All day, Sunset found it hard to focus on her schoolwork. She kept thinking about her dialogue with Megatron earlier that day, and she couldn’t help but think; maybe the Decepticons were right to rebel, but that didn’t mean their actions during the war were justified. Even so, she couldn’t deny that in some small way, she felt she was almost having a sort of emotional connection with Megatron… a thought which seriously disturbed her.
Finally, the day was over and the girls made their way out to the parking lot where they found their Autobot partners… and Airazor resting on Bumblebee’s roof. “We ready to go?” Rainbow was eager to get underway with this mission.
“Ready to roll,” Cliffjumper smirked.
“We’ll meet the others at the Ark, then GroundBridge to Africa to track down Cheetor.” Airazor nodded.
“Alright, let’s do this.” Sunset shrugged and climbed aboard Bumblebee, still somewhat disturbed by the events earlier that day. Still, it wasn’t enough to distract her as they arrived at base after a long drive.
Once there, the girls all assumed their bot forms and stood ready as Optimus addressed the team. “Airazor, where was the last point you detected Cheetor’s bio-signal?”
“Here.” Airazor pointed to a location in the middle of Zambia, bringing up a set of coordinates. “This was the last place he called in from before we began radio silence. As far as I know, he should still be somewhere in this general area.”
“We’ll have to set our scanners for a high spark-sensitivity setting.” Wheeljack shrugged. “I think we’re all good to go.”
“Very well. Red Alert, open the GroundBridge.” The security chief quickly did as he was ordered, and lowered the rig to activate the portal. “Autobots, Transform and Roll Out!” Optimus transformed and roared through the GroundBridge, swiftly followed by the girls, as well as Ironhide, Brawn, Beachcomber, Jetfire, Bumblebee, Wheeljack, and Airazor.
When they exited the portal, Rainbow was more than surprised to find it was nearly pitch-black. “Whoa. Where are we?”
Twilight looked around as the team – aside from the bird-bot – transformed to bot-mode. “Looks like we’re outside Mumbwa. It’s just dark out because the time here is about five hours ahead of Canterlot; different time zones and all that.”
“Are we alone out here?” asked Ironhide. “Hate to think the ‘Cons beat us.”
Wheeljack turned on his scanner and narrowed his eyes at what he saw. “I’m only reading one spark signature, about a hundred kliks due east; shows some distortion. Same sort as Airazor’s.”
“That’s gotta be Cheetor.” Airazor nodded and quickly started flapping her wings. “I’ll fly ahead and see if I can catch him. I’ll signal the rest of you when I’m ready.”
“I’m goin’ with you.” Rainbow nodded, firing her foot-boosters. “Wheeljack’s scanner thing might not have picked up any ‘Cons, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t out here. You might need backup.”
“Rainbow, wait!” Too late, Sunset; she had already transformed and flown on ahead, with Airazor flying close behind. She sighed and ran a hand through her metallic hair. “We’re probably gonna need Hoist.”
“I figured you would.” the medic’s voice came from near the girls, where they saw a bright green four-axle heavy wrecker with a yellow arm pull out of the GroundBridge, followed by a white 2002 Pontiac Firebird with bright blue hot-rod flames on the hood before the vortex disappeared.
“Nice timing.” Sunset smiled. “Bumblebee, Tailgate, you’re with me; let’s go make sure Rainbow Dash doesn’t do anything stupid. Optimus will lead the others behind us.” She quickly returned to vehicle mode and the three drove out into the flatlands after their flyers, as the rest of the team quickly followed as well.
Rainbow smiled as she flew alongside Airazor; it felt awesome having another flying buddy. She loved flying with Jetfire, Twilight, and Fluttershy, and the revelation of Sunset’s jetpack and phoenix wings was awesome, but it felt nice having another purpose-built flyer on the team. She checked her scanner and was surprised. “We’re getting closer; should be right below us.”
Airazor looked down and smiled as best she could with a beak; a cheetah was indeed right below her, running along the evening grasslands with a powerful spring in its stride. “Yep, there he is. I’ll approach him first. He might get freaked out at the sight of you.” Rainbow nodded as Airazor swooped down until she was eye-to-eye with the big cat. “What’s new, pussycat?”
“Whoa, jumpin’ gyros!” the cat remarked and skidded to a stop, swiftly transforming; his hind legs folded up into robotic humanoid legs, his forelegs and feline torso folded onto the back to reveal metallic blue and gold armor, and his cat-head folded onto his chest in much the same way as Airazor’s, revealing a metallic blue faceplate with gold eyes and two-horned helmet. “Airazor? What’re you doin’ here?”
“Lookin’ for you, Cheetor.” Airazor smiled as she transformed to bot-mode as well. “Optimus Prime found me. His team is on the way now.”
“You mean you didn’t have the AllSpark?” asked Cheetor.
