Hello, bots and cons. Centurion Maximo here and welcome back to Young Justice: Frontiers. Last chapter was the second part of the Battle for Detroit and it did not go in the hero's favor. In the end, Crimson Knight sacrificed himself so that the others could escape and Detroit City itself was reduced to nothing but a crater. In New York, an ancient Cybertronian ship is unearthed by tremors from said explosive blast and unintentionally releasing a Cybertronian from the distant past.
Here is the OC/Story Contributor list so far:
Mobian
Vein Bloodborne
Mpatton12
Doc Fossil
Gregory
I hope this list expands in the future.
Gregory: Thank you for the suggestions. I am especially interested in your OC Wildcard being a neutral, essentially. Nice Autobot suggestions as well.
Now, back to the action!
*Happy Harbor. Mount Justice. 21:23 pm*
Only a couple of days had passed and things weren't good for the heroes at all. The League, Team, and Autobots had a closed casket funeral and a eulogy for Crimson Knight/Shane Landers. Perdita all the way in Vlatava had gotten the news and wasn't taking it well. She'd flown right over to give her respects to the fallen hero. The Forever People were also present at the funeral. Even Red Arrow had shown up to pay his respects.
Adding insult to injury, the League's public image was getting smeared even heavier than before by Megan Guigilone and Gorden Godfrey. Even some hardcore fans of the League were starting to lose trust and faith in them. So, all in all, morale was beyond low right now.
"I still can't believe it…" L'gann frowned, growling.
"And all the Machination lost was a single guy. A thug while we lost Crimson Knight." Wally added, clenching his fists, tears pooling in his eyes. "We failed badly this time."
Artemis put a hand on her boyfriend's shoulder and flashed him a caring smile. "We'll get through this, Wally. We'll take the Machination down. I promise."
"They just destroyed the entire city like that." Lois shuddered, shaking her head. "They truly are monsters."
"Believe it, Lois." Clark wrapped an arm around her. "We've lost a good friend."
"S-Shane…" Perdita stuttered with sadness.
"A truly brave warrior until the end." Vykin bowed.
"A sad end to a good comrade." Bear added, lowering his head slightly.
"We're going to make them pay." Oliver clenched his fist. "I'm going to head back to the Quiver. Who knows? Maybe I'll stumble upon something back home."
Dinah held him lovingly. "Be careful, Ollie." She said quietly.
"I'll be careful, prettybird." Oliver kissed Dinah on the lips and flashed a small, but sad smile before going through a ground bridge.
"The Machination is doing all this to smear our image as their second primary objective and obviously, it's working." Bruce began to explain. "People are starting to lose faith in us even after we took out the Andromedome five years ago. It seems Megan Guigilone has not only a silver tongue, but is great at covering her ties to the Machination. I still haven't found a single shred of evidence tying her or the Machination together."
"Damn…" Was all Shade could say after Bruce's explanation.
"We have to stop whatever they have planned next!" Diana declared with utter determination. "It feels like we've been on the defensive for five whole years! It's time to strike back!"
"I agree with Diana!" Arcee agreed. "We have to go on the offensive to save the people they're experimenting on!"
"Well, I've already got a headstart as I saved that trio from that one base." Thunderscorch cut in. "Maybe they could help us out if we ask them nicely."
"Then we're gonna have to continue our fight no matter how much your image gets smeared." Ironhide commented.
"I doubt it'll be that simple, Ironhide." Barry added his own input. "A lot of the time, it's hard for us good guys to fight the good fight if our image is tarnished."
"Flash raises a very valid point, Ironhide." Jonn voiced. "We need to restore the people's faith in us."
"How are we gonna do that?" Conner asked with a shrug. "This Megan Guigilone has her hands deep in popularity. Doesn't help that she always manages to get the best views of every single incident."
"She really needs to be taken down a peg." Dick snarked before bringing up another matter. "How is Annie faring?"
"Annie is actually faring better since Shade solved her molecular instability." Bruce informed with a small smile. "Tim Drake has been teaching her stealth along with right and wrong, though she has been exposed to the bad thanks to the Machination. She's even taken a name for herself: Lady Clay."
"That's good to hear." Dick nodded with a smile of his own. "We're gonna need all the new blood we can get."
"Especially with how many new enemies are popping up." Ronal added his own two cents.
"I suggest we up our training so that we're all on our a-game." Kaldur said, clenching his fist and with a look of determination on his face. "This is also how we'll save Atlantis when the time comes." He said to himself a little quieter.
*Isla Santa Prisca. Machination. 22:01 pm*
Once again, the Machination and Decepticons were having a small celebration and this included Megan Guigilone. Though, this one was bigger than the one when Bludgeon killed Batman. "Oh, the League is getting completely smeared thanks to what people are now calling the 'Detroit Debacle'!" She laughed.
"Excellent news, Ms. Guigilone!" Queen Bee grinned, sharing a toast with other Machination members.
"This is so rad for us!" Gearhead happily exclaimed, performing a small tune-up on himself. After what they achieved in Detroit, he felt he'd have to keep up with others.
