Note: Sorry for the long wait folks. Life threw so many things my way that I just kept putting this off again and again. However, while I do have an end goal in mind for this story, in the time I've taken off, I've come up with some new ideas for what I'd like to do.

So, without further adieu, the continuation...

11:09 AM, PST – Great Basin Desert

Flying high in the sky, just below the clouds, Superman observed and searched for a certain not-so-jolly green giant. Two of them, actually, if what the Autobots had told him was correct, and one was considerably scalier than the other. He'd been floating up there for the last quarter of an hour, and he hadn't seen much of anything yet, although it didn't help that his current task came at a bad time.

Prior to receiving their call, the Man of Steel had been making lunch arrangements with Lois Lane to meet up with her parents later that day. However, the call had interrupted their conversation, much to his and Lois' chagrin. Still, they understood the urgency of the situation, and the lady reporter let her boyfriend go do his job. Just before he left, they made a bet that depended on how fast he could handle the situation; if he could get this situation with the Hulk taken care of before noon, then Lois would pay for lunch and the meet-up could continue as planned, but if not, they'd be meeting up for dinner and he would be paying the bill for everyone.

And now, here he was, searching for a fifteen-foot-tall muscular green man capable of breaking a bus apart with one hand like it was nothing in the middle of the desert. Then, his ears picked up a noise to his left. Turning his head, he used his infrared to see two heat signatures colliding with each other in the distance.

"That must be them," he thought to himself out loud.

He bolted towards their location, which was behind two large boulders and rock formations. Upon moving to where they were in line of vision, he stopped for a moment or two to take in their sight. Just as he had seen before, the Hulk was as he'd been described, while the bigger and considerably scalier lizard man was probably Blonsky. The lower half of Blonsky's legs and feet were more akin to that of theropod dinosaurs like the t-rex and the like, and he even had a long tail of sorts, while the rest of him was still mostly humanoid and had pointed ears.

Both the Hulk and Blonsky were running towards each other and then jumped, getting their fists to collide with one another's face.

"You're dead, Banner!" shouted Blonsky as he reared back for an attack. "You just don't know it!"

"Ugly lizard man talk too much," grumbled the Hulk, running towards his opponent just the latter began a likewise action.

However, just before the two green behemoths could collide with each other, their ears were suddenly hit by the sound of a loud thunderclap and large but brief gust of wind blowing their way. The two stopped a few yards away from one another and turned to see where the noise and wave of air came from. They were surprised to see Superman floating there with his hands against each other before moving them to his sides. He had their attention.

"Now look, while I appreciate you guys fighting away from any cities or populated areas, not always an easy thing, I'll admit, I'm afraid that I can't let the two of you continue what you're doing," stated Superman.

"Bugger off, Boy Scout!" bellowed Blonsky.

"Hulk not want fight with flying man," said the Green Goliath, "but this Hulk's fight!"

"Look, guys, there's really not that much time," Superman tried to explain, "you both need to get out of here right now. There's-"

"The only one that needs to leave is you!" shouted Blonsky, who then grabbed a nearby large piece of rock debris and threw it at the floating Kryptonian...

...Who promptly caught it, held it above his head, and squeezed it until it cracked fell to the ground in smaller pieces. This did little to phase the two emerald behemoths.

"Am I supposed to be impressed?" asked Blonsky with a dry tone.

"What I'm trying to do is warn you both that you've got company coming," Superman finally managed to say.

"Company?" responded the Abomination with a confused expression. Then his face contorted angrily and he said, "You leading someone to get me and Banner?!"

"No, I'm saying that-" but he didn't get to finish, as his senses immediately alerted him to the sound of something behind him.

Turning, the Kryptonian and gamma mutations saw a swirling vortex of green and purple energies appear before them. Then, emerging from the bright orifice, they were then greeted by the sight of five darkly-colored Decepticons. Once the twenty-to-thirty feet tall Cybertronians had come through, the portal vanished behind them.

"Greetings," said the smaller one of the group, approaching the strong man group like a salesman with a pitch, "the name's Swindle. How do you do?"

When nobody said anything, the 'Con continued.

"Right, well, these fine gentle-Cons with me are Onslaught, Blastoff, Vortex and Brawl."

"You're gonna have a brawl if you don't explain what the bloody Hell you're doing here!" interrupted Blonsky with a bellow.

"Well, to make a long story short," started Swindle, "because of your careless destruction of our Energon mine, our boss, Lord Megatron, wanted us to find you on account of the fact that he wants us to kill you all."

"Heh," the Abomination chuckled, "You'll all have to get in line."

"Yeah, we heard about it," said Onslaught, "you two big green bozos got other fleshies trying to kill you left and right. But here's the thing; right now, we don't care about them. All we care about is you lying on the ground, dead!"

