the same as a usual Transformer," Huffer commented. "A bit of a big if there, then the closest thing we got is his cerebral module."

"And give him the worst headache he's ever had," Sideburn quipped.

Suddenly there was an explosion and Sideswipe flew out of it and crashed in front of them. His exterior was covered in cuts, dents, and his paint job looked battered.

"I am not done yet slagger!" he growled before flying back through the hole with his pile drivers out.

Sideburn floored it as he went full speed through Trypticon. The others took to the air with Safeguard.

Purple tanks came out of the walls and opened fire on them. Sideburn literally drove through them without stopping. Yzak sliced through them like a hot knife through butter with his axe. Arows flew as Atomizer let loose on the drones. Huffer smashed any of the stragglers. He was not impressed with these drones that were literally driving turrets. Frankly he'd seen nastier things in Wheeljack's lab.

Sideburn saw in the distance as he was going full speed a massive Gundam sized armor door. With a black Con on one side of the door behind a weapons array, and a purple Con on the other side of it with an equally lethal looking weapons array.

"Oh slag," Sideburn got out before Wipe-Out and Fill-Tilt opened fire. Safeguard, Roadbuster and Thunderstick saw a smoking and damaged blue car fly past them. Safeguard grabbed the damaged Sideburn out of the air.

"Ouch," Atomizer remarked as he got to see the extent of the damage done to Sideburn.

Yzak opened fire on the pair of Cons, with Thunderstick and Roadhandler adding in to the barrage. Huffer took advantage of that distraction to detach his drones. The miniature linear tank, APC, Skygrasper and helicopter made a way in the vents.

"Be glad I have some idea how to do this," Atomizer muttered as he sealed the worst of Sideburn's wounds with a welding torch that came out of his left hand.

"Thanks," Sideburn told him softly.

"No problem, though I'm sure Ratchet will think my work wasn't that good," Atomizer replied.

"He's not here right now," Sideburn commented. "You are."

Huffer looked like he'd be sick, and mentally had his drones go even faster. They burst out of the vents above Wipe-Out and Full-Tilt and caught the pair by complete surprise. Safeguard rushed Wipe-Out, and Roadbuster used his Armor Shroud's machine gun on Wipe Out.

Yzak tossed another gas grenade at the massive armored door. Huffer remerged with his drones and punched through the door. Inside was literally Trypticon's brain.

Seeing this as the perfect chance, Thunderstick fired his pair of missiles into the central processor of Trypticon. The giant shook like an 8.5 earthquake.

"GGGGGGGGGGAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!" the titanic Decepticon screamed in pure anguish.

And then the lighting died. One moment they were on, and the next the ship was pitch black.

"One down, a lot more to go!" Yzak called out.

"Let's get to that then," Safeguard said feeling a bit of hope this might actually be winnable.



V-V-V



"It is time! Sweep! To me!" Galvatron called out even as his private elevator lifted him to the battered roof of the Nemesis. He transformed into his gun-alt mode and then built up a huge, antimatter charge, blowing up a Drake-class cruiser in one shot. He mecha-morphed back into his robotic form. "Crush them!" he shouted, fist raised high.

Captain Murrue Ramius gripped the hand-rests of her command chair. "Continue the bombardment. Kira, Flay; it's up to you to stop that maniac-"

"Message from Autodock! It's Optimus Prime!" Mirallia called out.

Murrue tapped a control on her chair, bringing up a hologram screen. "Optimus."

"I am transmitting coordinate for three special Decepticon ships that must be destroyed. They are blocking any Space Bridges from forming. But I need your mobilesuits to continue their attack on Galvatron. If he falls, the Decepticons will start to battle among themselves," the red and blue Autobot leader said, even as the colony he was in quaked under the onslaught of Decepticon firepower.

"I couldn't recall them any ways. Coordinates accepted. I hope this is worth it." The captain tapped a button to disconnect. "Vector change, up ten degree and to port thirty one. Full power to engines."

