A.L. - Hi! I'm glad you like my works! :D I'm almost done posting the chapters for this one, so it won't be too much longer before this story is complete. I also post every Friday (or Saturday if I can't get to the Internet), just so ya know. ;)

Chapter 35

Maria's POV

"Vehicons!" I exclaimed when I caught sight of the seven green-and-purple Cybertronians coming through the green portal - which I could only guess was a Ground Bridge.

Although...there was something wrong this time. The Vehicons that I was familiar with were supposed to be purple and black. These guys were purple and green.

That second color was a bad sign. A very bad one.

"Static, Gear!" Superman suddenly called out. Man, I'd forgotten that he was even here. "Get everyone out of here safely! We'll take care of the Vehicons!"

"You got it, Supes!" Static called back. He and Gear flew off Sideswipe while the Vehicons' blasters started to charge up.

"I'm going to go give them a hand," I stated, activating my hoverboard and getting on. Before anyone could try to say anything else to me, I blasted out over the crowd and started helping get people out of the area as fast as possible.

Unfortunately, as soon as I got out above the crowd, the Vehicons started firing their Blasters at every organic thing in sight. The resulting screams of terror and panic had everyone running in all directions while energy bullets started to rain down.

The first few shots landed in clear areas, causing the ground to be blasted up and turned into rubble. I don't think anybody got hit by that, but I wasn't about to sit around and see what happened when humans were hit with Energon energy blasts.

I started to gather my fiery energy together, and I sent it out in a wide burst above my head. "Fire Shield!" It was wide enough to cover a good deal of the area that was being blasted, but it was enough to protect those who still needed to get out of there.

"Maria!" somebody shouted below me.

"Get going!" I called back, not bothering to look back at the people that I was hovering above. "This probably won't be able to hold those blasts back for very long!"

I realized that it was my actual name that had been called, not anything else that I had been called out in public. Obviously, somebody was keeping up with what I was doing on other worlds - I mean, there are video games for me on my own world, so why not in other places?

"Thanks, Maria!" the voice called out again, getting fainter. It was at this point that I glanced down and saw that the crowd was now moving at a fast pace through the area that I had the shield up.

At the same time, I could feel that my energy reserves were slowly falling as energy blast after energy blast were sent flying into my attempt at defense. It wasn't going to be too long before I would be forced to go on the offense.

Unfortunately, that time ended up hitting me sooner than I had expected. I wasn't watching when a blast suddenly managed to get through my Fire Shield and blasted me. The energy ended up hitting me so fast that I wasn't able to tell where it had originally hit me, because it messed up my systems so badly.

Truly - my vision got to be so messed up it almost looked like the colors of everything around me had been inverted. And my audios were just confusing everything to weird noises that I couldn't make sense of.

I lost control of my hoverboard and fell back, but I ended up colliding with something far sooner than I had expected.

"She's taken a direct hit, and it seems her systems aren't taking it too well," commented a garbled voice above me. Because my vision was going all wonky, I couldn't quite tell who it was, but I think that the voice was Ratchet's.

"Can you reverse the damage?"

That voice made me feel like my entire frame was vibrating; as far as I knew, only Optimus' voice could manage to do that.

"I can try, but I cannot guarantee that my repairs will be sufficient."

"Aw, Ratchet, stop being a worrywart and just try already," I growled, gritting my teeth a little as I tried to get the words out. My throat felt like it was on fire - and not in a good way, either.

There was a pause for a moment, and then suddenly I felt something move underneath me - probably some 'bot moving his servo as he moved out of the line of fire.

I really wanted to get back into the line of fire as soon as possible so that I could give the Autobots some help, but...well, I don't think that my vision and audio systems were going to repair themselves.

Change in POV - 3rd person perspective

Those who remained behind to fight the Vehicons that had suddenly appeared quickly realized that they were not like the Vehicons that they had faced in the past.

For one thing, these green models had armor that was a little tougher than average Vehicon armor - normal ones simply collapsed after getting hit by one blow, but these were able to stay up even after the beatings they were receiving from the Autobots, Kryptonian, and two Green Lanterns.

"Why won't these things just die already?!" Sideswipe demanded, sending his own blasterfire rocketing towards the green-and-purple Cons that were firing at them. After the humans had been successfully evacuated - with Bruce Wayne leaving with Gear as a rear guard - neither side had really moved all that far, save for Optimus, Ratchet, and Jazz, the first and last mentioned of the trio instantly trying to take out the Vehicons in servo-to-servo combat rather than stay back and let the shoot-off continue.

There may have been only seven Vehicons, but...no one was really too keen on letting them stick around for long.

"What are these things made of?" Jazz demanded, scowling from under his visor. A pair of swords quickly replaced his servos, and he started slashing at the areas that usually had weaker armor - mainly, the joints. Much to his surprise, the blades just bounced off.

