"I wasn't planning to get involved," Martin muttered, his tone calm yet edged with disdain. "But the moment you treated someone else's vehicle like your personal playground, like some kind of amusement ride, you crossed a line."
The door of the yellow Volkswagen Beetle eased open with a mechanical hiss.
A dozen helicopter searchlights instantly zeroed in on it, casting a blinding halo as if the truth of the universe had just stepped into view.
Media cameras clicked like machine guns, their operators wide-eyed, jaws slack, some blinking through tears as they mashed the shutter release again and again.
From inside, Martin emerged slowly. His shoes touched down on the ground, dusty, cracked, and stained with blood. He reached up and carefully straightened his tie, every motion deliberate, precise.
He had spent hours preparing for this first appearance, scrubbing his face obsessively and adjusting every detail of his suit until it met his standards.
Tall, broad-shouldered, and imposing, he stood with quiet gravitas in the center of Broadway. His face was angular and solemn, a portrait of unshakable resolve. His eyes, cold, calm, and intelligent, swept across the crowd.
Wherever they landed, people instinctively shrank back, suddenly aware of how small they were.
Two towering Transformers, massive robotic titans, stepped up beside him, one on each side. The ground trembled beneath their heavy footfalls. They loomed like twin colossi, bearing the weight of the sky.
The crowd exploded into chaos.
"Who is this guy?!"
"Another superhero?! He can control transforming vehicles!"
People gawked, stunned. Just moments ago, they'd seen this man awaken two ordinary cars, transforming them into war machines that had somehow subdued the raging monster wreaking havoc across the city.
Martin stood beneath the blinding lights, the entire world watching. Despite the gravity of the moment, a faint trace of exasperation tugged at the corners of his lips.
"I really didn't intend to get involved," he sighed, gazing at the bruised and furious Abomination as it struggled to rise. "But you've got something I need."
"Who the hell are you supposed to be?!" Abomination bellowed, his voice ragged with fury. "You think you can beat me with those two oversized toys?!"
Martin rubbed his neck as if bored. "If two aren't enough... how about two hundred thousand?"
He extended both arms.
In an instant, a surge of mechanical awareness pulsed through the city, his AllSpark-infused spark awakening metal from every corner of New York.
The sound of transforming gears and shifting alloys erupted like a symphony of chaos. Skyscrapers shimmered as machines embedded within them began to move. Entire buildings flickered with life.
Suddenly, New York became a city of metal.
Transformers, two hundred thousand strong, poured from every structure, storming toward Broadway in a relentless flood of steel. Every vehicle, every piece of consumer tech, reborn in the image of Cybertronian war.
The crowd screamed.
"My car! It just got up and RAN OFF!"
"My phone, my GODDAMN PHONE—!"
"That camera was company property!!"
From rooftops to alleyways, every inch of Manhattan was occupied by gleaming warriors, their optics glowing with tactical intelligence. The city transformed into a mechanical fortress, with Abomination trapped in its epicenter.
Abomination stared up at the overwhelming metal tide. He was dumbfounded. Then rage returned.
"You think numbers matter?! I'll crush every last piece of junk! My power is LIMITLESS!"
Martin shook his head, disappointed. "Even Hulk's base strength caps at around 100 tons, unless he's furious for an extended time. You? You're a second-rate knockoff."
He paused, then added coolly:
"If 200,000 isn't enough... how about two million?"
His voice, low, even, and unflinching, echoed through the city, picked up by cameras, broadcast across the world.
People everywhere fell silent. Eyes wide. Hearts racing.
Two hundred thousand wasn't his limit?
Then what was?
BOOM.
The ground trembled violently. Half of New York shook as even more machines awakened.
Helicopters veered off course as their systems were overridden. Soldiers were ejected midair as the aircraft transformed into monolithic Cybertronians, merging seamlessly into the marching tide.
Two million Transformers.
An endless, sky-choking mechanical horde.
The city was no longer New York, it was Cybertron reborn.
Millions of icy, mechanical eyes turned toward Abomination. The creature finally hesitated.
"You're too strong, Abomination," Martin said, voice soft but resolute. "That power needs to be… managed."
But behind his words was a hunger, an unspoken desire for control.
He raised his hand.
The command was wordless, but the Transformers obeyed without hesitation.
They surged.
This wasn't warfare. This was annihilation.
Tanks and APCs? Child's play compared to this wave of mechanized wrath.
Abomination had no time to scream, no time to react, before the mechanical onslaught swallowed him whole. Steel arms tore at his limbs. Warheads detonated against his hide. Hundreds, thousands, millions of warforms descended.
He tried to curse, but the tide drowned him out.
In seconds, Abomination was reduced to mangled, burning fragments.
Martin wasn't done.
He gave a final order, and a barrage of flamethrowers lit the battlefield. Abomination's remains were incinerated until not even ashes remained.
"I could've just leveled the area," Martin said, eyes locked on the smoldering ground. "Could've had them glass the entire block with heavy artillery. But… this is the city center."
He glanced at the stunned crowd. A wry smile tugged at his lips.
"So let's call this mercy."