Across the fleet, humans and Autobots were surprised when the Archangel suddenly roared to full speed on massive thrusters... seeming fleeing the battle.

Galvatron saw the hated ship dodging his cannon and frowned. That ship would be at the center of any-

So the emerald green blast that nearly hit him was quite distracting. Just like it was supposed to.

"Let's do it like we planned," Kira called out, even as the Freedom nearly flickered out of the way of Galvatron's return blast.

The METEOR units were disengaged and firing into the Nemesis, distracting the anti-air flak from the heavy Decepticon cruiser. They disgorged hundreds of micromissiles, blanketing the ship in explosions.

Athrun nodded, even as Justice blocked several shots from a seeker. He suddenly charged forward and much faster than the Unicroid enhanced Decepticon could have believed, chopped it in half with both hand beamsabers. "I've got your back, Kira! Take him out!"

The Justice's flight pack rocketed off and then cut another Seeker in half, transformed into a Microbot-sized robot, it's Quantum AI firing rapidly with a rifle before returning to the support Athrun.

"Good job, Halo-Wing," Athrun said with a grin.

"Thanks!" the little human-AI shouted out gleefully.

Flay and Cagalli where firing in a pincer, trapping another Sweep in their sights and blasting him to pieces. He'd probably survive, but he was definitely out of the battle for know.

Six Sweeps were trying to swarm Kira in the Freedom, only to miss the crazily spinning and dodging mobilesuit that should have been far too large for those moves.

"Quantum targeting active!" Kira ordered the Virtual Intelligence. In his minds-eye, targeting reticules flashed to live across the different joints of the Sweeps. The Freedom then lowered six cannons into position and started to rapid-fire plasma beams, railgun slugs and high intensity lasers.

"What!?" the leader of this group of Sweeps managed to scream before the Freedom wiped him and his team off the battlefield.

"Recall METEOR units It's time to end this!" Kira called out, his face very serious.

The remote weapons had been hammering at smoking and bleeding wreck of the Nemesis, but the cruiser was still pouring out massive firepower.

That was the opening that Flay had been waiting for. "You murdered my father," Flay snarled as she felt a wellspring of anger... of will... exploded within her; a SEED of destiny and rage. "Now die!"

Galvatron actually laughed deeply from the amusement of this simple and blatant attack, only to barely block three swipes from the Strike II's beams sabers. Suddenly, this mobilesuit was actually a threat to him. It had speed beforehand, but now it had super-human agility and ferocity. He ignored a slight burning of three spikes that had appeared in his back during the fight, their purple-energon disruption passing into his body.

"Bunch of immature humans think they can hurt me where so many others have failed? This will be amusement for Vorns to come!" the Decepticon leader declared with bravado, starting to feel something was off in this fight's tempo.

The Unicronian enhanced Transformer then fired back at the Strike II. It his complete and utter shock his purple energy blast reflected off the shield of the mobilesuit and struck him head on, shattering his shoulder armor. Inside the gold and pink mobilesuit Flay had a slight smile. It never got old to see Decepticons get hit with their own energy attacks off that laser reflective material.

Kira then unloaded on Galvatron with the full power of the Freedom's weapons and those on his METEOR unit. The mobile suit was even more powerful than Heine's and the METEOR weapons support system was devastating. The hellish barrage of rail guns, energy cannons, and missiles visibly damaged the Emperor of Destruction. There was only one other Transformer anyone expected to also be able to survive that sort assault, and that was Nemesis Prime.

"I wonder if he still thinks this is comedy?" Athrun grimly stated to his human AI partner.

Galvatron collided with a large chunk of space debris and actually laughed. "I might get some satisfaction out of killing them."

Athrun lit the leg beam blades and launched his assault on Galvatron. Only at the last moment was the Decepticon leader able to avoid having his head removed by flying under the beam. His "crown" on his head was cut clean off, and the space debris was cut into two, like both were made of a soft cheese.

