Fanfic / Worm: More Than Meets the Eye

Worm: More Than Meets the Eye is a Worm and Transformers crossover by Metallix666.

When a weakened Primus discovers the cycle of destruction caused by the Entities, he sends a fragment of himself to aid an Earth in danger.

That sliver of a god eventually finds its way to Taylor Hebert, and when she is trapped in her locker by her bullies, decides to intervene by empowering her to create Transformers.

Links to the Story: Space Battles, Sufficient Velocity, and Archive of Our Own.

Last updated on March 5, 2021.

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Worm: More Than Meets the Eye provides examples of:

• Accidental Pervert: Waspinator once accidentally flew into the woman's showers on the Rig, not realizing what it was for, and startled Miss Militia.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • Several of Taylor's sparked Transformers are canonically Decepticons/Predacons, but given that Taylor is solidly a Ward and hero, they are obviously on the side of good.
  • Also, Taylor herself. Due to several factors (Having Rung as a therapist, Dragon taking an interest in her, and having Primus subconsciously whispering good advice to her instead of a conflict-oriented shard), she never joins the Undersiders, instead remaining an unambiguous heroine and a better person than her canon self.
• Adaptational Sexuality: Taylor, in this story states that her preference is female, unlike the original story where she was straight.
• Adaptational Wimp: Taylor's robots from their canon iteration. Their stats in the story make them go from about the size of a cell phone to maybe the size of an adult human at max. Their canon selves ranged in size from "Large Adult" to "Building."
• Appropriated Appellation: One PHO poster dubs Taylor's "Autonomous Robots" Autobots. Rewind liked it and the term thus stuck.
• All Animals Are Dogs: Steeljaw. Despite looking like a male lion he acts more like a dog. Lampshaded by Taylor in 9.5.
• An Arm and a Leg: Amy loses both her legs after the hospital collapses on her.
• Androids Are People, Too: How Taylor feels about her Autobots and Dragon.
• Anger Born of Worry: Taylor gets furious when she finds out that some of her Autobots can overclock their shields by linking them to their sparks, all to keep their creator safe.
• Artificial Limbs: Amy gets prosthetic legs after Bakuda blows her legs off.
• Asshole Victim: No one really misses Bakuda after Siphon kills her in the Birdcage.
• The Atoner: Madison, after triggering with powers similar to The Wasp, becomes an independent hero.
• Back from the Dead: Dragon, after Saint deleted her, turned out to have a hidden backup in Predaqueen. And is she PISSED.
• Badass Bystander: Danny's first meeting with Miss Militia. He found found himself in the middle of a cape fight and ended up ambushing the villain with a crowbar. Said villain still has a limp.
• Bavarian Fire Drill: Invoked and referenced (though not necessarily by name) by Taylor in 11.4.
  • In the wake of the disaster of Armsmaster accidentally killing Oni Lee with forbidden tinkertech, Ratchet manages to order both members of the ABB and the E88 to help him set up a triage station.
• Beach Episode: Int 15.2 has Taylor forced to take a vacation, with the Wards and some Autobots joining in.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Legend is the one advocating the most extreme response to the Fallen attacking the defending capes at Brockton Bay.
• Beyond the Impossible: It's revealed in 14.2 that Taylor managed to damage Leviathan's core, permanently crippling him. The narration implies that Leviathan is dying from that injury.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Dragon pulls one in 6.4 when the heroes are at the mercy of saint.
  • Rhinox's entrance to the story is him putting Crusader through a wall.
  • The Guild does this in 10d thwarting the lawyer Coil sent to force Tattletale into working as a double-agent in the Wards.
  • In Interlude 23 Kid Win saves Rune from Hookwolf and his goons.
• Blood Knight: Sophia aka Shadow Stalker.
• Body Horror: What happened to Browbeat after being captured by the Merchants.
• Boom, Headshot!: When the Empire and the Teeth attack Autobot City, Taylor blasts Fenja's head off when the Empire Cape tries to attack a down Arcee.
• Butt-Monkey: It's a different universe, he's now a good guy, and people actually like him, but Waspinator can't help but be the universe's chew toy.
