Ikata Nuclear Power Plant, Ehime Prefecture, Japan
“Put your backs into it, boys!” a feminine voice shouted, as its owner watched the purple forms of the Vehicons carry out nuclear fuel rods, each glowing with a sickly green energy and stack them into piles.
From atop a nearby building, a massive dark purple form observed the situation, her all-seeing eyes keenly darting from right to left as she looked at the fuel rods, letting out a murmur of “Shiny…” every so often. Individually, and in their base state, the rods wouldn’t give off enough energy to last a quartex or so. But converted into Energon? Well, now that was another story entirely.
Twin silver vehicons, commanders of squadrons stood by their commander, who was giving Filch a warning look. If the Vehicons were slightly above drone level intelligence and knew things besides battle tactics, they’d probably be standing a few steps away from Flamewar. And with good reason, as the Decepticon was infamous not only for her archery skills but for her temper.
Long, black and lean, and covered in flame deco from head to heel strut, Flamewar was one of those sights you never forgot. Mind you, if you were on the business end of her energy bow, it was the last sight you saw more often than not.
“Perfect…” Flamewar said, a smirk creeping its way onto her faceplates. “Get these loaded up, and move ‘em out of here!” she barked to the drones. “Have no doubt the Autobots are already onto us, the slaggers!”
Filch hopped down from her perch, and transformed to her robot mode. Like Flamewar, her robotic mode was lean, emphasizing her feminine figure. Slightly more friendly looking, and she didn’t have as big of a temper as her cohort. Just a penchant for anything shiny, and a phone sex murmur that could barely be called a voice.
“The Autobots mustn’t know what we pilfered from here today,” Flamewar punched her own hand. “If you lose any samples to them, destroy them before they get any ideas on what they are.”
“Question?” Filch asked, raising a finger. “How are we even going to transport... Well, all of this?” she asked, gesturing to all the fuel rods. Then, she was answered as a massive, eight-wheeled truck pulled up, mostly silver but with a dark blue cab. The Predacon suppressed a groan, Octane, she should have known. Let me give you an explanation as to Octane’s personality, and why Filch wasn’t exactly the biggest fan of him. He was a liar, a bully, a cheat, and a general coward who couldn’t really be trusted any further than you could throw him. He, to be perfectly honest, was more likely to cut and run with the fuel for himself, then give it to Onslaught.
“Load up as much as you can, you walking scrap heaps!” Octane called to the Vehicons as rods already landed in his tank. “Fill it to the top, if possible. Master Onslaught needs these as much as you need energon!”
Before any more cons could load up the rods, a groundbridge opened up, with Prowl and his small band of Autobots shooting out of it. Firing a volley of blaster shots, they tore up the ground and shot up some of the drones, rendering them to scrap metal.
“Right on time…” Flamewar smiled, going for her bow, and firing off energy bolts at Prowl, who changed to robot mode as soon as possible and drew back his fist, before punching her soundly in the face. She let out a hiss of anger, and snarled: “Anyone ever told you it’s not nice to hit a lady?”
“Last I checked, you really didn’t count as a lady in anyone’s books, at least not a refined one,” Prowl retorted as he fired another round, getting closer and closer to her chassis. The two traded punches again and again, with Flamewar then leaping back and firing off another energy bolt, and Prowl let out a scream of pain as his insides seemed to burn and he staggered back in pain, before the sound of parts shifting was heard, and he was knocked aside by a massive serrated blade, spinning wildly. Octane, now in robot mode smirked as he stood over the Autobot.
“Hey, they’re ganging up on him!” Swerve shouted as he and Flanker scrapped some Vehicon drones, before he ran towards Prowl, only to be pinned to the ground by Filch in her beast mode.
“Nu-uh, you’re staying right here where I want you…” she smiled.
“Uh,” Swerve stammered out, a flush rising to his cheeks at Flich’s voice. “Maybe we can talk this over?”
During all of this, nobody had noticed Lemon hiding behind some barrels, snapping off pictures with her phone, squeeing: “This is so awesome! Metal to metal, man!”
Flich was knocked off of Swerve, by Hound, who’d fired his shoulder cannon.
“On your feet soldier,” he barked, helping Swerve up off the ground.
“Did… did you hear that voice?” Swerve asked, sighing a little at Filch’s vocalizations. “Couldn’t you have waited a little longer?”