"Still think we aren't powerful enough?" Flay called out in a mocking tone. In the hands of the Strike II was a dual blade beam saber. With a quick and easy motion she sliced off Cyclonus's wings...and his lower body. With a mighty kick she sent Cyclonus's upper body into Galvatron like she was playing kick the can.

Then with a roar Galvatron yelled. "Not while I still function will I allow humans to defeat my Decepticons!"

That was enough to show the pilots that Galvatron was finally taking them seriously.

Athrun pulled out the pair of beam boomerangs on the shoulders and switched them over to being beamsabers. His experience with the Aegis's quad beamsabers made the two in hand, and the two leg beam blades very comfortable to him.

Galvatron attempted to keep his distance from the Justice as he seemed to be more of a melee ranged warrior.

The Strike II was instantly on him as Flay poured on the speed with the Shield Striker Pack. An insane smile was plastered on her face as she went in for the kill as she was still in that strange Zen state of perfect fighting.

Galvatron leaped onto the arm of the pink and gold mobile suit and put his hand on the surface and channeled his spark energy. Emerald sparks arced across the outside and inside of the mobile. Flay was caught flat footed and then was hit by a mind numbing surge of pain.

"I will not die to the likes of you!" Galvatron growled so hard it nearly crashed his vocalizer. He then was hit by the Akatsuki's high energy beam cannon.

That knocked him off the Strike II and the electric arcs stopped. Flay panted and she became aware she wasn't in pain anymore.

"Are you alright?" Kira asked his love with concern.

"I'm fine. I'm alright," Flay got out. "He just got me by surprise with that attack."

Kira gave her a look of concern and caring before cutting the connection.

Galvatron was then hammered by fire from the METEOR weapons system and while his attention was on dealing with that, the Freedom flew in and slashed him before flying away from the Emperor of Destruction.

As the Decepticon leader was dealing with that, the Strike II flew by and strafed him with the minirifles from above. The shots seemed to only enrage Galvatron further and further. He then fired his laser cannon wildly at the four mobile suits as he let out a bellow of rage that the four could feel in their hearts.

"We got him fighting blindly," Cagalli called out as she had her mobile suit get between Galvatron and the others. The energy blasts deflected off the Akatsuki and Galvatron was just wasting energon.

"I have you now!" Galvatron shouted as he blasted at the scarlet hued Justice, far too fast to dodge.

Athrun brought up his left hip gun and arm, sacrificing the limb and weapon to save the core of his mobilesuit. "I'm hit."

Galvatron frowned. That should have killed the enemy robot outright, but he had managed to avoid a lethal strike. That left him open as a full alpha-strike from the METEOR equipped Freedom hammered home. "No! This can't be possible!" Explosions rent his armor all across his body

The Decepticon turned and fired at the Freedom, blasting an expended missile-pod from the METEOR pack. He saw pink and gold charging at him. With another spin, he turned and fired his arm cannon right at the Strike II, only for the attack to be perfectly blocked by the golden Akatsuki. Antimatter slammed back into the arm cannon with amazing force. His arm could have survived that, but the containment chamber in the cannon was breached. Galvatron was sent skidding across the surface of the Nemesis at the feet of a black Decepticon. More spikes of glowing energon plinked home across his body as he came to a halt in front of her.

"Black Arachnidia? What are you doing here?" Galvatron asked as he started to stand up.

"Killing you, of course, oh mighty leader." The assassin had a cruel smile up her lips, even as the energon poison started to take affect, joining her widow's spikes already in his back.

"I'll rip out your optics!" Galvatron bellowed.

"Face it Galvatron," the female Decepticon gloated gleefully. "Other then Cyclonus or Skyquake none of us care if you die." She then laughed as she faded into the blackness of space as Galvatron tested his limbs quickly, finding that his response time was deeply impaired.

