Without wasting any words on Ultra Magnus, Skygnaw and Blackarachnia immediately pressed forward, joining Shockwave to launch a three-pronged assault.
Skygnaw caught a quick glimpse of the surrounding battlefield. If one looked strictly at the sheer scale of the conflict and ignored the high commanders, the battle they had fought on Earth was nothing more than a minor playground squiff compared to this. The two wars simply weren't in the same league.
Facing three opponents of equal strength, Ultra Magnus stood no chance, collapsing after a mere handful of exchanges as a concussive blast sent his armored frame crashing backward. This was the result even with Skygnaw's team deliberately holding back.
To overcome an entire group, a warrior had to possess a staggering disparity in raw power. Fighting above your weight class wasn't an achievement anyone could just pull off whenever they pleased. Reality, after all, was no fairy tale.
From across the plains, the various Autobot squads watched the disaster unfold with mounting panic. They desperately wanted to break away to reinforce Ultra Magnus, but their respective rivals held them in a ruthless chokehold.
As for the low-tier Autobot infantry, they lacked the power to even approach a duel between High Commanders, especially since they were already fighting for their own survival.
Under the Driller's relentless sweep, the ordinary Autobot soldiers had been nearly wiped out, leaving only the elite squads standing on the field.
The Decepticons were taking hits too, though. The Technobots held the Predacons in a tight lock, while the remaining Aerialbots had nearly cleared the skies of the ordinary Decepticon fliers.
The surviving Wreckers, Roadbuster, Topspin, and Leadfoot, had tried multiple times to corner the colossal mechanical worm that was tearing through their ranks.
But Shockwave's pet would simply dive beneath the metallic soil the moment they locked onto him, only to burst from the ground somewhere else to ambush another group of soldiers before retreating back into the dark. Long-range artillery shells did nothing but scratch his heavy armored segments, failing to cause any real structural damage.
The beast moved like a ghost, appearing and vanishing without a trace. The Wreckers could do nothing but watch their comrades get swallowed one by one by that cavernous maw.
The Driller, who had been starving ever since Cybertron's energy reserves ran dry, was finally enjoying a magnificent feast.
Usually, when he encountered Autobot cells in the wild, they would instantly scatter into hidden alleys, leaving him with only one or two stragglers to catch. Today, they had marched onto the field in a massive, concentrated line, offering him a glorious banquet.
"Silverbolt, I'm heading down to reinforce Ultra Magnus. Hold the line against the Predacons!" Scattershot roared through the tactical frequencies. Having cleared the sky of common grunts, he turned his thrusters downward, leading the Technobots on a steep dive.
"Understood, Scattershot. Leave the skies to me."
Scattershot was a hothead, but he understood the gravity of the situation; they could not afford to let Ultra Magnus fall here.
An elite Autobot squad comprised of one elite captain and four veteran warriors possessed enough collective power to briefly stall a High Commander, but they lacked the numbers to turn the tide of the broader war.
Recognizing the limitation while still in mid-air, Silverbolt issued a sharp command: "Aerialbots, combine!"
A chorus of shifting metal gears split the air as the five distinct fighter jets slammed together, their frames locking and rearranging until they formed the colossal warrior, Superion.
As the first and most powerful combiner built within the Autobot ranks, Superion shook the ground the moment his boots hit the dirt, charging directly toward the nearest threat, Shockwave.
"Shockwave, a combiner has entered the grid," Skygnaw warned over the comms.
Shockwave's red eye flashed with a rapid, intense light. He spun his massive forearm cannon toward the approaching giant, unleashing a heavy energy blast before broadcasting a new order across the Decepticon frequencies: "Decepticons, combine!"
"The master logician wants us to merge," Hun-Gurrr muttered, his focus wavering for a fraction of a second before his face hardened.
The physical strain of holding a combined form was immense, often leaving severe structural fatigue once the components separated, which was why none of the elite squads had triggered the transition yet. But since Shockwave had issued the direct order, they had to execute it regardless of personal preference.
The Terrorcon soldiers exchanged a quick look, simultaneously breaking away from their engagement with the Protectobots.
True to their sub-faction legacy, their alternate configurations weren't standard vehicles, but monstrous mechanical beasts. Blot shifted into a massive bipedal brute, Rippersnapper became a walking land-shark, and Cutthroat took the form of a black, razor-winged bird of prey.
The captain, Hun-Gurrr, and his deputy, Sinnertwin, held the most unique designs: Hun-Gurrr shifted into a ferocious, two-headed dragon, while Sinnertwin mirrored the form with an equally savage dual-headed beast. One was cruel and cunning; the other was cunning and cruel.
When these five distinct personalities merged their frames, the beast-like giant they created, Abominus, was a creature of pure, unfiltered malice.
Standing over thirty meters tall, the combiner resembled a massive, bipedal mechanical pangolin, his armored head lowering as he charged forward to crush anything standing in his path.
