Transformers

Virtual Legacy

Chapter 7: Brainchild

In a darkened room, a monitor projected its voice through. "I am glad to see that you have been able to arrive on just short notice," it said.

The only figure in the room was much larger than a human could be and the only illumination besides the little light from the monitor was from the red glow of his optics. "This secrecy thing's going over the top," said the Transformer, "Couldn't you at least meet me in person?"

"I'm afraid there's little time for that," said the voice in the monitor.

"Now don't tell me you're getting too scared to show your face around," taunted the Cybertronian.

"Enough of this," said the voice, "You understand the assignment, correct?"

"Yeah, yeah, follow the Autobots and their human buddies and find this supercomputer thing," said the Cybertronian, "Hardly worth calling me in for."

"My subordinates are proving themselves increasingly incapable of keeping up with my demands," said the voice.

"Good henchmen are getting harder to find," said the Cybertronian.

"And there will be a bonus if you manage to get the girl to me," said the voice.

"The pinkhead? Sure, that shouldn't be a challenge. She's supposed to be alive, right?"

"Of course she's supposed to be alive! She's useless to me dead!"

"Ok, ok, no need to get all huffy."

"I cannot allow anything to happen to her. No lethal force for this mission."

"Aw, you're taking all the fun out of the job."

"I cannot risk it. If you try to kill one of them, you might end up killing her."

"That goes for the Autobots too?"

"Especially the Autobots. It'll be too easy for you to miss them and hit her by accident."

A tone of anger entered the Cybertronian's voice. "I don't miss that easy," he said.

"In any case, you mustn't forget the important part of the mission," said the monitor.

"Sure, grab that supercomputer for ya."

"I don't need its hardware. Besides, you'll probably end up ruining it. Once you've located it, deploy the brain drone. It shall transmit the data I need."

"Yeah, about that. I'm not too eager about having that thing latched onto me."

"I don't care. I will not have you, as the humans say, ham-handling the job. I require precision and effectiveness. Do you think you can handle that?"

Suddenly, there was a snicking sound and a glowing hook appeared on the Cybertronian's right arm. "I'm the best in my profession," he said.

…

Fortunately, it wasn't rush hour so the three Chevy cars had no trouble navigating through the city. They soon came to a stop at the abandoned car factory. The doors of the blue Volt opened, allowing Yumi and Ulrich to get out. "Well, that's the first time I've been in a car that drove itself," said Yumi.

"You get used to it," said the Volt.

Ulrich jumped a little and glared at it. "Not for a while, I won't," he said.

Then Wheelie jumped out of the Volt and said, "Bumblebee was a better ride, at least he didn't keep changing the station every five seconds."

"I still don't see why we need this guy with us," said Yumi, "He gives me the creeps."

"He's the only one of us who's small enough to investigate this supercomputer of yours," said Jolt before scanning the area. "Area secure, no humans to spot us." He then started shifting upwards into his robot mode, hood becoming chest, wheels becoming feet, electrical daggers sparking in his wrists.

Yumi stared up in amazement and said, "That is so cool."

Meanwhile, Odd and William had climbed out of the Beat, Odd and the car still laughing loudly. William rolled his eyes and rubbed his forehead. "It was like a torture chamber in there," he groaned, "Nothing but bad jokes the whole way."

"That's cause ya ain't got no sense of humor," said the car.

William jumped, causing Odd and the Beat to laugh again. "That's not funny," said William.

Then Jeremie and Aelita got out of the Trax. Now that they had no more passengers to hold, the two cars transformed into the Autobot twins. "I don't see why you guys need to keep yourselves hidden in public," said Jeremie, "Everyone knows about you Transformers."

"Yeah, but humans see somethin' weird, they go runnin' for the hills, squealin' like little pigs," said Mudflap. The two twins laughed, much to the kids' annoyance.

"This is the Autobot scout team?" asked William.

Jolt shrugged and said, "There are no signs of any Decepticons within city perimeters. They don't send out the likes of Ironhide or Sideswipe to check out a couple kids' secret computer."

"Hey, most of us are in college now!" snapped Yumi.

"Please, you're barely past protoform age to us," said Jolt.

"Yeah, they go out takin' down big, bad Decepticons and we get stuck lookin' after babies," said Mudflap.

"You know we can still hear you," said Jeremie.

Skids smacked Mudflap's head and said, "What did I tell ya about insultin' humans?"

"Do it over our private link?" asked Mudflap.

"That's right," said Skids.

"Can we please just go to the supercomputer?" asked Aelita.

Jolt nodded and said, "Wheelie, you're with me. Mudflap, Skids, you stay out here and guard. You kids, er, humans take us to this supercomputer."

"Hey, how come we gotta stay out and do guard duty?" demanded Skids.

"Yeah, we went and protected that Witwicky kid, found the Tomb of the Primes, and took on Devastator. All you ever did was put Jetfire's parts on Optimus after he got brought back to life," said Skids.

Wheelie laughed and said, "They got you there, blue boy."

Jolt glared at the other Autobots and said, "Those are orders from up top."

"I don't care if they came from Prime's vocalizer itself," said Skids, "We easy got 20 times more experience than you all together."

Jolt's glare intensified and his daggers started crackling even more. Odd saw now was a good time to step in before things got ugly. "Hey, that's why they want you out here. If any Decepticons came, they'd want the most-seasoned fighters standing guard to stop them."

