TFNation - The Decepticons' Time-Terror

Written by: Ralph Burns and Matt Marshall

Illustrated by: Garry Bodsworth, Kris Carter, Matt Dallas, Herzspalter, Chris McFeely, Umi Mayao/Coralus, Sora L Pereira, Chris Philips, Ben Pirrie, Ed Pirrie, Liam Shalloo, Shibara, Kris Smith, Gavin Spence, Vanessa Sutherland, Alex Tarca/EPH, Joe Teanby, Andy Turnbull and Adam Worden/Zerokaiser

Plot

The year is 1993, and the Autobot Skram has been demoted to a maintenance worker following a mistake at Atlantis that led to the death of Thunderclash and the theft of a load of artefacts by Megatron. Pyro gave him this punishment due to his lack of teamwork and his impulsiveness leading to the death of his teammate.

In the UK, Spike is now working in the Greenwich power plant with some of the Autobots, including a miniaturized Ultra Magnus, whom now resembles a watch, who are looking into new energy sources and mysteries in the area, especially after finding a strange crystal skull under a ley line. Pyro, the leader of the Autobots on Earth has become obsessed with the idea that Earth has several alien secrets on it, especially under the Nazca Lines, Ley Lines, Pyramids and even Stonehenge. Spike assured Pyro that there's nothing under Stonehenge or the other places though...

Meanwhile, at the Decepticon's base, under Stonehenge, Megatron has now completed a new invention that he intends to use with the aid of a Decepticon "Time Warrior", Scorpia; The Cybernet Space Cube, which he will use to conquer Earth from the start of it's development.

Later, Skram is sent on a delivery run to the UK with some bottles of the Aquaspeeder's special water attached to his trailer for them to refill with. On his way there, he is forced off the road by a random shopping trolley and ends up crashing, spilling the water all over him.

At that moment, the Decepticons attack the Greenwich base and capture the human and Autobot staff, and use their machinery to complete the time machine and walk through...changing the present day...

At the Greenwich Power Station, the heart of the Decepticons' empire for sending Energy to power their empire, the king of the slaves in the UK, Spike Witwicky is being tended to by his own slaves, as well as the Decepticons' Earth leader, Clench, and with his miniature ally watch, Galvatron on his wrist. Everything is good for Spike, until suddenly Clench's head explodes!

The Autobot Skram appears, and explains that history has been altered by the Decepticons in some way. During their discussion, in which Spike doesn't accept Skram's alternate history, it is revealed that the Aquaspeeders are also in the base, but in a jail cell.

Spike takes Skram to the cells, intending to play along just to get him captured and rewarded by Emperor Megatron.

Skram leaves to try and find some clues to what happened, and whilst he is gone, the Aquaspeeders manage to make Spike realise that his current timeline is wrong, and that being a slave is wrong. Skram soon returns, with Ravage stuck in his cassette mode, giving them the full story about Megatron's plan!

In ancient Pangaea Megatron captured the first land-walking fish and enslaved it to produce power for his empire, thus planting this mentality in all it's descendants, aka the human race.

Soon, the Autobots and Spike wind up in the past, having found the Decepticon time machine, and Spike has his original memories restored, as well as his original Ultra Magnus watch. Soon, the Autobots find Pyro, who was taken with the Decepticons so he couldn't stop them himself and free him from his chains.

Soon the Autobots discover the pyramids being created and them sending energy to Cybertron for the Decepticons to come to Earth and enslave it, and they realize that the mysterious locations on Earth were INDEED created by aliens, Transformers in fact! Soon, they find a circuitry layout connecting the devices, which all leads towards Stonehenge!

The Autobots attack Megatron and his Decepticons, leading to a battle, with Speedstream holding off Devastator, Jetstorm fighting his Decepticon same-name counterpart and Skram and Deluge fighting Ramjet and Starscream. Soon Jetstorm appears and helps with the fight, leaving Skram to fight with Megatron.

Pyro joins in the fight to help Skram defeat Megatron, finally teaching Skram about teamwork. The battle between the two leaders ends up with the time stream warping around them, changing other character's colours, and ghosts from across time circle them. In the process the Galvatron watch returns and starts to fight with the Magnus watch.

Soon, Skram notices that Megatron's face plating is broken and he has a crystal skull underneath, meaning that it was HIS skull they found in the UK, meaning that they have already defeated him in history, so they can do it again.

the Autobots all work together to weaken the ground and, with the help of the Pangaean fish they knock Megatron into a chasm, leading towards the Earth's core, defeating him forever...