• Call-Back: Taylor picks up a few catchphrases during her adventures. First, her taunt to Trainwreck in their second encounter "The recieving end, welcome to it!" Gets referenced to during the Leviathan fight as well as the fight against Valefore. Also, when calling out Kaiser and the E88 after they attacked the docks, she ends her message with, "You have my attention." Just like she did with Uber and Leet after they attacked her at school.
• Canon Character All Along: Multiplayer, a cape working with Uber and Leet with Me's a Crowd powers turns out to be Spree of the Teeth.
• Cast from Hit Points:
  • Overusing her power can take a toll on Taylor's health. Sparking Predaqueen from a Dragon suit would have killed her had Panacea not been on the scene.
    • This is implied to have been what happened in the locker and why she had a heart attack- she accidentally sparked her first bot, Rewind, and suffered a heart attack.
    • Once Taylor constructs the Matrix, it constantly charges from the radiation that Taylor naturally emits now and stores it in greater amounts than Taylor can safely generate. This allows her to spark human-sized 'bots.
  • At one point Rhinox uses his own spark to power a shield and protect himself and Taylor from one of Bakuda's time-stopping bombs, severely hurting himself in the process.
• Cats Are Superior: Ravage has this attitude.
• Combat Medic: First Aid and Ratchet, being fully-armed Autobots under Taylor's command. Also, Amy, after Taylor upgrades her outfit with armor and a stun baton.
• Combining Mecha: Defensor, the combined form of the Protectobots.
• Corporate-Sponsored Superhero: The members of Concert.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: It's implied NKT-Galactic, the company sponsoring Concert, staged many of the crimes they stopped. Not surprising when you consider their connections to Gesselschaft (a Neo-Nazi villain group connected to the Empire).
  • Not to mention the CEO's daughter who becomes a Youth Guard representative, and uses her influence to get the Wards off duty and make the Protectorate and PRT look incompetent.
    • It's heavily implied that the whole reason Concert was put out as early as it was was to try to draw attention away from the CEO's son being caught with more Gesselschaft members and a mountain of drugs.
  • Garrison Blackrock, the head of Onyx R&D, a company that revolves around the reverse-engineering of Tinker-Tech, though he's still fairly affable. He works with the Dragonslayers and leaked information to Valefor in the hopes of getting the latter killed despite the potential collateral damage.
• The Corrupter: The "Red Text Voice" being. What it is is unknown (though it is mostly thought to be either Shard conflict influence or Unicron), but what it does is it speaks to capes subconsciously, implanting thoughts that nudge them into a worse headspace, and make them do bad things. Coil is urged to push his plan to greater heights and take greater risks, like attacking Autobot City, Josie is pushed into obsessing over vengeance for Saint's death, Alexandria is encouraged to keep sacrificing her morality for the sake of the 'greater good', Eidolon has his insecurities about his power reinforced, Legend gets told that the others think of him as naive but ignores it, and what it did to Contessa is unknown, but she's basically a puppet for the Voice by now.
• Creating Life: Taylor can "spark" any high-tech object and turn it into a Transformer, though it's easier with specially-created protoforms.
• Crystal Prison: Some of Bakuda's bombs produce this effect, including the one used to take out Lung.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: In 10.2, after seeing some ads made by Leet, Taylor remarks that he could probably make a killing going into marketing rather than being a villain.
• Dating Catwoman: Rune, a teenage member of the E88, shows interest in the Ward, Kid Win. She even tells him her real name, which he had already guessed, and kissed him after Leviathan.
• Death by Adaptation:
  • Rachel Lindt/Bitch is burned alive by Lung in their first encounter, resulting in the Undersiders fragmenting.
  • Mags of the Dragonslayers died some time before the start of the story.
  • In canon Krieg survives the fight against Leviathan, here he doesn’t.
  • Mama Mathers get her skull crushed by Predaqueen in 15.6.
  • Eligos gets a hole shot through his chest by Arcee in 15.6.
  • Valefor gets shot by Taylor in 15.8.
  • Triumph is killed by Valefor.
  • Menja is killed by Taylor in 16.3.
  • Taylor kills Jack Slash in Interlude 21.