Then a pink and gold blur cut Galvatron from head to crotch with a huge antiship sword. When Flay registered what she had done she felt....empty. Galvatron was gone but it didn't bring back her father. It nothing had changed. Victory wasn't sweet like she wanted to be. It was more like sour ashes.

She was driven from her musings by Nightscream and Windrazor's Seekers attacking her.

"No time to rest on our laurels," Athrun called out as he fired the laser CWISes in the chest and head of his unit.

The Seekers were confused at why someone was using such short range weapons on them.

"Oh slag us!" Smokesniper called out as he saw the Freedom.

"That thing has even more firepower than me!" the heavily armed Gigant Bomb said with fear filling his voice.

The METEOR pack and the Freedom's weapons glowed for a moment and then unloaded a hellish barrage on the Seekers. The Decepticons were shredded by the raw power of the pack.

Cagalli looked at the floating remains of the Decepticons and hoped that sort of firepower wouldn't ever be used against Orb, or by humans against humans. And yet she had this feeling that she might be hoping against hope on that.

Not while there were those that didn't consider war a horrifying prospect and one to be considered the absolute last resort with any sort of power roaming free.

Cagalli then wondered how many burned out husks of planets were across the galaxy due to such power being unleashed without control. And something she hoped never to find out the number of given the Autobots talked of their war and that of the Sontarans and their enemies the Rutan Host sounded to be horrifically destructive.

Cagalli pulled herself out of her thoughts and back into the battle at hand. They had a war to win, and with the head of the serpent cut off they might just have a chance. The only question was if the Decepticons would pull together or self destruct in power grabs.



V-V-V



"What do you mean Galvatron is dead?" Windrazor shouted from the center of his bridge.

"The humans sent four of their Guardians and won!" his scanner operator Blitzwing called out in shock and surprise. "And they are still in the fight!"

"What sort of monsters are they? I thought they were just little bags of squishy water?" Weirdwolf gasped from navigation.

"Shut up, you idiots." Windrazor was thinking furiously. "Open all channels! I, Windrazor of the Seekers declare myself Emperor of the Decepticons! Continue the attack and destroy the killers of Galvatron, long may he rest!"

His Catastrophe-class light cruiser suddenly jerked and shook as three ships next to him started to open fire.

"What?"

The appearance of General Strika on his screen answered that question quite handily. "Windrazor, declare your support for me or I will kill you like the bug you are."

"Wrong," they heard Nightscream call out. And his voice then became more serpentine. "I, Air Commander Starscream of the Decepticon Seeker Corps shall be your new leader!"

"The traitor? All Decepticons, rally with me! We shall destroy Starscream, the Autobots and the humans in one fell attacks! Let none resist us!" Strika ordered.

"Slag off Strika. I, Deathsaurus deserve to be leader of the Decepticons!" a massive blue, grey and gold Decepticon proclaimed grandly. "I am a true Emperor of Destruction!"

"No, I should be leader!" Scourge demanded.

"I shall take command!" Scorponok bellowed.

"Stop this madness at once!" Onslaught growled as he was losing his cool. "We have slagging bigger problems then this!"

"SHUT UP!" all the other would be Decepticon leaders yelled.

Onslaught then ignored the power grabbing idiots and put out a call to the second in commands and vital underlings. This was frankly completely and utterly slagging embarrassing. They were in the middle of a war!



V-V-V



"Prime, it's happening," Ironhide called out. "They are almost too busy squabbling for leadership to fight us."

"Let's not celebrate yet," Optimus Prime stated as he narrowed his optics in a thought. "When one of them finally solidifies their position, they will go for Galvatron's slayers first."

The deep red Autobot nodded in reply. "Archangel, you need to destroy those jammers as quickly as possible."

All over the scattered battlezones, Decepticon ships that were not in the middle of actually fighting the Earth and Autobot Forces stood out like sore thumbs now. Unfortunately all of them were out of the firing range of the Genesis guns.

The Archangel surged toward the closest of them, missiles and lasers assaulting the blocky and heavily armored Pale Fire.

