AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry that it's been some time before we uploaded something new. Long story short, basically, I had severe writer's block frequently coming and going, and it all pretty much has to do with the fact that the world's...kinda gone to shit of course. (hope you guys stay safe in these times, BTW) Thankfully though, I finally managed to finish this team-up I've been working on for a while, and it's the official introduction to what will be the newest property we have added to the IV: Glitch Techs.

This is a Nickelodeon series on Netflix that I highly, HIGHLY recommend you check out. Not just because they're in the IV, but it's just damn good. Think if you put Star vs the Forces of Evil and Code Lyoko together with a style similar to Tron and with a dash Ghostbusters and Men In Black. (which will sadly not be in the IV BTW, but I wouldn't give up hope that it's in the multiverse if I were you.)

DISCLAIMER: I own absolutely none of the properties you will see here. All rights go to their respective owners.

Infinity Verse Team-Up

Glitch Techs and the Autobots: High Voltage

At first glance, Bailley appeared to be a fairly mundane town in comparison to the rest of the world. No Kaiju attacks, no supervillains vying for world domination, no mafias or drug cartels seeking control, in fact, crime rates were pretty low when put up against other cities in America like Townsville or New York City. It seemed to be the perfect place to live in if one sought release from the chaos that virtually plagued the rest of the world.

But beneath the cracks lies a devious threat that most of the townspeople were completely oblivious to. A threat that was the answer to a question most wouldn't think to ask.

What really happens when a video game starts to glitch?

The answer: A dangerous, pixelated monstrosity is let loose in the real world and wreaks havoc whilst following its game's coding. This was Bailley's primary threat to its people's safety, often regularly emerging from products designed by the gaming company known as Hinobi Technology. Now, how exactly is the public kept in the dark in regards to these glitches, one might ask?

And the answer to that comes in the form of Hinobi Technology's task force against these glitches, the Glitch Techs. Hinobi employees specially trained with the skills needed to fight, capture, and detain glitches. They've managed to keep the secret of these creatures alive by 'resetting' anyone who bore witness to the devastation they brought, effectively wiping their memories of the events that transpired after the glitch materialized, while also utilizing what appeared chrono-technology to reverse the effects of time in the surrounding area, completely eradicating any evidence the glitch was ever even there.

Even so, it seemed their endeavor was to be an endless one, as Bailley seemed to be a hot-spot for these monsters to come crawling out of the circuitry they were spawned in, such was the case of a particular cabinet inside a local arcade. Said game was an Asteroids clone simply called 'Kremzeek!' A game where one controls a microscopic vessel inside a motherboard shooting down the titular electrical computer viruses that ran amuck throughout the circuits devouring every diode and microchip it laid its eyes on.

A young boy had been at this cabinet for a while now, getting closer and closer to the high score, when, without warning, the screen began to glitch out. The child's excitement turned to confusion, then fright as sparks started to emanate out of the cabinet. He was able to avoid any harm, quickly jumping back when the sparks flew, before one large spark shot out of the screen and towards a nearby circuit breaker, seemingly disappearing once it absorbed itself into one of the sockets.

The petrified boy quickly got up and dashed away from the now fried arcade cabinet, likely in an attempt to find his mother, completely unaware of the creature that was now let loose upon this world.

"A'ight, there you go. One used copy of Fix-It-Felix 2 and one new copy of Sugar Rush. Enjoy."

Once Zahra had downloaded the games her customer purchased into her handheld, said satisfied customer turned to leave, leaving the sardonic Glitch Tech to pull out her phone and await the next patron to enter the store. It'd been a slow day for the mini-mall of which the Hinobi Store she worked at sat upon. Both in terms of business as well as glitches. Unusual, given where she and the others lived and operated at, but not unwelcome.

Then, suddenly, as she continued to wait, Zahra noticed an alarm ringing on her phone. One that's only purpose was to alert the Techs to a new glitch formation. In response, she quickly pulled up the alert, displaying a map of the town and where the glitch had materialized, as well as a bio of what game it came from and what type of glitch it was. However, the map didn't focus on the town of Bailley for long, for it then proceeded to zoom out to display the entire world much to Zahra's bewilderment. It then proceeded to display a path of where the glitch had gone to, showing that it had managed to travel up to a satellite...and then head towards the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

The girl's eyebrow raised at this sight, wondering for a split second if something was wrong with her phone, but the fact that a digital monster hadn't jumped out at her caused her to instantly throw that theory out the window. She proceeded to turn towards Haneesh, who was busy reorganizing the merchandise in the store.

"Hey, Haneesh, come here for a sec," she called out.

Hearing his friend and co-Tech speak to him caused Haneesh to cease his task and walk over to her at the front desk.

"What's up, Zahra?" he asked.

"Check this out," Zahra answered as she showed him her phone. "Picked up a glitch here in the town, but then it somehow managed to arc itself up to a satellite and, for some reason, gun it for the Pacific Ocean."

"...Wh-What?" a confused Haneesh questioned. "Why?"

"Dunno," Zahra answered. "Says here it's sort of a subspecies of possessor glitches that can absorb itself into any form of technology and feed off its energy, but the map says there's no oil refineries of subs nearby, so what could this thing possibly want there?"

Meanwhile, in the earthbound base of the Decepticons, the submerged wreckage of the Nemesis, Soundwave continued to comb through Earth's several satellite transmissions. Day in and day out, the Decepticon Communications Officer scanned through the entire planet via its various orbital transmissions, hoping for some kind of intel that could lead to Megatron's eventual victory over the Autobots. Today, however, said robotic warlord was not with his subordinates in the downed warship. Earlier, the former gladiator of Kaon had departed for an urgent meeting with Cobra Commander in the Terrordrome. Something about negotiating for access to one of their weapons to utilize against G.I. Joe was all he had informed his troops in regards to this meeting.

This lead to an outcome nearly every Decepticon dreaded: In his absence, Starscream was put in charge.

It's no secret amongst most of the other nefarious Cybertronians that said treacherous worm was not well-liked among his peers. His authoritarian complex and ego the size of Trypticon was enough to make them want to dismantle him for spare parts. Soundwave, in particular, could barely stand the leader of the Seekers, given that his loyalty to Megatron was unquestionable, and Starscream's tendency to try and overthrow him caused the spy-master to wonder, more often than not, why he doesn't just gun him down and be done with this endless charade of treachery.

Unfortunately for Soundwave though, he had been so caught up in his task and his thoughts that he had failed to notice a sudden energy signature was heading straight for the Nemesis. More specifically, him. It had managed to phase itself into the Nemesis via its cannons' wirings and travel through the circuitry until it had reached Soundwave, bursting out of the walls before absorbing itself into him via his tape deck mode's tape door. Suddenly, a searing pain coursed through Soundwave's body, forcing him to transform into his robot mode while speaking garbled nonsense and thrashing about.

"SYSTEMS MALFUNCTIONING! SYSTEMS MALFUNCTIONING!" he managed to get out.

The communications officer then started to run towards the door before crashing through it, almost running into Astrotrain and Blitzwing as he did so. Needless to say, both triple-changers were caught off guard by this sudden turn of events.

"What's gotten into that uncharismatic bore?!" Blitzwing questioned as he and Astrotrain backed away from Soundwave, who continued to violently thrash into the hallway's walls.

Suddenly, Soundwave collapsed harshly onto the floor, knocked into stasis, as a yellow spark shot out of his chest and went directly for Blitzwing. The instant the spark phased into him, the triple-changer swung his arms wildly, narrowly missing Astrotrain, before rapidly spinning around and backing into his fellow Decepticon.

"Blitzwing, what are you do-!" Astrotrain attempted to say, only for Blitzwing to knock into him, the spark managing to make its way to him as well.

Meanwhile, amidst the ensuing insanity, Knock Out was busy in the medical wing buffing his paintwork, humming as he did so, when a sudden crashing noise caused him to flinch and drop his waxer in the process.

"What in the-" he said to himself.

Another crashing sound caused him to flinch again. Annoyed by his buffing session being interrupted, he angrily marched up to the doors and opened them.

"How am I suppose to concentr-AHH!" he attempted to say, only to quickly close the doors to avoid Astrotrain's body crashing into him.

The frightened Decepticon medic quickly backed up to a medical slab before something burned through the closed doors. That same yellow spark that possessed the other Decepticons shot into the infirmary and landed on the floor in front of Knock Out. It then started to form into a small, electrical creature with red eyes and a mouth that almost resembled that of a jack-o-lantern, grinning deviously the instant it saw Knock Out.

"Kremzeek!" the creature screeched.

In response, a shaking Knock Out quickly turned his right hand into his buzzsaw weapon.

"Get away from me!" he shouted. "Stay away!"

The Kremzeek ignored his target's pleas however, launching itself towards the Decepticon as it snarled hungrily.

Elsewhere, Shatter continued to walk down the halls of the Nemesis when the sounds of an engine revving coming from behind caught her attention. She quickly turned to see Knock Out, in his sports car mode, barrelling towards her, all while the medic screamed in terror. The shocked female triple-changer quickly stepped out of the way as Knock Out sped past her, transforming into his robot mode as he did so, only to stop midway and turn back into his vehicle mode.

"Knock Out, have you lost your mind?!" Shatter angrily demanded to know.

"It's not me!" Knock Out exclaimed as he continued to transform in and out of both his modes. "It's h-him!"

"Him?!" Shatter repeated. "Him who?!"

Then, without warning, the Kremzeek practically exploded out of Knock Out's chest, causing him to be sent flying into a wall before sliding harshly onto the floor.

"I...just...buffed that..." he weekly stated before falling into stasis.

Back with Shatter, her optics widened at the sight of the Kremzeek landing in front of her but instantly readied her blaster to shoot it once the surprise wore off. The electrical monstrosity grinned as it prepared to lunge towards the hunter when...

"There's the intruder!" Onslaught shouted.

The Kremzeek turned towards the source of the voice to see the Combaticon leader with the rest of his team, Brawl, Swindle, Vortex, and Blast Off, each with their weapons at the ready.

"Combaticons, open fire!" Onslaught commanded.

He and his team proceeded to fire five shots from their weapons at the Kremzeek, each of them making their mark and causing the creature to explode. However, any hopes of victory were quickly dashed when the sparks reformatted into five smaller Kremzeeks that each started to hover upward as they stared at the Combaticons.

"Kremzeek!" the five of them shouted in unison before flying towards their targets.

"Return fire! Return fire!" Onslaught ordered.

His troops did as they were ordered and began to fire their weapons at the now five creatures. Shatter, caught in the middle of this, quickly evaded her allies' offensive before sprinting in the opposite direction, all the while the Kremzeeks absorbed themselves into the five Combaticons. The Decepticon commandos' torsos began to spin wildly as sparks started to fly before Brawl and Blast Off jumped up into the ceiling and Swindle and Vortex were knocked out by Onslaught's fists right before he himself collapsed onto the floor.

While that was going on, Shatter immediately activated her COMM as she continued to run down the halls.

"Thundercracker, Skywarp, get that pompous pile of scrap you call a leader off of Megatron's throne so he can do something about this!" she shouted.

Five minutes later, Shatter, now joined by Starscream, Thundercracker, and Skywarp looked upon the sight of their fellow Decepticons in stasis lock, each no doubt victims of the tiny, electric nuisance as it continued its feeding frenzy across the Nemesis.

"How did this happen?!" Starscream demanded.

"Some unknown type of creature that feeds off of electrical energy must have somehow found its way into our vessel," Shatter answered as she displayed surveillance footage of the Kremzeek's rampage. "It clearly isn't any of the aquatic-based lifeforms that live amongst us here."

"How'd it get past our defenses?" Skywarp questioned.

"Who cares?!" Starscream interrupted before Shatter could answer. "We need to focus on getting that thing as far away from us as possible!"

The Seeker then proceeded to activate his COMM device.

"Starscream to any available Decepticons onboard, assemble at once!" he ordered. "Does anyone read me?"

No response.

"Hello?!" Starscream exclaimed. "Answer me, you worthless clunkers!"

"If you would have allowed me to continue, I might have mentioned that the four of us are the only Decepticon life signs I could detect," Shatter interrupted.

"If that's the case, then how come that little bastard hasn't come after us by now?" Thundercracker asked. "Unless..."

It took him all of a few nanokliks to put two and two together.

"THE SUPERCOMPUTER!" he yelled in horror.

Those two simple words were enough to cause his fellow Decepticons' optics to widen in terror before the four of them made a b-line for the bridge.

The instant the four Decepticons stepped foot in the bridge, their optics were greeted by their main supercomputer displaying a static image of the Kremzeek as sparks shot out of the holes the creature no doubt chewed to make it into the console.

"Oh, Megatron's gonna have our afterburners when he comes back!" a panicking Thundercracker stated, almost as if he was a child that had broken his parents' priceless vase.

Hearing the Seeker's voice prompted the Kremzeek to shoot out of the screen, causing it to shatter as it did so.

"Kremzeek!" it shouted before lunging itself towards Skywarp, who immediately teleported out of its path.

The confused electrical monster then slammed itself against the wall before turning to see the Seeker it had tried to make a meal out of standing next to the broken supercomputer's consoles. It made another attempt at his chassis, only for him to teleport again.

"Kremzeek!" the creature exclaimed in a much more angered tone as it landed on the floor.

"Skywarp, keep it busy while I go find a circuit trap!" Starscream commanded.

"Wait, so I'm the fraggin' bait?!" Skywarp yelled before teleporting away from the Kremzeek yet again.

Upon reappearing in the bridge, the purple-clad Seeker had discovered that Starscream, in his typical cowardly fashion, had already run out of the room. He couldn't help but roll his optics at the sight before noticing the Kremzeek leaping towards him yet again on his left. With a frightened yell, Skywarp managed to disappear right when the monster was just inches away from his chest. He managed to keep this up another four times all while the Kremzeek got more and more irritated.