"Oh, by the way, how's Ivy?" Blaze asked. When Blaze and Poison Ivy met, despite Blaze having an obvious fire motif, the two had become good friends and even shared some ideas. Turned out Blaze had a hand in creating a specific concoction that Poison Ivy needed to create the first generation of her "children".
"She's doing excellent. She's created Lily, Violet, and Rose as the first three." Kickback answered. "Each one seem to have their own unique abilities. Not to mention Wickeroot's test run was a complete success. Now, she has her own creation that's not only immune to fire, but can also harness it."
"Now that's something to call ironic." Dr. Desmond chuckled. "However, Detroit was also a great test for the Pyromorph."
"Not only that, but Desmond, the Reach Scientist, and I have been making strides with the experimentation of bringing out the meta-gene in people." Venomsting smiled widely.
"It helps that the Reach and Apokolips are our outside allies in our lucrative venture." Black Mask commented in a snide tone. "Though, what happened to the soldiers from our destroyed base?"
"They will continue to be disciplined thoroughly." Dr. Desmond smirked. "Oh! Venomsting and I have some special news!" He got everyone's attention. "The lovely Queen Bee and Bombshell in Bialya have erected a new Insecticon drone that is ready for Operation: Infestation."
That got everyone talking amongst themselves and each other. "You mean the operation is finally ready?" Joshua asked in anticipation, eating steak in his fancy CEO office within his company building.
"Indeed it is. We've created a small hideout on the sides of one of the subway tunnels without arousing suspicion. We just need ships or the ground bridge for precise deployment." Dr. Desmond answered before taking a bite of a green apple.
"We'll take the ground bridge and deploy them right in your little spot for them. Though, what is the new intelligent Insecticon spawned?" Blackout asked curiously.
"This one took the name Infernox." Dr. Desmond answered nonchalantly. "He's taken the form of a Bombardier Beetle and is in a unique red and black color scheme from the usual purple and yellow of the others."
"So, guess he is a Deluxe Insecticon, then." Gearhead joked.
"You could say that." Dr. Desmond chuckled. "Regardless, he could also double as a member of your division, Mr. Lynns."
"Sounds like it, eh, Blaze?" Garfield smiled at his girlfriend.
"As long as he understands not to interrupt me while I experiment." Jane smiled back. "By the way, Morrow, didn't you say you have your own drone mass production project in the works?"
"I do indeed. Thanks to where my base of operations is, I have more than enough energy to put it into action so no Energon is required." T.O Morrow grinned. "What about you, Ivo?"
"Oh, I've finally completed something I will unveil when the time is right." Ivo laughed lightly. "I had a bit of Apokoliptan tech shipped to me for this one."
All the while they were talking and cheering about Detroit, Thundercracker was just standing by the sidelines, seemingly in deep thought of the past five years. The complete destruction of Detroit leaving absolutely nothing intact was going way too far in his book. What would be next? Full-blown nuclear strikes? At this point, he was internally questioning whether he was on the right side of this war.
*New York City. Subway System. Machination Spot. 00:10 am*
It was just ten minutes past midnight in the city of lights and most people were hardly stirring. Seconds later, A red and black Bombardier Beetle walked through and looked around. Seeing there was no one around, it transformed to robot mode and smirked. "Coast is clear, unfortunately. I wanted to burn some fleshlings." He commented.
Two Insecticon Bruisers came through the ground bridge dragging one Insecticon pod each and placed them in a specific spot along with an escort of five Insecticon Swarmer drones. "That's great. Now, we just have to wait for these two to hatch and let the infestation begin. Let's see if a new intelligent Insecticon spawns in this place. "Scout out the area and ensure it'll be ripe for hive expansion." The Swarmers and Bruisers clicked in acknowledgement and spread out. Infernox was just smirking as he may have been the newest Insecticon to gain individuality, he still felt more comfortable with his own kind.
However, while one of the Swarmers was patrolling the nearby area, it suddenly got captured via telekinetic powers. A dark blue hand grabbed it and the robot looked at it as it squirmed in the grip. The Swarmer drone was freaking out at the much bigger Cybertronian's intense glare. "Interesting. It seems this one drone will be very valuable to me." The robot said in a deep male voice as it walked off, its wings folding so they didn't hit the walls.
Hello, everyone. I hope you all liked the new chapter of Young Justice: Frontiers. As you can see, the heroes are down in the dumps even more while the villains are having an even bigger party. However, not all in the Machination are happy with what they did in Detroit as Thundercracker stands on the sidelines just pondering about the last five years and is actually beginning to have doubts.
On said bad guys' side, they have made the Insecticon Bruiser from Transformers: Fall of Cybertron. They sent it along with a couple of spawning pods right to the very populated New York City, specifically in the subway systems. This is only the beginning of an Insecticon Infestation.
The new Insecticon is Infernox from the Robots In Disguise 2015 mobile game as that was his only appearance. Even so, he wasn't even in the game except in the data files. In this story though, he will actually have a role.
Also, a Swarmer drone has been captured by the robot from the ship at the end of the last chapter.
As usual, if anyone has any ideas for this story, please let me know in the comments/reviews, or personally PM me.