The twins exchanged glances and Mudflap, "Well, when you put it like that, guardin' doesn't sound no bad at all."

"Yeah, let's see those Decepticons just try to get past us," said Skids.

"Ok, let's get moving then," said Ulrich and the gang started leading Wheelie and Jolt into the factory.

"Nice move back there," said Yumi to Odd.

"Hey, I got plenty of experience with my older sisters," said Odd.

The inside of the factory hadn't changed much. Of course, it was still abandoned, so there wouldn't be too many changes in the first place. Unless you count the spreading rust, the accumulating spider webs and dust, or the graffiti that's been painted where a passing police car wouldn't notice.

As the group walked in, Jolt looked around and said, "This place is a dump."

"Well, it's been abandoned for 20 years or so," said Jeremie, "You can't really expect it to be shiny."

"What kinda factory is this anyways?" asked Wheelie.

"They used to make cars here," said Aelita.

This caught Jolt's attention. "So, this is one of the processing plants where you design your vehicles and produce them?" he asked.

"Uh…I guess," said Ulrich, "Probably not like where you came from."

"Where do you make your vehicles?" asked Yumi.

"We rarely even need vehicles," said Jolt, "We're programmed with the ability to assume a vehicular mode upon reaching full maturity. In fact, our 'vehicles' are mainly starships or are designed for mass transportation."

"Neat, how's your mile average?" asked Odd.

"What is this, an auto show?" said Wheelie, "I thought we were here to look at a computer."

"Right," said William, "Let's get going." He went to the hanging ropes and grabbed one. The fiber it was made of was pretty strong and had no trouble supporting him as he slid down. The others quickly slid down the ropes as well. However, Ulrich hesitated.

"Ah, now don't tell me you're afraid of heights," said Wheelie.

"You're one to talk about heights," said Ulrich, "I don't see you climbing down."

"Oh please, I'm a salvage/scrap drone," said Wheelie, "We're built to get down into hard-to-get places." He jumped off the edge and grabbed a rope. The tiny Autobot slid down easily.

Jolt looked at the ropes and said, "Those won't hold my weight, let alone the structure it's connected to."

"I think there's a ramp around here," said Ulrich.

"Ah, I'll just jump," said Jolt before his leg pistons tensed.

"Wait, wait, wait!" called Jeremie, "The floors might not be able to withstand the impact. You don't want to damage the lower levels."

Jolt rolled his optics and muttered, "Shoddy human construction."

While Jolt was getting down to the floor, the others were walking over to the elevator. Wheelie rolled after them on his wheel feet. As soon as they were at the elevator, Jeremie fingered one of the control panel with the elevator button and pulled out a tab.

"What's that?" asked Wheelie.

"It's a fingerprint scanner," said Jeremie, "After we shut down the supercomputer, I installed this so no one would stumble across it by accident.

"What's a fingerprint?" asked Wheelie.

"It's, well, uh…" Jeremie for once was at a loss to explain such a basic term to an alien individual.

"It's what we have on the ends of our fingers," said Yumi, holding out her fingers, "Every human's got a unique pattern which can be distinguished from another's. So that allows us to identify others if they've left their fingerprints on something."

The others were expecting Wheelie to look confused and require a more detailed explanation. Instead, he said, "Oh, you mean like a sigil glyph."

"A what?" asked Odd.

By that point, Jolt had gotten down to the floor with Ulrich. As he walked over, he said, "It's kinda like our way of putting a signature on something. Every Cybertronian's got one that's matches their spark."

"So, you guys make ink too?" asked Odd.

Jolt gave Odd an odd look. "What is…ink?" asked Jolt.

"It's a substance that we humans use for writing," said Jeremie, "What the black words you put on printed pages are made of."

"Oh, that stuff," said Jolt, "Frankly, I think that method of recording is extremely inefficient."

"Well, there are some among us who think so too," said William, mostly to himself.

"We have a far easier way to leave our mark," said Jolt before kneeling down. He extended the thumb on his right finger which glowed slightly. He pressed it against the concrete ground for a second before lifting it up. The area where his thumb was pressed glowed red and sparkled for a minute before fading to reveal a strange-looking design. It had a passing resemblance to Asian calligraphy, but it was definitely alien.

"Cool," said Yumi, "What does it say?"

"Well, it wouldn't mean much to you if I said it in Cybertronian," said Jolt.

"Not to mention you don't have the mouthparts to say it," said Wheelie.

"The most suitable way for your vocal structures to articulate it would be 'Jolt'. But if you could really understand it, it'd tell a lot more about me than that," said Jolt.

However, when Aelita looked at it, it didn't seem like alien gibberish to her. She could understand the glyph as if it was written in English. Like Jolt said, it said so much more than his name, but she couldn't find the words to describe it.

Jeremie put his hand on Aelita's shoulder and said, "Aelita, are you alright?"

Aelita blinked and asked, "What?"

"You were spacing out there," said Yumi.

"Oh, I'm fine," said Aelita, "Let's go to the supercomputer."

Jeremie put his thumb on the fingerprint scanner and the elevator door opened. Jolt peered down at it and said, "I don't think I can fit, unless I go into vehicle mode. But there wouldn't be much room and I'm not sure how to get in."