"Kremzeek! Kremzeek! Kremzeek!" it snarled.

Then, just as he reappeared once again, Skywarp noticed Starscream running back into the bridge, an open circuit trap in his hands.

"Now we just need to figure out how to lure that thing into here," the acting leader stated. "But how-WHAT THE-!"

He was suddenly interrupted by Thundercracker, who proceeded to grab onto Starscream and lift him over his shoulders.

"Put me down you imbecile!" he shouted.

"Hey, you!" Thundercracker called out.

The Kremzeek ceased its next attempt on Skywarp's spark to turn to the one who addressed it.

"One fresh, hot Seeker, on the house!" the blue-clad Seeker continued.

"NO, NO, LET ME GO!" Starscream exclaimed. "I COMMAND YOU!"

Seeing said Seeker being practically offered to it caused the Kremzeek to smile hungrily.

"KREMZEEK!" it yelled before flying towards Starscream.

Acting quickly, the second-in-command of the Decepticons proceeded to point the open circuit trap towards the sparking monstrosity, causing it to smash its face onto the bottom of the box. Starscream then instantly closed the trap before pressing a button, all while Thundercracker finally set him down. The box started to rumble for a bit as the Kremzeek desperately tried in vain to escape, but it was all for not as, after a few seconds, the struggles ceased.

"Finally, I didn't think that annoying little electro-scraplet would ever shut u-" Thundercracker attempted to say, only for Starscream's fist slamming against his face to interrupt him.

"IDIOT!" he shouted as his subordinate stumbled backward. "That thing could've killed me if I hadn't have trapped it!"

"Yeah, well now you know what it's like to be bait, you-!" Skywarp angrily retaliated as he stomped towards his superior, only for Shatter to get in between them and stop a fistfight from erupting.

"Stop it!" she yelled. "What matters is that we've captured this creature. Now we need to figure out what to do with it."

"DO NOT tell me what to do, Shatter," Starscream angrily retorted. "I am your leader!"

"TEMPORARY leader...fortunately," Shatter sternly reminded.

All Starscream could do was sneer in contempt before turning his attention back to his captured prize.

"As annoying as this thing is, it does intrigue me," he stated. "I say we let it out at the closest oil refinery to America's shores and follow it from a safe distance."

"Why?" a confused Thundercracker asked. "I say we just leave it at the Autobots' doorstep. Let it be their problem."

"I'll keep that as an option, but first I want to find out where this creature came from," Starscream answered. "Maybe there's something far more to it than meets the eye."

He then turned his attention back to his fellow Decepticons.

"Go and get Soundwave and Knock Out to the infirmary. Let the repair drones do their work to bring them back online. Afterward, we depart."

Thundercracker, Skywarp, and Shatter each nodded once before turning to leave the bridge, all while Starscream looked back down at the circuit trap with a look of sinister interest on his face.

"FIREBALL!"

The second Rumble McSkirmish's projectile made its mark on Dr. Karate's chest, the evildoer was instantly sent flying towards an abandoned warehouse, smashing through the wall and into the building. Amidst the rubble, the one-eyed man angrily shot back up before flying towards his enemy, who in turn started charging towards him. Then, right before their fight could continue, a laser blast shot the ground between the two of them, causing them to stop dead in their tracks.

"What's this?!" Rumble exclaimed.

He and Dr. Karate turned to an alleyway to see a woman approaching them with short blonde hair, wearing a black and red suit of futuristic armor and carrying a laser rifle that had smoke coming out of the barrel, confirming that she was the one who fired the shot. Behind her was a yellow-skinned man that had a brown buzzcut and a pair of boxing gloves on as well as a one-eyed being wearing a cloak and a wide-brimmed hat and carrying a sword.

"Mind if we join?" the woman asked before readying the pump on her rifle.

As High Five continued to watch the trailer play out on his phone, the logo 'Fight Fighters V' suddenly appeared on the screen before cutting to the words 'Pre-order now to play as Sergeant Calhoun, Grave Puncher, and Vampire Piggy Hunter' at the bottom.

"Oh...my God!" an ecstatic Five commented. "Miko, we've gotta pre-order this game!"

Strangely though, while Five was overly hyped, Miko, who was normally the more energetic of the duo, seemed a bit more apprehensive, much to Hector's confusion.

"Yeah, I, uh, I dunno, Five," she stated. "I-"

"Miko, the woman from Hero's Duty, the Grave Puncher, and the Vampire Pig Slayer are gonna be guest characters in Fight Fight Fighters V and you're not stoked?!" Hector interrupted.

"Five, Calhoun's going to be a fighting game character with a gun," Miko explained.

"Yeah, and?" a perplexed Five questioned. "That's kinda her schtick."

"Dude, when devs code a fighting game character with a long-ranged weapon, things could go one of two ways," Miko answered. "Either it's really fun, well balanced, and a cool change of pace, or...well..."

Then, the blue-haired Glitch Tech pulled out a flashlight from her and Hector's van's glove compartment and shined it from bellow her chin, almost as if she was about to tell a ghost story.

"Did you ever hear the tragedies of those unfortunate enough to encounter...Deathstroke the Spammer?" she asked, putting on her best 'Emperor' voice as she did so.

"...Uh...no?" a visibly confused Five answered.

"I thought not...They likely aren't stories Ed Boon would like to remember," Miko replied. "When the first Injustice came out, it came packaged with a character with a specific move set so unbalanced, so unbelievably CHE-"

With those last few words, Miko broke out of her impersonation and went back to her, now clearly enraged, voice, clutching the flashlight tightly as she did so, before breathing deeply to try and calm herself down.

"Ahem, it didn't take long for a bunch of trolls to figure out a specific combination of attacks with this character that would allow them to attack the other player from a distance and time it SO PERFECTLY that said other player could do nothing but get hit and fall over, and over, and over again the INSTANT their block faltered."

She then shut off her flashlight and turned to her partner.

"I'd know Five. I was one of them...I WAS ONE OF THEM!"

"WHAT?! No, NO, NO! STOP! AAAHH! C'mon, Harley! Get up, get up, get up! NO!"

"DEATHSTROKE WINS."

"UGH! Who the heck even finds this fun?! You're just 'Oh, look at me, I'm a noob! I'm gonna hide in the corner and JUST KEEP SHOOTING AT THE OTHER GUY CAUSE I SUCK!'"

"Alright, gonna-WHA-WHAT WAS THAT?! How is this even working anyway?! I'm Superman now! THESE STUPID BULLETS SHOULDN'T EVEN WORK! Stop!...STOP! GIMME A CHA-!"

"DEATHSTROKE WINS."

"RRRRRRRRR!"

Suddenly, a snapping sound broke Miko out of her fury. She looked down to see that she had broken her controller in two.

"There goes another one," she said with a sigh before throwing the two pieces at an alarmingly large pile of broken controllers.

"I swear, if you, NO! None of that! HA! Almost there, almost the-CRAP! I DIDN'T BLOCK! No, no, NO, NO, NO! QUIT IT! Don't you dare! DON'T! YOU! DARE!"

"DEATHSTROKE WINS."

"GAAAAAAAAH!"

In a fit of rage, Miko blindly threw her controller to her right...only for a shattering sound to immediately cause her to regret that decision and place her hands on her mouth as she let out a frightful gasp, her skin practically turned white.

"...Did you...did you throw your controller out the window?!" the player on the other side asked as he desperately tried not to burst out laughing.

"Ohhhhhh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, nooooooo, Mom's gonna kill me, Mom's gonna kill me," a panicking Miko said as she started circling her room.

"Many controllers and a windowpane were broken in those years," Miko continued as she clenched her arms around her knees, a distraught look in her eyes. "I couldn't even go near anyone in the servers who was Deadshot for weeks when the sequel came out. I couldn't go back, Five. I COULDN'T GO BACK!"

"C'mon, Miko, relax," Hector reassured his friend. "If that debacle was as infamous as you say it was, I'm sure the devs will fix her coding to make sure something like that'll never happen again."

"Like how EA promised they'd fix Battlefront II?" Miko pointed out.

"...Point taken," Five replied.

Before the two of them could continue with their conversation, however, a beeping sound interrupted them. They looked down to their van's GPS to see a small, red dot flashing on a location nearby.

"GLITCH DETECTED," their A.I. stated.

"Alright!" a now enthusiastic Miko cheered. "You ready for this, partner?"

"Oh, you know I am!" her friend answered whilst high-fiving her.

With that, their van proceeded to drive off towards its destination, the duo ready to combat this new glitch...unaware that they were being watched the whole time.

"They're pursuing the creature," Shatter, in her muscle car mode, reported through her COMM.

"Can you trace them?" Thundercracker asked from the other side.

The female triple-changer gave off a devious chuckle before replying.

"Already am," she answered before driving off in pursuit of the Glitch Techs.

Pandemonium ran rampant through the streets of Bailley. Cars were on fire, traffic lights flickered rapidly, and sparks continued to fly out of virtually everything that had any form of wires or circuitry built into them. The people caught in the middle could only run away from the scene, almost as though a Kaiju had stepped foot into their town, while the Kremzeek continued to bounce across several electrical devices, feeding off their power and leaving only a broken-down mess in its wake.

"KREMZEEK!" the creature shouted as it practically exploded out of a used electronics store.

The electrical creature's destructive rampage then came to a halt as it practically sniffing the air, almost as though it could smell the nearby circuits for him to chew on. With a hunger-filled grin, it turned itself around to see both Miko and Hector stepping out of their van, their gear forming around them, looking up at the floating glitch that had wreaked so much havoc.

"Okay, a sparky gremlin," Miko surmised before turning to her partner. "Well, he sure doesn't seem to mind the sun, but let's not get him wet or feed him after midnight just to be safe."

The young Glitch Tech proceeded to point her gauntlet towards the Kremzeek, much to Five's horror.

"No, Miko, wait!" he tried to say.

Her friend's efforts were in vain, however, as Miko then shot out an energy blast from her gauntlet, which flew towards her target and made its mark on the sparky monster's body. The energetic girl was about to let out a cheer, only for her victorious expression to transition of one of confusion. For when the smoke and dust finally settled, five Kremzeeks were revealed before her eyes.

"...You saw that I didn't shoot him with water, right?" she asked Five, not believing her eyes.

Before Hector could answer her though, the Kremzeeks lunged towards Miko, prompting her to yelp out in surprise before they made it to her gauntlet. Sparks began to shoot out of it as Miko desperately tried to shake the mischievous creatures out. After a few seconds, the five Kremzeeks shot out of the gauntlet and immediately flew towards their next meal: A street light.

"Okay, I thought you were kinda cute at first, but this means war!" Miko angrily yelled.

She then pointed her gauntlet towards the lamp post, only for her to notice the cracked, blank screen, burn marks, and hanging wires of her now-useless weapon.

"Aw, nerds, not again!" she groaned.

"Miko, that thing was a Kremzeek," Five explained. "It's a virus that feeds off of electricity from anything that's even remotely technological and makes them completely malfunction in the process."

"So I've seen," Miko dryly remarked. "But how the heck did it just multiply like that?!"

"The game it came from is an Asteroids clone," Hector answered. "Shoot it and it breaks off into multiple fragments."

"Well, then how do we beat it?" Miko questioned as she noticed the light bulb in the street lamp exploding and the Kremzeeks flying off in search of their next snack.

"There's a power-up in the game that can disperse the energy those things are made of," her friend answered as he pulled up a power-up menu on his gauntlet. "It's the only thing that can get rid of them, but I'm gonna need them off my back long enough to power up my gauntlet."

"Oh, I can do just that," Miko stated with a confident smirk on her face.

"How-" Hector attempted to question, only to see that Miko had already run back into the van. A few seconds later, a bright light emerged from the cracks of its back door before the talon of Miko's digital pet bird, Ally, kicked it open, Miko riding on top of her, clearly having summoned her using the van since her gauntlet was damaged.

"Hi-yo, Ally! Away!"

With that battle call uttered, Ally let out a sqwack before whilst her master deployed her jet pack from her gauntlet, flying towards the still-famished Kremzeeks.

Meanwhile, said glitches were currently feasting upon a motorcycle, ripping it apart from the inside, when the sound of someone whistling caught their attention. The five of them turned towards the source of the sound just in time to see Miko and Ally swoop past them from above, the wind knocking them onto their backs. The now irritated creatures then got back on their feet and looked up to see the digital bird floating above them, Miko still on her back.

"Catch me if you can!" Miko taunted.

The Kremzeeks responded by lunging towards the young Glitch Tech, only for Ally to teleport away the second before they could reach her. This caused their red eyes to widen in bewilderment before smashing against the wall of a nearby building, merging back into one Kremzeek in the process. The now one Kremzeek heard that same whistling from Miko again and angrily turned to see Miko, on Ally's back, waving to it.

"Hey, what are you doing over there?! We're over here!" she called out.

"KREMZEEK!" the Kremzeek growled before flying towards its target once more, Ally quickly flying away from it before it could reach her or her master.

With the glitch now occupied with other matters, Five immediately started to scroll down a list of various power-ups.

"Okay, let's see, fire flower, wumpa fruit, butterfly, porkchop, aha! Energy-magnet!"

Once he had found what he was looking for, and with the press of a button, his gauntlet's energy blaster started to glow a vibrant shade of orange, indicating that the power-up had been a success.

"All set, Miko!" he called out to his friend.

"Good, cause this Pikachu reject's on me tight!" Miko responded as the Kremzeek got closer and closer to Ally.