"Ratchet, what do you make of these Vehicons?" Optimus asked, glaring into the visor of the Vehicon in front of him. It almost seemed as though there were green flecks on the visor, but Optimus wasn't necessarily sure.

Ratchet let out an annoyed noise as he looked up from where he was kneeling, looking over Maria, who was lying in on servo, unmoving. "Why do you ask me that now, Optimus?"

"There is something different about these Vehicons from the others which we have faced."

The medic let out an irritated sigh and activated his scanner, getting a scan of the Vehicon Optimus was fighting. He checked his scanner a moment later to see what exactly it was that he had picked up, and his optics widened a moment later.

"Impossible!" Ratchet exclaimed.

"What is it?" Superman asked, flying over to the medic.

"These Vehicons have no Spark!"

"A what?" Static asked, sounding confused.

"I believe you humans would refer to it as a soul," Ratchet responded. "If these Vehicons don't have them, Optimus -"

"Then it is likely that these were made here on the planet," Optimus responded grimly. "It seems that someone has discovered how to use Cybertronian technology."

"Wanna bet it's that guy who's under the control o' that virus?" Jazz suggested.

"Perhaps." Optimus didn't sound like he was liking that idea all that much.

Hal gained a large grin, and he cracked his knuckles before creating a large green construct of a hammer that promptly was slammed down on the head of one of the Vehicons near Optimus. The Prime looked surprised upon seeing the construct, but he said nothing as it disappeared, and the Vehicon - now with its head completely flattened - collapsed, sparks flying from its neck cables.

"I've been waiting to do that to something!" Hal exclaimed, grinning.

John Steward, however, rolled his eyes and looked somewhat annoyed at the statement. "You really shouldn't think that way."

"Aw, come on - you know that you want to beat the stuffing out of some people," Hal chided in response, grinning.

"You two should settle this later, when we aren't fighting these things," Bulkhead commented from nearby, firing a couple blasts.

Sideswipe snorted, a smirk appearing on his face before he he brought out his swords and slashed out at the Vehicon that was in front of him, taking out its neck cables. Seconds later, the green and purple head went flying.

"Well, would you look at that," Sides commented, grinning. "Off with their heads!"

Before anyone moved any further to take out the remaining five Vehicons, a silver flash suddenly went flying past Sideswipe's face.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

The wrench chopped off the remaining five helms and returned to Ratchet's servo, the medic having an irate expression on his face.

"Whoa," Maria commented, sitting upright on Ratchet's other servo and looking a little better.

"Finally! The wrench is used for something else for once!" Sideswipe exclaimed, raising his arms in the air as a gesture of relief.

"Don't think I'll stop using it on you," Ratchet growled in response as he rose fully to his feet. He looked down at the Reploid standing on his servo. "Maria, what's your take on all this?"

"Indestructible Vehicons with weak necks?" Maria blinked a couple times, considering that statement while she rubbed one side of her head. "Um...you mentioned they had no Sparks, right? Maybe they're prototypes or something."

"Prototypes?" Bulkhead repeated. "For what?"

Maria shrugged.

"Maybe Luthor's tryin' to figure out how to upgrade your tech," Static suggested, flying around to one of the sparking Vehicons that lay on the street.

Ratchet snorted. "Impossible. How can a human's technology improve anything of ours?"

"Lex is smart for a human," the Reploid responded. "And, considering what and who else happens to be with him..." Maria shuddered at the idea. "If it was just Luthor, if we left him alone with a Ground Bridge, he'd probably have it figured out in a few hours. With Brainiac's and Megatron's knowledge added into the mix...we're going to have a lot more trouble."

"I'll say," Hal commented. The Green Lantern didn't look too happy. "And it was bad enough when it was just Brainiac and Luthor. Now we have to deal with this Megatron, too?"

"I do not believe that Megatron is as willing to assist them as you seem to think."

Everyone turned to look at Optimus, all of them clearly having confused expressions on their faces.

"What do you mean?" Maria asked, cocking her head to one side in confusion.

"When I confronted Megatron, for a single moment, I sensed my brother still in there."

"Brother?" Static repeated, surprised.

Maria's own eyes widened when she heard this statement. "What? Brother? But...how?"

*That's what Optimus and Megatron called each other, back before the war* Inferno explained. *We called Orion Pax the librarian because we didn't like him getting into what Megatron was planning, but it turned out that the librarian had better ideas than ol' Buckethead*

Then...does that mean you knew Optimus back when he was Orion Pax?

*Seems that way, doesn't it?*

Maria was about to respond to this, but then she suddenly got a massive headache as her vision shifted back to inverted colors. She covered her eyes to prevent herself from looking at the mess and let out a groan. "Ratchet, my eyes are messed up again."

