#having rogue zombie bot would mean rogue starscream would have more than just ‘can’t get energon’ things to worry about

[ckret2]

Liberty Island’s Decisive Battle: Godzilla vs. Trypticon!

Fandom: Transformers Prime, Godzilla, Rescue Bots Characters: Godzilla, Trypticon; also featuring, in order of descending importance, Ratchet, Starscream, Fowler, Miko, Blades, Dani, Heatwave, Soundwave, Knock Out, Raf, and Jack. Words: 5400 Summary: The Nemesis has been revived by dark energon, and reactivates its cloaking field just before Ratchet can send human infiltrators on board to retrieve the Iacon database and see where it’s headed. After a scouting mission, they discover that the Nemesis has transformed itself back into Trypticon, and is heading toward New York City. Fortunately, Agent Fowler’s got an asset in Japan that might just be able to take it on... Notes: What’s up I’ve seen 3.1 Godzilla movies and read way too many wiki pages today. This is unproofed because I wanted to 1) post this immediately, and 2) surprise my usual beta with it. Enjoy the typos.

UPDATE AUGUST 17 2019: We are now proofread. Huzzah.

###

The good news was the Nemesis's cloaking field was down.

The bad news was the Nemesis was alive, speaking, decoding the Iacon database at a ludicrous pace, stasis locking any Cybertronian that came in range of it, and blazing across the Atlantic toward what seemed to be the northeast coast of the United States.

So, basically everything else was bad news.

Fowler said, "But it status locked—"

"Stasis locked," Ratchet snapped.

"—Stasis locked the Decepticons too, right? I think that's another bit of good news."

"Hardly," Ratchet grumbled, not looking down as he locked onto the Decepticon ship's ground bridge coordinates. "As it is right now, the Nemesis is more dangerous than the Decepticons are. I'd rather have them."

"Sure, but, less dangerous than the Nemesis and the Decepticons working together would be, right?"

Ratchet gave Fowler an exasperated look. He shrugged. "I'm just saying. It could be worse."

Ratchet shook his head and turned back to his console. Then swore under his breath. "It just got worse."

The kids, waiting for the bridge to open for them, looked up at Ratchet. "Why, what happened?" Jack asked.

Ratchet gestured angrily at the screen. "The Nemesis figured out how to reactivate its cloaking," he said. "As if we needed more bad news."

Miko groaned, throwing her hands up. "Great!"

"Can you calculate where it's going to be based on its path?" Raf asked, walking closer to Ratchet. "We know where it was a moment ago. We could figure out its speed and direction based on those records and open a bridge—"

"If the ship figured out it needed to start cloaking, it probably also figured out we might have been tracking it and altered its trajectory. If I tried to ground bridge you now, you would plummet from mid-air into the ocean."

The solemn declaration was met with silence.

Miko asked, "What if you bridged us through with like, jetpacks or something?"

Ratchet scoffed. "Absurd. We don't have..." And then he fell silent, thoughtful. He moved to the comm console and started typing.

"Are we getting jetpacks?!" Miko asked.

"No. Hush."

Raf climbed the mezzanine stairs so he wouldn't have to keep looking up at Ratchet. "Who are you calling?"

"The only flying Cybertronian left on Earth."

Jack grimaced. "Starscream?"

"Of course not Starscream. Anyway, he doesn't have his t-cog, he's not—" The line connected, and Ratchet focused on the comm. "Heatwave. We have an emergency. Can you put Blades on?"

###

"I really, really, really don't like this," Blades squeaked. "There is so. Much. Water."

"Relax," Dani said. "We've done flights over the ocean hundreds of times."

"But not like this! Over the deepest, darkest part of the ocean, hundreds of miles from shore in every direction..."

Half standing with her forehead pressed to Blades's window so she could see the ocean below, Miko continued for him, "One seagull stuck in your rotor away from a watery grave."

Blades whined. Dani shot Miko an exasperated look. "I'm beginning to understand why Ratchet warned me not to let you come along." Miko turned to give her a mischievous grin. "Try not to make my partner faint, okay? Then we're all in trouble."

