A/N: HEY GUYS, HAPPY NEW YEAR (uh, tomorrow.)

This should have come out on Christmas Day but I was busy with, uh, Christmas. So yeah.

Also! Fun times ahead, as gestalts are fun to write, and so are bad Rescue Bots references! Also fight scenes! A huge fight scene, in fact! Over 1500 words of Fight Scene! Yay!

Oh yeah. And I have decent songs outlined for all Combaticons, but as always, your input is appreciated and encouraged.

Plz review if you're still here after the really long wait. Cookies for people who a) can name all of Swindle's weapons, b) can name the game that Brawl's line "I wanna see the pretty explosions" comes from, and c) can name the episode of Transformers RID I reference with Blast Off's fighting style. Enjoy!

Mortal Kombaticons

Onslaught was in control of the situation before the Autotroopers had even gone for their guns.

"Combaticons!" he bellowed. "Transform and knock 'em dead!"

Brawl had switched into his alternate mode before Katie could blink, suddenly changing into a low, angular tank with two long cannons in its turret. The tank floated about two feet off the ground, apparently held weightlessly in the air by long glowing blue strips of light. Swindle ran up Brawl's back and jumped off his turret into the midst of the Autotroopers. He took increasingly ridiculous and overpowered weapons out of what looked (to Katie) like a drawer in his chest – seriously crazy stuff like a rocket powered axe, a shield made out of three tiny jets, and finally what looked like a cube with a bunch of tattoos on it, which he smashed over an Autotrooper's head and then threw away.

Vortex, who Katie was currently sitting inside, swooped down, and then suddenly the entire world exploded when Brawl fired his cannons. Arcee had to cartwheel to the right to avoid the searing blue laser shots; Goldbug was less agile, and had his right doorwing eradicated in a shower of sparks. The power of Brawl's cannons was such that two even less lucky Autotroopers who were caught in the centre of the twin beams were completely vaporised, the shots glazing the sand below their feet and leaving only a vaguely smoking patch of glass where they were previously standing.

Vortex dropped Katie off behind a largeish rock, and went to join the fight, transforming and whirling through the Autotroopers with what looked suspiciously like a welder. It probably was a welder, as about three of the green and bronze drones ended up literally joined at the hip. The rest lost pieces of their anatomy; either because it (whatever it happened to be) was sliced off with a fusion cutter, or because their guns were cut through and exploded. Immediately afterwards, Vortex flew skywards and span around as fast as she could, creating a temporary tornado which picked up a few unlucky Autotroopers and cast them into the air.

Blast Off, perched on a cloud, was invisible from the ground (except for the blue glow of his thrusters), and he capitalised on this. The Autotroopers Vortex had caught in her tornado were instantly sniped, and their comrades on the ground dodged about helplessly as white beams of light came out of the sky, hitting a good few and keeping the rest of them disorganised, despite Arcee's screams to hold their ground.

Onslaught, Mr. Chain Reaction himself, didn't even bother to use his giant guns. Well, he did, but not in the way Katie expected. He flat-out punched the enemy, going hand-to-hand with the Autotroopers firing at him – their purple laser blasts pinging off his shining blue armour with little effect. This had the additional effect of making Katie's inner 9-year-old extremely happy, because giant robots punching other giant robots was freaking awesome, especially when Onslaught managed to uppercut an Autotrooper into the air for Blast Off to snipe, showering the area in orange fire and framing Onslaught mid-punch. Goldbug fired his wrist-mounted pulse blasters at Onslaught in an attempt to slow him down, but only succeeded in being picked up and thrown across the field, bowling a couple of Autotroopers down like ninepins.

Arcee – who attacked the Combaticon leader next – despite being as agile as she obviously was, only just dodged Onslaught's precise right hook and attempted to counterattack, jumping up with a razor-sharp blade extending from her wrist. Onslaught caught her fist in his left hand and headbutted her as hard as possible, breaking off the spiked crest on the left side of her head and denting her face so much it bent her left optic closed. Arcee rolled backwards, clutching her head. Goldbug, missing a doorwing and most of his left arm (but otherwise okay), picked her up and put her arm around his shoulders, helping her walk away.