On the bridge of the ship, Overlord was knocked out of his massive chair with a loud thud.

"Destroy that Unicron Spawning ship!" the titanic blue Decepticon ordered as he got to his feet.

The Pale Fire unleashed emerald bolts of energy at the Archangel, with the Lightwave barrier emitters in the ship stopping much of them cold.

"By Adaptus," Snapdragon gasped at weapon control. "What did the Autobots do to that thing?! I thought only Trailbreaker could do that!"

"We'll find out after we take it apart," Overlord commanded. "Launch the Seekers to board it!"

The bridge then shook again as a second ship joined in. One that filled the Pale Fire's crew with dread. The upgraded and even more lethal than ever Skyfire was attacking.

Grimlock was coming for them.

On the Archangel the crew was relieved to have back-up. In a fight they could rely on the Dinobots to take the battle to the enemy and show no mercy.

"Let them have it," Grimlock growled out from his throne-like captain's chair.

"On it," Slag and Snarl called out as they unleashed pure and utter hell on the Pale Fire anew.

The Decepticon ship shook as the blasts heated up the hull of the ships, and a shower of sparks came from damaged electrical systems.

"Blasted circuit breakers should have kicked in," Overlord groused as sparks rained down on him. "Hit the Skyfire with everything we have!"

Snapdragon managed to get off the floor and slammed his fist on the panel.

Missiles, and energy blasts spewed forth from the injured ship at the Skyfire. The upgraded cruiser was like its crew and took the barrage in stride and seemed to only be annoyed by it doing minor damage and ruining the paint job.

A massive nullray blast then struck the Pale Fire. In Engineering the Space Bridge Jammer's electronics literally burned out.

"I am going to handle this personally," Overlord bellowed. "Killmaster, you are in command until I get back. And for your sake the Jammer better be working by then."

Things were not much less tense on the Archangel.

"That one is yours Archangel," Grimlock stated in his usual gruff tone as he called the Earth ship. "I'm sure it is weak enough for you now."

"Thank you Grimlock," Captain Ramius said with tidal waves of sarcasm. Something about the utterly arrogant Autobot was getting on her nerves. The Dinobot leader didn't seem to care at all.

"Just get the job done," Grimlock added as a parting shot.

"I hope the assign him far from the solar system after this," Ramius muttered to herself. No one disagreed with that statement. If anything everyone agreed with her as Grimlock wasn't making any friends.

The Archangel then shook violently as Overlord unloaded on the ship with his warriors following him into combat. The Warrior Elite wished he had some cybernought battle mechs to show these flesh creatures how giant weapons of destruction were done. That thought amused Overlord.

That feeling was ripped from him as a HEAT round hit him right in the chest. He was sent off course and collided with Slugslinger and Misfire. Overlord growled as what was hurt most was his pride. One didn't become a Warrior Elite by being easy to damage. Another round hit him.

"Bring me the head of whoever is doing that!" Overlord commanded as he blew a third bazooka shell up.

In a GINN II Grip-Lock felt a lot less safe even with his bazooka. "What does it take to hurt that bot?"

"A lot more than we got," Jolt remarked in a CGUE II before opening fire on the Seekers with a heavy ion cannon. Thankfully this group hadn't taken Skygrasper alt forms so they weren't as heavily armed with Launch Striker Packs. Though he worried that would become the standard alt mode of the Seeker Corps after this fight.

"But what about the Archangel?" Grip-Lock mused as he hit a kind of crazy looking blue Seeker. Unlike Overlord he was sent flying off and didn't look he was going to just easily shake it off.

"They should be able to handle him...I hope," Skysickle said as he fired the spare MA-M21 Lupus beam rifle of the GuAIZ Experimental Arms into the swarm of foes.

"This isn't really encouraging," Tolle injected sharply.

"Sorry we can't be cheery!" Grip-Lock snapped at him.