“Neither do you, I’m guessing,” Rainbow assured as she swooped down and transformed to bot-mode. “Alpha Trion’s shell game is definitely working.”
“Cheetor, this is Rainbow Dash; she’s one of the humans who helped Optimus unlock the map to me.” Airazor introduced.
“Humans? Wait, why did we bother with disguises if we were just gonna get help from humans?” asked Cheetor.
“Well, these humans were sort of an accident.” Bumblebee answered as his team roared up and transformed. “But they’ve more than earned their place on the team. Name’s Bumblebee. This is Tailgate and Sunset Shimmer.”
Cheetor smiled, but then appeared to be looking at Rainbow and Sunset fairly critically. “Where are your badges?”
“What badges?” Rainbow asked in confusion.
Bumblebee looked and quickly realized what Cheetor was talking about. “Oh, you mean-” He pointed to his own Autobot emblem, which got him a nod from the cheetah-bot in response. “Yeah, the girls may have bot-forms, but they’re not actually official Autobots yet. At least, we haven’t gone through any ceremony.”
“‘Ceremony’?” Sunset asked in confusion.
“The Rite of Autobrand.” Brawn elaborated as he and the others roared up and transformed to bot-mode. “A special ceremony where an Autobot is given their badge after completing their training.”
“Well, I don’t think any amount of training can prepare a girl to bust out of a Decepticon warship, and we’ve done it twice,” Rainbow smirked, pointing at herself and Sunset. Though the latter was still somewhat disturbed by the circumstances that led to her escape.
“Ya gotta admit; that must be some sort of record somehow.” She still hid it well behind her smirk, but Megatron’s words still weighed heavily on her mind.
“Ya think you’re big just cause you escaped the Nemesis? You should’ve seen the Battle of Hell’s Point; now that ship was a gauntlet.” Ironhide assured.
“Enough banter; let’s get that capsule opened.” Rarity brought up.
“Agreed. Cheetor, your capsule.” Optimus’ orders were quickly followed when the cheetah-bot pulled the small container off his belt and held it up.
“Here ya go, big bot. Let’s do it.” Optimus quickly opened his chest and activated the Matrix.
But just before the beam could fire from it, Spike’s ear twitched at the sound of something approaching. And whatever it was, it was small and fast. “Incoming!”
Quickly everyone moved – with Airazor and Cheetor returning to their beast-modes but retaining their bot-like size – just as a large missile flew in and blew a small crater in the ground. When they looked towards the source, they saw a large blue ASTROS-II MLRS truck rolling in, alongside a brown Harrier jump-jet, a gray Apache helicopter, a dark green M1 Abrams tank, and a familiar tan military Humvee, all of which suddenly transformed into familiar Decepticons. “Been a while, Onslaught,” Rainbow smirked. “You’re not still sore about me jacking that com-system, are you?”
“Course not; wasn’t even compatible with your systems, was it?” Rainbow didn’t say anything, but Onslaught could tell she knew he was right.
“Onslaught, stand down,” Optimus ordered, raising his blaster. “All we want is our homeland back.”
“What a coincidence; we don’t.” Vortex smiled wickedly.
“Why not? If we restore Cybertron, we can finally take the war home and end it on our own soil.” Tailgate brought up.
“You really think we wanna go back there? We were criminals before the war.” Onslaught reminded. “Why else do you think we signed on with Megatron? His enemies never see Cybertron again, and we make bank for every one of 'em we kill; it’s win-win.”
“You’re probably not winning all that big these days.” Rainbow taunted. “You want me to count the number of times we’ve knocked you and your team on your butts?”
“Cute. Now hand over the AllSpark or I take Brawl off his leash.” Onslaught warned pointing to the tank-bot.
“Turn ‘im loose anyway, Onslaught; Megatron might give us a bonus if we bring him Optimus’ head on a plate.” Swindle smirked, revving his gun.
“Oh yeah? You and what army?” Spike smirked as the other Autobots all cocked their weapons.
As if on cue, a GroundBridge opened behind the Combaticons and a massive legion of Decepticon footsoldiers marched from the portal to surround the Autobots, weapons armed. “You just had to ask, didn’t you, Spike?” Rainbow asked in irritation.
“Oh, we’re not done yet.” Onslaught assured. “Combaticons, Combine!” And they did just that, uniting into the same massive Combiner Applejack had fought in the Energon mine.
“Bruticus, armed for battle!” the machine roared as it readied its weapons.
“Okay, so if anyone else wants to reveal some sort of shocking secret power-up they have, now would be an exceedingly good time.” Bumblebee pointed out.
“Well, I think I might have an idea,” Twilight smirked. “You might wanna hit the deck though.” The Autobots quickly did as they were told before Twilight activated her powers, sending out a massive omnidirectional wave of telekinetic energy, blasting the footsoldiers away.