The glitch got closer and closer to his target as it dived down towards the ground, grinning wider and wider as it did so when the digital bird suddenly swooped upward the instant before the Kremzeek could grab her. Its red eyes widened in surprise before noticing that it was barreling towards Hector, who pointed his gauntlet towards it.

"Open wide and say 'Aaah!'" he quipped before firing a bright orange blast from his weapon.

The Kremzeek shrieked in terror as it tried to slow down but to no avail. For the energy blast hit it right on its chest, causing sparks to practically explode from the creature as it started to frizzle in and out of existence.

"K-K-KRE-E-E-EMZ-Z-Z-ZEEEEEK!" it was able to let out before exploding in a wave of electrical energies.

Miko and Ally then landed right beside Hector, the two humans shielding their eyes from the explosion before the dust settled to reveal a bouncing streak of digital energy attempting to arc its way towards a nearby car.

"Oh, no you don't!" Five declared.

The teen Glitch Tech proceeded to point his open palm towards the streak, a device in his gauntlet beginning to suck it towards him as it attempted to flee. After a struggle that lasted a few seconds, though, Hector's efforts pulled through and the glitch was pulled into a trap built into his gauntlet.

"GLITCH CONTAINED," the A.I. built into his weapon stated before letting out a distinctive chime.

Victorious, the two Techs then proceeded to fist bump each other.

"Pound it," they said in unison, obviously in reference to a certain duo of Parisian superheroes.

However, as they celebrated, neither of them were aware that someone had watched everything transpire, completely hidden in plain sight.

"Starscream, did you get any of that?" Shatter questioned.

High above Bailley in the skies above, an intrigued Starscream continued to circle around the city in his jet mode, Thundercracker and Skywarp flying beside him.

"That I did, Shatter," the Seeker answered before audio of one of the Glitch Techs began playing through his COMM-device.

"Well, better get started resetting everyone, then head back to the store and get this gauntlet fixed...again," Miko stated before breathing a sigh of relief. "Man, I'm SO lucky Phil can get these fixed so easily. Half my paycheck might've gone towards getting duct tape at S-Mart every Tuesday otherwise."

"It sounds like they're about to head back to their base of operations," Shatter reported.

"Follow them from a distance," Starscream ordered. "These humans obviously possess something of interest. Maybe even something of great power. They may very well have just what we need to defeat the Autobots."

'And usurp Megatron, while I'm at it,' he added in his thoughts.

"Report once you have discovered their base," he continued. "We will plan our attack then."

"At once," the female triple-changer replied.

Then, as her COMM channel closed, another opened. This one coming all the way from the wreckage of the Nemesis.

"STARSCREAM, REACTIVATION PROCESS OF KNOCK OUT AND MYSELF HAS BEEN COMPLETED," Soundwave reported.

'Oh, joy,' the Seeker couldn't help but sarcastically remark in his thoughts.

"Soundwave, it is good to hear of your speedy recovery," he just barely managed to say, lying per usual. "We have just made a rather...interesting discovery that I am certain you would like to hear."

Once the trio of Seekers made it back to their base, Starscream explained to both Soundwave and Knock Out what had happened in the past couple of hours. From the intruding glitch to these perplexing humans wielding some kind of power designed to deal with those such as the creature they had encountered. Yet, during all this, one unyielding course of action was all that was in Soundwave's cortex.

"MEGATRON MUST BE INFORMED OF THESE DEVELOPMENTS," he stated.

Hearing those words prompted Starscream to use every ounce of willpower he had to not widen his optics in terror. He knew from experience that if his superior was to return to see the Nemesis and his troops in such a state of disarray in his leadership, the consequences would be quite severe.

"But-but we can't!" he countered. "We shouldn't disturb our leader from his meeting with that infernal commander! Besides, I am more than capable of leading us through this mission."

"Ha!" Thundercracker chided. "Now that's a good one, Screamer."

"Silence!" an enraged Starscream shouted.

"So, 'fearless leader,' what's the plan then?" Knock Out questioned. "If we mount an attack on those humans' base, the Autobots will probably be on our bumpers in a spark-beat."

"Then we'll have to figure out a means to keep them occupied for the meantime," Starscream replied, all while placing a hand on his chin in deep concentration, trying to figure out just what he could use against his enemies.

Suddenly, his thoughts were interrupted when Shatter opened a communications channel to him.

"Starscream, I believe I may have located the humans' base," she informed. "It appears to be under the guise of what they call a 'gaming store.' The humans I bore witness to are taking the device they subdued the creature with inside."

As he heard this report, a smirk slowly started to form on Starscream's face.

"Perfect," he said. "It seems as though your suggestion may actually come to pass, Thundercracker."

"Uh, what?" the blue-clad Seeker questioned, having forgotten just what he suggested.

"'Leave the creature at the Autobots' doorstep,' I believe you said," his superior answered.

"Yeah, little late for that, don't you think, gasket breath?" Skywarp insultingly brought up. "How are we suppose to get it without blowing the whole slaggin' building up and alerting the Autobots?"

"We'll just have to persuade one of these humans to release it," Starscream answered before turning back to his COMM. "Shatter, have the humans you observed entered the facility?"

"They have," Shatter answered. "Ah, but it seems another has just come out."

"Description?" the second-in-command of the Decepticons requested.

"Dark skin tone, white hair that looks like it has about two bottles of the humans' 'hair gel' in it, striding like he's trying to give Tracks a run for his money," Shatter answered. "Shall I commence our intimidation tactic?"

"No, I'll do the honors," Starscream answered with a devious grin on his face. "Relay the base's coordinates to myself and keep an eye on this human from afar. Thundercracker, Skywarp, Soundwave, you're all with me."

"Wait, what am I suppose to do?" Knock Out questioned.

An annoyed Starscream let out a growl before turning to him.

"You're a medic. There are dozens of Decepticons still offline. FIGURE IT OUT!"

Before a bewildered Knock Out could respond, Starscream, Thundercracker, and Skywarp immediately ran out of the bridge of the Nemesis, all while the Decepticon medic's expression of shock turned to one of anger.

"Rrrr, make me the fraggin' maid, huh?" he snarled as he stomped out of the bridge. "Don't expect your next check-up to go so smoothly, rust-coated, tin-plated-"

As he continued to mutter some...less than kind words about Starscream, Soundwave continued to stand in the ship's bridge, the crest in his forehead glowing once he was finally alone.

"MEGATRON MUST BE INFORMED."

"Welcome to Mama Miyamoto's Sp'gettiinabucket, where we put spaghetti in a buck-"

"Yeah, yeah, get me the usual, two mega buckets and two apple pies, kinda in a hurry here."

"That'll be $9.75."

Mitch was just about to pull his usual maneuver on the cashier, resetting her mind with his gauntlet to avoid paying for his lunch, only to stop halfway once he realized what he was doing. Not out of the 'kindness' in his heart, mind you, but instead remembering what would happen if he got caught. Thanks to two new recruits in the Glitch Techs, his questionable use of their tech nearly got him kicked to the curb by Phil, who just barely allowed him to keep his job due to his expertise in containing glitches, though not without installing a few patches to the Techs' gauntlets that would log any and all usage of them.

So, not wanting to risk getting fired, the egotistical gamer begrudgingly handed the cashier his money, only letting out an irritated grunt in response, and collected his food before driving off without so much as saying 'thank you.'

"Lousy, good for nothing, rotten, noobs," he muttered under his breath, referring to the two recruits that were inadvertently responsible for this new rule.

It wasn't unknown that Mitch held little respect for Hector and Miko. Often times showboating about the stronger glitches he had managed to catch, belittling them for their slow leveling progress, or occasionally catching a digital monster himself after allowing the two new recruits to do the hard work for him. Ever since he wiped Hector's memory in poor sportsmanship after losing to him and Miko in a gaming tournament held in this very city, as well as get completely humiliated when he was forced to rely on the two of them to save his skin from the Chomp Kitty glitch, he's always had a bone to pick with the two of them, and it seemed as though it'd last so long as the three of them were each others' co-workers, all thanks to his unmatched ego.

However, said ego would not be unmatched for much longer.

As he continued to drive through the streets with that same annoyed look on his face, the sounds of an incoming jet engine could be heard from outside, though, in his current state, Mitch paid absolutely no mind to it. Then, loud 'thump' sound was heard, startling the Glitch Tech right before the van he was driving suddenly shot up towards the skies above. He let out a high-pitched shriek of terror as the van went higher and higher before readying his gauntlet for combat.

"I don't know what kinda glitch you think you are, but you have til the count of three before I start frying your pixels, you half-bit blueberry!" he angrily shouted.

"Oh, well since you asked so nicely..." a voice replied.

Without warning, whatever was holding onto the van released its grip, allowing the vehicle to begin plummeting down towards the city below. Yet again, Mitch let out a horrified scream as the ground got closer and closer, all while he frantically tried to activate his van's portal gun, less he wishes to be a splattered junk pile and halfway under the street. Then, right before he could utilize his portal gun, something caught the van in mid-air, causing the Tech's seat belt to snap and for him to fall harshly onto the windshield. He groaned in pain before opening his eyes and seeing something that made his blood run cold: Starscream glaring right at him from outside.

"I'd choose your next words a little bit more carefully if I were you, you repugnant pile of protoplasm," the Decepticon warned.

Usually, Mitch would retort against such an insult driven towards him to bolster his arrogance, but he was unable to due to him currently being preoccupied with hyperventilating in sheer horror at the sight of the Decepticons' air commander right in his face. His hometown may have never had an encounter with an evil the likes of the sinister race of Cybertronians, but the infamy of Megatron and his warriors was practically legendary at this rate, so the Glitch Tech, for once, didn't dare make any attempt to upstage or intimidate the Seeker.

"Wha-Wha-What do you want with me?!" he just barely managed to say.

"I'll cut right to the chase, human," Starscream answered. "If you wish to live to see another day of your sad, miserable existence, you will return to your base and set free the creature your colleagues captured earlier today."

Hearing the Seeker's demands caused Mitch's eyebrow to raise in an offended manner.

"Okay, first of all, those stupid griefers are NOT my colleagues," he corrected. "Second, do you seriously expect me to just waltz in there and release a pixelated nightmare back into the wild?!"

"Oh, I certainly do," Starscream answered. "Or..."

The Seeker proceeded to balance the van with his left hand while positioning his right arm to where the Null Ray mounted on top was pointing right at the driver's side door. To further emphasize his point, Starscream began charging up his weapon right beside a now petrified Mitch, whose skin nearly turned white at this sudden turn of events.

"Fortunately, I'm feeling generous today, so I'll give you til the count of FIVE," the air commander continued.

"O-Okay, okay, okay, please don't kill me!" Mitch pleaded. "I'll do it!"

Hearing this human's submission caused Starscream's mouth to curve into a devious smirk.

"As I anticipated," he said.

Then, a compartment in his arm opened, revealing a small, spider-like drone the Decepticons called 'Scalpel' that quickly crawled into the van and latched itself onto the left arm of a now very confused Mitch. He tried to shake it off, but it was no use, as Scalpel had instantly transformed itself into a watch that seemed as though it was made in the 80's. Needless to say, seeing this outdated piece of technology on his arm caused the egotistical Glitch Tech to grimace at the sight.

"What the hell is this?" he asked in an irritable tone, pointing to the disguised drone as he did so.

"A means to keep an eye on you," Starscream answered. "That drone will not only set the creature free once it detects its energy signal, but it's also a tracking device that doubles as a remote activated bomb. If at any point you do something foolish, I can have it detonate at a moment's notice. Try to remove it, boom. Try to run, boom. Try to warn your superiors, boom! Understand?"

"...Uh-huh..." Mitch meekly answered.

"Good," Starscream responded...right before releasing his grip on Mitch's van.

The Decepticon looked down as the vehicle continued its descent, hearing a yelp of fright from the human before a portal opened bellow it, allowing it to safely land on the ground before driving off. Once the portal vanished, Starscream couldn't help but sigh in relief.

"Finally," he said to himself. "That fleshbag's whining was starting to get on my nerves."

"Pot, kettle," Shatter suddenly said via her COMM-device on the other side.

"SHUT UP!" Starscream shouted, hearing Thundercracker and Skywarp burst into a fit of laughter as he did so.

Soon afterward, inside the Glitch Techs' HQ hidden within the Hinobi Store, Miko and Hector had just deposited the Kremzeek and other glitches they had captured into the central hub and observed the leaderboard from above, watching as their XP total got higher and higher. Upon seeing her current status, a beaming smile formed on Miko's face.

"Yes!" she cheered as she high fived her friend. "Just a few more points and that BFG's as good as mine, baby!"

Before Five could say anything in response, however, he noticed something, or rather, someone, entering the HQ.

"Uh-oh, Miko, look who it is," he said.

The young Glitch Tech proceeded to turn to the direction Hector was looking at and, sure enough, saw Mitch seemingly approaching them.

"Oh, shmup," she sighed. "Wonder what he's gonna say to try and lowball this one."

To her shock, though, their rival/co-worker simply sped walk past the two of them, not uttering a single word as he did so, all the while with what appeared to be a panicked expression on his face. To say this baffled both her and Five would be an understatement, as it was usually a daily routine for Mitch to try and belittle their efforts as much as he could.

"...Miko, I don't know why, but I've got a bad feeling about that," Five admitted.

"C'mon, Five, we finally get a break from that dork and that's wha-" Miko attempted to reassure.

However, she immediately stopped when she saw what appeared to be an old, 1980's watch on Mitch's wrist.

"...Oooookay, never mind, this does NOT bode well."

Several minutes afterward, the still visibly petrified Glitch Tech continued to carefully sneak his way through the hallways, hopeful that no one would see him and that he wouldn't seem to veer even slightly off course in the optics of his aggressor. Cold sweat poured profusely on his face as he quickly hid into a nearby corner while Zahra and Haneesh walked down the hallway. Thankfully, at least to Mitch, they failed to notice him and he quickly continued down the halls until he reached the doors to the simulation room.