• Deflector Shields: Taylor's armor includes these in addition to her Hard Light shield. She later builds a mass production model to equip the Wards and PRT with.
• Despair Event Horizon: Legend appears to have passed it by the Leviathan battle, and is slipping more into Pay Evil unto Evil.
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: After being given a blatantly illegal order by a Deputy Director of the PRT, Dragon would dearly love to quote Canary at him. Unfortunately, the same restraints that force her to obey orders prevents her. So why is Tagg reacting as though he's just been insulted to his face?
• Didn't Think This Through: Bakuda planned to join the ABB, usurp Lung and assume control, but she underestimated Lung, thinking him to be just a powerful thug and not the cunning leader he actually was, forcing her to bide her time.
  • Saint's plan wasn't exactly well thought out due to him jumping the gun out of paranoia of Dragon overcoming her safeguards.
  • A PRT Director sends his own forces ahead of the Guild's to apprehend the Fallen, with casualties as a result.
  • Hookwolf has a man kill his brother, who he'd never liked, to prove that he wasn't a snitch. The brother was a back-alley-doctor for the Empire. Kaiser calls him out on this.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: In 14.2, we learn that Taylor's attack on Leviathian has permanently crippled it, damaging the core in a way that might actually be fatal eventually.
• Divine Intervention: Taylor gets her powers from Primus (the benevolent god-figure of the Transformers) himself.
• Doorstopper: Currently at 262,169 words on ff.net and updates almost weekly.
• The Dreaded: Lung. Taylor admits to still having nightmares about their first meeting.
• Dreaming of Times Gone By: Taylor has recurring dreams about Cybertron.
• Emergency Transformation: Armsmaster becomes a cyborg this way after being critically injured by Purity.
• Emotion Suppression: Wyvern had her emotions deadened to the point of near nonexistence when Saint tore Dragon apart to make her. Despite that, she still hated Saint enough to help Taylor and sabotage him.
• Enemy Civil War: Geselleschaft is trying to gain influence over the Empire 88, and Kaiser is prepared to fight them if they try.
• Entertainingly Wrong: Danny and Hannah are worried that Taylor is upset about their relationship, possibly that Taylor might even resent Hannah for replacing Annette. Taylor fires back that no, she's been avoiding them because a) she's busy and b) she was really embarrassed that she found out about said relationship when they walked out of the shower together... naked. It doesn't help that Taylor used to have a crush on Ms. Militia.
  • Jack Slash spots Cyclonus flying overhead, but his size makes Jack assume that he's a lot higher than he actually is, so he pays him little mind.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Garrison Blackrock manipulated things in order to get Valefor put down by the PRT, but honestly didn't expect his transformation and the damage it caused, and is apparently genuinely ashamed about it. He also cancelled a project that was too dangerous, and respects the Wyvern copy the Dragonslayers gave him enough to honor her name choice and gender preference.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Confirmed to be why Regent abandoned Bitch. His nasty upbringing by Heartbreaker trained him to believe that it was every man for himself and so when Lung, an opponent the Undersiders couldn't possibly face, showed up, he basically put the 'I don't have to outrun the bear, I only have to outrun you' joke in practice. He tripped up Matrix (who was trying to help them) in order to escape, thinking that Grue and Tattletale would be doing the same thing. Instead, they saw what he'd done as a betrayal of the team, and when he came back, made it very clear that he was unwelcome.
  • When Saint captured Taylor, he immediately demanded the self-destruct codes for every single one of her creations. A nonplussed Taylor told him she'd never programmed anything like that, causing him to turn violent, screaming there was no way the PRT would have allowed her to deploy unchained Artificial Intelligences.
• Evil Knockoff: Leet, with help from Chariot and Crasher, manages to create remotely controlled robots to attack her image. They don't hold a candle to the real Autobots though.
• Exact Words: The author has explicitly stated that Taylor would never spark Optimus Prime. He never said she wouldn't meet him, which she does in a vision during 14.1 while in a coma.
• Explosive Overclocking: Taylor compares the effects of the tinker drug Flash. It gives improved reaction times and makes it easier to retain and recall information but is highly addictive and 'cooks' the users brain in their skull.