"Well, maybe you can be the second line of defense," said Odd, "You know, if anyone manages to get past the Twins out there."

"Besides, I'm the one who's gonna be looking at it," said Wheelie, "You wouldn't know what to look for."

Jolt gave Wheelie an annoyed look before saying, "Don't take long. There's nothing to do up here."

"I'm sure you'll find some way to keep yourself busy," said Ulrich as they got in the elevator.

Jolt watched the elevator go down before huffing and said, "I almost wish a Decepticon will come.

…

Meanwhile, Skids and Mudflap were standing guard at the bridge when they heard the sound of an engine coming towards them. They both looked ahead to see a black and green muscle car driving down the street towards them. There was something off about this vehicle. It didn't look like any model the humans normally drove, with a cowcatcher on the front, spikes on the sides and back, and four red headlights. Not to mention they were picking up some Energon radiation from this muscle car.

The twins stepped forward and Mudflap shouted, "Yo, now this is official NEST business going on here."

"How about ya'll turn around and go drive off before you feel sorry for it later?" said Skids.

The muscle car stopped a few feet in front of them and a voice came out, "I think you two will be the ones who will be sorry if you don't get out of my way right now."

"We took on Decepti-punks tougher than you," said Skids.

"Yeah, we ain't afraid of you, freak car," said Mudflap.

"Oh no?" said the muscle car. The exposed engine block lifted up slightly, revealing a pair of small blasters. A blue burst shot of them, knocking them backwards. While the twins were momentarily stunned, the muscle car made its move. The sides of it split apart and rose the vehicle up as they formed the legs, the headlights and cowcatcher appearing on the feet. The middle of the car unfolded rapidly, roof becoming chest, engine block appearing on the left arm, a large hook extending out from the right arm where the right hand should be, a head with two spikes on the sides of its chin popping out.
As Skids and Mudflap were getting their senses back, they found themselves staring down the blue barrel of the blaster on the Decepticon's right arm. "By the way, the name's not 'freak car'," said the former-muscle car, "It's Lockdown." Then an electromagnetic pulse burst out of the gun and hit the twins, freezing up their systems and paralyzing them. Lockdown didn't waste any time. He picked first one then the other up and threw them over the bridge and into the river. "Now if you don't mind, I've got a bounty to collect," said Lockdown, his hook glowing with Energon as he walked towards the factory.

…

Meanwhile, the gang and Wheelie were descending down in the elevator. They passed by the monitor room and the scanner room, both inaccessible as long as the supercomputer was off. As the doors opened on the bottom level, cold air gushed in. It appeared the supercomputer's cooling system had stayed active for a while before it powered down as well. Nevertheless, it was quite cool inside.

As Wheelie rolled in, he gazed around the seemingly-empty room and said, "I don't see anything. You sure this is the right place?"

"Of course," said Jeremie, "It's just hidden right now." He walked over to the wall and activated the switch. The circle in the middle of the room, emblazoned with the Eye of XANA, split into three even pieces and slid back. Then a broad stout cylinder rose up from the floor. After going up a certain height, it stop but a thinner cylinder extended from that. After it had gone up a few feet in height, a much slimmer cylinder extended significantly taller from it. The whole thing had a layered look, like a partially-collapsed telescope and was completely covered with orange circuit lines. Another Eye of XANA was at the base. Cool vapors drifted away from the supercomputer.

Wheelie looked at it for a while before saying, "Huh, now there's something you don't see often."

"Well, supercomputers aren't something you usually find in the basement of an abandoned car factory," said Ulrich.

"Nah, not that," said Wheelie, "No offense, but you humans aren't in the same league as us Cybertronians. Your big military computers don't stand a chance against one of us if we wanted to hack it."

"We're not here to contrast our technologies," interrupted Yumi, "We're here for you to inspect this thing."

Wheelie rolled his optics and muttered, "Dames, don't have any patience for any critiques."

Speaking louder, Wheelie said, "This thing's definitely Cybertronian inspired. Design-wise, anyways. But it's got a really simple construction. I mean, only three parts sliding out? On Cybertron, it would have come out of the floor a lot fancier than that. But you haven't got to real reconfiguration technology. It might be an impressive piece of work for you guys, but it's the equivalent of a satellite dish made out of, what it's called, bamboo to us."

"If it's so inferior, why are there bad guys trying to kidnap us to get it," said William.

"What do you mean 'us'?" said Odd.

"Come on, I'm a part of this team too," said William.

"Uh-huh, and when did some creepy guys with hi-tech come after you?" said Ulrich.

"Hey, I was attacked by that dragon too," said William.

"It wasn't after you, it was after Aelita," said Yumi.

"Thanks for reminding me," said Aelita in a slightly sour tone.

"So I have to get savaged by some deranged robot that can turn into a small vehicle to be included in this group?" snapped William.

"Hey, I resembled that remark!" cried Wheelie.

"William, you've been the lucky one so far," said Jeremie.

"Lucky? XANA captured him the first time he was in Lyoko," said Ulrich.

"You're never going to let that go, are you?" said William.