"Alright, you might be able to get the glitch out through here," he whispered to the drone on his arm. "Now I just nee-"

He was rudely interrupted, however, when Scalpel jumped off of Mitch's arm, much to his surprise, and transformed before latching himself onto the center of the door. The spider-like drone then drilled one of its legs into it, a small, blue beam of energy shooting out, causing the doors to open and for Scalpel to fall to the floor, the former rather loudly, much to the egotistical Glitch Tech's horror and anger.

"No, no, you microchipped moron! Somebody's sure to-"

"Zahra, did you hear that?!"

"It sounds like it came from the training room!"

With a panicked yelp, Mitch immediately sprinted down the hallways, praying no one saw him, all while Scalpel entered the room with the doors closing behind him.

Once inside, the drone immediately climbed onto one of the room's many consoles and inserted his drill into a nearby USB slot, using his cortex to scan through the base's computer systems.

"Must find ze creature!" Scalpel proclaimed in an oddly cartoonish, german-like accent. "Release ze creature!"

Without warning, a series of alarms began to blare inside the simulation room, prompting the tiny Decepticon to jump slightly.

"Quickly, quickly!" he said, knowing now that time was short and that these humans would likely attempt to input their systems' security measures any minute. "Almost there!"

Then, the mere second before the screens went black, a series of sparks shot out of the consoles before the Kremzeek shot out of them, free to terrorize the public once more.

"Kremzeek!" it snarled before setting its eyes on Scalpel.

"Skyvarp, now!" Scalpel shouted.

The glitch was ready to lunge towards the small Decepticon, only to stop right before it could, sniffing upwards at a new, electrical scent it had sensed.

"Kremzeek?" it said before arcing itself up to the ceiling, much to Scalpel's relief.

"Mission complete," he said. "Must retreat immedia-"

His words, and his life, however, were cut short when an energy blast from behind hit him in the head, causing it to burst into pieces and for the drone's lifeless body to slump back down to the floor. Behind it was Haneesh and Zahra, smoke emanating from the latter's gauntlet and both with a look of shock in their eyes as the pieces of the drone's head scattered across the floor.

"Glitches aren't supposed to do that!" Haneesh pointed out.

Upon that realization, Zahra carefully stepped towards the small body of the drone, bending down to try and get a better look at it before noticing something that caused her eyes to widen even more than they already were.

"Haneesh, I don't think that was a glitch," she said.

To emphasize her point, she picked up a piece of Scalpel's chest and showed it to her friend, one detail immediately catching his eye: the dreaded insignia of the Decepticons.

While that was going on, Skywarp continued to hover high above the building, carrying the circuit trap he and his fellow Decepticons had used to trap the Kremzeek with a dejected look in his optics.

"Oh, sure, let's just make Skywarp the damn bait again!" he complained, his voice laced with sarcasm before thinking to himself 'I swear to Primus, I hope Megatron rearranges Starscream's circuitry when he gets back.'

As he continued to think about how his leader would punish his deceptive second-in-command for this mess, however, a familiar shriek caused him to snap out of his thoughts.

"KREMZEEK!"

Sure enough, the black and purple-clad Seeker looked down to see the glitch that had started this entire debacle flying towards him.

"Not this time, you little..." he muttered before thrusting the open circuit trap forward.

Seeing its former prison caused the electrical monstrosity's eyes to widen in terror as it attempted to cease its flight.

"Kremzeek!" it cried out before smashing into the circuit trap.

Wasting no time, Skywarp quickly closed the trap and activated it, imprisoning the glitch once more, before activating his COMM device.

"Starscream, the package is ready for delivery," he reported.

"Excellent!" Starscream responded from the other side. "Ensure that the Autobots get their package in a 'timely manner.'"

Nodding once, Skywarp proceeded to transform into his jet mode and fly off towards his destination.

"Ohhhh, that is not good," Phil stated.

When the director of Bailley's task force had been informed of something transpiring in the simulation room, he had assumed something fairly par for the course had happened. Say, a systems malfunction, a trainee or two sneaking in (wouldn't be the first time), or maybe even a glitch had managed to find its way out of its imprisonment.

What he did NOT expect was for Zahra to place the dead body of a Decepticon drone onto his desk, resulting in an emergency meeting with her, Haneesh, High Five, Miko, and Mitch.

"It all makes sense now," Zahra stated as she placed a hand on her chin. "That glitch I picked up earlier today that Five and Miko caught, there WAS something in the middle of the Pacific Ocean it could go to. It must've ended up finding its way into the Decepticons' base."

"Well, then that must mean they let that thing loose back here to-" Hector summarized, only for him to stop and for his eyes to widen in a slight panic. "Oh, nerds, they have to know about us by now!"

"What I want to know is how this thing even managed to get in here!" Phil interjected, pointing to Scalpel's body as he did so. "It couldn't have just walked in here, so either our security systems are in need of another upgrade or someone just let it in here!"

Suddenly, the Techs' manager noticed sweat practically pouring down a tense Mitch's face, something that his co-workers noticed as well.

"Uh, c-could've been anyone," he shrugged, trying and failing to get attention off of him.

"Mitch..." Phil sneered.

Suddenly, the egotistical Glitch Tech tried to bolt it for the door, only for Miko to immediately dash towards it and shut it before locking it.

"Something you'd like to share with the rest of the class?" she remarked.

"O-O-Okay, okay, okay!" Mitch relented as he turned back to his boss. "One of them ambushed me during my patrol and forced me to bring that thing in here or he'd blow me to bits!"

"Knew that watch was a red flag," Hector whispered to Miko as she went back to him.

"Why'd they just settle for a drone when they could have easily just ambushed us here though?" Zahra asked.

Then, without warning, the Glitch Techs' robotic assistant named BITT flew out of the air ducts of Phil's office, causing him to nearly jump out of his chair in fright.

"Alert! Alert! Glitch #528491, Kremzeek, is no longer contained!" the machine informed.

"BITT! Were you trying to give me a heart attack or something?!" Phil yelled. "We have a door for a reason!"

"I am aware of that, sir, but it seemed that the door was locked," BITT responded.

"Note to self: Install keys into BITT," Phil sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Anyway, where's the glitch now?"

"Scanners indicate that Kremzeek is currently heading for Utah at an alarming speed," BITT answered. "Estimated destination: Mount St. Hilary."

Hearing the name of the glitch's guessed destination, Miko's eyes suddenly widened in horror.

"Ohhhh, talk about a bull in a china shop," she said.

"Whadya mean?" Hector questioned.

"The Cons DID have a reason to just send a drone in here," Miko answered. "They wanted to get that glitch free again."

"What for?" Zahra asked.

"Think about it," Miko answered. "Five said that glitch feeds off of electricity. And Mount St. Hilary has a gold mine for that thing waiting at the bottom of it!"

Inside the wreckage of the Ark, still wedged into the bottom of the Mount St. Hilary volcano in Utah, Optimus Prime was busy speaking to two members of the Infinity League's science division, fellow Autobot Wheeljack and Sailor Mercury, via Teletraan 1 and Skyward Tower's hailing frequencies. Said conversation was about their progress regarding the recovered Kraang portals they had confiscated two and a half months ago from a team of villains that were now revealed to be in league with the notorious, demonic weapons dealer known simply as Black Hat. [1]

"Well, Optimus, we have good news and bad news about our progress," Ami reported.

"What's the good news, Sailor Mercury?" Optimus asked.

"We've managed to stop the portal from activating any more extra security measures," the guardian of wisdom answered.

"But, the bad news is that we still haven't figured out how to get this thing to stop rebooting what it HAS activated anytime we manage to deactivate something," Wheeljack added.

"How many have you managed to find?" Optimus asked.

"...Eight million, two hundred and eighty-one thousand, nine hundred and seventeen..." Sailor Mercury sheepishly answered.

"I swear to Primus, if we ever find Black Hat's hideout, I am going STRAIGHT for Flugg," Wheeljack angrily grumbled. "When I get my hands on that sack wearin'-"

"AAAAAAAAHHH! WATER! WATER! WATER!" a voice cried out, causing the three involved in this call to jump slightly.

"That sounded like Ibuki," Optimus pointed out. "I heard that she caught a cold earlier. What's going on?"

"Hold on, I think I know," Ami answered.

She then stepped out of the doors of the science lab quick enough to catch a glimpse of said teenage ninja barreling down the hallways like her life depended on it...and Ami could just barely detect small pieces of porridge on her lips. Sighing as she knew who was likely responsible, the Senshi of water then walked back to where she was standing previously to continue her call with Optimus.

"I think Venus might have tried to make rice porridge again," she stated.

"Ah, I see," Optimus replied.

"Mercury, no offense, you're friend's a good kid, but she's kind of a klutz," Wheeljack said. "Hoist must have the patience of a rock to keep her under his wing."

Since Minako had suggested taking up a volunteer position in the Tower's infirmary, due to her lack of medical expertise...as well as lack of other skills, [2] it was decided that the Autobots' secondary medic, Hoist, would help teach her a thing or two about his field of work, given Ratchet's already busy schedule as well as likely not having near as much patience for the guardian of love and beauty's good-natured but problematic antics.

"Anyway, we'll keep you...*yawn* we'll keep you updated if anything happens, Optimus," Ami said in an attempt to change the subject.

The instant she yawned, however, the Autobot leader noticed obvious signs of fatigue in the blue-haired girl's eyes.

"Mercury, how long have you been doing this?" he questioned.

"Oh, about...about twenty hours...give or take," Ami sleepily answered.

"Why don't you take the rest of the day off and get some rest?" Optimus suggested.

"Oh, no, no, Optimus, I...*yawn* I can probably go a few...a few more hours," Ami answered.

"Merc, we admire your dedication, but you humans need to get your sleep," Wheeljack countered before turning to the only other occupant in the lab. "Hey, Peridot, mind helping her to the teleporters?"

"Oh no!" the tiny Gem denied. "I am NOT leaving YOU of all Bots alone in here ever again."

The Autobot scientist simply sighed in annoyance in response, placing his hand onto his metal forehead.

"Blow up the lab ONE TIME and suddenly you're public enemy number one here," he muttered.

"Seven," Peridot corrected. "You blew it up SEVEN TIMES!"

"Okay, okay, I get the message!" Wheeljack replied, holding both of his hands up in defense before turning back to the Senshi of water. "C'mon, Merc, I'll beam you back down to Tokyo."

"Honestly, Wheeljack, I'll...I'll be...fine," an exhausted Sailor Mercury tried to counter.

"No, no, you go get some sleep first," Wheeljack responded. "And no, you can't sleep in here. Can't risk you sleepwalking into a cosmic rust vile or something."

Sighing in defeat, Ami finally relented and got up out of her seat, slouching towards the door whilst trying not to stay awake, with Wheeljack close behind.

"We'll keep you updated, Prime," the Autobot stated before heading off.

"Understood," Optimus replied before finally closing the hailing frequency.

Then, without warning, the instant communications with Skyward Tower were cut off, the Ark's alarm systems immediately started to go off, hinting towards one possible, ever-persistent threat to the Autobots.

"ALERT: DECEPTICON ENERGY SIGNATURE DETECTED," Teletraan 1 informed.

"On screen!" Optimus commanded.

The A.I. complied and switched the screen in front of Prime to one of the Ark's many security cameras. Sure enough, it managed to detect Skywarp flying towards the Autobot base. The fact that only one Decepticon was sent out to them bewildered the Autobot commander, only for his thoughts to be interrupted when he saw a hatch opening at the bottom of Skywarp's jet mode, sending a small box hurdling down towards the base's main gate.

"Teletraan 1, give me a visual on what Skywarp just dropped," he ordered.

The screen then switched to the main entrance's security camera, displaying before Prime a circuit trap fidgetting around on its own.

"What in the name of Cybertron?" the last Prime asked himself.

Suddenly, the circuit trap exploded, the dust slowly settling to reveal the Kremzeek launching itself towards the camera.

"Kremzeek!" it screeched.

Once the glitch reached the camera, somehow, to Optimus' utter bafflement, the creature phased through the screen and into the ship's bridge, the Autobot leader just barely having enough time to jump out of its path before it made it phased into the nearby door's control panel. Wanting to get to the bottom of whatever horror the Decepticons had unleashed upon both him and his brethren, Optimus quickly dashed towards the door, opening it and leaving the bridge in search of this creature.

"Skywarp to Starscream, package has been delivered," Skywarp reported as he continued to fly away from the Autobot base.

"Good," Starscream responded from his COMM device. "All available Decepticons, converge back at Bailley immediately! It's time to introduce these 'Glitch Techs' to their new management!"

"Okay, so let's recap," Hector said. "The Decepticons have a dangerous glitch at their disposal that they're about to drop on the Autobots AND know of us and where our base is, meaning now's the perfect time for them to gear up for a siege against us."

"...But?" Zahra thought she was saying for him.

"Oh, there's no 'but' here, just wanted to point out how utterly SCREWED WE ARE!" High Five shouted in a panic.

"Okay, okay, calm down, calm down!" Phil sternly ordered. "World we're living in right now, something like this was bound to happen at some point."

"Well, what's the plan, then, sir?" Haneesh asked. "We're trained to take down these rogue glitches. Alien robots that want to enslave us isn't exactly in our wheelhouse."

"Maybe some of us should go to the Ark and try and catch that glitch before it does some major damage to the Autobots," Five suggested. "If the Decepticons really are planning a raid, then I'm sure they'd be more than willing to help us."

"Good idea," Phil replied. "You and Miko go down there and bag that glitch again, then see if you can't get them to come back here."