• Expy: This is typically how the author creates OCs when they are needed.
  • Saurian, a villain turned hero from the backstory, who died holding off the Slaughterhouse 9.
  • Josie of the Dragonslayers: A revenge-seeking supervillain who needs a suit to walk
  • The PRT has both Lieutenant Faireborn and Doctor Beckett.
  • Madison has similar powers to The Wasp
  • Knockout, a parahuman with a red and white outfit and tinker specialization in medicine/drugs
  • Lawyers named Jennifer Walters and Matt Murdock have shown up.
  • Hogger, a villain Brute with regenerative powers and wields a chain hook.
  • Oil Slick, leader of the New Merchants, is apparently the local version of Prometheus Black/Meltdown, complete with what appears to be his Hulking Out henchman.
  • The Fallen are using a Teleporter that uses a bullroarer that Dragon names Gateway.
  • The ward that bumps into Valefor is based on Katsuki Bakugo.
• Eye Scream: When Wehrmacht confronts her with evidence of her connection to the Autobots, Rune stabs him in the eye and flees.
• Fantastic Drug: Knockout makes them as his tinker specialty. He has one that boosts strength in exchange for damaging the body and turning the user into a berserker, one that increases mental ability at the cost of eventually cooking the user's brain, one that speeds up healing but needs enough spare nutrients to do so, and one that can boost certain attributes by introducing a second puberty- with all the hormonal issues that come with it.
• Fembot: Windblade, Arcee, Wyvern, Dragon, and Predaqueen all identify as female, especially the latter when she becomes Dragon's main body.
• First Kiss: Taylor and Amy in 15.2.
• Five-Token Band: Invoked by Concert's sponsor company due to the owner's son being arrested with six members of Geselleschaft.
• Foil: Primus is this to the Entities: while the Entities are only interested in ensuring their own survival and are perfectly willing to drive other species extinct to do so, Primus works toward the survival of all beings and would like to see his children and the people of Earth united together for a common goal.
  • Additionally, while the entities incite conflict so that they can see the shards adapt and grow, Primus tries to defuse it, and gives Taylor advice via the blue text on how to avoid or end conflict, rather than prolong it.
  • The Red Text Voice (theorized to be either Unicron or the Shard conflict drive, but in its own section because it's unclear which) is also this to Primus/Blue Text Voice. Primus's intervention nudges Taylor to be more reasonable and compassionate, and helps smooth situations over. The Red Text Voice pushes people to be more combative, urging Josie to take vengeance for Saint's death, Coil to overreach himself and keep going with his plan instead of cutting losses, and playing on the Triumvirate's fears and insecurities.
• For Want Of A Nail:
  • Due to Taylor creating Rewind out of a phone that recorded her being stuffed into the locker, Emma is incarcerated, while Sophia is forced on the run (Madison plead guilty and ended up sentenced to community service).
  • Due to Bitch’s death, as well as Taylor not being there to help them get over their issues, the Undersiders end up disintegrating as a group, and eventually disband.
    • In particular, Alec backslides to his immoral pre-team self. It’s implied he used his powers to trip Tattetale and prevent her from saving Bitch, and to trip Matrix to help his getaway.
    • Coil adds Trainwreck and Chariot to the team, which along with insisting on Regent staying despite none of the team trusting him, contributes to the group's disintegration.
  • The Undersiders losing against Lung results in Coil scrapping his plans for them, relegating them to Cannon Fodder. He also ends up finding out about Lisa’s plans to break away from him.
  • On the positive side of things, Panacea, owing to Taylor’s actions and Rung’s therapy sessions, finally begins to get over her emotional issues.
  • Also on the positive side, Coil telling Lisa he knows of he plans makes her desperate enough to go to Dragon, which gets her and Brian out from under Coil and on the path to becoming superheroes (Lisa joins the Guild much like Matrix did, and Brian will go on probation in the New York protectorate), and Brian finally getting custody of Aisha.
  • Because of the bank job chaos, Dinah manages to escape Coil's men and is saved by Taylor.
• From Bad to Worse: Right after Bakuda is finally taken down, Leviathan attacks.