"Ulrich, drop it," said Jeremie, "It happened, it's over, we're not here about that. What I mean was that William hasn't been attacked by himself like the rest of us. Apparently, he hasn't been considered a big enough of a threat for someone to try and kidnap him. If he wanted too, he could just walk away right now. The rest of us are too closely-related to this. We'd be vulnerable without NEST."

There was a long pause before Ulrich said, "It could have been a matter of time before they hit William's base. Didn't the Decepticons attack that base in Qatar a few years back?"

"They wouldn't be desperate enough to pull off a stunt like that, right, Wheelie?" asked Aelita.

"Hey, don't drag me into this," said Wheelie, "I'm just here to see what's about this thing that's worth going after. Which would be easier if it was switched on."

There was a long and awkward pause right after that, mostly involving looking at the floor or at Aelita uncomfortably. "What? What did I say?" asked Wheelie.

"Uh, turning on the supercomputer isn't that simple," said Jeremie.

"Oh, it can't be that hard," said Wheelie, "There's a big power switch over there."

"No, it's just…" started Aelita but didn't finish.

"When the supercomputer was first turned on, a lot of stuff happened that we never expected," said Ulrich.

"And we had to go through a lot before it was safe enough to shut down," said Yumi.

"And we lost a lot along the way," said William.

Wheelie blinked and said, "It's just a supercomputer, and a vacant one too from what you told me. I don't see any danger in turning it back on."

"Uh, is there any danger?" asked Odd.

"Well, with XANA destroyed, I can't think any danger that would happen if it were reactivated," said Jeremie, "I suppose it's just sentimentalism that's holding us back."

Wheelie rolled his optics and said, "Oy, you humans and your crazy emotions, do you ever try to think with logic?"

Yumi glared at Wheelie and said, "You have no idea what-"

"Yumi, it's ok," said Aelita, "We need to turn it on again, if only for a little while. As soon as we're done, we'll turn it back off."

Ulrich gave a light scoff and said, "That's what Jeremie said the first time."

However, Odd went over to the supercomputer before pausing and asking, "Uh, where's the switch again?"

Ulrich smacked his forehead and said, "Odd, you are a bumbler around computers."

"Like you're a computer scientist yourself," retorted Odd.

"Compared to you, I am," said Ulrich.

"Are you guys really arguing over this?" asked William.

"Old habits die hard," said Ulrich.

Just then, there was a humming sound. They turned to see Aelita taking her hand off the switch while the circuitry started glowing with power.

"Aelita?" said Jeremie.

"We won't get anywhere just shuffling our feet," said Aelita, "We need to settle this here and now."

Wheelie looked at the supercomputer and asked, "What powers this thing anyways?"

"A uranium isotope," said Jeremie.
"I thought it was something like that. For a second, I thought it was…" Wheelie shook his head and said, "I gotta get to work. Where's the control room?"

…

Meanwhile, Lockdown had entered the factory, but was keeping to the shadows. Although it may seem odd that a large alien robot would be trying to stay hidden in an abandoned factory, but Lockdown had good reason to. Jolt was still there, but he seemed to have lost interest and was looking at the machinery used to produce cars.

'Hmm…hadn't thought about a second guard. Still, this guy looks like no trouble. I could take him out easily. But I can't cause too much damage here. I'll have to sneaky with this one. But first, I have a cargo to unload,' he thought.

His chest that was formed from the roof of his vehicle mode opened up slightly and Lockdown reached his hand inside. He pulled out a black box, the kind one would normally find in airplanes and not particularly cars. He carefully put the black box on the floor and said, "Alright, get to work." The black box stood motionless for a few seconds before suddenly parts of it started to unfold and extend. Quite soon, a small robot stood there. It looked around before running towards the elevator. It climbed through the holes in the grate before scuttling down the elevator shaft.

'Now to take care of that Autobot,' thought Lockdown, 'This shouldn't be too hard, with a little stealth.' He pressed a few buttons on his right arm, causing his body to shimmer before become translucent. If one was looking hard, they could see the distortions of light around his form, but for the most part he was completely invisible.

The bounty hunter and stalked towards Jolt, who still had his back to him while examining the car-making machines. Lockdown was as silent as could be as he crept closer, which was actually quiet silent for a large robot. Of course, they may mostly have something to do with the sonic dampeners installed into his legs which muffled his footsteps. Pretty soon, Lockdown was within striking range of Jolt. He lifted his hook high, ready to tear through the Autobot's back.

Suddenly, Jolt spun around and punched his arm forward. He made direct contact with Lockdown's face, causing the bounty hunter to be knocked backwards. Jolt dusted off his fist and said, "Really nice try, you almost had me."

Lockdown dropped his camouflage and demanded, "How did you know I was there? My stealth mode is imperceptible."

"Yeah, for people who only use their eyes and ears," said Jolt, "Hasn't anyone told you I have electrokinesis? I could sense your electricity."

Lockdown got back up and said, "You obviously don't know who you're dealing with."

"Uh, not on name-basis," said Jolt, "You're just a Decepticon, so who cares?"

Lockdown scoffed and said, "Figures someone who's never been heard of at all wouldn't know anyone of importance."

Jolt glared and said, "I do know what you're going to be." He extended his electric daggers. "Another pile of scrap to be dumped."

"Knives aren't for little boys," said Lockdown tauntingly, "Why don't you go jump in the river with your friends?" Jolt just gave a shout of anger and charged at Lockdown, who easily flipped him over. "Amateur," said Lockdown before kicking him.