"On it!" Miko and Hector responded in unison before immediately departing for their van.

"The rest of you go and close up shop early so we can get the customers out of any danger," Phil continued. "And if they ask...I don't know, say there's a bug in our registers or something. Just don't say anything about what's actually happening. Last thing we need is a riot on our hands."

Nodding once in understanding, both Zahra and Haneesh quickly exited Phil's office. Mitch was about to follow suit, but...

"Ah, ah, ah, not you, Mitch," he said, causing the Tech to practically freeze in terror.

"Phil, PLEASE don't fire me over this!" Mitch pleaded. "My choices were literally either live or die!"

"Relax, relax, Mitch, I get it," Phil replied. "If we survive this, you'll be back out hunting glitches in no time."

"BUT I-Wait, what?" a stunned Mitch asked.

"Oh, yeah," Phil responded, crossing his arms as he did so. "...AFTER you clean every single toilet in this building that is."

The mere thought forced Mitch to suppress himself from gagging in disgust.

Back at the Autobot base, the Kremzeek had quickly managed to find its way to one of the Ark's control decks, where Jazz, Camshaft, and Perceptor bore witness to the electric creature emerging from the nearby door's control panel.

"Kremzeek!" the glitch screeched before its baffled audience.

"What is that thing?!" Jazz asked.

"I don't know, but maybe this'll slow it down so we can find out," Camshaft answered as the cannon on his back started charging.

Two laser blasts then fired down at the Kremzeek, only for it to swiftly dodge both of them and shoot up towards Jazz, phasing into his forehead.

"What the-?!" he exclaimed.

Instantaneously, sparks started to fly out of the Autobots' first lieutenant as his circuits began to short out and his body violently started to fidget around before collapsing onto the floor. Afterward, the electric monstrosity shot out of Jazz and towards Perceptor, instantly phasing into his chassis and causing him to thrash about as well.

"GAH! Get out, you electromagnetic brute!" he shouted as he started to jump up and down uncontrollably.

The Autobot scientist was then knocked to the floor once the creature that had completely fried his circuits bolted out of his body and towards a terrified Camshaft, who had already grabbed a nearby table and tried to use it as a makeshift shield.

"Get back!" he yelled. "Back I say!"

Unfortunately, the Kremzeek had managed to burn right through the table and into Camshaft's spark, causing him to rapidly transform in and out of his vehicle mode as he cried out in pain and started to drive around in circles, eventually filling the entire room with smoke. The door to the room then opened, revealing Ratchet, Beachcomber, Mirage, Gears, Rack'n'Ruin, and Bluestreak dashing inside to try and see just what was making all this noise.

"Camshaft, what in the Pit's gotten into ya?!" Gears angrily shouted.

"Someone get this thing out of me! AAAAAAAAHHH!" the Autobot spy exclaimed as he continued to sporadically transform from robot to Mazda.

"What are you talking about?!" Bluestreak asked. "I don't see anything!"

Before he could answer though, the Omnibot crashed into one of the room's computers, causing the glitch that had ravaged his circuitry to fly towards the newcomers, managing to make it into Ratchet for its next meal. Before the medic could so much as speak, the glitch had already started to zap his wires, causing him to spin out of control as sparks burst out of his body before he too fell into stasis.

"Okay, I think that was the last one," Zahra reported on her communicator as she escorted one of the Hinobi Store's customers out of the building. "Let's-"

She was cut short, however, by the sounds of screaming coming from a distance. The normally sardonic Glitch Tech immediately turned her head to the source of the sound and saw people in the strip mall running for their lives as a tank started to slowly make its way into the area, crushing several cars with its treads as it did so. A gasp escaped the girl's lips the instant she saw the Decepticon symbol on the side of the tank's turret. Then, the sounds of jet engines from above caught her attention as she looked up to see three multicolored F-15's, a red VTOL jet, and a black and grey Saab Gripen descending towards the store.

"They're here..." was all Zahra said before dashing back into the store. "They're here! Get back! Get back!"

Wasting no time, Zahra, Phil, Haneesh, and Mitch quickly ran to the back of the store, immediately opening up several portal gates to their HQ at the lockers and jumping into them. Right on time as well, for the second the portal closed, the tank turned its turret towards the store and fired directly at it, the shell piercing through the gaming store before impacting the lockers, blowing a hole upon detonation. The explosion was so great that it knocked the four Glitch Techs onto their backs.

A cloud of thick smoke engulfed the main hub, hiding seven massive figured that approached the four humans before the cloud slowly faded, revealing Starscream, Soundwave, Thundercracker, Skywarp, Shatter, and two recently reactivated Decepticons, the Combaticon known as Brawl and the hunter called Nitro Zeus, standing before them.

"Nice base ya got here, meatbags," Nitro commented. "I think we'll take it!"

To emphasize his point, he started to charge up the massive arm cannon propped on his right arm and pointed it down at the disoriented Techs.

"So here's the deal. You geeks got ten seconds to vacate this dump before we start fraggin' everything in sight! One...TEN!"

Hearing the source of the chaos, Optimus sprinted towards the door that lead to the room the Kremzeek was no doubt inside. He could still hear the sounds of sparks arcing, metal bodies smashing into each other, and the occasional 'Kremzeek!' from the glitch.

"Oh no..." the Autobot commander said to himself, already beginning to fear the worst for his friends.

Suddenly, without warning, a portal opened a few yards away from him, prompting him to quickly turn around and ready his Ion Blaster, suspecting that Megatron had ground bridged an assault team into the Ark. However, it was not Prime's enemies that emerged from the opening. Rather, a van driven by two teenage humans practically shot out at full speed into the room, barreling straight for the Autobot leader.

"FIVE, INCOMING, INCOMING!" Miko shouted. "TURN, TURN!"

In response to this sudden development, Optimus quickly jumped out of the van's way right before it crashed into a wall, though thankfully the impact did not harm either Miko or High Five, nor did it do any substantial damage to their vehicle thanks to its advanced safety measures.

"...Whoever your driving instructor is going to be, Five...I pitty them..." a slightly disoriented Miko remarked.

The sounds of heavy, metal footsteps then snapped the two Glitch Techs out of their disorientation. They instantly got out of their vehicle and turned to see Optimus approach them as he retracted his weapon onto his back. A mixture of both awe and nervousness overtook Hector and Miko. On one hand, they now stood in the presence of one of Earth's greatest and revered champions...On the other hand, they did just break into his base without any warning whatsoever and crash their van in it.

"Do either of you require medical attention?" Optimus asked.

"Uh, n-no sir, we're fine!" a timid High Five answered before pointing his thumb back at his and Miko's van. "Uh, we're, we're not gonna need to exchange insurance for that, are we, sir?"

"No, don't worry about that," Optimus answered.

"Good, cause I, uh, I don't exactly have a driver's license, sir..." Hector meekly added.

"Not with those driving skills," Miko remarked.

"And you do not have to address me as 'sir,'" Prime reassured. "Just Optimus will do fine."

The nervousness that had previously nearly overtaken the Glitch Techs' bodies then gave way to astonishment. Here and now, standing before them, was Optimus Prime himself. Leader of the Autobots, one of the seven leaders of the Infinity League, and possibly the shining example of justice and heroism for the entire world. Practically the closest this reality had to Superman himself protecting it.

"That being said, there's still the matter of who you two are and why you're here," the Autobot leader continued, snapping the two humans' state of astonishment.

"Oh! Right, that," Hector responded. "You see, si-Optimus, we-"

"KREMZEEK!"

The instant that dreaded shriek was heard, Prime, Miko, and Hector all turned back to the door just in time to see the glitch burn a hole through it and land right in front of the three of him, setting its red eyes on Optimus.

"THAT would why we're here," Miko stated.

"You know what that creature is?" Optimus questioned.

"Yum, yum!" the Kremzeek said before lunging towards the Autobot commander.

"Not this time, sparkles!" Miko exclaimed as she and Five jumped in front of Optimus, charging their gauntlets as they did so.

Recollections of how it was captured flooded the creature's mind as a look of horror overtook its face. The Glitch Techs then fired several blasts of the power-up Hector had previously used to put an end to the tiny monstrosity's rampage, only for it to quickly evade each and every one of them. It then turned towards Miko, eyeing the gauntlet in her right hand that it had previously made a snack of, and hurdled towards it, only for a laser blast to force it to stop dead in its tracks. The glitch turned towards the source of the blast, noticing Optimus standing a few meters away, smoke coming out of his Ion Blaster, before giving a hungry snarl to the last Prime.

Fortunately, Hector was able to hear the snarl amidst the chaos, and, with an idea flashing in his head, quickly pulled up his gauntlet's menu and searched for something called 'Insulator Shield.' Once he found what he was looking for, he took aim not at the Kremzeek, but Prime, and shot out a foam-like substance that quickly engulfed the Autobot commander, who was obviously caught off guard by this action. However, the second before he could question this, the Kremzeek shot itself towards his chassis, only for it to bounce off of it and fall back roughly to the floor.

"Kremzeek?" it uttered before trying once more to infiltrate the mechanical being's circuits, only for him to grab it with his bare hands.

"What did you do to him?" a perplexed Miko asked her friend.

"There's another power-up in the game that acts as a shield to protect you from these viruses," High Five answered.

"It seems to be working for the moment," Optimus commented as he continued to hold onto the struggling glitch.

But, no sooner than when he said that, the creature proceeded to arc its way out of Prime's hands and immediately dashed towards one of the nearby doors. Both Glitch Techs and the Autobot leader gave chase, only for it to vanish into the door's control panel.

"Shmup, it got away!" Miko exclaimed.

"We'll have to worry about it later," Prime stated. "First, we'll need to insulate any Autobots that hadn't been shorted out by that thing."

Moments later, Hector was busy spraying the insulator power-up in his gauntlet upon the only Autobots that had avoided the Kremzeek's wrath while their commander brought them up to speed on just what in the name of Primus was going on around here.

"Ironhide, Blaster, Trailbreaker, Moonracer, Tracks, Warpath, we're the only Autobots that are still operational," Optimus informed.

"Which begs the question, what's the-BLAM!-situation, boss?" Warpath asked. "One klik we're all perfectly operational, and the next,-ZAP!-everyone starts goin' crazier than me!"

"And, pardon me if I'm being rude, but who are they?" Tracks asked as he pointed down at Miko and Hector, speaking in an all-too-familiar snobbish tone to the two Glitch Techs.

"Oh boy, it's like Mitch in robot form, isn't it?" Five whispered.

"Another unfortunate victim of the Mitch-Pyre, it seems," Miko remarked.

"This is Hector and Miko," Optimus introduced. "They claim to have knowledge of the creature the Decepticons had brought to us."

"Well, we're all auditory receptors, so let's hear it," Ironhide responded.

"Okay, so, uh...ah, jeez, where do I even start with this?" Five asked himself as he scratched the back of his head. "Okay, here's the gist of it. It's a video game glitch that manifested into the real world."

"...Come again?" a stunned Moonracer asked, noticing the similar looks of confusion on her fellow Autobots.

"Basically, if something goes awry inside a faulty video game console or arcade cabinet, a digital monster comes out into our world coded to the game it came from," Hector furthered.

"And no one knows about them because..." Trailbreaker responded.

"Well, that's where we come in," Hector answered. "It's our job to capture and detain these glitches whenever they show up."

"Yeah, we got that, but that doesn't answer Trailbreaker's question," Ironhide pointed out. "You'd think the public would know about this by now, so why don't they?"

"We, uh..." a nervous Miko started. "It's kinda company policy to...to wipe any witnesses' memories."

"Like in Men in Black?" Blaster asked.

"Pretty much," Five answered. "Look, we know it's not entirely ethical, but our bosses kinda want to keep a low profile for the moment."

"We can discuss it later," Optimus stated. "For now, do you know how to stop this creature from further terrorizing our base?"

"We managed to catch it before the Cons got a hold of it," Miko answered before pointing to her gauntlet. "We just need a clear shot with this and then we can capture it again."

"Then we'll have to split into two teams and search the compound for this glitch," Optimus declared. "And tread carefully, Autobots. Remember, it likes electricity."

With that, he, Hector, Tracks, Ironhide, and Trailbreaker ran off in one direction while Miko, Blaster, Warpath, and Moonracer went in the other.

"Heeeere Kremzeek, Kremzeek, Kremzeek," Miko called out as she and her team continued searching for the glitch down the hallway. "I got a nice, nickel-plated knuckle sandwich for your sparky, yellow, a-"

"Hold on," Blaster suddenly said, causing the others to stop in their tracks as he focused on something he heard from a distance. "I'm picking up something..."

"Kremzeek!"

"It's in the engine room!" the Autobot communications officer stated. "C'mon, team, let's hustle!"

The four of them quickly dashed down the hallway towards the Ark's engine room, arriving at the open doorway to see everything in complete shambles, no doubt a result of the electrical monstrosity's feeding frenzy.

"Well, this hunk-a-junk ain't-ZOOM!-gettin' off the ground any time soon," Warpath remarked.

"Aw, scrap, I just lost its energy signature!" Blaster exclaimed. "It must've escaped through the wires!"

"Where could it possibly be heading next?" Moonracer asked. "It's munched its way through everything in the base except-"

The instant the Autobot sniper suddenly stopped, a look of horror overtook her face. One that her fellow Autobots shared as they no doubt had the same thought in their cortexes.

"Teletraan 1!" they shouted in unison.

"POINT N-N-N-NINE-INE SQUA-A-UARE EQUALS FIRE DANGER! DANGER, WILL ROBINSON! PLUS-L-PL-U-S-S-S T-T-T-T-" the Autobot supercomputer garbled out as the Kremzeek continued to wreak havoc on its circuitry.