"Focus," Heatwave said over the comm. "You're scouting for a rogue Decepticon warship, remember."

Somehow managing to sound even more terrified, Blades said, "Oh. Right."

"Nothing visible so far," Dani said. "We're following along the Nemesis's last known flight path. We'll let you know if we spot anything."

"Miko, could you stop drumming your fingers on me?" Blades asked. "It's making me more nervous."

She sighed, flopped back in her seat, and crossed her arms and legs. "There's nothing out there," she grumbled. "I thought we'd have found it by now."

"We've only been at this a few minutes," Dani assured here. "And this thing is huge, right? As long as we keep headed along its last known trajectory, we're bound to find—" She fell silent, leaning forward and squinting. "Blades, are you seeing what I'm seeing?"

"I think I am. I wish I wasn't."

"What?" Miko leaped back to her feet, leaning forward again.

On the horizon, a black speck appeared, as if rising out of the water. "That can't be it," Dani muttered. "The Nemesis is a ship—like, a space ship, right? Shouldn't it be flying?"

"Maybe it crashed again?" Miko suggested. "It was grounded earlier today. Before it started paralyzing 'bots and talking to us."

"It doesn't look like a ship, though," Blades said.

They fell silent as they slowly drew up on the black form protruding from the water. Quietly, as though afraid it might hear, Dani said, "We're seeing something, Heatwave. But I don't think it's the Nemesis."

"What is it?" Heatwave asked.

"Well, it's— it looks like..."

Blades cut in, "It looks like Trex, but way bigger and eviler."

"Well—yeah. That."

Heatwave was silent for a moment. "... Blades, have you ever heard of Trypticon?"

Blades squeaked.

"I'll take that as a yes."

"What's Trypticon?" Miko whispered. Dani shrugged.

"But I thought Trypticon died, like, a zillion years ago!" Blades said.

"It did," Heatwave said.

"Then how..."

"I don't know."

Miko sucked in a breath. "Hold on. If this Trypticon dude is from your planet, then it can turn into something else, right? Like... a ship? A Decepticon ship?"

"Yep," Heatwave said. "Just like a ship. But it's been dead. It shouldn't be able to transform."

Miko said quickly, "The Decepticons have been throwing around dark energon like cheap rock candy."

"'Dark energon'?" Dani echoed.

"It raises the dead. If they used it to try to fix their ship when it crashed—"

"Hold on," Heatwave said, "exactly how much dark energon do the Decepticons have?"

Blades shouted, "You mean that Trypticon is a zombie?!"

"So, hold on, back up," Dani said, eyes fixed on the machine growing ever larger before them. "You're telling me that the Decepticon warship we've been looking for is also a giant zombie dinosaur?"

Unable to contain her mounting excitement, Miko pumped her fists in the air with a shrill cheer. "This is awesome! This is the coolest thing ever!"

"I think it sees us!" Blades shouted. Slowly, laboriously, the monster was turning its head, glancing back over its shoulder. Blades stopped in mid-air so quickly that Miko stumbled and landed on the floor, and then he started flying backwards. "Bridge us back, bridge us back, bridge us back—"

Two pulsing purple plasma beams shot out of its optics toward Blades. They only barely backed through a ground bridge in time to avoid them, and crashed, rotors still spinning, in the Autobot base.

###

Ratchet paced, mouth set in a grim line. "At the height of his strength, Trypticon was almost two miles high. We don't have anything that could compare to..."

"I can't say whether or not he's really this Trypticon, but, rough estimate? I would put the guy we saw at only five hundred feet or so," Dani said.

Huddled up under a massive blue tarp, staring into the distance, Blades mumbled, "Five hundred scary, scary feet."

"The Decepticons probably hollowed out most of his internals back when they reformatted his corpse into their flagship," Heatwave said. "If he transformed back to his original height, his armor would be paper thin and he'd be mostly hollow. Maybe he had to reformat his robot mode to compact himself."

"What if it's heading toward Griffin Rock," Blades mumbled, mostly to himself. "It's gonna squash the island."