When the dust kicked up by the wave settled, the team smirked… until they saw that Bruticus had barely even been scratched. “Nice warm-up. Now, it’s time to die.” the Combiner smirked.
“Yeah, for you,” Cheetor smirked. “Cheetor, Maximize!” Quickly, he transformed and pulled a hand cannon from his back that seemed to resemble intestines. Still, it was clearly powerful as each blast knocked Bruticus a bit off-center.
“Airazor, Maximize!” The falcon-bot quickly transformed and offered the cat her help, firing with full force at the Combiner. “We’ll cover you; take the capsule and go!” Quickly she tossed the thing to Sunset who hid it on her belt.
“No way, Airazor! No friend left behind! Let’s take ‘em down!” Sunset ordered.
Optimus scowled with strength as he locked his battle mask. “You have your orders, Autobots; return fire!” Quickly, they raised their weapons and all opened fire, jumping to cover as Bruticus marched forward, spinning the blades on the arm formed from Vortex as a sort of razor-blade saw, deflecting blasts and slashing earth and trees.
“We’re gettin’ kinda hammered here, Optimus!” Rainbow pointed out. “Now would be a really good time for backup!”
“Agreed.” Optimus nodded and turned on his coms. “Optimus to base; the Combaticons have intercepted us. Requesting full response.”
“Hang tight, Optimus; we’re on our way,” Sideswipe assured.
No sooner did he sign off than the Autobots suddenly saw a large cloud of dust approaching their position. “Whoa. That was fast.” Pinkie smiled.
“Wait, where’s the GroundBridge?” Rainbow was right; this dust cloud just appeared out of nowhere, with no GroundBridge portal preceding it.
It was just then that the Autobots’ GroundBridge actually did open behind the team, allowing the reinforcements from base out to assist. “Hey guys, nice timing huh?” Bluestreak smirked.
“Yeah, great timing. But I just have one question.” Sunset asked seriously. “If you guys are right here, then who’s that over there?”
The other Autobots looked up and were confused. “I dunno. Local military?” Sideswipe suggested.
“Since when were there Cybertronians in a human military?” Ratchet was right to ask; his scanner said that whatever was approaching, there were two spark signatures and several human heat signatures with them.
“Are they friend or foe?” asked Rarity.
“Well, it’s kinda hard to tell at this range…” Wheeljack shrugged before he saw several stinger missiles fly from the dust cloud toward the Decepticons, blowing most of the footsoldiers to scrap metal. “But I’m guessin’ friend.”
“Push the advantage, Autobots; light ‘em up!” Prowl ordered, prompting all the others to quickly open fire on the remaining Decepticons. The footsoldiers were mowed down like nothing, but Bruticus was barely even scratched.
“Alright, this is getting annoying. Any ideas?” asked Sunset.
“I got one. Ya up fer a double-team, Brawn?” Applejack smirked.
Brawn just smiled and raised a shield formed from his vehicle-mode’s roof. “Let’s do it.” Together, they charged with Brawn’s shield intercepting whatever fire remained until they reached the Combiner, at which point Applejack bounded off the shield right up to Bruticus’ face, which she swiftly punched, knocking the Combiner flat on his back and forcing him to separate.
“Whoo! That was awesome!” Rainbow yelled.
Applejack tipped up her hat as Brawn locked his shield to his back and Prowl approached, the other Autobots covering him against the footsoldiers. “Your call, Onslaught,” Prowl smirked. “Get scrapped trying to win your pay, or leave with your sparks.”
Onslaught snarled at the Autobots but growled as he saw the other Autobots mowing his forces down. He found he was left with only one option. “Soundwave, open a GroundBridge. Combaticons, retreat.” His team was surprised by their leader’s order but listened as they all swiftly transformed. “Before I go…” Onslaught smirked as he raised his blaster and shot Cheetor, taking a sizable chunk out of his shoulder, suddenly causing him to overload from local Energon fields.
“Cheetor!” Airazor dashed to his side to help him, as Onslaught transformed and roared after his team straight through a GroundBridge portal.
“Hoist, get over here!” Arcee ordered.
“No-no, I got it. Beast-mode!” Cheetor growled and swiftly transformed, though he did put much less weight on his left foreleg as the pain was still present. “There. My internal systems should handle it from there.”
“Uh guys, our company’s getting closer and I don’t think the rest of us will have time to switch out of bot-mode.” Sunset pointed out.
“That will not be necessary,” Optimus assured. “If those vehicles are indeed Autobots, then we have no need to conceal ourselves from any of them.” And as it turned out, Optimus was right; when the dust-cloud faded and revealed the vehicles within to be a large dark green Jeep-like vehicle and a cherry-red A-10 Thunderbolt II, each with an Autobot badge… with red, white, and blue stripes coming from the sides as well as a more unfamiliar symbol; a shield with an eagle’s head and a star.
