Smokescreen grinned as he entered the base through the groundbridge, arms swinging casually. "Relic retrieved, Decepticons beat, all in all, a good mission."

Arcee rolled her optics, and held out the relic. It was unlike everything else they'd retrieved so far. It was a small box like object, that she could just wrap her servo around, though even Agent Fowler, a slightly heavy-set man, one of the few human adults part of Team Prime, could have used as a stool. The box was a silvery grey, with green energy streaks going down the side.

"Well, what is it?" asked Arcee's human partner, Jack Darby.

The team medic, Ratchet, narrowed his optics. "I myself do not recognize it, though it seems it is of Decepticon origin."

Turning the box around, Arcee saw the small purple Decepticon insignia embossed in the metal. "Makes sense," said the femme bot. "Knock Out and his Vehicon cronies seemed intent on getting their servos on it."

"Yeah, when we got to this thing it was already dug out," said Smokescreen, indicating to the cube. "The 'Cons seemed to be waiting for us. The weird thing is, the mad doc 'thanked' us for 'doing all the work'."

"Since when have 'Cons ever made sense," said Bulkhead, the ultimate muscle of the team.

"What do you think, Optimus?" Arcee handed the Iacon relic to the Autobot leader, who took it in his servo.

"It is indeed of Decepticon origin," Optimus Prime said slowly. "I recognize it as one of the Decepticon's more deadly creations."

"Suh-weet!" Miko, Bulkhead's exuberant human partner, fist pumped. "One up on the 'Cons!"

Smokescreen snapped his fingers suddenly. "Now I know what it is, and it's not exactly 'sweet'. For you guys, at least. The 'Cons, as a backup plan during the early days of the war, just in case they decided to leave Cybertron, created what they called an Assimilator. It takes organic matter and turns it Cybertronian."

The three human kids, Raf, Jack and Miko, who had been leaning on the guardrail on the platform, backed off suddenly.

Raf's guardian, the team scout, Bumblebee, beeped and wirred, shaking his helm worriedly.

"It was on a waterfront outside New York City," said Arcee. "No humans were around, at least none we know of."

"The Assimilator did set off a flash, though," said Smokescreen. "That's the problem with this thing, it's highly unpredictable. It'll assimilate anything from a human to an entire planet."

"So our human allies could be turned into Cybertronians at any moment?" Ratchet snapped.

"Cool!" Miko, having got over her wariness, had been leaning as close as she could towards the cube. "Then I'll really be a Wrecker!"

"Despite the unpredictability of this Iacon relic," said Optimus. "I believe that our vault ought to contain whatever shockwaves it may give off."

"I'll see to it," said Arcee, gingerly taking the relic, and walking towards the vault hall.

Suddenly, the computer gave off several beeps, and Ratchet turned sharply. "Cybertronian signals!" he said in surprise. He manipulated the computer, and his optics narrowed. "Very near where Arcee and Smokescreen retrieved the relic."

"Autobot or Decepticon?" asked Raf.

"Neither," replied Ratchet. "The signals appear neutral."

"Neutral or not, this no doubt has been detected by the Decepticons," Optimus said grimly. "We must investigate. Ratchet, Bumblebee and Bulkhead, you are with me."

"Me too!" Miko said automatically.

Bulkhead held up a servo just as the Japanese girl began to run down the steps. "You are staying here, Miko," he said firmly.

"Ugh! I can't do anything fun!" Stomping her foot, Miko stalked back up the stairs, where the two boys gave her a bit of a wide berth.

"Wait, so I'm stuck here with Arcee and Wheeljack?" Smokescreen sounded protesting.

Bumblebee shrugged, beeping, and Bulkhead pat the Autobot rookie on the shoulder. "Don't do anything to provoke 'Cee while we're gone, kid," the large green Wrecker said wryly. "Jackie isn't the type who's gonna help you out."

Quickly running to his computer, Raf tapped a couple things on his keyboard. "Activating the groundbridge."

The green portal swirled to life, and Ratchet, Bulkhead and Bumblebee stood by, waiting for Optimus' order.

"Transform and roll out," the Autobot leader commanded, and soon, a blue and red semi truck, a yellow and black Urbana, a large green off road truck, and a red and white ambulance disappeared into the groundbridge.

Megatron was angry. Very angry. "A mere two Autobots, against a fleet of Vehicons at your command, and they still managed to get a hold of the relic?"

The Decepticon medic, Knock Out, stepped back, cringing. "A thousand apologies, Lord Megatron," he said. "But-"

"I want none of your excuses, Knock Out!" Megatron turned away, growling. "This was your chance to redeem yourself from that one incident with the Phase Shifter. I do not give chances freely."