"Hulk not scared of stupid metal men!" yelled the green goliath, taking a fighting stance towards the Combaticons.

"Hulk, wait!" called Superman, "You don't know what-ugh…" but ended up sighing because it was too late. The emerald warrior began running towards the group of Decepticons…where Brawl promptly kicked him into the air before swatting him down into the ground near the Abomination.

The impact created a dust cloud about as tall as either of the green warriors. The wind blew in and revealed the Hulk on his back and groaning a little.

"Now who's the stupid one?" asked Brawl with mocking tone.

"Combaticons," called out Onslaught, "squash 'em!"

Blastoff transformed his hands into blasters and opened fire on the three organic strongmen. Superman helped the Hulk get up while the Abomination already started making tracks around the area, Onslaught and Blastoff hot on his trail. Grabbing the green goliath around the wrist, the Kryptonian flew as fast as he could, though Swindle, Vortex and Brawl were chasing after them in vehicle form, though with blasters still shooting at them.

"Come on, big guy," said Superman, "you gotta shake it off!"

As he flew, trying to avoid the blasts of energy being sent their way, the Man of Steel could hear the Hulk groaning and regaining his senses.

"What…why flying man hold Hulk's hand?"

"Helping you to not get squashed, that's why," the Kryptonian responded, "Those are the guys I was trying to warn you about, and if you want to get out of this, we're going to have to work together."

"Why flying man help Hulk?"

"It's what I do, big guy. Now listen up…" he started, explaining his plan as best he could to the Green Goliath.

Meanwhile, the Abomination once again found himself on the run, only this time it was from something different than what he was used to. Normally, he had to deal with the annoyance of soldiers firing a barrage of bullets at him, with none of said bullets managing to penetrate his scaly hide. Now, however, he had to evade an oncoming hail of laser blasts from a couple of giant, alien robots.

Blastoff and Onslaught pursued Blonsky, with the former in the form of a Cybertronian jet and the latter as a Cybertronian tank. Loud bangs of shots fired from the Combaticon leader echoed throughout the area, as did the sounds of tat-tat-tat-tat repeating seemingly endlessly as both commander and subordinate sought out their target's destruction.

"You know, Boss, he's pretty fast for a fleshie," remarked Blastoff over the comm.

"Ugh," groaned Onslaught in annoyance after a missed shot, "That may be, but he's gotta tire out at some point. Just keep at it, Blastoff."

"Copy that," replied the subordinate as he flew over the rocky area, keeping his target in his sights.

Blonsky jumped onto the side of the mountain and made leaps upward. It wasn't long before he made it to the top and made it to the other side. Running down, he quickly glanced around for a possible hiding place or something to fight with. Then his eyes caught something, and he smiled a toothy grin.

Blastoff wasn't far behind, and followed the Abomination over the mountain. However, he was soon met with a flying boulder to the nozzle. The enormous stone shattered against him, but at the same time, it sent him off balance in flight and he was spinning in midair as he hurled toward the base of the mountain.

"I'm hit!" he yelled over the comm, "Boss, I'm hit!"

"Just hold on, Blastoff!" replied Onslaught, "I'm heading your way now!"

He soon heard a yell of pain and loud crashing sound over the comm. The Combaticon commander moved as fast as his tank tread wheels would carry him before reaching the base of the mountain. From there, he transformed into his robot mode and climbed and leaped up the side of the mountain. It took him a little over five minutes to get to the top, and when he did, he was surprised to see Blastoff smoking in a small crater. Looking around, he saw the Abomination running towards his subordinate from several yards away, carrying a large rock that looked as though it was recently broken off of a bigger stone.

"Not so fast!" bellowed Onslaught, who transformed his right hand into a blaster and aimed at Blonsky, firing wildly at him.

The muscular reptilian man ended up dropping his weapon and leapt the other way into the air, making a break for it in an attempt to escape.

Onslaught stopped shooting and reverted his hand back to normal before checking to see if Blastoff was alright.

"Blastoff? Blastoff, are you okay?"

There was a groan from the flyer as he tried to get up.

"Ugh, I...I still function."

"Then on your feet soldier, we've still got a job to do," Onslaught commanded.

"Ngh, sir, yes, sir!" replied Blastoff, finally getting back up and making a salute to his superior officer.

Glancing around, the two saw no sign of Blonsky.

"Where'd he go?!" the flyer asked in bewilderment.

"No idea," answered the Combaticon leader, "Maybe I scared him off."

"Lord Megatron's not gonna be happy if we don't get them all."

"He'll be even less happy if we come back empty-handed. Come on, we'll take our chances with the Kryptonian and the Hulk. Hopefully the others are faring better than we are."