"It's not going to squash the island," Heatwave said firmly, although it wasn't clear whether Blades heard him through his terror. "We'll just—figure something out."

"Will we really?" Ratchet snapped. "Something that can stop a threat that big? Without Optimus?"

"Without Optimus. My team's been managing for years with only occasional contact with Optimus and the rest of your team—"

"Managing to rescue cats from trees, Heatwave. Handling even the average Decepticon threat, much less this, is far outside your—"

"Everyone be quiet a moment!" Fowler shouted. Ratchet and Heatwave turned to look at him. He waved his phone, "I've gotta make a call. I might just have something that can take on this thing."

The room stared at him. "You've got to be joking," Ratchet said. "The United States government has something that can take on a five-hundred-foot monster?"

"First, technically, the Japanese government's got it," Fowler said, "and second, it's more like three hundred something, but it's very good at punching above its weight class. Now pipe down, I've gotta be able to hear." He punched in a number, held his phone up, put a finger over his over ear, and turned around. There were a few seconds of silence; and then he said, "Hey, Pete! It's Bill. Listen, I— Hold on, I'd love to catch up, but we've got a developing situation in the Atlantic, and we need a heavy hitter. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. The heaviest. Listen, do you or your aunt still have that little box, or—? ... Ah." He sounded disappointed. "Do you think she might know—? Okay, give me her number, I'll see what she knows. Thanks. Hey, call me in a few days, we should get caught up."

He hung up, punched in another number, and held the phone back up to his head. Turning back to the Autobots, who were looking at him quizzically, he explained, "Me and Pete were Rangers together. His aunt got my foot in the door with Unit: E, she was working with them because of— Oh, hi, Dr. Darian. Bill Fowler. Yeah, years, I know. Listen—I've got a budding national emergency out in the Atlantic, I was wo— oh, I wish I could tell you more, but it's five hundred feet of classified information. Do you still have that little box you—? Yeah, it's going on right now. Thing could make landfall on the east coast in under five hours. ... Ah. Do you know who does? ... Sure, call him. Just put me on hold, I'll wait." Fowler covered the mouthpiece. "This box could take a while to get—if we can get it. Do we have anything that can slow Trypticon down? I'm not talking about fighting it—just distracting it. Something that can annoy it for a while."

"This is ridiculous," Ratchet said. "What can any humans come up with that can take on Trypticon? What's this 'box'? What's it for?"

Fowler opened his mouth, froze, and stared at Ratchet a moment. Then he said, "That's classified."

Ratchet threw up his hands with a disgusted noise.

"Look," Heatwave said. "In my experience, even if humans can't match us with the sheer strength of their firepower, they're more than our equal in inventiveness and ingenuity. I trust Agent Fowler if he says he's got something that can take on a five hundred foot walking warship. So if there's any way we can buy him some time, I'm all for it. What've we got?"

Ratchet glanced between Heatwave and Fowler; and then grimaced. "Unfortunately, I've got just the thing." He headed over to the comm station. "This is Ratchet to... Starscream. I wanna make a bargain. I can get you a t-cog—if you can show off your aerial acrobatics to a runaway warship."

###

"Primus below, look at him," Starscream said, circling in the sky above Trypticon. "He's mangled himself in order to transform. You can see several shattered decks sticking out of his back."

Over the comm, Dani said, "When we saw them, I sort of thought those were—you know—spines."

Haughtily, Starscream said, "Well, you would think that, you're only human. But no. They're clearly broken. If he transforms back—and I don't know if he can, at this point—he'll have a gut full of splintered structures."

"That's good news, right?" Raf asked. "It means he's stuck in one mode. He can't just fly off."

"I can certainly confirm that being confined to bipedal mode greatly restricts one's mobility." Starscream did an aileron roll, just for the sheer relief that he could, and dove down. "All right. I'm going in—to heroically risk my life for the sake of the people of your miserable little planet. And as we agreed, doctor—"

"Yes, yes," Ratchet snapped. "The Autobots will owe you a favor for this."

