Rebooted
The Zapbots return to Earth as the Nonocons once again emerge in the new timeline.
[[Image:|right|300px|thumb|<--- Previous - The Fall and Rebirth of Gearatron ]]
Synopsis
At the White House a security by the name of Mike Quartz observes a plane flying way to low to the ground. As the plane comes closer it begins to transform in a robot and attacks the White House. Mike watches in horror as smaller robots emerge and proceed to capture the President.
In Columbus Ohio Anthony Anselmo awakes to go his job. After his car won't start, he tries again and it proceeds to start up. He texts his partner Shawn and they proceed to make plans for the evening's entertainment. Later that evening when Anthony, Shawn and their friends meet up downtown he notices a helicopter flying too low to the city. The helicopter proceeds to attack and as a rocket heads towards Anthony, he is suddenly encases in a force field as his X-O suit reactivates and he suddenly remembers everything. He proceeds to disable the army of Nonocons attacking. Wheelrun and Timetravel appear to assist with the battle. Wheelrun takes his friends home and Timetravel takes Anthony and Shawn to Fortress Misslemax.
As Anthony comes back to Fortress Misslemax for the first time in many years, he reacquaints himself with his various Zapbots. Anthony proceeds to tell Shawn of the backstory of the Zapbots. He explains they attempted to help Earth get better but found out that the Earth's governments were corrupted and the President was attempting to blackmail Anthony because of his sexual preference. In order to preserve the peace, all humans had their minds wiped to erase any reference of the Zapbots as well as Anthony and his Headmaster friends. Then they all went into hiding until the Nonocons returned.
Anthony joins once again with his Shortstop body and joins the team in the Conference room. He catches up on the sitation with Botimus, Timetravel, Speedy, Plier, Terrain, Overload, Hightone, Scan, Flier and Boaty. With the Nonocons returning to Earth their cover is blown and they need to start intervening again. Ultra Attack is arriving in Duplaflex in a few hours to help with the investigation. Botimus will lead the team on Earth to try to discover where the Nonocons base is, while Fortress Misslemax will head out into space to confront the Nonocons.
Before leaving Earth, Anthony revisits his human friends one more time. Seeing they've all moved on with their lives and families he decides not to reactivate the Headmaster team.
On the Nonocon ship Amphotron is furious once again at Skyscream as they prepare to take over Gearatron. He orders Skyscream to attack the Zapbot base on Earth, while he and the rest of the Nonocons prepare to meet Fortress Misslemax.
On Earth Botimus meets up with Ultra Attack and they proceed to Michigan were they believe the Nonocon base to be. When they approach they are attacked by Skyscream and his troops, pinning the team down to the ground.
In space, Fortress Misslemax meets up with Amphotrons ship. Amphotron challenges Shortstop to a lone battle on the surface below. Shortstop agrees and after the typical back and forth discussion, they engage in battle.
Back on Earth the Zapbots cause a distraction to allow them to become airbound to deal with the Nonocons. Suddenly an Eaton robot shows up and proceeds to attack the team capturing them in his claws. When out of the blue the Combat Team shows up to battle their old arch rival. They combine into Salvor and proceed to destroy the Eaton robot. The Nonocons retreat and the Zapbots survey the damage to the Michigan site.
Back at the battle Amphotron has him pinned and hanging off a ledge. Just as Amphotron is ready to destroy him, Anthony disengaged with his Shortstop body and hits Amphotron directly in the face with his X-O suit power (same tactic he used in Robot Trek IV). Amphotron half destroyed flees back to his ship, as does Anthony, grabbing his backup Shortstop body to resume battle on the bridge of Fortress Misslemax. During the battle the Zapbots have the upper-hand, but as a last resort the Nonocons fire all their energy at Fortress Misslemax, disabling them, allowing the Nonocons a chance to escape.
Much later Anthony is arguing with current world leaders (the ones who have not been captured so far by the Nonocons). He indicates to them how before the mind wipe years ago, they captured the crooked leaders of the past Eath and put them in a Zapbot prison. The world leaders are angry and cry out that the Zapbots are no better than their own enemies. Anthony indicates they will search for the current world leaders to bring them back as soon as possible but they will continue to stay out of Earth politics and only get involved when the Nonocons or some other enemy attacks. In the back of the room security guard Mike Quartz can't quite place his finger on where he's seen Anthony before, but he leaves the room with the rest of the leaders. Anthony acknowledges that he walks out of his life once again.
Back on Misslemax, Anthony breaks up with Shawn to protect him. He will continue to leave a secluded life on Earth as well and going back and forth to Fortress Misslemax. Tiny and Experiment will help Anthony to protect his pets that he's grown attached to on Earth and take care of them during his absence. Preparing to talk to the High Council for the first time in a long, Shortstop and the Zapbots fly back to Gearatron to start life again.
Featured characters
| Zapbots | Humans | Nonocons | Planets |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Quotes
"Well look who the catacon brought in!”
- Superrobot to Anthony when he arrives back on Fortress Misslemax for the First time.
“So um... I have a huge story to tell.” I said.
“Yea fucking think!” Shawn said.
- Shawn to Anthony after they arrive to his quarters.
Notes
Versions
- First Version: 2013
- Second Version: 2021
Production notes
- This was the followup story I wrote on a plane ride back and forth to California. I had this idea and wanted to pick up several years later with the Zapbots and myself in hiding. So this was the next story written after the revision of Robot Trek II around 2000. After I finished this it would be not until 2020 that I picked up and worked on the stories between Robot Trek III and this one, finishing the saga.
- I kept the mention of the time travel in The Fall and Rebirth out of this story because, it is possible to start reading the saga here, and then retroactively go back. This provides less confusion to the user and also a surprise of how everything came to be, if you then go back and reread the story front to back. (Kind of like how the Star Wars prequels gave you more backstory once you watched them.)
- This story includes my partner at the time Shawn, and ironically I break up with him in the story and later would break up with him in real life.
- The time frame for when the mindwipe happened was around Robot Trek II era. Thus it allows the Matrix to be stolen by Tri-Star still and the humans are just starting to explore space, but are stopped. This gives the story the explanation of fitting into what actually happened in the real world up till 2012 (eg: September 11th attacks etc...) I understand its a weird premise, but I really wanted this to be a true reboot, in that the Zapbots never existed in people's minds till 2012. Very similar to how the Star Trek franchise was rebooted with the Kevlin timeline.
Continuity notes
- At this point it was a time to refresh the various Earth technology Zapbots. So Scan, Hightone and Lowtone get true vehicle modes.
- Amphotron is obviously still alive at this point.
- No mentions of where Secretish or Shock is yet.
- Rup, Hot-Shot and Vision are still in the universe at this point.