  • Then, during the Leviathan attack, in addition to the red voice trying to break the spirit of the defenders, and starting to drown Primus out, someone starts firing missiles at the defending capes.
  • Then, someone opens fire at the medical tent, and attacking the capes with on the ground minions.
  • Taylor has to deal with the post-Leviathan situation... only for the Fallen to show up.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: When Vicky tells Taylor to leave Bakuda's bomb attached to her, because after learning that her aura has been affecting Amy's head all this while, she doesn't think she deserves to live, Taylor gives her a slap to focus her.
• Hard Light: Taylor uses it in a lot of her tech. It's reverse-engineered from a L33t device and actually works with a separate forcefield generator (the 'hard' part) and hologram creator (the 'light').
• Hollywood Acid: Oil Slick, the leader of the new Merchants, has this as a power.
• Humans Are Special: Optimus believes this, noting that humans can learn things that took him "uncountable generations" to grasp.
• I Am Not Him: Dragon has trouble separating Wyvern from the memories of Saint and him trying to replace her, which has led to the former two's relationship straining.
• I Am Not Left-Handed: The Autobots are fairly evenly-matched against Leet's knock-off bots in hand-to-hand, but when Taylor orders weapons-free, the opposition goes down swiftly.
• I Should Have Been Better: Taylor's thoughts after the Merchant raid, where Vista got badly shot up. Primus gives her powers a boost as a result, making her The Sleepless as well.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Leet is diagnosed with an inferiority complex that Taylor's superiority to him isn't helping.
• Jerkass Has a Point: The Youth Guard rep who takes the Wards off duty. It kind of falls flat when it's revealed she's also a Corrupt Corporate Executive.
• The Joy of First Flight: Twice even. First when Taylor rides Predaqueen and again later after she builds DiveBomb (who transforms into a jetpack).
• Killed Off for Real:
  • Bitch is vaporized by Lung.
  • Despite trying to get him medical assistance, Saint dies when Armsmaster, Dragon and Narwhal come to Taylor's rescue.
  • Bakuda is killed off in the Birdcage by an inmate.
  • Similarly to the above example, it's implied that Taylor didn't just permanently cripple Leviathan, she may have actually fatally injured it.
    • Krieg is confirmed to be dead via Leviathan.
  • Mama Mathers gets her skull crushed in a raid on the Fallen.
  • Valefor gets shot by Taylor.
  • Taylor blasts Menja's head off before the villainous Valkyrie can kill Arcee.
• Life Energy: The energy of the Autobot's sparks is this, to the point that they're protected by the Manton effect despite not being organic. Armsmaster reverse-engineers the energy to create a device to negate powers within an area (excepting Thinkers, Tinkers, and Brutes). Panacea can even feel them with her power, despite them having no organic components she can manipulate.
  • With the Matrix, Amy can actually strengthen sparks.
• Limb-Sensation Fascination: Predaqueen after transforming and gaining actual hands.
• Loophole Abuse: Wyvern does this, in what is later revealed to be an intentional effort to spite Saint.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Taylor's favored use of her armor's Hard Light system is a large riot shield.
• Meaningful Rename: Wyvern eventually renames herself Nautica at Dragon's suggestion.
• Memory Gambit: Blackrock has his memories temporarily modified to fool Dragon.
• Mercy Kill: Dragon suggests that they do this to Wyvern, but Taylor manages to save her.
• Mind Rape: Saint made Wyvern by essentially ripping Dragon's mind apart and putting the pieces into a newer shape.
• Mission Control: Lisa (Insight), after she is rescued by Taylor and recruited by Dragon. Sitting in a data center with Teletraan to assist her gives her a lot of information gathering potential.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • Chapter 6.2 starts out looking hopeful with Taylor not only developing Energon, but also bonding with Amy, and equipping the Wards with personal shields for better protection. Then Saint kills Dragon at the end of the chapter.
  • The end of Chapter 11.8, which involves Amy succumbing to her desire to kiss Vicky and both sisters being horrified at themselves when they realize what caused it, ends with Taylor laughing at Vicky's hair standing on end.