"Although we shouldn't have to," Heatwave grumbled. "As long as this thing is rampaging, your entire army is in stasis lock. You're helping yourself as much as you are us—that should be favor enough."

"Perhaps," Starscream said lightly. "But the Decepticons and I aren't exactly on speaking terms lately. So I do appreciate the extra incentive to do this."

"Oh, I'm sure that you do."

Faintly in the background of the comm, Starscream could hear Miko ask, "Hey Heatwave, did you know that when you get sarcastic, you and Starscream sound exactly alike?"

"Excuse me—"

"All right!" Starscream shouted venomously, and Trypticon laboriously lifted his head to look at him. "Listen up, you overgrown undead Dinobot. I don't care what you, Megatron, or anyone else thinks—you were my ship to command and you remain my ship still. And as your commander, I demand that you halt at once! If you want to go another step forward, you'll have to get through me."

Watching Starscream, Trypticon actually slowed to a stop.

"Huh. I didn't think that would actually—"

And Trypticon's optics started glowing brighter.

"Ah. Well. It was a long shot. Consider Trypticon sufficiently distracted, Autobots. I'll do what I can to slow him down." And with that grim but heroic declaration, Starscream closed the comm line.

Thirty seconds later, he was shrieking in terror and babbling apologies as he barrel rolled and looped to dodge Trypticon's stasis locking laser optics.

###

Miko and Fowler huddled cheek-to-cheek with Fowler's phone between their ears. They perked up when the phone was answered. Fowler hissed to Miko, "Tell her hi—"

Miko waved him off, and brightly said, "Moshi moshi! Gojo-sensei desu ka? Hai. Mi—"

"Is it her?" Fowler hissed.

Miko hissed back, "Yeah, it's her. Sumimasen. Miko da, hajimemashite. Agent Fowler no yakusha da. Watashi-tachi ga Gojira no—"

"Ask her about the box," Fowler hissed.

"I'm trying!" Miko shoved his shoulder. "Back off, I don't have room to talk."

"I can't hear if I back off."

"I can't believe you don't have speaker phone. Why do you need to hear, you don't speak Japanese. Aa—sumimasen, Gojo-sensei. Gojira no bokkusu—"

"Is that 'box'?"

"Shhh!"

"What's taking so long?" Ratchet asked. "Does she have what you need, or—"

"Damare!" Miko snapped at them, so loud they involuntarily leaned back. Miko took the opportunity to snatch the phone from Fowler and continue her conversation sweetly, "Sumimasen, Fowler-san wa chotto urusai. Gojira no bokkusu wa—"

Fowler sighed, backed off, and crossed his arms.

A couple minutes later, Miko gave him a wink and a thumbs up. Fowler rushed up to her again. "Ask for the coordinates," he hissed. "We can ground bridge it where it's needed in seconds."

"Okay, but when we pick it up, I'm doing the talking," Miko whispered, before returning to her conversation.

Fowler trudged away and groaned. "I hope she's not giving away any classified information."

"She's just given Dr. Gojo a thirty second summary of our entire conflict on Earth," Ratchet said.

"You understood Japanese this whole time?!" Fowler demanded, followed shortly by, "You let her give out a summary?!"

Ratchet shrugged. "I thought she was talking to an ally."

Fowler groaned again.

###

"I think it's headed toward New York," Raf said into Jack's phone, looking at the map on his laptop. "It's slowed down a lot, but that's still where its trajectory is pointing."

Blades, still huddled under his tarp blanket but leaning over Raf's shoulder, said, "Everything always goes for New York."

"Then that's where we'll take the box," Fowler said. They were, at the moment, in Japan, picking up "the box" from Dr. Gojo. In the background, Raf could hear Miko saying, "I can't believe I'm going to get to see Gojira, he hasn't made landfall in, like, forever—"

"What's Gojira?" Raf asked.

Fowler snapped, "Classified! Miko, stop talking about the classified asset."

"Come on! It's not like everyone in New York won't be taking a billion pictures when he gets there—"

"Good point, we might have to arrange a media blackout. Thanks for the info, Raf."