The infected Teletraan 1's ramblings didn't go unnoticed, as the Kremzeek had managed to open a communications channel with Skyward Tower, a slackjawed Jake and Randy standing at the communications hub as they listened.

"ALERT! ALERT! EVIL MARTIAN FLAMINGOS HAVE INVADED SUPERMARKETS ACROSS THE COUNTRY!"

"...What the juice?!" was all the Ninja could say.

Suddenly, Kim ran into the room seemingly in a panic.

"Guys, get in contact with the Autobots!" she said. "Something's going on down in Bailley!"

"Yeah, about that..." the Dragon replied.

"CHARCOL RATIONS DOWN TWO GRANDS DOUBLE PLUS ENGARDE!"

Back down at the Ark, the two teams quickly dashed into the Ark's bridge just in time to see the Kremzeek dig its way out of Teletraan 1's consoles, holes scattered all across every piece of machinery and sparks flying everywhere.

"Ironhide, shut it down, quickly!" Optimus commanded.

The Autobot head of security then quickly dashed to the consoles, just as Miko attempted to fire a shot at the Kremzeek, only for it to bolt upwards to dodge it. Once Ironhide managed to shut down Teletraan 1, the two Glitch Techs of the group continued to fire a barrage of energy blasts at the glitch, only for it to continue to evade each and every offensive.

"Ugh, it's too fast!" Miko complained before turning to her partner. "Any way we can slow this thing down?!"

"There is a radio wave power-up in the game that does just that!" Hector answered as he pulled up his gauntlet's menu once again. "Just gotta-"

"I'll save you some time, kid," Blaster interrupted. "Radio waves are my department."

He proceeded to open his chest to reveal several USB ports inside.

"Just tune in to the right frequency," the communications officer continued.

Nodding once, Five utilized his jet boots to launch himself up to Blaster's shoulder.

"Miko, keep it busy for a few seconds!" he said as he pulled a USB cord from the end of his weapon.

"On it!" his partner responded, firing more shots at the elusive creature.

As she did so, Hector proceeded to connect the cord into one of Blaster's USB ports before taking aim at the Kremzeek.

"Don't touch that dial!" Blaster said. "Cause we got a nice and easy selection of today's hip hits!"

With those words spoke, Five's gauntlet began to shoot an onslaught of radio waves at the glitch, prompting it to stop right where it stood and place its hands where its ears would be.

"Kremzeek! No! No!" it shouted.

"Target acquired!" Miko yelled as she immediately pointed her weapon at the creature.

The young Glitch Tech fired her weapon, making its mark on the Kremzeek, causing it to start shorting out as it did before.

"K-K-KRE-E-E-EMZ-Z-Z-EEK! N-N-NOT AGAIN!" it yelled before its energies exploded out of its body.

The Techs and the Autobots quickly shielded their eyes and optics from the blast before looking down at the glitch in its true form, bouncing about and attempting to try and find something to feast on. Acting quickly, Miko pointed her palm at the tiny creature, causing it to be sucked instantly into her gauntlet's trap.

"GLITCH CONTAINED," the A.I. inside stated.

"Phew!" Miko sighed as she wiped her sweat off her forehead. "Let's make sure this guy's locked up tight this time. I do NOT want a round 3 with it."

"Thank Primus that's over," Tracks said. "That little vermin was starting to get on my nerves."

Then, without warning, a COMM device on Prime's arm went off, signaling that someone from Skyward Tower was trying to reach him. He responded by pressing a button on his arm to open communications with the base of the Infinity League.

"My apologies if any of Teletraan 1's transmissions reached you," he said. "We had a bit of a-"

"Prime, dawg, something big's going on in Bailley!" Jake interrupted on the other side. "We don't know why, but the Cons are bombarding a Hinobi Store!"

Hearing those words caused Miko and Hector's hearts to sink as their skin turned white with horror. Their worst fears came to pass, and now their friends and co workers were at the mercy of one of the most feared forces of evil on the planet.

"Optimus, that's where our base is at!" Miko informed.

"That's the other reason we came to you guys!" Hector added. "We had a hunch that the Decepticons would try something like this and-"

"Say no more, Hector, we're more than happy to help," Optimus interrupted. "But first we need to figure out how to get there."

"Uh, Prime, who-" a confused American Dragon attempted to ask.

"I'll explain later," Prime interrupted. "Tell Wheeljack to ready the teleporters for nine arrivals."

"Uh, yeah, see, whatever happened to Teletraan 1 must've spilled its way into our systems," Jake informed. "The second we started receiving those whack transmissions, the teleporters just broke down. Can you still hitch a ride with Omega?"

"No, he's still undergoing repairs after his fight with Lokar," the Autobot leader answered. "And the creature that was responsible for what happened to Teletraan 1 managed to incapacitate Jetfire and our ground bridge. What about Cosmos? Are his repairs complete?"

"Nope," the Dragon of New York answered. "Poor guy took a serious crash landing when Astrotrain shot him down again."

"Then we're running out of options," Optimus somberly stated as he placed his hand on his chin. "Bailley's a couple of thousand miles away from Utah. If we drive there, we may be too late."

"Actually, there is a way to get us all there in just a couple of seconds," Five stated.

"How so?" Optimus questioned.

"You leave that one to us, OP," Miko answered with a smirk.

A few minutes later, outside the Ark, the seven Autobots watched in awe as High Five and Miko's van shot out an energy beam that manifested into a large portal to the Hinobi Store.

"Next stop, Bailley!" Miko said from within the van.

"Then there's no time to waste," Optimus declared. "The glitch thankfully didn't manage to get to the Ark's repair drones, so they'll take care of the others while we fight the Decepticons."

The mighty leader of the Autobots then stepped towards the portal.

"Autobots, Glitch Techs, transform and roll out!"

With that battle cry spoken, Optimus transformed into his truck mode, the other six Autobots following suite with Blaster shrinking down and loading himself into Tracks, before driving through the portal.

"Aw, man, I wanted to say that!" Miko groaned.

She quickly shook off her disappointment, however, focusing on how she and Hector were going to save their friends, before Five stomped on the gas and drove their van through the portal.

The Glitch Techs' HQ had quickly turned into a war zone once the Decepticons started opening fire on them. Blasts of energy, both from the humans and the sinister Cybertronians, flew everywhere as Zahra, Haneesh, and Mitch continued to shoot their enemies from behind the rubble of their base's ceiling.

"Keep pushing forward, Decepticons!" Starscream commanded as he shot his Null Rays and Shatter shot her hand blasters down at where Zahra and Mitch were taking cover at, only for the two of them to quickly evade the offensive. "Stubborn as these humans are, they can't keep this up forever!"

"I know what'll speed this up!" Brawl responded.

The Combaticon then proceeded to transform the upper half of his body into the front of his tank mode, though keeping his legs as they were.

"I'd start screaming for your motherboards to come and save you, wimps!" he shouted as he started to advance towards the humans in his gerwalk mode.

Upon witnessing this sight, as well as knowing that his shots were basically all but bouncing off the Decepticons, Bergy quickly ran in the opposite direction right before Brawl shot at the ground of which the Tech previously stood, causing a large crater to form on the floor.

"Haneesh, speed boost!" Zahra shouted.

Nodding once, Haneesh deployed a line of speed boost arrows from his weapon onto Brawl's leg while Zahra ran towards it, readying a digital sword as she did so. The experienced Glitch Tech then ran up the Combaticon's leg, her speed increasing greatly, before leaping upward with a battle cry and landing on Brawl's turret, jabbing her weapon into it. The Decepticon cried out in pain as he started to stumble about while Zahra held onto the hilt of her sword to stay where she was and prepare herself to slice the barrel of the turret off. However, right before she could...

"FRENZY, OPERATION: INTERFERENCE," Soundwave said from behind.

The stunned Glitch Tech turned around just in time to see a large, red cassette shoot out of Soundwave's open chest before transforming into Frenzy and barrel towards her. The Decepticon Mini-Cassette managed to tackle her off of Brawl before she could do anything, landing roughly on the floor before pinning her down.

"Gonna crack that head of yours and collect what's inside, you-!" Frenzy threatened, only to be interrupted by Haneesh throwing his shield at him, causing him to stumble off of Zahra.

With the small Decepticon off his friend, Haneesh proceeded to shoot out a digital grappling hook that wrapped itself around Frenzy before throwing him upwards and releasing his weapon's grip on him. As a result, Frenzy was sent screaming towards Nitro, smashing against the side of his head and gaining his attention.

"Huh?" he asked himself as he finally stopped shooting rockets around the base.

The hunter turned to see Haneesh assisting Zahra back on her feet, narrowing his sole, yellow optic on the two of them.

"Oh, fleshbags wanna play dirty now, eh?" he asked as he positioned the turbines of his jet mode onto his shoulders and pointed them directly at Brawl. "Fine by me. I can play dirty too!"

"Wait, what are you-" Brawl asked as he transformed the top half of himself back into his robot mode.

Before the Combaticon could finish, Nitro had already activated the turbines, laughing as two bursts of air shot Brawl towards Haneesh and Zahra, whose eyes widened in fright at the sight of a two-ton robot hurdling towards them. Acting quickly, the two of them shot two portals in front of each of them and ran into them right before Brawl smashed onto the floor. Snarling in contempt for his colleague, the Combaticon got back on his feet and marched towards Nitro as his turbines shifted back onto his back.

"WHY YOU TIN-PLATED, EMPTY-HEADED, PILE OF SCRAP IRON!" he shouted before shoving Nitro onto a wall. "WHEN I'M DONE WITH YOU, MEGATRON'S GONNA HAVE TO PICK UP YOUR PIECES WITH AN ELECTRO-MAGNET!"

"What? So I saw an opening and I took it," Nitro defended. "AND I wasn't gonna give those geeks any extra time to run by sayin' 'Hey, Brawl, mind if I catapult your fat aft to those meatbags?' Shoot me."

"GLADLY!" Brawl yelled as he readied his blaster.

Before he could point it at the hunter's head, however, Nitro immediately grabbed it and pointed it away from him before kicking Brawl off his person. He then followed that counter by tackling the Combaticon to the floor, beginning a fistfight between the two Decepticons.

"I work with a bunch of protoforms..." was all Shatter could say as she placed a hand on her face and shook her head in embarrassment.

While that was going on, Zahra and Haneesh had managed to regroup with Mitch and Bergy, only for Starscream, Thundercracker, Skywarp, and Soundwave to advance towards them, forcing them to back up into a wall.

"Oh man, this is bad, this is bad, this is really, really bad!" a panicking Bergy exclaimed before turning to Mitch. "What do we do, what do we do?!"

"Wha-I don't know!" Mitch admitted. "We can barely fight back against these griefers, I seriously doubt we can just ask them to leave, and we're probably not getting any backup anytime soon since we sent those two noobs out to get it!"

"Dude, lay off them," Haneesh defended. "They have a glitch to recapture too, you know. They'll be here."

"A glitch that, might I add, they might not have had to bag again if SOMEONE didn't bring that drone in here," Zahra added as she glared right at her team leader.

"For the last time, I'm sorry!" Mitch groaned. "It was either let that thing in here or get my face blown off!"

As the other Techs continued to argue with Mitch, Starscream, in the meantime, was doing what Starscream did best...gloat.

"Just imagine what we could gain from this base once MY conquest is complete," Starscream boasted. "Perhaps we'll weaponize their equipment for our fight against the Autobots. Or maybe we can steal these glitches they've captured and turn them into our own digital army to conquer this miserable planet! Or-"

Thankfully, his monologue was halted by a blast to the face courtesy of Zahra.

"GAH! WHO SHOT THAT?!"

The Seeker then glared down at the four humans, noticing Zahra pointing her gauntlet right at him.

"Oh, no, please, continue," she sarcastically requested. "Makes you easier to hit."

"Deny your fate all you want, but our 'ally' was right," Starscream responded as he pointed one of his Null Rays down at the Glitch Techs. "No one is coming for your rescue."

His weapon began to charge with the intent to obliterate this pesky resistance, but before the second-in-command of the Decepticons could carry out this deed, a loud, blaring truck horn caught him off guard. He then turned to his right and saw a red and blue Freightliner semi-truck driving out of a portal and gunning it straight for a now utterly petrified Starscream.

"NO! IMPOSSIBLE!" he screamed.

Before he could so much as point his weapons at this interloper, the truck transformed into Optimus Prime, who grabbed onto Starscream and tackled him through a wall. Thundercracker, Skywarp, and Soundwave were about to assist their temporary leader, only for several laser blasts to knock them on their backs. The shocked Glitch Techs then turned to their left to see Miko and Hector standing atop their van while Ironhide, Tracks, Warpath, Moonracer, Blaster, and Trailbreaker stood behind them.

"Don't worry, loves," Miko declared, imitating a British accent as she did so. "Calvery's here!"

Seeing this sight, Zahra, Haneesh, and Bergy all cheered for their allies while Mitch, unsurprisingly, just crossed his arms in an attempt to hide his own relief.

"DECEPTICONS, KILL THEM ALL!" Soundwave commanded as he, Thundercracker, and Skywarp got back on their feet.

Hearing this, Brawl and Nitro finally ceased their own fight and ran up to join their fellow Decepticons along with Shatter whilst the other four Glitch Techs used their portals to join up with their fellow Techs and their new allies.

"Autobots, pick your dance partners!" Ironhide said.

While that was going on, Optimus had managed to tackle Starscream through a series of walls before finally stopping at the training room, tossing the Seeker up into the ceiling, only for him to land perfectly on his feet once he descended towards the floor.

"I should have known this scheme was of your doing, Starscream," Prime stated as he prepared his Ion Blaster. "I doubt Megatron would have been as foolish to concoct something like this given our new allies within the League."