“She was going to rip you to shreds!” Hound shouted in disbelief.
“Would have been a good way to die, with that smexy voice being the last thing I heard…” Swerve said dreamly.
In the chaos, Octane slunk away and had the remaining droids fill him up while the Bots worked on Filch and Flamewar. Grinning to himself, he felt the rods land within him as the drones slotted them in, one by one. He was almost full and ready to ship out.
Lemon took notice, and let out a shout. “Hey dudes, he’s going to get away!” she exclaimed, pointing towards Octane, and everyone looked at her.
“Lemon, what are you doing here?” Prowl shouted in disbelief, only to be punched in the face by Flamewar. “You’re supposed to be still at base! The suits, they’re still in the testing stage!”
“And miss all of this? Hell no!” Lemon shouted.
“Didn’t Hound say—“
“Forget what Hound says!” Lemon cut him off. “Look. I’m not going back now because one, you guys need help; two, this is AWESOME; three, I actually don’t mind going young again if someone like Spitfire or Fowler does hear about this!” she shouted, before flicking her wrists and two little bracers appeared. “Besides, consider this the suit’s test run! Henshin!” she shouted gleefully, putting all of her love of shows like Kamen Rider and Super Sentai into her voice and the suit appeared all over her, a glimmering purple piece of form-fitting robotic armor, with what looked to be a small cannon on the back. Then, she transformed into a small little pistol and landed in Prowl’s free hand, just in time for him to pull the trigger and shoot another Vehicon in the face.
Of course, Octane took this as his cue to leave and smashed through the gates of the Power Plant.
“Too late, Autobrats!” Octane jeered as he speeded down the road. “Enjoy being turned into lumps of junk!”
“Oh, I really hate him…” Prowl muttered before turning to Swerve and Hound. “Think you can handle things here?” Me and Octane, got some unfinished business to attend to!”
Swerve tossed his boss a salute and picked up a fallen Vehicon’s rifle as Phaser turned into his vehicle mode, a tiny little drone jet and took to the skies. Prowl, meanwhile turned into his own vehicle mode, with Lemon landing in the passenger seat as he sped off after Octane.
“Oh no, you don’t!” Flamewar screeched, and with a shifting of parts, was now in her own vehicle mode, a Suzuki Hayabusa.
“Great, so that just leaves us with the Phone-Sex Bird-Bot and the drones,” Hound commented, pulling out his pistol. “Piece of—”
Before he could finish, a dark forest green M1 Abrams battle tank burst through the walls of one of the buildings, and transformed into the infamous Combaticon known as Brawl, treads becoming shoulder armor and a black head with a blood red visor popping into view as the main cannon of the tank mode became Brawl’s rifle.
“...Cake.” Hound sighed.
Octane and Prowl thundered down the roads, the treads of their tyres leaving distinctive marks behind. Lemon Zest sat in the passenger’s seat, as Prowl’s holoform driver -A cop in full uniform, what else?- took the wheel so to speak, and his entire body paint changed to that of Japanese police paint livery. Never mind the fact that his alternate mode was an American made car. Sirens came on, as they roared past an electrical substation, and lights flashed.
“Give it up, you wheeled trash pile! I rule the roads when it comes to delivering for my master!” Octane grumbled as the smokestacks on his body turned to fire back at Prowl, machine gun style.
Prowl skidded and swiveled, trying to avoid being barraged by the volley of machine gun fire. “Lemon! Give me a hand here! Shoot out the smokestacks!”
Lemon nodded, and transformed back into her gun mode, attaching to Prowl’s side, and fired off several shots, taking out one of the smokestacks, with the part clattering to the side, and the two vehicles entered a tunnel carved into the mountains, engines roaring all the while.
“Filthy animals…” The fire from the second smokestack got faster, as if all of the excess bullets were loaded into it. “Try this on for size!” With a flurry of bullets, he started to pierce Prowl’s windscreen and glass shattered, as the massive Decepticon continued trying to get at Lemon.
Lemon yelped, and ducked for cover as the two exited the tunnel, and onto a mountain pass. Two purple Cadillac Ciens, AKA Vehicon drones in their alternate mode came up from behind, boxing Prowl in on the narrow street.
“Geez, what is this? Initial D?” Lemon asked to no-one in particular.