…

Meanwhile, the little black box robot had scuttled down the elevator shaft to the first floor below. It scuttled over to the locking mechanism of the door. A little fiddling and the door opened. The robot jumped down into the monitor room. It went over to the monitor and jumped up into the chair. Its optics swiveled as it looked over the monitor and keyboard. Eventually, it spotted a USB port next to the monitor. A panel on its left shoulder slid open and a wire extended out before plugging into the USB port.

The monitor and the holo-map flashed on immediately. The map of Lyoko spun around rapidly, the towers of the four sectors briefly lighting up before the control towers of the Forest, Ice, Mountain, and Desert Sectors fully activated, glowing bright orange. Then the map zoomed in to focus on Sector Carthage. The tower in it activated as well before the map zoomed in further until it showed the core room. The core had been rotating at its normal speed before suddenly the rotating speed up even faster. Streams of data shot from it and headed through the numerous hallways before connecting to the exterior data port. After which, the data streams converged on the tower, which glowed even brighter.

The drone's optics lit up as the payload of data coursed through its processor. However, it wasn't there to just store the stolen data. The panels on its right shoulder flipped up and rearranged into what very closely resembled a satellite dish. Its transmitter glowed slightly as it started beaming the data upwards. The transmission passed straight through the steel and concrete of the factory and up to a satellite where it would eventually be sent to its masters. Of course, the transmission was actually a backup copy. The drone was to return with Lockdown and deliver the data itself. Now all it had to do was go upstairs back to Lockdown…

Suddenly, the door to the elevator clicked and sparked as it started to open. The drone spun around to face the door. There was no time to hide and no time to escape up the ladder. It cursed itself for forgetting to lock the door.

As the door was opening, Odd could be heard saying, "And this is where the commands come from, Einstein's little…" However, he stopped when he noticed that the supercomputer's holomap had been turned on and there was a small robot sitting at the seat. "What the-"

The robot didn't give Odd time to say more. It screeched like a monkey and jumped out of the chair and right onto Odd's face. Odd screamed and pulled at the robot, "Facehugger! Facehugger!"

"Quick, get it off before it lays eggs in his brain," said William.

Wheelie glared up at him and said, "Where the slag did you get that stupid idea from?"

"But, it's an alien robot spy thing," said William.

"It's a salvage drone, like me," said Wheelie, "I think I would know better than you, beef brains."

"Get it off of me!" shouted Odd.

"Ok, hold very still," said William before picking up a loose pipe.

"William, are you crazy?" said Jeremie, "You'll hit Odd too."

"Don't worry, I've had plenty of practice with a baseball bat," said William, "I won't hurt a hair on his head."

Before Jeremie could object, William swung the pipe at Odd's head. Jeremie and Wheelie winced, fully expecting the length of metal to connect with Odd's cranium. However, it wasn't Odd's cranium that was hit, but the robot's. The metal clanged loudly against the robot's skull, which appeared to stun it. William swung the pipe again and whacked the robot's head again. Only it appeared that the first blow had weakened it as the second blow knocked off its skullcap or helmet. The third blow sent the small robot flying off Odd's head and into Jeremie, who was knocked over.

"Nice swinging," said Odd with a sigh of relief, "But next time, try not to make it look like a piñata party."

"I'll remember that…the next time a robot's clutching your head," said William.

Just then, the hatch that led down to the scanner room opened up and Ulrich poked his head out. "Hey Jeremie, me and the girls are ready to virtualize, what's the hold-up?"

"Oh, we've just had a little trouble with an espionage robot," said Odd.

"What? Is it a Decepticon?" asked Ulrich.

Jeremie picked up the robot and looked it over. He couldn't find any kind of identifying markings on it, aside from what would have been from his altmode. "I'm not certain," said Jeremie, "But it's fortunate we stopped it when we did. I'm sure the researchers at NEST would want to see this."

Suddenly, the robot shuddered before its optics lit up. It gave a shriek before it started hitting Jeremie with its hands. Its fingers were hardly sharp and it didn't have any more strength than its sized suggested. However, Jeremie wasn't exactly what one would call physically enduring. After a couple of smacks, the robot made Jeremie let go.

"I thought you killed that thing," said Odd.

"I guess I only knocked it out cold for a while," said William.

The robot growled at them before it reached into Jeremie's laptop bag and grabbed his PC. It then bolted across the room. "Stop him!" shouted Jeremie.

Odd, William, and Wheelie hurried after the robot. One would have expected it to be a short chase, but the robot was actually faster than it looked. Not to mention being so small allowed it to sidestep Odd and William as they lunged at it.

"Come back here you-" started Wheelie before the robot spun around and smacked Wheelie with the laptop. Wheelie was sent tumbling back a few feet. "Hey, you hit me in the face!" snapped Wheelie, "Not cool!"

The robot quickly started clambering up the ladder. Ulrich had quickly climbed out of the hatch to the scanner room and headed for the ladder. The creature was faster than Ulrich, but it did become delayed when it had to stop to open the hatch to the top floor. This bought Ulrich just enough time to grab the robot by the ankle as he was coming out of the hatch. "Gotcha!" he called before looked up and gaped, "No way…"

Jolt was fighting another Transformer, one with a large hook for a right hand. Ulrich had seen Transformers fighting before with Drift and Bludgeon, but there's something about watching two giant robots fighting each other that makes one want to stop and watch.