At that moment, Vortex was chasing after Superman while in helicopter mode while Swindle and Brawl were in their ground-based vehicle modes going after the Green Goliath. While their alt. modes didn't look much, the group were surprisingly fast, with the two on the ground gaining on the Hulk, although Vortex had trouble trying to keep up with the Man of Steel.

Superman was keeping his distance due to his previous encounter with the group's combined form and their Dark Energon emanation. Still, the alien helicopter kept at it, shooting rapid fire rounds at his flying opponent.

'I'll give him this much,' thought Superman, 'he's determined. Better find a way to ground him soon, but I can't get too close.'

Hoping for the best, the last son of Krypton turned his body around so that he still flew away from the alien helicopter but faced it at the same time. Breathing in, he then exhaled a huge, freezing blast of wind at the Combaticon, causing ice to form around front, rotor, and blades. Before long, the aforementioned blades began to slow down and Vortex started to make an unwanted descent towards the ground, screaming in a mixture of fear and frustration as he did so. While not exploding, he did make a hard crash, causing him to transform as he found himself sprawled on the desert dirt.

"Well, that's one down," the Man of Steel thought to himself aloud. "Though I better make sure he stays down."

With that, Superman flew down slowly, assessing his fallen opponent as he did so. He dared not get too close, or else the helicopter 'Con might throw something with Dark Energon in it at him. The Man of Steel noticed some damage around the helicopter 'Con's leg and saw a couple of sparks flying here and there. Merely wanting to incapacitate his foe, the last son of Krypton was about to use his heat vision to cause a rock slide on Vortex when his super-hearing caught a sound heading in his direction.

Turning around in the air, he used his zoom vision to see both Blastoff and Onslaught high up the mountain and positioning themselves to take shots at him with their arm blasters. Reasoning that the sound he heard had come from them, the Man of Steel used his heat vision on the rocky wall beside Vortex to make it fall down on the Combaticon, incapacitating him under the rubble. With a swift turnaround, Superman sped off in the air towards the would-be snipers.

While they were initially caught off guard, Blastoff and Onslaught nevertheless took to firing at the Kryptonian, missing every time and doing nothing to slow him down.

"Who the frag is this guy?!" cursed Blastoff. "How can a fleshie do all of that?!"

"Quit asking and keep shooting!" ordered Onslaught, practicing what he preached and kept shooting whenever he got a glimpse of their airborne opponent.

"You know, you guys should probably just quit while you're ahead," said Superman in between zipping from one spot to another.

"Then apparently you've never met Lord Megatron, you flyin' fleshie!" yelled Onslaught.

"Well, maybe not, but I have heard about him," Superman mumbled, firing a quick shot of heat vision at the Combaticon commander's rifle.

"Gahh!" Onslaught shouted, shaking his hands to cool them off.

"I'm telling you, you should just quit right now and leave while you still have a chance," the floating Kryptonian warned again, floating a little closer this time. "It doesn't have to get any worse than it already is."

"Oh, but it does!" yelled Blastoff, and Superman's ear picked up the sound of a button clicking and something being tossed in the air.

Turning around, he saw a cubed device flying towards him. Sighing, the Man of Steel made a quick shot of heat from his eyes and blasted the thing, and while it did explode as he expected, it did something unexpected as well. The explosion unleashed a small dust cloud that glowed green and covered Superman within a moment. Within no time at all, he began to feel the substance weigh him down a little, and he found himself on the ground feeling weak.

"What-?"

"-Just happened?" Onslaught finished for him in a mocking tone. "Nothing much. Just a little thing Doc Knock cooked up for us to help take you down."

"Yeah!" piped in Blastoff, "Don't think that because we're a bit trigger-happy that we don't do our homework! So we know about you, Kryptonian, and your weakness."

"K-K…Kryptonite!" Superman managed to get out, realizing what the substance was.

"Huh, he catches on quick, Boss."

"So he does. Tie him up and carry him, Blastoff. We may not have gotten that other fleshie, but at least we've got this one."

"Sir, yes, sir!" exclaimed the subordinate, pulling out some cable and began to wrap it around the weakened Man of Steel.

"We'd also better check with the others before heading back."

"Roger that."

Back with the other members of the Combaticons, they were actually having more trouble than they initially thought they'd have. To be more specific, despite their size compared to the green organic, he kept knocking both Swindle and Brawl around.

"Ugh!" groaned Brawl as he received an emerald-colored fleshy fist to the side of his faceplate, which sent him sliding back. "Gah! You'll pay for that, fleshie!"