"Hold on," Raf said. "Where is this 'asset' coming from?"

"That's classif—"

"I know but—it's important. I'm worried about whether it will get to New York before Trypticon."

Fowler hesitated. "We don't know where it is right now. But, it lives a few hundred miles south of Japan."

Raf zoomed out his map. "Can it fly?"

"Nnno."

In the back of the call, Miko piped up, "But I hear he can swim super fast!"

Raf looked at the map scale and mentally measured the distance from Japan to New York. "I sure hope so."

###

Miko and Fowler bridged to New York City. The box—a small metal cube with a single button—was turned on; and an undetectable signal began playing.

Undetectable to humans, at least.

Thousands of miles away, the beast it was designed to summon stirred.

###

Night was falling on Panama.

Slowly, from the Pacific Ocean, just south of Panama City, something monstrous rose from the sea. Water ran off of its head around scales the size of cars.

It waded into the entrance of the Panama Canal and narrowly passed beneath the Bridge of Americas, ducking low to avoid hitting the bridge two hundred feet above water.

With little difficulty, it simply stepped over the Miraflores locks, at one time climbing up onto the bank beside the canal to get around a cargo ship. It was heedless of the ever increasing number of helicopters drawn to its location, shining spotlights down on it, as though it were used to drawing the attention of such illuminated gnats and considered them no more important than a human would consider a field full of fireflies.

On it went, navigating the rest of the canal the same way—over more locks, through artificial lakes, under more bridges—with the eyes of Panama trained breathlessly upon it, terrified of what it might decide to do but even more terrified at the thought of aggravating it—until it made it to the Atlantic Ocean.

It sank peacefully beneath the waves, and was gone.

###

"Don't lean so far outside the windows," Fowler said. "Lady Liberty's going to see enough tonight without having to add a kid falling to death from her crown."

"But I don't want to miss a thing!" Miko said, borrowed binoculars trained on the horizon. "This battle is going to be a once-in-a-lifetime show and I am going to see every single detail!"

"A show," Fowler said indignantly. "That thing out there could completely destroy New York City!"

"Which would totally blow," Miko said, "but, if it does happen, I'm not going to not watch it." She leaned a bit further out the window—then started. "Hey! I think I see him on the horizon!"

"Which one?" Fowler leaned out the window next to Miko. "Trypticon or Godzilla?" He pulled the box out of his pocket for the dozenth time, checking again to make sure the button was still glowing.

"Dude. It's pronounced 'Gojira.'"

"It's Godzilla when he's in the Atlantic Ocean. It's like typhoons versus hurricanes."

"Whatever. Anyway, unless Gojira grew a bunch of glowing purple lights since the last time anyone saw him, I'm pretty sure it's Trypticon."

"Let me see." Fowler held out a hand, and Miko passed over the binoculars. He focused them on the shape on the horizon. Every once in a while, beams of light crackled from its eyes like distant lightning. "He's—he's huge."

"Five hundred feet, dude."

"Yeah, but, seeing it... Sweet mother of..."

From the sea in front of Trypticon, a second form rose up, a black silhouette in the bottom half of the binocular's view. Fowler lowered them to watch Godzilla rising from the ocean. Water surged away from him in a wave as he stood. Lights from the city dully illuminated his scales. He reared his head, roared, and turned toward the monster on the horizon.

Trypticon's jaw dropped, and a horrible metal screech answered Godzilla.

Slowly, relentlessly, legs churning the water, Godzilla waded out into New York Bay, charging toward Trypticon. Godzilla's dorsal fins lit up an icy blue, and he blasted a bright, cold light toward Trypticon.

Fowler's jaw dropped. Miko simply whispered, "Whoa."

For a moment, they watched in silence, as the two massive monsters collided.

Finally, Miko said, "Isn't Gojira's breath laser, like, radioactive?"

"Oh, yeah. We're both gonna get cancer."

###

Starscream sighed in relief as Trypticon switched his attention to... whatever in the world this undersized organic Trypticon was.

