//------------------------------// // Geode-Shift // Story: Cybertron Girls // by SonicSpeedster97 //------------------------------// Out on the open road outside town in a convoy with your friends. That was something Sunset had wanted to do with her friends. Of course, if she’d known they’d all be driving in alien robots that turned into cars when she first pitched them the idea so many months ago, she never would’ve believed it. And yet, here she was with her hands on Bumblebee’s wheel as they rolled through the flatlands outside town. They had just left the Ark after explaining to the Autobots all the magical madness that had recently occurred in Canterlot and where the magic had come from, which blew all their minds. In fact, Trailbreaker was still having trouble wrapping his head around it. “I- I just- Wow. That is more insane than I can say in any meaningful way.” “What, you mean you guys have magic on Cybertron?” asked Rainbow. “I mean, we have some magic-like things but we’ve never really had anything concrete about how they really work.” Cliffjumper shrugged. “Just legends and conjecture.” “What about the AllSpark? That sounds fairly magical.” asked Sunset. “We Autobots have existed on your planet as Robots in Disguise for ages before you girls found us.” Bumblebee reminded. “Not everything is as it seems.” It was just then that Tracks caught something in his rear-view mirror, seeing a large tan military Humvee roaring up behind them with a large cannon on the roof. “Though that is most certainly what it seems.” he remarked. Suddenly the front of the cannon’s barrel telescoped back and revealed a massive gatling gun that started firing large purple energy bolts at the convoy. “Trailbreaker!” “Yeah, I got it.” the large truck suddenly fell back to the rear of the pack and projected a large energy field, intercepting the gunfire. “What the heck is going on?! Who’s shooting at us?!” Spike yelled in fear. “Swindle.” Bluestreak recognized. “He and his gang are Decepticon weapons dealers.” “I doubt he’s working alone.” Arcee noted. “Tracks, go do some recon; we’ll keep him distracted.” “If you insist. You may want to hang onto something, Rarity.” Rarity wasn’t completely sure what Tracks meant by that until it happened. Suddenly he seemed to bound into the air on a large booster-pulse, then things got really crazy; his dashboards flipped around into aircraft consoles, large gray blocks flipped from his sides, his front license-plate flipped to reveal a small minigun and the large silver wings from his bot-mode finally made sense as they flipped out to the sides, allowing him to take flight with rocket engines on the rears of the gray blocks. “Tracks is a spy-car? That’s awesome!” Rainbow was right; it was awesome, especially as Tracks flew around to try and get a better angle on the Decepticons. Arcee saw Swindle getting something ready to shoot him down so she came to a resolution. “Trailbreaker, take Pinkie for a second; I’ll help cover Tracks.” With that and little else said, she quickly transformed, catching Pinkie in her hand before slipping her into Trailbreaker’s cab and jumping onto his roof, drawing her pistols. Which came in very handy when she saw Swindle fire several small rockets which locked onto and followed Tracks, but were easily disposed of with a few well-placed plasma bullets. “Thank you Arcee.” Tracks smiled as he looked down toward Swindle, who was soon joined by several other vehicles; a bright red Bugatti Veyron, a maroon Porsche 911, a black Ferrari Portofino, a blue and white Lamborghini Gallardo, and a gray Jeep Gladiator. And one thing that particularly caught Rarity’s attention. “Is that… Is that Sunset’s motorcycle?” “Wait, what?” And sure enough, when Sunset looked out Bumblebee’s rear window, she saw her motorcycle roaring up alongside Swindle. With no one driving. Arcee scowled as she saw the motorcycle roaring toward Trailbreaker’s shield with no sign of stopping. Aimed directly toward her. “That’s not your motorcycle, Sunset. That’s Flamewar.” “Oh great. She’s still around?” Bumblebee scowled. “And still wants Arcee dead, from the looks of things.” Trailbreaker noticed. “Any ideas?” “We can’t lead them back to town; we’d risk bringing innocents into the crossfire.” Twilight pointed out. “Then our only choice is to stand and fight.” Bluestreak agreed. “Yes, but I doubt the