"And what do you expect me to do about it?" Ratchet retorted, annoyed. "It was a miracle that I managed to reverse the problem that had appeared in your audio systems. Your body is far too small for me to be capable of doing anything."

"Gear would be able to figure it out," Static offered. "We're gonna have to find him, though."

"Aw, come on! You guys finished them off without me?"

Maria laughed when she heard Gear's familiar voice. "Well, what did you expect us to do, Gear?"

"Maria was hit with a blast that scrambled her vision sensors," Ratchet stated in a somewhat grim voice. "Do you think you might be able to reverse the damage?"

"Um...maybe?"

Maria heard Gear's jet-skates as he landed on Ratchet's servo.

"What seems to be the issue?"

"Everything has inverted colors," Maria responded, not taking her hand off her eyes. "It's giving me a bit of a headache."

"Uh-huh...okay, if you'll let me get into your head, I might be able to figure out what went wrong. Is there a zipper or something on the back of your head so that I can get at your sensors?"

Maria couldn't help but chuckle at the suggestion. "Nope, 'fraid not."

Gear let out an annoyed groan. "Great. We should probably be doing this back at the Autobot base, then. There's no way I'm going to expose your inner circuits out here."

"Sounds good. So, what now, Optimus?"

"You guys head back to your base," John Stewart spoke up suddenly; Maria jumped a little when she heard how close the former Marine-turned-Green Lantern was. "We'll handle the clean-up."

There was a pause for a moment, and Maria was almost tempted to pull her hand off her eyes so that she could see what was going on and bare a headache again - but then Optimus spoke up again.

"Matthew, open the Ground Bridge."

Then there came the sound of the aforementioned portal opened up, and Maria could feel Ratchet move underneath her. Moments later, a tingling sensation went over her, and the Reploid knew they had passed through the Ground Bridge and arrived back in the base again.

Space Rip

Knock Out looked up from his buffering when he heard something say in his voice, "We have a problem."

"Soundwave, what are you talking about?" the medic asked, frowning at the communications officer standing at the entrance to the med bay.

"Luthor-Megatron-automatons called "Fake-Cons" by one of the Autobots attacked Gotham City-I have reason to believe that their intentions are not as peaceful as they seem."

Knock Out's optics widened when he heard who Soundwave was taking audio clips from. "Did you just quote Optimus?"

The "SlenderCon" in front of the medic gave a slight nod, his full-face visor reflecting off the lights in the med bay. "Autobots-revealed themselves."

If it was possible for Knock Out to get to be even more pale than he already was, he would have. "Slag. Does Lord Megatron know?"

Soundwave paused at this, then glanced over his shoulder at the corridor behind him. Then he stepped into the med bay and closed the door behind him.

"Lord Megatron know?" the communications officer parroted back at the medic.

Knock Out let out a sigh and was about to say something else, but then Soundwave said something else.

"Brainiac is a virus - takes control of - kills hosts - possessing Megatron and Lex Luthor."

"What?" Knock Out asked, confused. "Who said that? Sounds like a femme."

"You're the World Jumper! - Yup, that's me. I've been going by Flare-Up."

Knock Out blinked a couple times when he heard that, then frowned. "Flare-Up...? Isn't that one of the humans who's working with that Justice League group?"

"World Jumper!" Soundwave repeated.

"There's no way that she could be that."

"Have you ever seen this kid before?"

That recorded audio clip stopped Knock Out short for a moment, and when he saw the picture that Soundwave brought up on his visor of a certain figure that had been on the Nemesis some time ago, his optics widened.

"Isn't that the kid you said was with the Big O?" Knock Out asked.

Soundwave gave a nod as the picture of the red and blue-armored Reploid faded. "Maria."

"So this kid is...what?"

"She-knows what's going on with - Lord Megatron."

That mix of audio clips left Knock Out a little confused. "Knows what?"

"Brainiac is a virus - takes control of - kills hosts - possessing Megatron and Lex Luthor."

"And there you go mentioning that thin-wait." Knock Out raised a hesitant digit at Soundwave. "Did you just say that something has possessed our leader?"

Soundwave gave another nod.

"And...could it possibly possess us?"

Another nod.

Knock Out started to get weak in the knee joints. "Is there anything we can do?"

"Get out. Now. - Find - Maria - Flare-Up. - Stop - Brainiac."

Soundwave activated a Ground Bridge right there in the middle of the med bay, and Knock Out got the feeling that he really didn't have too much of a choice in the matter. He dashed through the portal, buffer still in servo. He wasn't about to turn and look back with all the audio clips that Soundwave had managed to string together about Megatron and that "Brainiac" thing.

As for how they were going to find that "Maria", though...well, Knock Out was going to leave that up to Soundwave.

*snickers* You have no idea how much I laughed when I pictured Ratchet throwing his wrench like that! I've been waiting a long time to get that scene out in public!

See you guys next week!