Knock Out grimaced slightly, partly because of the painful memory where that Pit damned Autobot scout had ruined his finish, and partly because he was wondering exactly what punishment would be dealt upon his helm. He wondered vaguely what would be worse, a beating, where he should stay online, but his entire chassis would hurt for days, and even worse, his finish would almost be beyond repair, or an offlining.

He was beginning to lean more on the beating part as the worse fate, when the Decepticon warlord suddenly turned, and he backed off quickly. But Megatron seemed to be contemplating something.

"However, it is unlikely the Autobots will put any risk to their organic pets by using the relic." He walked forward, towards his communications officer, who was manipulating the ship computer with deftness. "I trust, Soundwave, that you will work all the harder to locate another Iacon relic."

The silent comm officer turned, and a few blips appeared on his mask screen.

"Cybertronian signals?" Megatron said in surprise. "Neutrals… Well, perhaps we can change that into our favor. Dreadwing," he commd his second-in-command. "Meet me on the bridge."

The warlord chuckled darkly. "Let us greet our fellow Cybertronians…"

"Dudes, this is sooo rad!" Mikey exclaimed, running his hands over his chest.

Donnie examined his arm curiously. "I don't even recognize this type of metal alloy. It's not like the Kraang metal, it's something else, almost a techno organic matter, just… without the organic. It feels almost alive and natural, but it's such a marvel of technology."

"Well, if you're so fascinated by it, why don't you just start dissecting yourself, Donnie?" Raph snapped irritably, leaning against a building, which was fortunately abandoned, as were most of the buildings and warehouses around this particular waterfront.

Leo frowned slightly, more out of a concentration habit than annoyance. Instinctively, he reached behind his back, and was satisfied to draw two familiar katanas, just… larger. It was an uncanny feeling, though, as metal scraped metal, a slight shudder going down his back. It was a sort of ticklish feeling.

"Well, at least we still have our weapons."

Leonardo had had his fair share of being knocked unconscious, either by some unsavory characters, or more often by Raphael. But Leo had always had a bit of an idea what he was going to wake up to. A dark room, or the concerned faces of his brothers and Sensei.

The word 'reboot' wasn't the first thing that came to mind.

Of course, when he had found out that he and his brothers were now some sort of giant robots, a slight panic ensued. From Mikey most of all. But after Leo had forced himself, and his brothers, to calm down Mikey had started accepting this new mutation with enthusiasm.

Mikey was a bright orange, with black stripes, lined with bright blue, and his sky blue eyes glowed unnaturally.

Raph was a bright red, with darker green streaks, and bright green eyes to match them.

Donnie was a deep purple, and lavender and dull green streaks could be seen. His eyes were red. Or almost red. They were still the familiar, constantly curious eyes that Leo was used to, despite the fact that, for some reason, none of them had whites, but the red deeply bothered him for some reason.

Leo himself was, of course, blue. Rather than streaks, though, he seemed to have distinct black and white stripes. His eyes were a slight darker blue than Mikey's.

Both Mikey and Leo seemed to have something akin to small wings attached to their backs, and all of them had Master Splinter's clan symbol in silver on their chests.

"Do you have any idea what could have caused this, Donnie?" said Leo, carefully replacing one of his katanas.

Donnie was examining his new bo staff, which seemed to be made of a well worn metal. "None, at the moment." He tapped a finger on his chin. "I remember we were tracking the Kraang towards the waterfront, when we heard laser fire. You remember, right?"

"Yeah," Raph said in a 'well, duh' voice, giving his sai, who's blades had a glowing blue energy on the edges, a few experimental whirls. "A lot of it."

"And just when we were about to investigate, I thought I heard something that sounded like an energy surge before I lost consciousness." Donnie frowned slightly, looking down at his body.

"So what, the Kraang have a new experiment that involves mutating people into technology?" said Leo.

"I don't know," Donnie said hesitantly.

Raph threw his hands in the air. "Call the press! Donatello actually doesn't know something!"

"Zip it, Raph," the purple turtle-turned-robot said irritably. "Leo's theory doesn't exactly explain the laser fire."

"How are we gonna explain this to Master Splinter?" Leo said worriedly.

"How are we even gonna fit into the lair?" said Raph.

"Guys, I just realized something!" They all turned to their younger brother, who was holding his robot-ized nunchucks, which looked something akin to blue light saber 'chucks. "Since we're robots, does this mean we have to eat oil? I mean, it's never seemed very appetizing to me, but who knows what possibilities open up now that we're robots! I wonder if you can get an oil pizza…"

Before any of them could give a snappy reply, a noise that sounded like something giving a mighty power up sounded, and they were all suddenly bathed in an electric green light as what looked like an enormous green portal appeared. The four of them automatically fell into defensive positions. Four robots came through the portal.