Octane got an idea, and immediately stopped in the road. Because of how close Prowl was to him, the Autobot smashed headlong into his back and felt his plates begin to bend and crumple. The rest of the glass broke and a few shards cut into Lemon’s skin drawing blood as Octane drove off again.
“I thought your buddies were supposed to take care of those guys!” Lemon shouted, as one of the Vehicons rammed Prowl from behind.
“Some of ‘em, must have slipped through the cracks!” Prowl guessed. Suddenly, a small missile came out of nowhere and sent one of the Vehicons tumbling end over end as Phaser appeared.
“I’ll take care of these two, keep them off your back. You just worry about their boss okay?” the Micromaster asked.
Suddenly, an engine’s whine was heard, as Flamewar, in all of her glory pulled up alongside Prowl, a holographic driver at the wheel.
“Miss me?” the archer quipped.
“Like a bad gearbox…” Prowl muttered.
“Now then. Let’s do this.” Flamewar transformed into robot mode and landed on top of Prowl, trying to throw him off the roads. She tried aiming inside the vehicle with her bow, trying to get at Lemon, but she was thrown off by one of Phaser’s missiles, and she rolled behind Prowl, before picking herself up off the tarmac and letting out a little snarl as she reached for her bow.
“Little annoyance!” she snapped, firing her bow, and knocking the little jet out of the air, even as the second Vehicon caught back up with Prowl, but he slammed it into the side of the guardrail, before it flipped and Prowl sped up as the Vehicon landed behind him and exploded into a fireball.
“Now that you two are taken care off, just Octane and little miss trigger-happy to worry about” he sighed, before minigun shots pierced his back window, and once again, Lemon had to dive for cover as a tan jeep came up from behind, from another road, giggling like a madman.
“Who the Hell is that?” Lemon squeaked, getting the feeling maybe joining the ‘Bots on this little excursion wasn’t such a good idea after all.
“Swindle, Combaticon and Con Artist extraordinaire. You have no idea how many times I’ve had to bust him for selling faulty Energon, amongst other things. Only fitting he’d join his boss on this little venture to Earth. Loyalty, or fear, haven’t figured out which of those made him do it yet though,” Prowl explained.
“Maybe he just wants to get back at you, for all the times you busted him,” Lemon suggested, still keeping her head down as bullets flew over her head.
“...That too.” Prowl admitted before he was suddenly kicked off the road by Flamewar, and began tumbling down a mountainside. He quickly transformed to bot mode, and shouted: “Hold on!” as he grabbed Lemon in his hands, and slid down the mountainside, eventually coming to a halt in a small forest by a lake. He grimaced when he saw Flamewar, and Swindle -now in robot mode- jumping down to join him, optics gleaming. Setting Lemon down and motioning for her to hide, he readied himself for the battle ahead…
Canterlot:
Meanwhile, soaring high above the city of Canterlot, and soon outside the city limits and into the mountains beyond was Spitfire, in her personal F/A-18 Hornet, Blue Angel livery and all. She too had been listening to Xiraia’s podcast mainly to see if she’d figured out anything too important about the ongoing Autobot and Decepticon battles, and had quickly figured out where the Decepticon base was located like the girls had.
Of course, there was a small problem with that…
“Shit!” Spitfire swore, as she soon found herself dodging and weaving between auto-cannons that popped out of the ground near the crashed ship, and desperately trying not to get her 29 million dollar plane scratched. This problem, of course, was only heightened when several pure silver Vehicon drones took to the sky and transformed into Cybertronian planes, firing missile after missile after her.
“Oh, what I wouldn’t give to have a certain helicopter by my side…” Spitfire muttered, thinking back to a show she’d watched in her childhood back in the eighties, one that had spawned her dreams of flying up there in the clear blue. After some desperately quick maneuvers that would make a normal person’s stomach churn, and even at one point paying homage to Top Gun by getting up above one of the Vehicons and flipping her plane upside down and giving the drone the finger she managed to evade the laser fire. But that still didn’t account for the fact that she was quite outnumbered.
“Okay, let’s see what you make of this!” Spitfire smirked, and turned her plane on its side, so that the drones shot past her, before she locked on target and fired, taking two down with two of her four AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles. It may have been all dressed up in the fancy paint, but that still didn’t change the fact that Spitfire was flying a Hornet loaded with weapons, and she intended to make full use of all of it. The next two of the drones, they ended up full of holes no thanks to the jet’s rotary front cannon, the M61 Vulcan.