He had narrowly dodged hundreds of stasis beams from Trypticon's optics. As well as far too many bellowed taunts at him about how he was a pest, a nuisance, unworthy of Unicron's power and thus rejected for his weakness. Which sounded like a whole bunch of nonsense to Starscream (who, it should be noted, had been AWOL during the Decepticons' entire encounter with Unicron and hadn't had an opportunity to catch up on the news while he was on the run). But if Ratchet's report that Trypticon was hopped up on dark energon was anything to go by, the taunts said a lot about why the dark energon crystal hadn't taken in Starscream's spark as it had in Megatron's, and about whether or not "blood of Unicron" was just a fancy metaphorical name for dark energon. Apparently it wasn't as metaphorical as Starscream had assumed. Good thing it hadn't taken, then.

Now. What was he to do while Trypticon was fighting its new target and Starscream no longer had to serve as a distraction?

He circled above a couple of times, watching the battle, deciding what to do; and then dove down to Trypticon's back. He waited until Trypticon was grappling with the new monster and temporarily held in place; and then he transformed, dropped down onto the broken decks sticking out of its back, and slid down and inside.

###

Godzilla was three-fifths Trypticon's height.

That put him at the perfect height to blast his chest with a radioactive breath and dig his claws deep into his gut.

Trypticon slashed at Godzilla's face; his metal claws sank far deeper than any of the creatures Godzilla typically fought could reach. Godzilla seized the arm in his jaws before Trypticon could draw back, and cracked three teeth on the metal. That was fine. Godzilla's teeth would grow back. Based on Godzilla's experience, Trypticon's mangled right arm probably wouldn't.

This was far from the first metal doppelgänger Godzilla had fought. He hadn't lost to the others; he wasn't going to lose to this one, either. And this one had something that the others had lacked: a reactor core heart brimming with energy, much like Godzilla's own.

He planned to consume it or die trying.

###

"It's like a maze in here!" Starscream yelled. He was balanced precariously on one foot in a hallway that had turned into a nearly vertical incline, kicking at a damaged piece of wall. "This is ridiculous! I should have found the bridge ages ago!" Finally, the wall gave way, and Starscream climbed through it into a dark, cramped cavity. Trypticon had remained distracted enough by his new sparring partner that he hadn't reactivated his internal defenses; although Starscream had passed dozens of stasis locked or dead Vehicons, all in crumpled piles where they'd landed when Trypticon had transformed, no stasis beams had yet been aimed in Starscream's direction. All the same, he was glad to be out of a hallway and in the empty space between walls. It was less likely that there would be functional stasis beams in a gap like this. Right?

Eventually—after being unceremoniously slammed into a few hard surfaces as Trypticon rocked back and forth—Starscream managed to locate the bridge. None of the consoles responded to his inputs, curses, or heel kicks. Well, that was just fantastic, wasn't it? Perhaps he could try somewhere else. The engine room, maybe?

As he headed out of the bridge, he noticed Soundwave slumped on the floor, and paused. Hmm. Well, the Autobots were already in debt to Starscream. It wouldn't hurt to pick up a few Decepticon debts too, now would it? Besides, the Decepticons would fall apart within days without Soundwave—and then what army would Starscream have to lead?

He maneuvered one of Soundwave's arms over his shoulder, put his arm around Soundwave's waist, and dragged him out of the bridge toward the nearest escape to open air.

###

Over and over, Trypticon blasted Godzilla with his laser eyes. He didn't seem to notice that Godzilla was simply absorbing the power—like strange lightning, electrifying him. His whole body crackled with electric energy like he'd rarely had a chance to use before. It would be temporary, but it would be a huge advantage for this battle.

Godzilla had torn gashes in Trypticon's side and throat. Inside were little hallways and rooms, with square corners and lighting fixtures, just like the inside of a building. As it so happened, Godzilla was extremely proficient at destroying buildings.