"Rrr, we'll see just how 'foolish' this endeavor was when I accomplish something Megatron has failed at for millennia," Starscream retaliated as his Null Rays began charging. "Claiming your head, Prime!"

"We both know that's not going to happen," the Autobot commander rebutted as he narrowed his optics at his enemy. "But you're more than welcome to try."

With an enraged battle cry, the Decepticon air commander pointed both of his cannons towards the Autobot leader and fired, only for Optimus to leap forwards to avoid the blast, an explosion being set off behind him as he fired several shots with his own weapon. Starscream was quick to act, though, and weaved out of the line of fire before throwing a punch his opponent's way. Fortunately, Optimus was able to deflect it with his free arm and smashed Starscream upside the head with the side of his blaster. His free hand then transformed into his energon axe before swinging it towards the Decepticon second-in-command, only for him to dodge it.

The treacherous Seeker proceeded to knee Prime in the metal gut, boosting himself upwards as he did so before grabbing his enemy's shoulders, intending on tossing him into the nearby supercomputer's screen. However, Optimus instantly retaliated by grabbing Starscream's left leg and swinging him up against the wall, forcing him to release his grip, and then tossing him into the screen, causing it to shatter and for sparks to fly everywhere.

Back at the main hub, Thundercracker was charging towards Miko, Hector, and Haneesh, who were unloading everything they could against the blue-clad Seeker. An idea forming in his head, Hector formed a cylindric arm cannon on his arm with his gauntlet, charging up his shot before shooting an energy blast that made its mark on Thundercracker's face. This, in turn, caused him to stumble about as his hand reached for his face in pain, meaning he wasn't able to see Warpath rush in from the side and kick him to the ground. This victory was short-lived, however, as Soundwave then came in from behind and grabbed the Autobot commando, tossing him away from the scene before turning his attention to the humans. The Decepticon communications officer then began to charge his shoulder cannon, causing the three Techs' eyes to widen in terror.

"Uh oh, scatter! Scatter!" Haneesh shouted.

The three of them activated their speed boosts and fled right before Soundwave fired an EMP blast that would have vaporized them if they were just a second too late. The Decepticon scanned the area in an attempt to locate his targets, only for several energy blasts to catch him off guard. He turned around to see Miko atop Ally floating in front of him.

"Oh yeah, that's right, I gots a digital dodo!" she gloated. "Beat that!"

Emotionless as ever, Soundwave reacted by pressing the button on his shoulder that opened his chest compartment.

"LASERBEAK, BUZZSAW, COMMENCE COUNTER-OFFENSIVE," he commanded.

Two large tapes then ejected out, transforming into Laserbeak and Buzzsaw before a surprised Miko.

"...Ah, nerds," was all she could say.

Acting quickly, Ally swooped upwards right before several laser blasts from both Decepticon minions' back cannons could hit her, prompting the two of them to give chase throughout the facility. The digital bird attempted to maneuver through several tight gaps and sharp turns in an attempt to lose her and Miko's pursuers, but to no avail, as both Laserbeak and Buzzsaw were able to easily keep up with every turn...That was, until a laser blast suddenly hit Buzzsaw right on his left wing, causing him to crash into one of the central hub's leaderboard. Caught off guard, Miko turned to her left as she flew atop Ally, seeing Moonracer crouched behind a pile of rubble, smoke emanating from her sniper rifle and giving a friendly wave to the human.

"Nice shot!" the Tech complimented as her pet evaded a barrage of laser fire from Laserbeak.

"Thanks!" Moonracer responded as she readied her weapon once more. "Just gimme a couple more kliks and I'll have that bird-brained scrapheap off your hair in no t-"

"I'd worry less about her and more about you, Autobot scum," Shatter's voice declared from behind the sniper.

Before she could react and as the triple-changer made that declaration, Moonracer was swiftly kicked onto the rubble she was crouched behind while Shatter's hands transformed into her blasters. She pointed them down at her enemy, who swiftly countered by flipping upwards, her heels cracking Shatter dead in the jaw and causing her to stumble back a bit. The female Autobot landed on her feet and grabbed her sniper rifle before swinging it like a staff at the Decepticon, who ducked underneath the offensive maneuver and retaliated by transforming her right hand back to normal and punching her in the metal gut. This caused Moonracer to double over in pain, allowing a smirking Shatter to point her weapon right at her head.

However, before she could fire, a series of heavy footsteps caught her off guard, causing her to swiftly turn to her right and for her optics to widen.

"WHAT IN THE NAME OF-!" she shouted, right before a colossal, cycloptian, almost ape-like robot charged into her, sending her flying away from her target.

Moonracer proceeded to look up at her massive savior, who in turn looked down at her, which caused her to feel a bit uneasy, not knowing if this metal giant that was about the size of Grimlock was friend or foe.

"Uh...hi?" she awkwardly greeted with a meek wave.

In response, the robot closed its sole optic and grunted in a friendly manner, waving back to the now very much relieved Autobot sniper.

"Nice work, Alpha!" Hector commented as he shot a charged blast from his gauntlet at Thundercracker's face, knocking him on his back as he did so.

Moonracer then proceeded to start getting back on her feet, only for her to notice something coming towards the robotic glitch referred to as Alpha.

"Alpha, look out!" she warned.

The pet of High Five turned to his left just in time to see Brawl tackle him away from the female Autobot and onto the ground.

"WHY DON'TCHA TRY SOMEONE YOUR OWN SIZE, YOU OVERGROWN TOASTER!" the Combaticon shouted as he punched the digital robot in his optic.

In response, Alpha angrily slammed his head against Brawl's to force him off his person before grabbing the tank barrel on his back and lifting him upwards before slamming him harshly against the ground. The glitch then attempted to swing him against a wall, only for the Decepticon to fire said barrel once it was pointed towards Alpha's chassis, causing him to be sent flying backward and into the central hub's main consoles.

"Hang in there, buddy!" a distressed Five called out. "Help's on the way!"

He attempted to dash towards his companion, only for Thundercracker to land in front of him, causing him to slide to a stop.

"Where do you think you're going, meatbag?" the Seeker harshly asked. "You and I ain't done!"

As the nefarious machine started to advance towards his target, Hector cautiously started backing away, only to bump against Mitch, who was similarly backing away from Skywarp.

"Oh, hey there, Mitch," Five sarcastically said. "Nice of you to invite your friends over for dinner."

"LIFE. OR. DEATH," Mitch angrily snarled.

The two Seekers pointed their Null Rays down at the humans, but before they could fire, Trailbreaker suddenly charged against Skywarp, a force field surrounding him to increase the force of the impact, sending him hurdling away from his targets. Thundercracker attempted to retaliate, only for Tracks in his winged car mode to fly up from behind him and knock him onto the floor before transforming and landing in front of the two humans.

"I'd strongly suggest hiding your rather garish selves behind us if I were you," Tracks suggested.

"...GARISH?!" an enraged Mitch shouted, flames visible in his eyes.

However, before this squabble could continue any further, Nitro Zeus jumped down from above, landing in between the two Autobots before grabbing them by the back of their heads, smashing the two of them together and tossing them away like ragdolls, much to the fright of the two Techs.

"Wait, who's this guy?!" Five asked. "I've never seen this Con on the news before!"

"I don't know, but I do NOT envy whoever his stylist is," Mitch replied, pointing towards what appeared to be a rust-coated gold chain around the hunter's neck.

"The name's Nitro Zeus, geeks!" Nitro answered as he slowly approached the two Glitch Techs. "That's N as in 'neutralize,' I as in 'incinerate,' T as in 'terminate,' R as in 'rip to shreds,' O as in obliterate, Z as in...uh...hey, you fleshies mind helping me out here? What's a good word that starts with Z, huh?"

Suddenly, a barrage of laser blasts hit the Decepticon at the back of the head, causing him to grunt in pain and swiftly turn to see Miko and Ally flying towards him.

"I think 'zero' suits you well," Miko jested before sticking her tongue out at her opponent.

Letting out an enraged yell, Nitro reacted by pointing his arm cannon towards the two of them, charging it up as he did so.

"Ally, now!" Miko yelled.

Right before the weapon fired, the digital bird immediately swooped upward, causing the still pursuing and now panicking Laserbeak to be in Nitro's line of fire. He attempted to fly out of the laser blast's path, but to no avail, as it managed to make its mark and send the cassette plummeting down to the ground below. With her pursuer now down, Miko lept off of Ally and landed in front of Five and Mitch whilst her pet latched herself onto Thundercracker's face, pecking rapidly before he could try to get the drop on the Techs.

"Step aside, boys," Miko said with a smirk as Nitro started to approach them. "Me_K.O.'s got this!"

Hearing this caused the Decepticon hunter to burst into a fit of laughter.

"HA HA HA HA HA! Oh, that's rich!" he said. "This geek thinks she can tussle with the main bot? HA! HA! You know what, kid? Ya got guts. Tell ya what, I'll let you have the first shot free."

He then bent down to where his head was within eye-level with Miko and mockingly pointed at his chin.

"C'mon, right here. Gimme your best shot.

Smirking, Miko slammed her hand onto her gauntlet, causing a massive mech-suit that was about the size of her opponent to slowly form around her body. Seeing this naturally caused the boasting nature of the Decepticon before her to vanish completely.

"...Aw, scrap," was all he could say.

"Nerf this, cyclops!" Miko responded.

With that, the mech-suit swiftly but roughly uppercut Nitro, sending him hurdling upwards towards Skywarp, who let out a frightened yelp before teleporting away right before his fellow Decepticon could smash into him. This in turn caused the hunter to crash through the roof of the building, still flying upwards with no signs of slowing down.

"DIRTY, FRAGGIN', ROTTEN, FRAGGIN', MOTHER-FRAGGIN', SON OF A-" Nitro angrily shouted as he continued his trek away from the Techs' HQ.

Meanwhile, far away from the ensuing chaos, a woman named Kelly was being written a parking ticket by a heavy-set, blonde-haired police officer thanks to the parking meter she parked at to stop by a nearby coffee shop having run out no less than five minutes ago. Needless to say, this woman was not enthused with this.

"Great, now I gotta pay this damn ticked AND I'm gonna be late for work," she muttered to herself. "Wonder what else could happen at this rate."

Unfortunately for her, the universe decided to answer her question.

"KILL, MAIM, FRAG, DESTROY-!" Nitro shouted as his body smashed into both Kelly's car and the officer's cruiser before sliding through the street.

Upon witnessing this sight, both human's jaws nearly fell to the floor as Kelly fell to her knees in disbelief. Not only because her car had been totaled, but also because this wasn't the first time this has happened...or the second...or the third...or the fourth...

"I...I LEFT METRO CITY TO GET AWAY FROM THAT!" she wailed.

"...This is why I hate machines," the officer grumbled.

Back at the HQ...

"GAH! THIS STUPID THING'S TRYING TO PECK MY OPTICS OUT!" Thundercracker screamed as he desperately tried to swat Ally off of him. "GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF!"

Suddenly, the digital creature turned its head towards what was directly in front of Thundercracker and gave a squawk before finally flying off the Seeker's head. Said Seeker was about to express his relief when...

"Batter up!" Ironhide exclaimed as he swung his Forge Launcher directly at Thundercracker's chassis.

The impact was so great that it practically shot the screaming Decepticon towards a re-appearing Skywarp before crashing into him, knocking the two of them onto the ground.

While that was going on, an enraged Shatter was trying to shoot her hand cannons at these annoying humans she and the others had laid siege to, only for their speed boosts to allow them to easily evade them.

"Ugh! This is a disaster!" she shouted.

The instant she said that, Soundwave had been thrown against the wall behind her by Blaster, landing right beside her.

"THE MISSION IS A FAILURE," he stated as he stumbled back onto his feet. "WE MUST RETREAT!"

"Agreed, Soundwave," Shatter responded.

With that, the female triple-changer pointed her weapons at the ceiling, blasting a hole large enough to allow the two of them to fly out of the building, Soundwave just narrowly avoiding a dropkick from Blaster as he did so.

"Wha-Hey, wait!" Skywarp shouted as he observed his fellow Decepticons abandoning them. "Where are you rustbuckets goi-!"

Then, without warning, the purple-clad Seeker was interrupted when both he and Thundercracker had Brawl, in his tank mode, swung up against them like a baseball bat by Alpha.

"GAAAAAAAHHH!" the two of them screamed as they flew through the hole in the ceiling.

"Hey, big guy, toss him up to that hole," Warpath suggested as he approached Alpha, pointing to Brawl as he did so. "I got a-KAPOWIE!-great idea!"

Nodding once, Alpha proceeded to chuck Brawl upward towards the hole his fellow Decepticons were sent through. The Combaticon transformed into his robot mode and was ready to try and reach for his weapon, only for his optics to catch Warpath pointing the barrel in his chest towards him, charging it up as he did so.

"Hey, Brawl!" he shouted. "Tank's for stoppin' by! Ha ha ha!"

A blast of energy burst out of the tank barrel, making its mark on Brawl's chest and sending him flying up to join his fellow mechanical villains as they fled from the HQ.

"Whoo! Six down, one to go!" Warpath declared.

No sooner had he said that did Starscream practically explode through a wall, landing harshly onto the floor while Optimus approached him. Once the conniving Seeker got back on his feet, he noticed his troops from afar making a haste retreat.

"FOOLS!" he yelled. "GET BACK HERE AND FIGHT, YOU COWARDS!"

The sound of heavy footsteps then rang through his auditory receptors, causing him to turn around to see the leader of the Autobots approach him, weapon drawn, with his fellow Autobots and the Glitch Techs readying their own weapons and pointing them directly at the Decepticons' second-in-command.

"Game over, Starscream," Optimus said.