However, the little robot Ulrich was holding wasn't so distracted. It started shaking its held leg and kicking with the other leg. It still had its servos clasped around the laptop and was not going to be letting go any time soon. This was enough to break Ulrich's concentration on the robot fight. "Hey, quit that! Come here you little scrap piece!" he snapped as he tried to pull the robot back. But the robot was putting up more of a fight than he had bargained for.

Suddenly, a shot rang out and clipped the hook-handed Transformer's shoulder. They all turned to see Skids and Mudflap at the doorway, both dripping water and looking irked.

"Hey, ya'll can't just toss in the river and forget about us!" snapped Skids.

"Yeah, man, you're gonna get a lotta whooping on your sorry skidplate!" called Mudflap. The twins jumped forward, causing some cracks in the floor as they landed. They then ran towards Jolt and his opponent.

However, the little robot in Ulrich's grip had pulled itself free and was making a sprint. "Guys! Stop that robot!" yelled Ulrich, "He's got Jeremie's computer!"

Mudflap looked towards where Ulrich's voice was coming from and spotted the little robot as well. However, the robot noticed that Mudflap noticed it and ran in the opposite direction. Mudflap stomped over towards the hatch and tried to grab at the robot. But the small automaton kept slipping through his large fingers and trying to run away. Ulrich, who had gotten all the way out of the hatchway and a safe distance from the fight, could tell that Mudflap was getting more and more frustrated. Finally, Mudflap let out a Cybertronian oath and raised his large left fist high.

Ulrich understood what Mudflap was intending and shouted, "Mudflap, don't!"

However, whether Mudflap didn't hear him or couldn't retract the command, his big fist came smashing down, right on top of the robot. Apparently, he had put a lot of force into that punch because his fist went right through the floor and into the monitor room. The metal fist collided with the floor of the monitor room, which made another hole in that floor. The collective rubble of the two floors, the robot, and the laptop were sent down with enough force that when they hit the floor of the scanner room, it broke through it as well, resulting in a sizeable pile of debris hitting the floor of the supercomputer's chamber.

Lockdown looked at where Mudflap had smashed the robot and muttered, "Oh scrap." His employer was not going to like this. He'd have tried grabbing that girl now, but with these three bozos in the way, she'd probably end up more damaged then his employer would have liked. "Better cut my losses," said Lockdown before pushing Jolt aside. He ran towards the door, easily maneuvering around Skids. As soon as he was out on the bridge, he shifted back to his muscle car mode and sped away.

Since it was already too late to stop or catch the bounty hunter, the group focused on the more imminent issue, namely the hole that Mudflap had created that led straight down to the supercomputer.

Jeremie, in particular, was in shock, which is understandable since his laptop was part of the rubble at the bottom of that long hole. He was just staring down at the mess, seemingly unable to speak. Odd poked him a bit and said, "Uh, Jeremie, you ok there? Jeremie?"

"I think his brain's broken," said William.

"Aw, it can't be that bad a shock," said Wheelie.

Suddenly, Jeremie yelled out, "Mudflap, I NEEDED THAT!"

"Yeah, his mind's ok," said Odd.

"My bad," said Mudflap.

"Your bad? What kinda lame excuse is that?" snapped Skids, "Look at the big ol' mess you made."

"Hey, I was trying to catch that little one," said Mudflap.

"Yeah, catch it, not smash it, you dimwit!" snapped Skids.

"Hey, who you callin' a dimwit?" said Mudflap, "Like you woulda done different. You'd a smashed a big hold down there too."

"Nuh-uh, I woulda caught it a lot easier than you woulda."

"Oh no you couldn't, you're too clumsy."

"Clumsy? I'm the graceful one here."

"No way, I move a lot better than you can."

"Can not."

"Can too."

"Can not.

"Can too."

"Guys! Guys!" shouted Ulrich, "Can we just focus on what's happening right now? What was that thing anyways?"

"A spy bot obviously," said William.

"Weren't you paying attention?" snapped Wheelie, "It's a salvage/scrap drone. It was built for looking for useable pieces in a scrapyard but it's obviously been repurposed."

"Well, it's scrap itself now," said Odd.

"Uh, guys, what just happened up there?" called Yumi's voice.

"There was a bounty hunter 'Con up here named Lockdown," said Jolt, "I scared him off but then Mudflap smashed that spy bot down through those floors."

"And my laptop!" yelled Jeremie.

"Well, maybe there's something salvageable left," said Aelita.

"I'm pretty sure his computer's toast," said Odd.

"But if there's enough left of the robot, maybe we can tell where it came from," said Aelita.

"Maybe," said Wheelie, "We can have Ratchet take a look at the parts."

"Ok…" said Jeremie slowly before pointing up through the hole and yelled, "Stay where you are and no more smashing!"

"Oh sure, one little mishap and everyone's pushing you out and keeping you from goin' somewhere interestin'," said Mudflap.

"Like you woulda fit down there in the first place," said Skids.

"You guys start arguing again and I'm throwing you back into the river," said Jolt.