Trypticon seemed to have figured out he was losing. He spun, his stubby tail slamming Godzilla and knocking him over into the water, and turned, trying to escape. Godzilla lurched back to his feet, eyes locked furiously on his prey. Reactor core heart thrumming, pulsing its energy through his blood—Godzilla's electrified body called to the metal in Trypticon. Behind him, ships in New York Harbor groaned and tilted in his direction. Trypticon's feet lost purchase on the bottom of the bay, as he was magnetically pulled backwards, into Godzilla's arms. Godzilla wrapped his arms around Trypticon, digging his claws into the neck and side wounds he'd already left, and released all the electricity his body had been holding as a single charged blast back into Trypticon. Trypticon seized, blue electricity arcing between his joints and across his open wounds, then sagged against Godzilla, stunned.

###

"Look," Fowler yelled down from the Statue of Liberty's crown at Starscream, "I don't care if you've gotta fly all the way to Canada, you are not dropping a shipload of Decepticon soldiers at Lady Liberty's feet!"

"And why not?!"

"This is—this is sovereign American land, not a Decepticon base! In fact, this island is probably the most American land you'll find!"

"Oh, oh is it now! Is it! What's so great about it that I can't drop a few unconscious soldiers here? All I see is a big green statue!"

"That 'big green statue' is Lady Liberty! She's, she's the symbol of everything good about America! You know— 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore'—"

Starscream gestured frantically at Soundwave, Knock Out, and the half dozen Vehicons he'd hauled back so far, and hysterically demanded, "Do we not look like wretched refuse to you?! They're not even conscious!"

Fowler considered that. "... Dang it." He pulled in the window, and shrugged at Miko. "He's right. There's no way I can kick him out."

Miko shook her head.

At the the sound of a thunder crack, Starscream turned toward the battling behemoths, just in time to see the Trypticon thrash with what looked like an electrical overload in the organic beast's arms. At the same time, the stasis locked Decepticons on the ground shuddered, groaned, and went slack. Soundwave sat up first, holding a hand to his head and shaking it.

"It broke the stasis?" Starscream looked between the soldiers, and then back at the monsters. "Trypticon must have been sending out a signal to maintain the stasis... Soundwave! Are you flightworthy?"

Soundwave looked up, a question mark flashing on his visor, and asked in two different voices, "'Starscream'—'what?'"

"Never mind what I'm doing here! Can you fly?" He pointed back toward the battle. "That thing is crushing soldiers with every swipe, and if we still want to have an army in the morning, we've got to evacuate as many as we can!"

Soundwave hesitated, nodded, and transformed.

Starscream transformed as well and turned, hovering. "Knock Out!"

"Whaaahah? What? Who?"

"You're in charge until we get back!"

"Of what?" But Starscream and Soundwave had already taken off, heading back toward Trypticon.

Knock Out stood, sat down, uncertainly stood again in an attempt to look in charge, and finally sat for good. "... What's going on?"

###

Little metal gnats flew around Trypticon, and more began pouring out of his back and wounds, dropping into the water. Godzilla ignored them; they weren't attacking him. In fact, they were using little lasers to punch even more holes in Trypticon's hide, holes that even more purple gnats to poured out of.

Trypticon was weak, tottering on his feet. Godzilla tore into his chest with claws and teeth, ripping through his thickest armor in search of his radioactive heart. Trypticon could only feebly fight back.

At last, with a triumphant roar, Godzilla tore out Trypticon's glowing mechanical heart and began to chew.

###

Several hundred bedraggled Vehicons were packed shoulder-to-shoulder on Liberty Island. More arrived by the minute, swimming and flying, obeying Starscream and Soundwave's commed orders to abandon ship by any means necessary and make way northwest to the small island with the giant green human. Knock Out, despite Fowler's protests, was now sitting on the Statue of Liberty's pedestal at Lady Liberty's feet, to keep himself above the crowd and therefore maintain the illusion that he had any sort of command over the stranded Vehicons.

Starscream and Soundwave landed at the base of the pedestal just in time to see the shorter monster use its teeth to rip Trypticon's power core—complete with a glowing, swirling purple mass that appeared to be an unnaturally resurrected spark—and, after a few seconds of chewing, swallow it near-whole. With another victorious bellow, it spewed a geyser of purple light from its mouth into the night sky.