And that was when a minor miracle came as the Calamity unit it as it was called flew into the fight.

In one of the Calamity Gundams Rondo Gina Sahaku had a savage smirk on her face as she blasted the biggest Decepticon of the bunch with her units energy cannons.

And was shocked to see had merely wounded him instead turning him into space dust. And he looked ready to rip her Gundam apart with his bare hands! If she looked closely she would see the damage she had done would have off-lined a normal Transformer.

"Everyone target that Decepticon!" Mina barked out as she unloaded on Overlord again.

In his Strike Dagger Jolt looked at the four Gundams with undisguised envy and jealousy. Why weren't they asked to pilot any of those four units? All they got was the Green Astray and run of the mill mass produced mobile suits for this battle. Even a Hyperion would have been a lot better than this.

The Minicon shook himself from his thoughts just before what looked like a dark blue, and grey version of Wheeljack in some kind of weird exo armor took a shot at him. Jolt responded by kicking Slicer and his armor with his foot. The Con was sent flying right into the Pale Fire.

"Not sure courage, hope for the future and teamwork will be enough for this slagging mess," Skysickle muttered as he tried to help a Sword Calamity against Overlord.

The massive Decepticon was annoyed as he held back the Gundam's main weapon with ease. He tossed through space the mobile suit as he was struck by a black light beam right in one of the wounds he'd gotten from the Calamity Gundam.

"Like this fleshies needed Autobot help to be even more annoying," Overlord growled. "Kill them all!"

"What does he think we're doing?" Rage growled as he fired on Tolle's Strike Dagger. None of the Stormtroopers gave their leader back talk. They remembered how the obsidian colored Decepticon had ripped the arm off Skullcruncher over some local movie and joking how the Stormtroopers in that had terrible aim. And then nearly beat him to death with it.

When a HEAT round blew Rage's legs off and sent him flying backwards through space, none of the Stormtroopers minded. They kept their enjoyment of that to themselves.

"Looks like they aren't defective," Grip-Lock mused.

"I could have told you that," Jolt remarked as he punched an obsidian Decepticon.

"A bit of help here?" Mina yelled as she was fighting Overlord. The Decepticon was battered but unbroken. The chest cannon of the unit erupted a devastating burst of energy and Overlord flew through the flight path with his torso and arm turning white hot. His hand came out of the barrage and tried to crush the still firing weapon, but the phase shift was making that difficult.

"Now that's what I call diecast construction," Skysickle gasped. Overlord's arm should be a puddle of metal by now!

"Its a lost art," Jolt commented sounding slightly bemused.

Grip-Lock was too busy helping the Calamities, regular and sword, to comment. He stayed out of sword fighting range from the Warrior Elite. Something he wasn't sure Roadhandler would avoid doing as he loved using a sword with a mobile suit.

In her mobile suit Mina let Overlord have it with all of her weapons at maximum power. The other Calamity Gundam did the same and it barely managed to get him to keep him from crushing her chest cannon.

A blacklight beam hit Overlord right in the optic and shattered it. Overlord ripped a piece of his molten arm off and shoved it over the exposed to space inner workings of that optic. He didn't even wince as the armor fused into place.

"What....what does it take to stop this monster?" Mina asked sounded like she'd been shocked back into sanity.

"A lot more than what we got," Grip-Lock whispered.

"Enough doubts," Jolt called out. "Overlord's beatable. Let's remember that."

Overlord appeared to be slowing down as the damage he was taking kept on increasing. Yet his expression was only growing and more enraged. Tolle and his Strike Dagger were in front of him and ripped off the left arm. The young pilot swerved to the left and barely avoided having his mobile's head caved in with the missing arm.

"Scrap!" Skysickle yelled as he gave Tolle cover fire to get away.

"Kill these insects!" Overlord commanded. "Destroy these affronts to us all!"

Overlord's forces followed his order and unleashed hell on the mobile suits and the Archangel. Laser fire and more exotic weapon payloads slammed into the Lightwave barrier.