…

When the group got down to the supercomputer's chamber, the mess looked pretty bad. The pieces of the robot and the laptop were virtually indistinguishable from each other. Not to mention all the pieces of paneling and wires from the three floors they had crashed through. In fact, it was mostly a jumbled pile of circuitry and metal.

Odd gave a low whistle and said, "Boy, that's one fine mess."

"You're telling me," said Wheelie, "It'll take hours to pick out all the pieces."

"Do we really have time for that?" asked Yumi, "I thought we were supposed to be looking over the supercomputer."

"That would have been a lot easier if my laptop weren't destroyed," said Jeremie bitterly.

"Maybe there's something left of it you can use," said William.

"Doubt it," said Ulrich, "It looks pretty pulverized to me."

However, Aelita felt a little nudge in her mind. It wasn't really an idea, more like a suggestion. It didn't seem to make sense to her, but she found that the idea of trying it out was too irresistible. "Actually, I think it's still salvageable," said Aelita.

"For what? Loose computer parts?" said Odd.

"No, I think I might be able to access its data," said Aelita.

"Aelita, the memory's been smashed, along with the rest of it," said Yumi, "There's no way you can get anything out of it."

"I know, but I think I should at least try," said Aelita.

"You really think you can pull data out of a smashed computer?" asked William.

"Well, I didn't think I could manipulate energy on my own before," said Aelita, "I wouldn't be too surprised if I could do this too."

"This I gotta see," said Wheelie, sounding mostly sarcastic.

Aelita knelt down and held her hands over the pile of rubble. She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate. Eventually, she could feel that source of energy inside her, throbbing to be released. She unconsciously started to sing, not a real song, but a pure note that reverberated through the air. At the same time, the supercomputer's circuit lines started glowing bright. An aura of energy appeared around Aelita's hands before flowing over the pieces of metal and circuitry in front of her. The glow intensified until everyone had to cover their eyes, even Wheelie.

When the light eventually faded, they looked to see what had happened. The supercomputer was still working as if nothing happened. Aelita, however, was leaning on her hands and panting. In front of her, the pile of debris was gone and in its place was Jeremie's laptop, looking as good as new.

"Wow, how did you do that?" asked Odd.

"Are you okay, Aelita?" asked Yumi.

"I'm…fine," said Aelita, "It feels like I've just run a mile."

"Hey, where'd all that junk go?" asked Wheelie, looking around.

"Did you vaporize it?" asked Ulrich.

"No…I'm not sure what I did," said Aelita.

"Well, you apparently brought my laptop back," said Jeremie as he picked it up, "But I better make sure it's working." He pushed on the power button a few times, but it didn't respond.

"Maybe you need to recharge it," said William.

Just then, the laptop gave an odd clicking sound before it began to shake. Jeremie quickly put the laptop back on the floor and stepped away, half-expecting it to explode. However, it did something very different. The keyboard suddenly lifted up on separate panels and started folding together. The bulk of the computer also started splitting into more panels and reconfiguring into a more solid shape. The screen fragmented before folding down onto part of the shifting machine. Within a few seconds, the computer had transformed into a robot that looked vaguely familiar.

"Uh, she didn't just bring your computer back," said Ulrich, "She brought it to life."

"More like she brought the salvage drone back to life and merged it with the computer," said William.

The robot looked at the group before saying, "What, you never seeing a transforming computer before?"

"Uh…no," said Ulrich, "Er, who are you?"

"Who am I? Uh…what do they call me?" asked the robot, looking confused.

"Ugly," commented Odd. The description was rather fitting. The robot had a larger left eye than a right eye, glowing wires sprouting from his head like hair, a right shoulder that was higher and bulkier than the other, and its mouth was lopsided and incongruous. All in all, it wasn't a very attractive-looking robot.

"No, no, that's not it," said the robot before it looked even more thoughtful. Smoke started to come out of its wiry 'hair' before it shouted, "BRAINS! Well, no, no, not quite, they called me Brain Unit 5, Brain 5 for short. But Brains is better."

"Who called you Brain Unit 5?" asked Yumi.

Brains looked puzzled, causing more smoke to come from his head. "Uh…I don't remember. I don't remember a lot except a crash. Then there's all that stuff about Lyoko…"

"Wait a minute, wait a minute," said Jeremie, "What do you know about Lyoko?"

"Oh, pretty much everything. At least, everything you knew. I mean, you've only been able to scratch the surface of its potential. I mean, digitalizing and rematerializing is just really basic compared to its possible use, which could be potentially full teleportation between two areas of considerable distance as well as eliminating the required limitation of mass and matter that's passing through the two points, ofcoursethat'…"

As Brains rambled on and on, he started talking faster and with a higher voice as the smoke coming from his head became more noticeable until he was sounding like a chipmunk and his head looked like it was about to catch on fire.

"Brains, Brains, Brains!" shouted Jeremie.

"Hey, give it a rest already!" snapped Wheelie before smacking Brains upside the head.

Brains blinked as the smoke from his head subsided. He looked around and asked, "What were we talking about?"

"Something about teleportation," said Yumi.

"Was it? Huh, lost my train of thought," said Brains.

"I think you hit his head too hard," said Odd to William.

"What was I supposed to do? Coax him off your head with a flute?" retorted William.

"Where is that piece you knocked off?" asked Wheelie.