Decepticons are going to let us stop to let our passengers overboard without trying to take a few pot-shots.” Tracks pointed out. “Agreed. Any ideas?” Cliffjumper asked. Applejack thought for a moment, but simply smirked when she had an idea. “Gals, get ready to jump.” “What?! Did you crack your crankcase?” Trailbreaker asked seriously. “Relax; we’ll be fine.” Applejack smirked, easily unstrapping herself. “I don’t like it, but it sounds like she’s made up her mind, boys.” Arcee shrugged. “Eject your passengers and transform!” The other Autobots weren’t sure, but Arcee was right; they didn’t have a choice. Tracks quickly winged over to the others and shifted back to standard car-mode before his roof opened and Rarity was launched from it while the other girls simply opened their doors and jumped straight out. Once they were overboard, the girls started their real plan; Applejack grabbed Pinkie and used her boosted strength to skid to a stop on the concrete. Twilight surrounded herself, Spike, and Fluttershy in her telekinetic aura and hovered them to safety as Rainbow used her speed to catch Sunset falling from Bumblebee and Rarity caught herself on a gem-shield, surfing it to a stop near the others. Once they were all clear, the Autobots transformed and stopped right next to them, surprised by the girls’ abilities. “See? Toldja we’d be fine.” But that was when something weird happened; her geode started glowing even brighter than before. The Decepticons saw it too, and quickly transformed to bot-mode to get a better look at the situation. “What in the name of Maximo…?” Breakdown asked in confusion. The girls and Autobots were confused too, but that confusion devolved into awe when they saw Applejack’s Spark-Shift Armor unit hovered from her pocket and latched around her geode, which started pulsing with energy. “By the AllSpark…” Arcee remarked. Suddenly, the Armor rig gave a loud ring and metal plating shifted from it across Applejack’s body. “Wha- What’s happenin’?!” she asked in fear; she had no idea what was going on, but she and the others soon found out. The metal spread until it encompassed her entire body, even her hair and her Stetson hat. At first, it was plain silver but it suddenly took on the coloration of her body and clothes; her face and arms turned bright orange, while her shoulder-plates and upper torso changed to emulate the green and white of her shirt with a bright red apple on her collarbone where her geode once sat, her waist turned the same brown as her belt and her thighs turned denim-blue while her shins and feet turned brown like her boots. Her hair resembled steel cable which swiftly turned blonde as her now metallic hat turned to brown steel. Then something really strange happened; Applejack’s now metallic muscles tensed and her body started to grow until she was the same size as Trailbreaker. Then and only then did her optics open, revealing blue orbs with green centers glancing around in confusion, especially when she saw her eyes were on the same level as Trailbreaker’s. “What in tarnation?” Then she looked at her hands and was amazed; she was a bot. And she felt even stronger than before. (Cut it) Swindle just smirked and raised his now arm-mounted cannon. “An organic in Spark-Shift Armor isn’t gonna make any difference.” he smirked. “Get ‘em.” His team quickly charged toward the Autobots weapons ready. Applejack smirked as she dashed into the way and reared back for a punch, and when she swung it into Breakdown’s chestplate, it caved the metal in at least two feet and sent him flying back, coughing up liquid Energon as he tumbled into the others behind him, knocking them all down. Applejack was in awe of her own strength as she looked at her fist, smirking as she looked at the Decepticons trying to pull themselves up. “An’ there’s more where that came from, pardner.” she smirked. Swindle just shook his head. “I don’t get paid enough for this slag. Decepticons, we’re leaving.” he ordered and turned on his com-unit. “Swindle to Nemesis; Blast Off, the Autobots have a secret weapon we weren’t briefed on. Send the GroundBridge, now! And tell Flatline to get sick bay ready; Breakdown’s dangerously wounded!” On that order, the same green vortex that sent the Decepticons out opened behind them. “No! I will not leave without Arcee’s head!” Flamewar snarled, raising a large bow-like construct. “Oh, so