The final drone ended up in pieces with a shot from one of the Hornet’s AIM-7 Sparrow missiles.
Spitfire chuckled as she headed back to base, and readied herself to file a very long report. Yep, she still had it. “See ya next time, ‘Cons!” she laughed, and gave them a quick salute.
Back at the Power Plant, Hound and Swerve were struggling against the double team of Filch and Brawl.
Filch dived forward and unfurled her wings, sweeping both Hound and Swerve onto their backs as Brawl pointed his cannon at both of the downed bots.
“Oh, two Autobots in one day,” Brawl laughed. “Primus must love me right now!”
Hound’s gears began turning in his mind, and he smirked, catching both Filch and Brawl off-guard. “Let’s see this from another angle, shall we?” Flipping forwards, he grabbed Filch and threw her into Brawl, knocking them both onto their backsides. A scout he might have been on this squad anyways, but he never let anyone forget he used to be a drill sergeant. Behind his back, Swerve went for Prowl’s pistol, and fired it.
As Filch and Brawl recovered, groaning out in pain, they suddenly looked up and saw a truly massive form looming over them. What looked like Tidal Wave with an Autobot sigil instead of a Decepticon one loomed over them. The cannons on his chest pointed down at both of them, and the volley would have blown them to pieces beyond salvaging.
“Sweet Primus…” Flich squawked. “Screw this noise, I’m outta here!” she shouted, going for a groundbridge with Brawl using what little intelligence he did have, and following suit. ‘Tidal Wave’ vanished, and Swerve sighed in relief.
“You’ve got a very creative mind, anyone ever tell you that?” Hound asked, as he took his gun back.
“Hey, about the only thing that frightens me as much as Overmegasixwave,” Swerve replied.
“...I don’t even want to know, do I?”
“Hypothetical amalgamation of Megatron, Overlord, Sixshot, and Shockwave,” Swerve said in reply, pressing his fingers together nervously.
“Told you I didn’t want to know,” Hound muttered. “They can’t even combine! Hell, Shockwave’s dead!”
“Matter of time, I tell you,” Swerve replied with a little finger wag. “Decepticons are obsessed with combining. Put two of 'em in a room and within seconds one will be standing on the other's shoulders. Fact.”
“...Oh, shut up.”
Prowl and Flamewar charged into each other, Octane a thing of the past as they both clashed; metal scraping against metal as they shoulder-rammed, kicked, punched, and tried lifting as they dueled. Prowl roundhouse kicked Flamewar in the chest making her stagger back, and then brought out a sword to duel against Swindle, who had brought out an axe.
“Like this? Got it off a Lithonian for a real cheap deal, should give a real shock and awe!” Swindle commented, as the blade crackled with electricity.
Of course, all the while, Lemon was taking photos with her phone. Even though the bleeding was beginning to sting, that wouldn’t stop her from getting the best shots possible.
Prowl grimaced, and dodged the swing, before punching Swindle soundly in the face, before his blade shifted forms and Prowl was soon wielding a bo staff and spinning it. “You’re not the only one with toys, you know,” Prowl remarked. “Meet my favorite, the Decepticon Hunter.”
“Bit on the nose innit?” Swindle asked nervously.
“Links to my neural nets, changing its shape into whatever I desire at the time. Blaster, Cudgel, Staff, Axe… Do you get the picture, and best bit? You’re not getting it!” Prowl taunted.
“Heard of that tech, still in the prototype phase isn’t it?” Swindle commented, as he blocked a blow from the weapon with his axe. “Very, very finicky. Minor malfunction? Could prove just as dangerous to you as to me!”
“Dangerous or no, let’s see if you have the guts to use it right!” Flamewar taunted. She was soon answered, as Prowl spun around, and hit her in the side of the head knocking her flat leaving only Swindle standing. The Decepticon Hunter shifted forms once again, and became a pair of nunchucks.
“Er, maybe we can cut a deal?” Swindle asked, before he smirked and vanished into a Groundbridge. Prowl swore as he heard the sound of parts shifting and changing, and then the sound of a plane’s engine as he saw Octane turn into a massive C-130 cargo plane and vanish through a Groundbridge of his own as he took to the skies.
“Scrap.” Prowl sighed.