Fantastic Four and the Transformers (CONT)

by Chris McFeely

CHAPTER SEVEN

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JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF UNICRON

“You wont be able to use your flame powers in this suit,” Arcee explained to Johnny, “but it’s the only way you’ll be able to survive inside Unicron.”

Johnny Storm shook his arms, and the metallic suit he wore shifted heavily with them. The mechanical white armour was uncomfortable at best, and he found it difficult to walk in. Being used to the freedom of flying through the sky, Johnny was slightly irritated by the confining suit, and the Plexiglas faceplate seemed to cut him off from the outside world. He tried to take a step forward, and fell flat on his back.

Arcee chuckled, quietly. She remembered when she had gone through the same thing with Daniel Witwicky, Spike’s son, on the planet Junkion. But he had soon got the hang of it, and Arcee was confident Johnny would too. “It’s okay,” she said warmly. “Try to transform.”

“Transform?” Johnny was confused. He could hardly walk, much less than anything else - how was he expected to transform? “Well, I’ll give it a go...” The suit began to strain, as Johnny tried to transform it. A slowed-down version of the typical grinding noise produced by a transformation spasmed from the suit’s gears. There was a small implosion of air, and Johnny found himself on his back again, staring up at a set of heavy-duty vehicle wheels where his arms should have been.

“Almost got it,” Arcee said, helping him up. Johnny smiled - she was pretty good-looking, for a giant robot. Rodimus Prime rolled into the large hangar where the two were testing Johnny’s suit in truck mode, and transformed. Johnny envied him for making it look so easy.

“Ready to go Torch?” Rodimus asked. Johnny could tell that he was more nervous than he let on, but said nothing.

“Call me Johnny,” he replied. “Yeah, I’m ready. Let’s go kick some planet-eating dark god butt!”

Rodimus smiled and transformed back to truck mode. “Hop in,” he offered. Johnny clambered up into the truck’s cab awkwardly, still struggling with the suit’s controls, and shut the door. Arcee transformed to her futuristic sports car mode, and followed Rodimus as he rolled out of the hangar and across the surface of Cybertron, to a building shaped like a bunker.

Johnny hopped out, having taken the time of the trip to acquaint himself with the suits motor controls. Reed, Sue, Ben, Ultra Magnus and Springer met them at the bunker. Rodimus and Arcee transformed as Reed explained their plan of action.

“First and foremost,” Reed began, indicating Rodimus and Johnny, “we need to get you two inside Unicron. That will be Springer’s job.” The green warrior robot stepped forward. “I will maintain constant radio contact with you through our costume radios, Johnny,” Reed continued the briefing. “Now, when you get inside, the objective is simple - find the Ultimate Nullifier, and get out. Rodimus, you can guide Johnny through Unicron’s interior, Johnny, you have excessive knowledge about Galactus’s defences inside his ship. We must assume those defences are still active.

“When you locate the Nullifier, inform me through our radio link-up, and return to your initial point of entry, where Springer will pick you up, and bring you back here, where we can proceed with phase two.”

“Sounds good to me,” Johnny said, a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

“I’m ready when you are,” Springer said.

“Good luck, kiddo,” the Thing shook Johnny’s hand.

“Be careful,” Sue said, hugging her brother, tears almost welling up in her eyes.

Ultra Magnus exchanged goodbyes with Rodimus, and they both saluted each other. “All right Autobots,” Rodimus said, turning, then paused, “uh, and you two, Johnny - transform and roll out!”

Springer once again transformed to his helicopter form, but this time, he was much larger. Some Transformers, Springer among them, had the ability to alter their size and mass when they transformed by shunting portions of it into subspace, but to carry Rodimus Prime within himself, Springer ballooned himself up to maximum size. Rodimus climbed into the cockpit, followed by Johnny, who was getting the hang of his suit.

“Good luck,” Arcee said, resting a hand on Springer’s chassis. With a whirl of rotor blades and a rush of cold Cybertronian air, the small group was gone, literally and figuratively, straight into the belly of the beast.

* * *

“Arrogant fool!” Galactus roared as Unicron threw a badly-aimed right cross at his face. “You dare to challenge me?” Again, energy bolts spewed forth from Galactus’s eyes, and knocked Unicron over. “I am Galactus! You may be an entire world, but I, Galactus am the devourer of worlds!” Unicron’s clawed foot smashed into Galactus’s stomach, winding him. He staggered, and then looked up, his eyes seething with raw energy. He stretched out his arms, and his palms began to surge with yellow energy. “I control the Power Cosmic! I am invincible!” Two beam of blinding energy shot from his hands, striking Unicron in the face. “I am Galactus!” he screamed. “The be-all and end-all of the universe!”

High above the titans’ combat, Rodimus Prime looked out of Springer’s cockpit and heard Galactus’s ranting. He turned to the Torch. “This guy has a serious fear of losing his identity,” he quipped.

“Even I don’t make jokes about Galactus,” Johnny smiled back.

“We’re nearing the drop zone,” Springer’s voice was heard in the cockpit, emanating from a panel of flashing lights. “We just have to wait for the right time...”

Galactus slammed his massive fist into Unicron’s ‘stomach’, and the metal monster yowled in pain.

“Now!” yelled Springer. His cargo bay doors opened, and Rodimus quickly transformed to his truck mode, facing the opening, as Johnny clambered into the cab. Rodimus roared his engine, and with a squeal, he shot out of the cargo bay doors, into mid-air, plummeting straight towards Unicron’s open mouth. As he and his fantastic companion fell towards the all-encompassing maw, Rodimus transformed to robot mode, snatched Johnny from his cab, and neatly landed inside Unicron’s jaw.