It was hard to tell who was more surprised. The other four robots consisted of a very large in size green one, who towered over all but Donnie, who was probably about as tall as the green bot, if a lot smaller in size. The smallest bot was about as big and tall as Mikey, only bright yellow, with black stripes. Leo was only a little shorter than the third bot, who was white, with emergency red symbols on his arms. The tallest bot towered over everybody, and he seemed to be mainly red and blue.

What was most noticeable was that all of them had blue eyes.

"My name is Optimus Prime," said the tallest bot, in a deep voice, slightly monotone, as the portal extinguished. "The leader of the Autobots."

He paused as if waiting for a reaction.

"Autobots?" said Leo, gripping his katana. "What's that? Yet another alien robot species?"

The red and white bot scoffed. "Very hypocritical of you to be using the human word 'alien' as a derogatory term against us, when you yourself are the same species as us."

"Dudes, am I the only one who thinks that this peppermint robot dude's voice is kind of familial?" whispered Mikey.

"That's 'familiar', and yes, you're right," said Donnie, frowning slightly. "In fact, he sounds a lot like…"

The yellow and black bot suddenly threw a hand in the air, letting out a burble of beeps and clicks, that Leo instinctively thought he ought to understand, but didn't.

"How can we not know-?" Donnie snorted slightly. "We haven't even heard of this particular type of giant alien robots in general since only five minutes ago, let alone Autobots."

A small wondering of why Donnie understood the small yellow bot was pushed in the back of Leo's mind.

"I see that you are very untrusting at the present time," said the bot called Optimus Prime.

"Well, giant robots waving guns in our faces tend to do that," Raph said sarcastically. The yellow bot seemed to have a double barreled laser gun attached to each arm, the green one had an entire cannon in place of one of his hands, while Optimus Prime had what looked like enormous sniper laser guns in place of both hands.

Optimus Prime turned towards the green bot and the yellow and black bot. "Lower your weapons," he commanded, his guns suddenly seeming to retract into his arms, allowing two black hands to appear.

The bots obeyed. Donnie stepped forward slightly. "Wow," was all he said.

Optimus Prime approached slowly, and the four turtles turned robot raised their weapons slightly. "I mean you no harm," he said slowly. "Am I wrong to say that you were human only moments ago, until, for unexplained reasons, you have become what you are now?"

"Uh, yeah!" Mikey blurted out. "Dude, that's just wrong on so many levels! We were turtles before we became frigging alien robots!"

"Mikey!" Leo hissed.

"Yes, we used to be organic," Donnie put in.

"Guys, they're alien robots that jumped out of a very alien looking portal, which I gotta say reminds me of a certain incident involving a monster made out of rock and lava, waving guns at us!" Raph hissed. "Why are we even talking to them?"

Leo narrowed his eyes up at the tall bot. Something about this bot reminded him a lot of Master Splinter, which sort of surprised him. But that didn't make him trustworthy. But instinct was telling him that this robot could be trusted. Somehow. But then, instinct hadn't been very nice to him with Karai… No, he was not going to think about that.

"Raphael," Leo hissed back. "We may have no choice but to trust them."

"Like we trusted Karai?"

Leo glared slightly, before pushing his emotions aside. "Look, I feel that they can really help with what's happened to us."

Optimus watched as the blue mech discussed in whispers with the red mech. He still seemed to keep one optic on Optimus however, senses ever alert.

What had surprised Optimus the most was the age of the four mechs. They looked possibly younger than Bumblebee and Smokescreen, and those two young mechs were the last flickers of the latest Cybertronian generation. Of course, when the purple mech had confirmed that they had indeed been organic, it was a bit clearer to Optimus. And yet, no human youngling Optimus had heard of knew how to deal with weapons the way these four did now. It could have been battle mode instinct, but the sureness in the way they held the weapons showed years of training.

Of course, there were the weapons themselves. Wheeljack preferred katanas, like the blue mech, but that was preference. The Wrecker could have had a long range weapon. The energon blades the red mech held were unlike any Optimus had seen, and what was more, they were not built in, like Arcee's. The staff that the purple mech held was not unlike an electro staff, only minus the electro. Again, that was a matter of preference. And the exuberant orange mech… his weapons were unlike any Optimus had seen before.

These mechs, as organics, were practiced in these weapons.

"Optimus, are you really willing to involve more humans in this?" Ratchet moved next to the Autobot leader.

"If we do not, they may not have a chance to go back to their lives, old friend," Optimus replied. He cast a glance at the chestplates of the four mechs. Each of them had an odd silver insignia in place of a faction insignia. "And I do not think that these were any ordinary humans."

Finally, the conversation seemed to draw to a close, and the blue mech stepped forward. He seemed to be the leader in the group, and his katana was held limply at his side. "You will be able to help us?" he asked slowly.