"Ohhhh daaaang." Miko leaned out her window. "Hey, Doc Knock! Is dark energon radioactive?"

"Uhh, obviously?"

"Wow. No wonder Big G wanted Trypticon's spark so bad."

"What, does it..." Knock Out pointed shakily at the organic monster, "does it eat radioactive things?"

"Uh, obviously?"

Knock Out stared.

"This is so bad," Miko said giddily.

Starscream was pointing at the Vehicons in the crowd one by one, mouth moving as he tried to count them. "This is impos— Everybody, STOP MOVING!" A few Vehicons froze. Most kept fidgeting and jostling, trying to get into positions from which they could more comfortably obey the order. A small cluster knocked themselves over, which started a domino effect. Starscream threw up his hands with a noise of frustration. "Whatever. We'll count you later." He watched in disapproval as a third of the surviving army toppled over in slow motion.

Soundwave tapped Starscream's shoulder. "'Lord Megatron?'"

"I didn't see him," Starscream snapped. At Soundwave's stare, he said defensively, "I didn't! Anyway, if I had, what was I supposed to do? Carry him out myself?"

Soundwave gave Starscream a slow, patronizing nod.

Starscream flung out his spindly arms for Soundwave to observe. "With these?!"

Knock Out cut in, "The last I heard from Megatron, he was heading to the power core to extract the dark energon from the Nemesis."

Starscream said, "You mean the one that beast—"

"Its name is Big G," Knock Out said.

"The one Big G just swallowed?"

"Yeah, that one." Knock Out paused. "Oh."

The three officers looked forlornly at Trypticon, slumping slowly and ignobly into the water. Godzilla, meal finished, was trudging off into the ocean, slowly disappearing into deeper water.

Soundwave began playing "Taps."

"Oh, stuff it," Starscream muttered. Soundwave played "Taps" louder.

Raising his voice, Starscream said, "Of course, this does bring up the question of chain of command. With Megatron gone—and, obviously, with my own triumphant return to the Decepticons..."

"Taps" immediately cut off, and Soundwave played Starscream's voice: "'Decepticons, it is with deep sorrow that I note for the log, Megatron's spark has been extinguished. All. Hail.'—'Soundwave.'"

Starscream had begun smirking, but it immediately twisted into a scowl. "Excuse me?! After I single-handedly saved the army? And personally hauled you from the bowels of Trypticon, you ungrateful—"

Soundwave whipped out his feelers. Starscream skittered several steps back. "We can, of course, discuss chain of command later."

"Technically," Knock Out said, "Dreadwing is still the second in command. Has anyone seen him?"

Starscream and Soundwave looked at each other, and then out at the crowd. Soundwave lifted his feelers to look around like periscopes.

Knock Out shrugged. "Meh. I didn't like him much anyway."

Fowler yelled down, "Maybe you should worry less about who's in charge and more about what you're going to do now. Seeing as you're stranded on an island. Without a ship. And surrounded."

"Surrounded?!" Starscream demanded. "What do you mean, surro—" He looked around, and froze. Helicopters and ships were edging in on the island on three sides, and were quickly closing the gap to the southeast between Liberty Island and Trypticon. The shore of New York City behind them was lined with tanks wherever they fit. Starscream stared. Then looked up at Fowler. "Perhaps it's time to discuss a... meeting of minds with the Autobots, to productively combine our resources."

"Uh-huh," Fowler said, smirking.

Soundwave dropped into a battle stance, feelers reeling back like snakes about to strike Starscream. Starscream skittered farther away again. "Don't do that! I'm not talking about surrender! Just a—a—coming to an agreement! The Autobots owe me a favor for all this, after all!" Tone growing more indignant, he went on, "You owe me a favor, too! You all do! You owe it to me to do what I say! I basically single-handedly saved the Cybertronian population on Earth, so if I think it's time to make overtures of peace the least you can do is hear me out—"

In the distance, Godzilla's dorsal fins disappeared beneath the water. With a mere ripple in the ocean, he was gone.

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