you wanna go next, huh? Well, if ya insist.” Applejack smirked at her. She glanced up at her hat and saw an edge-like shine. Knowing exactly what to do, she grabbed her hat off her head and tossed it into a powerful spin, sending it slashing clean through the shaft of Flamewar’s bow, splitting one arm off as the hat flew right back to Applejack’s hand, at which point she slapped it back onto her head. At this display, Flamewar simply glanced between her broken bow and the human-bot who had just broken it. “On second thought…” She swiftly grabbed up her broken bow, transformed back to bike-mode and peeled through the vortex faster than anyone could react. The other Decepticons carefully carried Breakdown through as Swindle aimed his cannon at the Autobots to try and threaten them. “This isn’t over! Not by a long shot!” he assured as he disappeared through the vortex before it closed. Once they were gone, Applejack relaxed and simply looked down at her robotic hands. “This… this is crazy.” she remarked. “You can say that again.” Bumblebee nodded. “Who knew faith in your survival after a crazy stunt like that would be enough to activate your Spark-Shift Armor?” “Not faith. Honesty.” Sunset realized, only drawing confused looks from the Autobots. “We’ll explain at the Ark; I think the crew is going to want to see this.” “Agreed.” Trailbreaker nodded and transformed. “AJ, can you change back to human form?” “I don’t even know how I changed into this form.” Applejack brought up, gesturing to her metallic body. “Hm. Alright, plan B.” Trailbreaker shrugged. “Hope you’re okay with ridin’ on my roof.” “Sure. Let’s go.” Applejack shrugged as she mounted the large truck, which the other girls found kinda funny. Still, they all saddled up with their partners and started the drive back to the Ark. “Curbside team to Ark; we’re heading home with something of a surprise.” Bumblebee reported over the coms. “Have Ratchet and Wheeljack meet us in the medical bay.” They were going to need the help. But not as much as the Decepticons when they reached the medical bay on the Nemesis, where Breakdown was quickly attended to by Knock Out and Flatline; a dark Decepticon with an arsenal of almost medieval medical instruments and a nearly crazed look in his optics. The two were just setting to work when Starscream, Barricade, and Megatron entered the medical bay. “How is our patient, doctor?” Starscream smirked. “He would’ve been much nearer the scrapyard had he not been returned here in time.” Flatline assured. “Massive internal hemorrhaging, near-total skeletal failure, and a massive concussion. He’ll have to stay here for at least the next five days while we conduct repairs.” “The Autobots did this?!” Megatron asked in anger. “Not the Autobots themselves, Lord Megatron.” Knock Out assured. “It was one of their organic pets, in Spark-Shift Armor.” “What?! That’s impossible! Organics cannot use Spark-Shift Armor; they have no Sparks!” Starscream reminded. “Yeah? Tell that to Breakdown.” Wildrider brought up, pointing at the bot on the medical bed. “I’d almost believe Devastator stepped on him if I hadn’t seen it with my own optics.” Barricade was curious when he heard that. “Swindle, did you capture an image of this organic?” “Got one right here, Barricade.” Swindle showed a small hologram of Applejack’s new Cyber-form just before she punched Breakdown. “That’s her, Lord Megatron.” Barricade brought up. “That’s the organic that damaged me.” “And now she wears Cybertronian metal.” Megatron’s optics narrowed as he realized what else this meant. “And has access to part of the map to the AllSpark.” Swindle smirked as he deactivated the hologram. “Well, either way, I’m sure Onslaught will agree with me when I say that going after ‘Bots with the power to do this…” he pointed at Breakdown. “Is gonna cost extra. I’ll tell the boss to put it on your tab.” With that, he stepped out toward the door. But Megatron had an idea. “Hold.” That order made Swindle stop for a second as he looked back at the large Decepticon warlord. “You said there was only one organic in this armor?” “Yeah, why?” asked Swindle. The smirk on Megatron’s face said it all as Swindle smirked right back, knowing exactly what he was getting at. “I’ll talk to Onslaught, but you’re still gonna have to talk to him about increasing our pay.” The girls had no idea what was coming.