"Metal Man talk too much!" the Hulk shouted. Then he charged again, launching into the air and throwing another fist at Brawl, who caught the fist in midair, and while the Combaticon did still slide, he managed to just barely retain his stance.

"Swindle, what the frag is taking you so long?!" Brawl yelled at his teammate. "I can't hold him back for much longer!"

"You try finding the right tool in a pocket dimension installed in your chassis!"

Indeed, the Decepticon confidence artist did have a hole open in his chest that his hand was searching around in.

"I've packed in so much scrap in there that it's hard to find specific stuff!"

"Well just pick something and use it already!" Brawl snapped back at him.

"Let's see…AH! Got it!" he cried out as he pulled out his desired object - something that appeared to be a gigantic bazooka of sorts. Putting it over his shoulder, Swindle looked through the targeting lense, aimed it at the green organic, and pulled the trigger. From the bazooka launched a metallic net that wrapped itself around the Hulk, immobilizing the green goliath. When his teammate stepped back, Swindle pulled the bazooka down in front of him and said, "Now for the finishing touch," and pressed a button on the weapon.

At once, the net encasing the emerald warrior began letting out an electric current, causing the one enwrapped by the device to shout in pain. With the brute subdued, Brawl could finally take a moment to relax and get his bearings.

"Just…how far did you have that buried in your chassis?" he asked in exasperation.

"Hard to say," Swindle responded with a shrug

"Next time…bring out the big guns…earlier, please?"

"I make no promises," the confidence artist answered with a mischievous wink, causing his teammate to grumble in annoyance.

The Hulk continued to struggle and yell as he wormed around in the electrified net, but it wasn't doing him much good at all.

"What're you two scrap heaps up to now?!" called out a familiar voice. The two turned in the direction of the voice and saw Onslaught and Blastoff walking towards them, with the former holding up a damaged Vortex and the latter carrying a weakened Superman in his hands. "Hmm, I see you got the Hulk subdued."

"Would've had it done sooner if a certain 'Con had had his toys out already," Brawl said with a glare aimed at his teammate.

Swindle ignored him and asked, "I see that you got the Kryptonian, but what happened to that other fleshie?"

"He ran off on us," Blastoff answered. "After that, we decided to help out Vortex with this guy," he explained as he held up the weakened Superman. "Wasn't easy, but we got him."

"Good to know," replied Swindle. "Think we should call it in?"

Accessing his inner comm. system, the team's leader said, "Soundwave, this Onslaught speaking. Bridge us back to base, targets secured."

The Hulk had by that point stopped struggling and seemed to pass out, his electrified bindings cutting off their charge when he stopped moving. Noticing this, Swindle took hold of the still green one while Brawl took over supporting Vortex from Onslaught.

Before anyone could say or do anything further, not one, but two ground bridge portals appeared before them.

"What the frag?" the weakened Vortex asked.

Coming out of one of the bridge portals were a group of Cybertronians that they didn't expect nor want at that particular moment; the Autobots. More specifically, Optimus Prime, Arcee, Bulkhead, Bumblebee, and surprisingly two of their human allies, the one called as Captain America, and another that they didn't quite recognize from what they'd been informed.

"Oh scrap…" muttered Swindle.

"Release them at once!" demanded Prime.

"Blow it out your tailpipe, Prime!" Onslaught snipped. "Combaticons, hurry to the bridge!"

With that, the team of Decepticons made a break for the portal to their flying base, but unfortunately for them, Bulkhead threw a device into the portal. As they got closer to their exit home, the Combaticons were met by a blast that sent them back a little, with the bridge closing not long afterwards.

"You're not going anywhere, 'Cons," came the green Wrecker, who turned his hand into a blaster as he aimed it at the group.

"And we're not leaving here without those two!" Arcee added, aiming her own blaster arm at the group.

The smaller of the humans jumped onto the femme's shoulder and nodded, saying, "Yeah, what she said."

"Then you're all never leaving," Onslaught replied, and then turned to his troops and said, "Combaticons, it's time to bring out the big guy."

"But boss," Blastoff whispered to his commander, "you sure that's a good idea? After what we just went through trying to bring down these two?"

"We don't need to deal with them long, just long enough for Soundwave to get that bridge back up," Onslaught replied.

"If you're sure…"

"I am," then he shouted, "Combaticons, unite!"

A/N: And that's the end of chapter 23. Again, I apologize for waiting so long to produce and upload a new chapter, and I hate using excuses, but the truth is that life got in the way and I ended up putting it off so much. That's not fair for you and I'm sorry about that.

Still, this fic isn't dead, not by a long shot. I've got plenty of ideas and things that I want to do, and if you're patient with me, you'll get to see them come to pass in due time.

As always, let me know what you think in a review, and have a most wonderful day, everybody!