The Terrorcons' transformation acted as a catalyst across the field. In rapid succession, the Stunticons merged into Menasor, and the Predacons united to form Predaking.
Seeing their ancient rivals trigger their combined forms, the Autobots answered without a second of hesitation, initiating their own transformations. Within a matter of seconds, the empty plains were crowded with multiple giants stretching dozens of meters into the sky.
Except for the Seacons.
The Seacons' alternate forms were strictly aquatic mechanoids, and their combined state, Piranacon, lost ninety-nine percent of his operational mobility when operating away from a body of liquid.
It was a structural limitation shared by their leader, Snaptrap, whose alternate form was a massive mechanical sea turtle. On a dry, metallic battlefield like this, a mechanical sea turtle held absolutely zero combat utility.
Among all the giants on the field, Raiden was undeniably the most colossal, his height reaching nearly a hundred meters.
The Trainbots had historically served as Cybertron's primary rail transit division, meaning each member transformed into a heavy transport locomotive, making them naturally larger and heavier than standard Autobots. Before the war, they managed the planet's global shipping networks, later becoming the resistance's most vital transport asset, handling almost all long-range shipping campaigns when shuttles weren't available.
A giant of that scale required an equally powerful adversary to hold his attention. Menasor, possessing full flight capabilities, didn't hesitate for a single second, leaping straight at his ancient rival to continue a feud that had lasted for centuries.
Elsewhere, Predaking locked horns with Computron, Abominus threw his weight into a brutal clash with Defensor, and the Seacons swarmed the remaining three members of the Wreckers to tie down their positions. The sheer violence of the war reached a terrifying new peak.
On the main front, Superion's sudden intervention forced Shockwave to divert his attention, turning his cannon to match the incoming giant. As the tactician who understood Superion's data profiles better than anyone, he was the logical choice to anchor the combiner.
With the fight shifting from a three-on-one to a two-on-one, Ultra Magnus caught a glimmer of hope.
The ambush he had launched against the Decepticons had completely collapsed, forcing him to abandon their initial objectives. The complex plans he had drafted before departing their bunker were erased from his thoughts; now, the only parameter that mattered was preserving the remaining life of the resistance.
*BOOM!*
Battered back by another heavy strike, Ultra Magnus's armor sparked violently as he slid across the dirt, his chassis sustaining severe structural damage.
Yet his resolve didn't fracture; instead, the fire in his eyes burned hotter. He forced his frame up, raising his heavy warhammer with both hands as he charged straight toward Skygnaw.
His strategy was simple. Blackarachnia was a veteran Decepticon warrior whose lethal skill he had faced many times before. Only Skygnaw, the newly minted High Commander, represented a potential weak link he could break to shatter the stalemate.
Skygnaw watched the Autobot commander charge toward him with an expression of pure, unyielding desperation. He blinked smoothly, instantly reading the opponent's intent. "Heh. It seems someone is underestimating me."
Drawing the Black Hell Blade, Skygnaw gave the greatsword a casual, elegant spin. He had originally intended to let Shockwave claim the execution as a professional courtesy, but since Ultra Magnus was actively begging for termination, he saw no reason to reject the offer.
Bringing the dark blade up in a precise parry, Skygnaw effortlessly caught the heavy warhammer, the sheer force of the block forcing Ultra Magnus to take a heavy step back. Even the most unfamiliar weapon became a natural extension of one's arm over time, to say nothing of a blade, a category of cold iron Skygnaw had wielded extensively in his past life.
Blackarachnia didn't step in to help, standing back with a relaxed posture as she watched the show. She had originally intended to deploy her personal swarm of Insecticons for this campaign, but Skygnaw had blocked the move, pointing out that Cybertron's dry shell couldn't support their resource consumption. If she unleashed a breeding cycle on a planet this starved of energy, the swarm would end up consuming the home world itself just to continue replicating.
"Ultra Magnus, do I truly look that easy to break?" Skygnaw mocked, his blade cutting a fluid arc through the dust as they traded strikes.
Ultra Magnus didn't answer, his expression behind his battle mask turning incredibly grim. The newcomer was terrifyingly strong. By all logic, a newly evolved commander should have been the easiest target on the field, yet he could feel that Skygnaw's raw power was cleanly overriding his own, an imbalance that held true even if he factored in his current injuries.
Just as Ultra Magnus's defenses began to falter, a series of heavy engine roars echoed from the entrance of the Sonic Canyons.
Dozens of Cybertronian ground vehicles burst from the mouth of the pass, tearing across the plains toward the war zone. The symbols stamped across their armor plates were a uniform, unbroken line of Autobot badges.
The moment Ultra Magnus realized they had walked into an ambush, he had broadcast a high-priority distress signal across their secure channels. The nearest subterranean Autobot sanctuary had answered the call, mobilizing their entire active garrison to reinforce the line.
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