“Hold on, Torch,” Rodimus said to the young man. “This is where it gets difficult!”

Johnny was promptly thrown from his feet as another of Galactus’s laser bolts slammed into Unicron, causing the metallic titan to convulse in pain. Rodimus transformed to his truck mode and yelled back at Johnny to do the same.

“Not again...,”Johnny mumbled, but he didn’t have much choice. The joints of the suit began to grind against each other as he strained to make the transformation work. He was fairly sure that his arms were sliding in ways that they weren’t meant to, when suddenly, with a clunk the suit locked into position, and had transformed into a small buggy. “More controls to fail to use properly,” Johnny muttered.

“Let’s roll!” Rodimus yelled, clouds of thick black smoke spewing from his multiple exhaust pipes. With a jerk, Johnny moved the buggy-armour after Rodimus as he shot off down Unicron’s mechanical gullet.

“Lead the way!” Johnny responded, yelling over the roar of his own armour’s engine. But he soon fell quiet as he observed the incredible technological feats surrounding him - everywhere he looked there were massive cogs, gears, and pistons, on a scale he couldn’t even begin to imagine. Reed’s voice crackling over his costume radio awoke him from his daydream.

“How’s it going?” Reed inquired.

“We’re making good progress,” Johnny replied. “We’re heading towards the central processing unit of Unicron’s structure - Galactus kept the Nullifier at the centre of his ship, so I guess that’s the best place to start looking.”

“Have you encountered any resistance yet?” Reed asked, his voice growing fainter as Johnny and Rodimus moved deeper and deeper into Unicron’s superstructure.

“Not yet, boss man,” Johnny started, but was cut off by a shout from Rodimus.

“A little help, Torch?” Rodimus yelled, transforming to robot mode as he did so. A small contingent of battle droids, each one even larger than Rodimus himself, were approaching the duo menacingly. Rodimus raised his forearms, and squeezed off a stream of laser fire from the miniature cannons he wore on his wrists. One robot went down, but another two took its place in the horde.

Johnny transformed the buggy with slightly less difficulty than before, and rushed to Rodimus’s aid. “How am I supposed to help?” he asked, maddeningly. “I can’t ‘Flame On’ in this monkey suit!”

“Use its weapons systems!” Rodimus shouted, shattering the knee joint of a droid that was almost on top of him, and causing it to topple backwards into a group of about four more.

Johnny punched buttons inside the suit like crazy, and finally hit one that did something. The mechanical fist on the end of his right arm unclipped itself, and swung downwards, held on by a hinge, as a large gun barrel extended from his wrist with a whirring noise. “Oh, YEAH!” Johnny yelled happily, and began blasting away at the droids like there was no tomorrow.

A few minutes, and a few hundred rounds of ammo later, the droids were vanquished. Rodimus blew on the tips of his over-heated lasers, in the style of a suave western hero. Johnny chuckled, and would have done the same, if the faceplate of his suit was not preventing him. Instead he had to settle for merely waving the gun around to cool it off and let the smoke clear. He pushed the button again, and the barrel withdrew, allowing the robotic fist to snap back into place.

“You there Reed?” Johnny spoke to his leader through the radio.

“Yes, Johnny,” came the reply. “What happened?”

“We ran into a little ‘resistance’,” he responded. “But we nailed ‘em.”

“According to my suit’s scanners, Galactus’s energy levels are weakening,” Reed warned him. “You’ve got to hurry.”

“No sweat,” Johnny said, brushing away the worry with a motion of his hand.

“Torch,” came Rodimus’s voice. He was standing beneath a massive spherical unit, decorated with viewscreens which showed Galactus, and even what appeared to be organic material clung to the walls. “We’re here.”

“So where’s the Nullifier?” the Torch wondered, walking right the way around the spherical machine.

“Only one way to find out,” Rodimus replied with a smirk. He systematically began to trash everything that looked like it might be important.

* * *

Unicron roared with pain, which surprised Galactus, who had halted his assault momentarily. He was not the cause of the pain which wracked Unicron’s body.

Ultra Magnus looked up, as Springer zoomed by overhead, and then dived low, transforming to his futuristic sports car mode and landing roughly on the metal surface of the planet, having deemed the air too dangerous a place to remain. “Something’s wrong!” Magnus shouted down to the three members of the Fantastic Four who were present.

Sue smiled. “That’s my brother,” she chuckled. “Always causing trouble.”

Reed did not respond to his wife’s jest. Instead, his eyes were focused upon the void of space, clearly visible from Cybertron’s surface. “Yes...,” he said at last. “Trouble.”

He pointed an elongated finger up into the ebony void. A sleek shape was hurtling towards Cybertron - and its intentions were clearly not friendly. Stretching his eyeballs in a manner that Sue and the Thing found too disturbing to watch, Reed ‘zoomed in’ on the ship in the same manner as a camera zoom lens. It was shaped like a corkscrew, bristling with weapons, and, Reed could see quite clearly, it had a small figure floating alongside it, sheathed in a forcefield of crackling blue energy.

“Doom,” Reed spat out the villain’s name.

“What’s that...,” Sue paused, “...that thing he has with him?”

“Something I hoped I’d never see again,” Ultra Magnus said solemnly, as he joined the three humans. “It’s a Quintesson battleship.”

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