"To the best of our ability," said Optimus.

The blue mech looked at the ground for a moment, then towards his companions. Then, back up at Optimus. "Ok…" He placed the katana behind his back.

Suddenly, a groundbridge could be heard powering up behind the four mechs, and Dreadwing, with a hoard of Vehicons, stepped out of the portal.

Seeing the Autobots, Dreadwing said, "Do not let the Autobots deceive you, friends! Join us, the Decepticons, under the great rule of Lord Megatron."

"Dreadwing," Bulkhead growled, his servo transforming into his long range weapon.

A Vehicon fired, and the young purple mech deflected the shot with his staff. He looked very surprised, as if not having expected that to work.

"Rafael!" Ratchet commd. "We need a groundbridge."

The red mech gave the medic an odd look. "What the heck-?" He cut off as a shot from an approaching Vehicon hit him in the shoulder. Falling back slightly, he growled, and plunged forward, quickly taking down his offender with his energon knives.

Optimus heard Bumblebee and Bulkhead exchanging gunfire with the Vehicons, and all the while Dreadwing approached slowly, taking out his machine gun.

"That doesn't look good," the orange mech commented.

Just then, a groundbridge powered up, and Optimus ran towards it. "Autobots, fall back!"

"Autobots, fall back!"

Leo turned after running after Raph, who had recklessly plunged amongst the seemingly faceless dark purple robots, deflecting a bit of fire with his katanas. He saw Optimus Prime running towards a green portal, the three other bots following.

He hesitated a moment, before grabbing Raph's arm. "C'mon!" he shouted. "Towards the portal!"

Shaking his brother away, Raph, for once, obeyed without question. Mikey was already ahead, Donnie and Leo deflecting some last few laser fire, before turning, and following.

Just before he entered the portal, Leo glanced back. The enormous blue and gold robot, who seemed to have wings like those of a jet, was staring after them with narrowed red eyes.

Red eyes.

Before Leo could even shudder, the New York City night disappeared.

Dreadwing made no attempt to run after the neutrals and the Autobots. In fact, as soon as all disappeared into the groundbridge, the Decepticon SIC was contemplating.

Most neutrals had blue optics or sometimes even green or gold. There was that one mech, though… the purple one. He had none of these. He had deflected the Vehicons' fire with a skill and ease Dreadwing had never seen before.

And he had the closest thing to red optics Dreadwing had ever seen in a neutral.

Neutrals were hard to convert into Decepticons. Even they seemed to appreciate the morals of the Autobots over those of the Decepticons. But red optics… red optics had an odd effect on some Cybertronians. Even those golden eyed neutrals, who's optics were the color of that bordering on red, seemed to have more Decepticon qualities than most.

Now if Dreadwing could just find him…

Standing behind the abandoned buildings, half a dozen blue and silver robots watched.

"Kraang," said a blue one. "The ones who are called 'the turtles' who are no longer the turtles because of the device that Kraang discovered that was stolen from Kraang by the unknown techno species have entered the portal that has appeared in this place of the unknown techno species who have stolen the device Kraang discovered from Kraang with the unknown techno species and are no longer in this place."

"Yes, Kraang," agreed a silver one. "The unknown techno species must posses valuable technology. The unknown techno species are now in alliance with ones called 'the turtles' who are no longer the turtles because of the device that Kraang discovered that was stolen from Kraang by the unknown techno species. The ones who are no longer the turtles have posed a danger to what Kraang has been doing and will now make what is known as 'trouble' for Kraang with the unknown techno species."

"The unknown techno species must be known as the unknown alien species that are destroyed," said another Kraang-droid. "Kraang must make the unknown techno species the known techno species for Kraang if Kraang is to accomplish this."

"Agreed, Kraang."

The treacherous grounded Decepticon seeker watched the Autobots with their new recruits with interest. They were like no Cybertronian he had seen before. Of course, when Dreadwing had come through a groundbridge - that cursed mech who now possessed his former position - the seeker had sunk as much into the shadows as possible, as if he wasn't already.

But he couldn't bring himself to activate his own groundbridge yet. These young Cybertronians did little fighting, but in what little defense they showed, it was very entrancing to watch.

He had seen the way these mechs had hesitated when Optimus Prime had offered them a place amongst the Autobots, though he could hear little else afterwards. Perhaps he would finally gain some allies.

A black femme bot, silver and gold streaks gleaming in the moon light, watched the robots fight with a rapt concentration. As soon as Leonardo entered the green portal after his new friends, the portal disappeared.

She inclined her head, golden optics narrowing, a smirk coming on her faceplates.

'Well, Leo, you and your brothers introduce me to something new everyday…'