"Uh, here it is," said Odd, pulling the busted-up piece of metal from his pocket.

"Hey! That's my primary memory bank!" cried Brains.

"No wonder he can't remember much about himself," said Yumi.

"He must be running on Jeremie's laptop's memory," said Aelita, "That's why he knows so much about Lyoko."

"And why he overheats when he thinks too much," said Ulrich.

"Wheelie, you think it can be repaired?" asked Jeremie.

Wheelie looked at the broken memory bank for a bit, "I don't know, it's pretty banged up. He'll probably have to get a new one."

"That will have to wait," said Jeremie, "If the Decepticons, or whoever sent him and Lockdown, know the supercomputer's here, we have to move it."

"Uh, Jeremie, the supercomputer isn't exactly a mobile model," said Yumi.

"Of course not, at least not with all this hooked up to it," said Brains, "But it'll be simple to move when we disconnect all the wires."

"Whoa, whoa, disconnect?" said Odd, "Do you have any idea how long that would take?"

"Not long at all, not long at all," said Brains before walking over to the supercomputer. He lifted a panel on the floor besides it and started effectively dismantling it. "Just cut the hardlines and it'll lift right out. It's better off without them anyways. Too messy, too overdone, can be done much better with lesser wires. Will need some Cybertronian work, plenty of that at Autobot base."

"Hey, wait a minute," said William, "Who says you're coming along?"

"For all we know, you could still be a spy," said Odd.

"No, I'm not," said Brains, "My allegiance programming was purged along with most of my memories. I am currently unaligned at the moment. But since you are working with the Autobots now, I'll probably be joining them shortly. Besides, I'm pretty sure my old masters would have me dismantled if I went back. Don't want that. I belong to Jeremie now. Wherever he goes, I go."

"Huh, wouldn't have expect him to be so loyal to me," said Jeremie.

"It's probably from how well you treated your laptop," said Aelita.

"Hmm…perhaps," said Jeremie, "By the way, how did you manage to merge all those pieces together?"

"I have no idea," said Aelita.

"So, I think we better call NEST and tell them to get ready to deliver some hardware," said Odd.

Yumi looked at the walls and said, "This'll take a long time to dismantle."

"We don't need the wiring," said Brains, "Clumsy inefficient stuff, can be replaced with better Cybertronian technology. Don't bother about the wires, leave them. No, wait, shouldn't be left lying back here, might fall into irresponsible hands, wrong hands, enemy hands. Take them, yes, but mainly recycling. Melt them down, make something new, something better. Shouldn't waste, too valuable."

"And I thought you gibbered a lot when you were on the computer," said Ulrich.

…

In the dark meeting room, the five shrouded figures were conversing with the video screen again. "Well, this has been yet another fiasco," said one of the figures.

"Another failure at capturing the girl," said another.

"On the contrary, this day has worked out exactly as I planned it," said the voice in the screen.

"But sir, Lockdown has failed in both his objectives. The brain unit has been destroyed," said one of the figures.

"It has done what it needed to," said the voice, "I'm not surprised that it was destroyed before it could return. But it has collected the data we needed and transmitted it. I trust that it's secure in our mainframe now."

"Yes sir," said another of the shadowy figures, "We're already working on cracking the security measures. All of Hopper's data and more will be ours within 24 hours."

"Good," said the voice, "For once, things are working in my favor. Now that we have the data, all we need is the girl. She is literally the key to complete my plan."

"But she'll be at the Autobot base," said the one figure who hadn't spoken yet, "She'll be heavily guarded there."

"The Autobots will not be standing in my way for long," said the voice, "We are so close to completing the plan. The Autobots and Decepticons have provided convenient diversions for long enough. It's time to finish this. Prepare two of our drones with the assassination programming."

"Are you sure this is wise?" asked one of the figures, "The Autobots and the Decepticons are sure to retaliate."

"Yes, but they'll be in complete disarray once their leaders are offline."

Finally, another chapter update. I'm sorry this took so long to get up, but this one went through a pretty extensive rewrite. This was mainly because of Dark of the Moon. Originally, I was going to have Dirt Boss and Hightower be attacking the factory while Lockdown was there, but then I decided to make the events of Nefarious canon, and Dirt Boss kicked the bucket then.

The other big reason for rewriting this chapter is because I wanted to include Brains in this story. And since I'm not having Dark of the Moon and its related stories as part of this story's continuity, I had to make up a different origin for Brains. As you can see, I based his 'rebirth' off of how Animated Dirt Boss came to life. I had Mudflap do the smashing since I thought it would be appropriate seeing as he and Brains share the same voice actor the same way Skids and Wheelie do. I altered his personality a bit as well, adding a bit of B.E.N. from Treasure Planet and Mordin Solus from Mass Effect. He'll pretty much serve the same function here as Giru in Dragonball GT.

Of course, you'd recognize Lockdown. I gave him the same cloaking tech he's said to possess in Transformers Animated. I'm not sure if it was mentioned if the ROTF version has it too, but I don't see any particular reason why not.

In case you were wondering, the sigil glyph is based partially off of how Cyclonus signed all those forms in the G1 cartoon episode 'Webworld'. This is going to be important later, so you might want to remember this.

Anyways, the next chapter won't require that much revision and it won't be as long until it's up. Until then, keep an eye out for it and please review.