Back in the present, the Autobots debrief over what has happened, and Pyro starts on a theory he has that something is happening under the mysterious pyramids of Antarctica, which Spikes completely dismisses...

Meanwhile, in the pyramids of the Antarctic, the newest leader of the Decepticons, Starscream, plots his next move....

Characters

Autobot

Pyro - Fire Truck

Skram - Muscle Car

Speedstream - Race Car

Deluge - Race Car

Aquafend - Baja Buggy

Jetstorm - Rally Car

Ultra Magnus - Wrist Watch

Rodimus - Caravan (In Time Stream Only)

Thunderclash - Truck (Mentioned) Killed by Megatron

Optimus Prime - Truck (Mentioned)

Bumblebee - VW Beetle (Mentioned)

Wheeljack - Race Car (Mentioned)

Decepticon

Megatron - Tank Reduced to Crystal Skull by Autobots in Earth's Core

Starscream - Fighter Jet

Ramjet - Fighter Jet

Stalker - Missile Launcher Truck

Scorpia - Time Machine

Jetstorm 2 - Baja Buggy Killed by Jetstorm

Deluge 2 - Race Car

Afterburner - Fighter Jet

Eagle Eye - Fighter Jet

Windrazor - Fighter Jet

Terradive - Bomber Plane

Devastator - Constructicon Gestalt

Constructicons

Clench - Truck (Alternate Timeline) Killed by Skram

Galvatron - Wrist Watch (Alternate Timeline)

Ravage - Cassette (Alternate Timeline)

Scorponok - Scorpion/Base (In Time Stream Only)

Human

Spike Witwicky

Human Slaves (Alternate Timeline)

Other

Pangaean Fish

Time Ghosts

Notes

• This was the (now seemingly annual) exclusive book for TFNation. This time in the style of a Ladybird book, here remade to "Ladybug"
• The Ladybug logo has been redesigned to be the G2 version of Bumblebee, who was red and black, much like a Ladybird. Despite this, Bumblebee only gets a mention in the story, and doesn't actually appear.
• The back cover includes a list of other Ladybird/Ladybug books. The first ten listed are real books, but the last two "Erector at the Pole" and "Thundercracker's Revenge" are fake titles...could these be future exclusives being hinted at?
• The front cover includes a special piece of art by Mike Collins, the artist of the first four Ladybird books, and is coloured by Kris Carter
• In the credits for the artists involved, Coralus is listed twice, I'm not sure if this was on purpose, but I'm going to guess it was just a mistake.
• On page twenty of the book, there is an alignment error that has the image of the page covering Spike's dialogue, making it very confusing why Skram is arguing against something that wasn't even said! (You can just see the bottom of the lines under the image)
• Pyro's thoughts about aliens being trapped under the Nazca lines is reminiscent of the Decepticon Pretenders in Masterforce being hidden under them too
• The Cybernet Space Cube stolen by Megatron is based on the main framing device of the short-lived G2 cartoon series, where the cube would be showing events and added a frame to some scenes.
• The Decepticon Scorpia in this story is actually historically an Autobot.
• In the alternate timeline, it seems that Megatron and Galvatron are not the same person, as both exist at the same time, one as a watch, and the other as the supreme ruler of the universe.
• In the alternate timeline, Spike's outfit keeps changing between a loose robe with no under-shirt and a white shirt with a red cape (then changing to a yellow shirt after time travelling)
• With the reveal that the Aquaspeeder's water not having any special qualities...why did they and Skram not get affected by the time change?
• Skram's feeling of deja-vu at seeing the Ravage statue is due to it using the classic stock design of Ravage pouncing seen in a lot of older comics and Ladybird books.
• The pyramids being energy distributors here is likely a reference to the use of the Great Pyramid in Revenge of the Fallen as a Sun Harvester.
• Devastator changing to an orange colour during the time-stream battle, and Megatron turning purple are references to repaints and even a new toy of Megatron's from the G2 era
• Ultra Magnus and Galvatron having to have another fight, despite being reduced to watches is a reference to their long-standing rivalry in comic history
• Megatron's crystal skull is an obvious reference to the Crystal Skull from the Indiana Jones movie of the same name, which starred Shia LaBeouf, who also played a major role in the first three Transformers movies
• I guess the implication is that when Megatron fell into the Earth's core his body dissolved away, leaving just his crystal skull, but it's not clear how his skull survived, or how his brain was removed in secret...