Stubbornly unwilling to admit defeat, Starscream foolishly charged towards his enemies, letting out a cry of fury as he did so, only for him to run straight into a force field courtesy of Trailbreaker. The deceitful Seeker stumbled backward and began to fall over, only for Haneesh and Zahra to quickly dash behind him and shoot two blasts from their gauntlets that formed two spring platforms that bounced their opponent right into Ironhide's fist, causing him to fall harshly onto the ground. Miko, still in her digital mech-suit, proceeded to pick up Starscream and lift him over her head before tossing him upward. While in mid-air, the treacherous machine let out a scream of terror before Alpha leaped upward, raising both of his fists together before slamming them atop Starscream's head, causing him to plummet to the floor.

Upon crashing down, the Decepticon second-in-command attempted to get back on his feet, only for Blaster to open the compartment in his chest.

"Sic 'em, Ramhorn!" he commanded.

A cassette shot out, transforming into the small Autobot rhino known as Ramhorn, who immediately charged towards Starscream as he placed an arm in front of his face in defense. It did little to help him, however, as the instant the mechanical rhino made contact with his horn, Starscream flipped up in the air before landing on his back. He tried once more to get back up, only for Moonracer to slide underneath him and place a bomb onto his back. She gave a signal to both Tracks and High Five, who fired their weapons upon the bomb, causing it to detonate and cause Starscream to be hurdled towards Optimus, who had placed both of his hands together and reeled them back.

"NO! WAIT!" the Seeker pleaded.

Once he reached Prime, the leader of the Autobots swung his fists towards his opponent, sending him flying upward towards the hole in the ceiling.

"Warpath, now!" Optimus ordered.

Upon hearing his leader's command, the Autobot commando dashed towards Starscream, still in mid-air, as the turret in his chest began to charge once again. Seeing this, the air commander cowered once more by placing both arms in front of his face, despite how well that worked last time.

"BLOOOOOOOOOOSH!" Warpath yelled as he unleashed a full blast from the turret.

Upon making impact with its target, a large explosion detonated where Starscream once was, said Seeker now being launched sky-high towards his fellow Decepticons.

"GAAAAAAAAAAH! YOU'LL PAY FOR THIS, PRIME!" he screamed as he transformed into his jet mode and boosted as far away from the Hinobi Store as he could.

With the battle won, the Autobots and the Glitch Techs let out a victorious cheer as Miko embraced her partner in one of her signature bear hugs.

"Yeah! We did it!" she cheered. "Who's awesome? We're awesome! Who's awe-"

A sudden revelation simultaneously came to both Techs' minds, causing their skin to turn white and their eyes to widen in absolute terror. Once Miko released Hector, the two of them turned to see the absolute mess that was their HQ...which was just barely so much as even standing at this point.

"...Ohhhhhh, we are SO getting a pay deduction," Miko stated.

Soon afterward, a visibly irate Starscream trudged through the hallways of the Nemesis, burn marks and dents coated throughout his body as the scars of a most humiliating defeat continued to run rampant throughout his cortex. He was making his way for the bridge of the ship when he noticed Knock Out leaning against the doors with a smirk on his face.

"Ah, Starscream, just the bot I was looking for," he snided. "I'm afraid that I have some 'bad news' you-"

"Save it, Knock Out!" Starscream snapped as he pressed the button to open the bridge's doors, keeping his optics on the medic as he did so. "As you can clearly see, I am in no mood for any of your charades! Besides, I highly doubt this day could get much worse."

"Oh, I disagree, Starscream."

The gravely, clearly enraged voice that greeted the Seeker's audio receptors caused the energon in his body to practically freeze in horror as he slowly started to turn around towards the source, dreading what he was about to see. Sure enough, inside the bridge stood Megatron himself, his red optics glaring right into his subordinate's soul as his right hand held the circuit trap used to trap the Kremzeek, cracks beginning to form around it from the Decepticon warlord's grasp. Standing beside him was Soundwave, who no doubt made good on his word to inform Megatron of the debacle that occurred while he was away.

"I believe that your day is about to get much, MUCH worse!" Megatron roared as the circuit trap finally crumbled before his mighty grasp.

The air commander started to violently shake in fear as his superior started to make his way towards him.

"Oh no, oh no, oh no, what do I do? What do I do?" he asked himself.

"He's mighty pissed, you're his whipping boy...figure it out," Knock Out answered, mockery laced in his voice.

Before he could so much as think of a retort, Megatron back fisted Starscream right in the face, causing him to fall onto the floor harshly. He attempted to get back up, only for the Decepticon leader to grab his leg and drag him out of the bridge.

"NO! PLEASE, MEGATRON!" he begged as he tried in vain to free himself. "IT WASN'T MY FAULT! I SWEAR!"

"Knock Out, I will be in need of the infirmary so I may 'tend' to Starscream's wounds," Megatron informed as he continued to drag his screaming second-in-command. "Once I am finished, you are to IMMEDIATELY resume your work repairing and reactivating the rest of the Decepticons. Understood?"

"Your will be done, my lord," Knock Out answered.

The medic couldn't help but smirk to himself once more as he watched Starscream continue to beg for mercy as he was being dragged to the medical wing, not even feeling the slightest bit of remorse for him despite how unrelenting his punishment was no doubt to be.

Back at Bailley, work had already begun on the grueling task of repairing the Glitch Techs' HQ. Phil was, of course, not exactly thrilled to see the extensive damage that was done in the ensuing battle, but, given the circumstances, as well as the Autobots offering assistance in repairs, even going as far as to have Wheeljack and Grapple teleport down from Skyward Tower to help out, opted not to let Miko's fears of a pay deduction come to fruition...Just this once of course. Optimus and Ironhide were both placing a freshly repaired console back in place when they turned to see Miko and Hector giving directions to Alpha as he positioned one of the leaderboard's screens back into place.

"Even after over two decades, this planet and its people still find ways to surprise me, old friend," Optimus stated. "It's good to know that, even now, there are still more and more heroes rising up to protect this world from the clutches of evil."

"So, whaddya think, Prime?" Ironhide asked. "Think we should give 'em the offer?"

"I do believe we should, Ironhide," Optimus answered.

With that, the two Autobots began to advance towards the two Techs as they continued their work.

"Okay, little more...little more...Stop!" High Five said to his companion. "That should be good, buddy."

With the monitor in place, Alpha gave his human friend a friendly grunt and a thumbs up before making his way to the next monitor. As he did so, both Hector and Miko noticed Optimus and Ironhide approaching them.

"Hector, Miko, you and your friends fought well," Optimus complimented as he knelt down closer to the two humans' level. "You saved our lives and managed to hold off a Decepticon incursion. You have earned both our gratitude and our respect."

"R-Really, sir-I-I mean, Optimus?" Five asked.

"Of course," Prime answered. "Which is why I would like to make you an offer."

The instant she heard that, Miko let out a gasp of delight as a smile beamed from cheek to cheek.

"You don't mean..." she said.

"We would be honored if the Glitch Techs joined the Infinity League," Optimus confirmed.

A squeal of joy suddenly escaped Miko's lips, all while her partner let out an equally enthused gasp. They would have said yes in a heartbeat, but...

"Whoa, whoa, hold on, hold on," Phil interjected as he approached the two alien machines. "Let's, let's not rush things just yet."

The look on both Five and Miko's faces could not have been more polar opposites to what they were just a few seconds ago as it seemed their hopes had been seemingly shattered.

"Look, uh, not that we don't appreciate that offer, but, see, the thing is, we're kinda supposed to be doing our operations in secret around here," Phil pointed out.

"Speaking of which, what exactly do we do with these guys?!" Mitch asked from afar as he pointed to his gauntlet. "I seriously doubt you guys programmed these things to wipe out an Autobots' memory!"

"We are aware of your...questionable methods in maintaining peace, Phil," Optimus replied. "And though we do understand you and your company's reasoning as to why, might I offer a suitable alternative?"

"All ears," Phil answered.

"While it is true that word may spread of these glitches' existence, a joint operation, I believe, may work in Hinobi's favor," Prime stated. "We have a team of some of this world's most brilliant minds on our side. If we work together, we can likely manage to figure out what exactly it is that's causing these creatures to manifest and ensure your products are completely safe and void of these shortcomings."

"Plus, think of this," Ironhide added. "The Cons know of you, your operations, your tech, AND the location of this facility. They could easily launch a counterattack, but this time, Megatron'll be leading the charge. You might've managed to humiliate ol' Screamer, but Megatron's a whole different kinda monster."

"And that's not all," Optimus continued. "Word could easily spread of what lies behind this store to other villains. Next time it might not even be the Decepticons. It could be Black Hat and his Society. Or Shadaloo. Or Cobra."

"So, basically, strength in numbers, right?" Phil asked.

"That is your people's way of saying it," Optimus answered. "So please, before you make your decision, think about what I said and what that would mean for you, your employees, and this town."

The Techs' manager knew that the Autobot commander had a point. While yes, it would mean Hinobi's operations would more than likely be known to the public, as well as the fact that the higher-ups were NOT going to be happy about this, there was the all too real threat that they would risk facing at their doorstep if he turned down this offer. As he mulled it over, he noticed Miko at the corner of his eye giving him the puppy dog eyes.

"Pleeeeeeese?" she pleaded.

After a few more seconds of thinking this through, the manager came to a decision.

"I'll have to make some calls, but I'll see what I can do," he finally said...right before a burst of purple and gray, AKA Miko, rushed in to hug her caught off guard boss, squealing once more as she did so.

"Thank you," Prime replied before turning to Hector. "We look forward to our new partnership with you."

"We won't let you down, Prime," a smiling Five replied.

The next day, after a lengthy call with the higher-ups at Hinobi Technology, they ultimately agreed to this joint venture and allowed the Glitch Techs to become a part of the Infinity League. Most of the Techs were ecstatic upon hearing the news...barring, of course, Mitch, who complained about having to work with even more 'noobs,' as he called them. Effective immediately, a new schedule was put in place for the Techs. Half of them would work their shift as normal while the other half would work their shift with the League, swapping out on a day-to-day basis so that someone was still around to capture any glitches that manifested.

Because of this, the League opted to allow the tours of Skyward Tower to be split up into groups. One group takes the tour one day, the second takes it the next. Up first were Hector, Miko, and Zahra, who were currently being shown the orbital base by Optimus and Ironhide. Five and Miko were obviously starry-eyed at the opportunity to be among the world's finest heroes and get the chance to see their base. Zahra, being Zahra, kept her usual demeanor, even though she herself was also anxious at this new partnership.

"I can promise you that you are among other brave, young heroes like yourselves," Optimus said as he and the others walked down a hallway. "All of whom are are committed to protecting the planet with the utmost vigilance."

As they were about to pass the open door to the rec room, the five of them noticed that it was karaoke night once more and caught a glimpse that made the three humans stop dead in their tracks in utter bafflement: Mikey, Marco, Penn, Cat Noir, and Ron each singing, of all things, Bye Bye Bye...dance moves and all.

"Don't want to be a fool for you, Just another player in your game for two ,You may hate me but it ain't no lie, Baby bye bye bye, Bye bye."

"...Oh yeah, you guys are super vigilant around here," Zahra sarcastically remarked.

A metal clang was then heard, causing the three humans to look up and see Ironhide facepalming himself.

"Leakin' lubricants," he muttered.

Two weeks passed since that day, and Ironhide couldn't help but still think back to it as he sat alone in the Ark's bridge. For on that day, it was the last time he and his fellow Autobots stood together, waging their battle to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons. The last time they were united in a bond that lasted for millions of years on the battlefields of Cybertron and Earth.

Now...such days may end up being a thing of the past.

For now, a terrible secret was unleashed upon the heroic Cybertronians. [3] That their leader, Optimus Prime himself, committed an act that damned an entire universe to endure the fires of a being more powerful and dangerous than any of them could comprehend. And upon hearing this secret, it split the Autobots in two.

Prowl was the first to voice his utter disgust, believing that they should demote Prime on the spot. Tracks and Mirage followed suit soon afterward. Ironhide, on the other hand, retaliated against Prowl. He knew he couldn't pretend his leader's actions weren't immoral and didn't try to, but thought he was being far too harsh on him without knowing the full story. The shouting match that ensued would have turned violent had Bumblebee not stepped in to prevent the first punch from being thrown. Regardless, it seemed as though the camaraderie between the two of them were completely shattered.

But, through either stubbornness or dedication, the old bot didn't give a damn. Prime wasn't just his leader, but also his friend. His best friend. He knew him more than anyone on this ship and knew that such an action was not committed without a good reason. So, he'll continue to fight for Prime's right to lead this team. Even if it meant burning even more bridges along the way.

Then, without warning, Ironhide's somber thoughts were interrupted when a series of heavy footsteps came from his left. He turned to see Ratchet dashing towards the ground bridge in a hurry.

"Ratchet, what's going on?" Ironhide asked as he rose from his seat.

"Prime informed me that something's going on in the Tower!" the medic answered. "Whatever it is left Hoist in critical condition!" [4]

Upon hearing this, Ironhide's optics widened in shock and immediately knew that, whatever was going on, the League was in trouble and he needed to do something. Fortunately, there were a few Autobots he was still on speaking terms with that could provide him with backup.

"Cliffjumper, Warpath, Crosshairs, Bulkhead, report to the bridge," he commanded as he activated his COMM device. "The League may be in serious trouble."

[1] - As explained in Ch 1 of The Dark Phoenix

[2] - As explained in Ch 3 of The Dark Phoenix

[3] - As seen in Ch 5 of The Dark Phoenix

[4] - As seen in Ch 6 of The Dark Phoenix. Stay tuned, for Ch 7 will show the chaos in its entirity.