The Archangel was shaking from the shockwaves of the surface of the ship heating up due to the weapons fire.

"Forward!" Overlord yelled. "Rip that ship apart!"

With that call the Decepticons rushed at the Archangel. Laser fire struck the shields to see how much of a beating they could take. Suddenly the Lightwave barrier went down.

On the bridge, Natarle Badgiruel watched as the lead Decepticon was targeted with the Valiant.

"Fire," Captain Ramius commanded.

At that every weapon on the ship was unleashed on the Decepticon forces. Energy fire, bullets, and missiles struck the hard and unexpectedly. And out of the destruction came a wounded and enraged beyond rational thought Overlord.

"What does it take to kill that thing?" Mina Sahaku gasped. "And why isn't he leading the Decepticons?"

"He honestly doesn't give a slag about politics. He just doesn't want to be leader," Grip-Lock informed her. "Though given everyone is scared of him and that includes his superiors."

The heavily wounded Overlord flew at the Archangel with no concern other than to drive straight through it and to keep doing that until the ship was scrap metal.

The Gottfied and Lohengrin cannons unloaded on Overlord. Both Calamity Gundams added to the barrage and all hoped that it'd be enough to stop the seemingly unstoppable Decepticon juggernaut.

What they saw was ruined Overlord with his armor gone and most of his unarmored internals melted off. They could see the inner workings of his one exposed eye that stared at them with malice. Instantly the Calamity Gundams fired again as their weapons had a shorter time to wait before firing again. The Minicons and Tole joined along with the Sword Calamities to give the Archangel's guns time to cool down before battering Overlord again.

Said Decepticon was in such pure and utter pain and rage that he barely even noticed their attacks. He had only one mission...to destroy that supposed Supreme! Nothing else mattered at this point to him.

Missiles from the Archangel struck Overlord along with the mobile suits fire power. The maddened Warrior Elite kept on coming. Nothing was stopping him. Nothing was holding him back.

Yet even he was aware he was in trouble when he was right in front of one of the Gottfried cannons when it had cooled enough to fire again. The legged ship moved and unleashed the other energy cannons and the Valiant on him once more.

With that Overlord was silent and unmoving. Several more barrages were unleashed on the Decepticon starship captain to make sure he was dead. No one felt like taking any chances with him being in stasis lock and recoverable by the Decepticons at a later date.

A barrage of nuclear slammers ripped into the Pale Fire. The armor did nothing to stop them and once they were deep inside the Decepticon battleship they exploded. Blinding flashes of light came out of the openings they made before the entire ship detonated.

"Primus I hope the other ships have slagging less powerful skippers," Skysickle muttered.

On the Skyfire Grimlock laughed in bemusement at what he'd seen.

"These humans aren't that bad," he admitted. "There's been worse allies to work with."

The other Dinobots stared at their leader in shock.

"You need Skar to check you out?" Sludge asked from damage control.

"I'm fine," Grimlock growled. "Now let's go kill some Cons!"

With roar of approval the Dinobots threw themselves into that task.

[Fanboyimus Prime]

Ok I think I fixed that. Somehow.

Why is it things aren't as easy as copy and pasting straight from googledoc anymore?

[SAMAS]

YAY!

*ahem*

Seriously, I'm glad to see this fic back from the dead (did it fall in some Cybermatter or something?), warts and all. Though with almost the entirety of Transformers Prime, Rescue Bots, and Fall of Cybertron having passed since the last update, I wonder how else they will effect the storyline other than a blue Arcee.

[Fanboyimus Prime]

As to why this took so long was my muse was a pain to find at times...and I kind of scared the other author who is a much faster writer than I am with the sheer mass of characters.

[Enigma]

Love the story. Wouldn't mind seeing the Doctor and his TARDIS show up only to have the TARDIS become a Transformer named Sexy. lol

[LadyTevar]

Thank you for resurrecting this one