Katie noticed Thunderblast, instead of taking charge, was content to simply sit at the back and fire off a few rockets from time to time, obviously taking stock of the Combaticons' combat prowess.

Arcee and Goldbug, while everyone was occupied with their Autotroopers, limped off towards the Combaticons' ship. Katie, noticing at the last second, yelled to Vortex, who looked up, nodded sharply, and then called to Onslaught.

"Onslaught! The ship!"

Onslaught calmly cracked the Autotrooper he had in his hand on the head and dropped him. He looked to Brawl. "Anything useful in that ship?"

"Not really, O, besides the database. Jus' empty Energon cubes an' a load of bad memories." Brawl replied. "We gonna blow it up? I wanna see the pretty explosions."

"Oh, we're going to blow it up." Onslaught grinned. Swindle's shoulders slumped.

"That ship cost me way too much..." he said resignedly.

The ship's cargo door closed, and the engines powered up.

Onslaught rolled his shoulders and stretched. "Combaticons! Combine!" With that, Onslaught jumped into the air and then suddenly his head, lower legs, and lower arms transformed in and away. His chest transformed out and a large silver chestplate folded into place. A golden Decepticon sigil appeared in the centre. Brawl kicked himself up, transforming into a giant foot and lower leg, and attached himself to Onslaught, together with Swindle providing two huge legs, one green; one beige and purple. Vortex jumped up and Blast Off flew down, transforming into a giant grey right arm and a giant maroon left arm respectively, then attached themselves to the body. Finally, a huge silver head, the same size as Knock Out (at least), extended from the giant. The completed Gestalt landed on the desert sand surprisingly gently, then his head snapped up, his eyes flashed blue then lit up, and he slammed a fist into his open hand.

"Bruticus; online. Neutralising targets." Bruticus said.

Arcee and Goldbug were frantically trying to get the ship up into the air and away as Bruticus advanced on them. They almost managed it, the engines spinning up to full and the ship beginning to hover.

Unfortunately, Bruticus reached out and plucked the ship from the ground, ripping the cockpit off and carelessly tossing the rear section over his shoulder to land a hundred meters away where it exploded brilliantly. Bruticus shook the cockpit a few times, like he was shaking a salt cellar, and Goldbug tumbled out, Arcee scrabbling for handholds before she too slipped and fell out, screaming "RAAAAATTTCCHHHHHHHHET! GROOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUNNNDDDDDDBBRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIDDDDGGGEEEEEEEEEEEE!" as she went. The familiar green swirling portal opened up below them and the duo fell into it and vanished, the portal closing soon afterwards.

Bruticus turned and threw the cockpit overarm as hard as he could. Which was pretty hard.

Katie and Thunderblast watched it fly hundreds of metres into the air, their eyes (or optics, in Thunderblast's case) following the chunk of alien spaceship on its doom-driven path until it disappeared above the clouds.

"If that hits anything, Agent Fowler is going to be livid." Katie said.

Thunderblast shuddered theatrically. "Don't remind me."

ELSEWHERE

Blair Desmond was just finishing his night shift at the Museum of Technology in the small town of Griffin Rock, Maine. He was the last one out of the building, like always, and after locking the door and putting the ring of keys back in his pocket he strolled down the stairs to his car, whistling merrily. It was a good week for Blair – his girlfriend Danielle had agreed to marry him; his sister was visiting for a while after travelling around for years; and he was completely ready to drive back home, watch a bit of Star Trek with Danielle, then literally sleep in on the sofa until 12 the next day. He was a man of simple, yet refined tastes.

Blair had just walked around to the driver's side of his car when a huge chunk of burning metal screamed out of the sky and crashed into the Museum, causing the roof to fall in and all the windows to blow out. He yelped and crouched behind his car, but most of the damage was to the Museum, with only a few bits of glass pinging off his car's bonnet and a layer of dust coating him and everything around. Blair cautiously stood up.

"Wow. Danielle's never going to believe this." he said aloud, shaking his head and nervously laughing at his ridiculously close shave. "I really hope my contract includes meteor insurance."

What? It's sort of believable.