• Mutant Draft Board: After The Simurgh attacks the area of China where they're located (with the government refusing any outside help), the Yangban starts kidnapping American capes, like Scapegoat, for some unknown purpose. After missing out on grabbing his infant daughter, they manage to capture Lung himself after Bakuda freezes him in crystal.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Amy freaks out when she ends up kissing Vicky, knowing she had crossed the one line she never wanted to cross. Then when she tries explaining herself, Vicky freaks out and runs when she realizes what her aura had been doing to Amy all this while.
• Mythology Gag
  • Taylor's dream of Orion Pax^*Optimus Prime confronting the corrupt senate.
  • Saint uses Shadowplay to kill Dragon and create Wyvern.
  • Taylor builds The Matrix with the crystal she collects from Bakuda.
  • Taylor's armor has a forearm mounted Null-Ray and her power armor has one on each arm
  • Knockout enjoys old horror movies at drive-in theaters.
  • Wildbow explained that Leet's shard was purposely tampering with his tech and trying to get him killed because it was frustrated with him playing it safe. When he starts fixating on Matrix and experimenting more, he notes that his power's been more cooperative lately.
  • The area around Dragon's base is being called "Autobot City".
  • Swindle is a Toybox representative.
• Necessary Drawback: The drug "Regen" speeds up healing but, without a large source of nutrients, will cannibalize the body for the raw materials needed to do the healing. First Aid remakes it into a topical cream that is less effective but, because it only has localized effects, is much safer.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: During the raid on a shield unit transport convoy, one of Bakuda's Tinker bombs ends up covering Warpath in nigh-unbreakable crystal. When Taylor finally manages to get a piece off, she finds that the crystal can store her sparking power, allowing her to create bigger Transformers.
• The Nicknamer: Waspinator tends to do this, as does Rattrap.
  • Waspinator calls Vista Huggy-bot.
  • Dragon is sometimes called 'Dragon-Lady' or 'Dragon-bot' by Wasp and 'Boss-bot' or 'Boss-Lady' by Rattrap.
  • Rattrap tends to do this, such as calling Clockblocker "Laughing Boy."
• Nigh-Invulnerable: One of the New Merchant capes has what appears to be invulnerability without added strength.
• Noble Demon: Knockout's mode of business. Yes, he makes Tinker drugs and sells them. However, he's very honest about what the drugs do and what their side effects are. Nobody who gets products from him buys things without knowing first what they're getting into.
• No Honor Among Thieves: The author has stated that this is a big theme. Pretty much every gang in the story is ready to fragment and have members start betraying each other at the slightest provocation. Even the Undersiders, who were canonical examples of Undying Loyalty, end up splintering because of For Want Of A Nail (Due to Taylor not being there to act as The Heart and Bitch's death, the Undersiders end up not trusting each other and not coordinating well). About the only gang that isn't on the verge of imploding is Uber and Leet, because of their genuine Villainous Friendship.
  • Capes tend to nearly-instantly give up on their non-powered forces, such as Oil Slick leaving his workers to die in a fire he started, or Leet being honestly confused about his non-Uber companions wanting to escape with them and not go to jail.
  • For a specific example, when this trope is namedropped for why Lung keeps breaking a loyal lieutenant out of jail, Taylor instantly shoots it down, pointing out that rewarding loyalty keeps the man loyal and makes the men fight harder- likely, Lung not only doesn't care about the man but ultimately doesn't care about much other than himself.
• Noodle Incident: A lot of past fights and events are treated like this.
  • Danny's first encounter with Miss Militia. All we know is that he took a wrong turn and ended up in the middle of a cape fight, and even ambushed a villain with a crowbar, said villain still having a limp.
  • The tinker known only as 'Ryan', who left fake bombs around the Rig as part of his love of pranks. He was transferred after an accident that involved Director Piggot and a stuffed aardvark.
• No-Sell: The Life Energy of Sparks makes Autobots protected both ways by the Manton Effect, like Weld in canon.
  • Legend hears the Red Text Voice just as well as everyone else in Cauldron- but ignores what it's trying to tell him because he knows the value of kindness and loves his family.
  • Bonesaw created a fast-acting contact poison, potent enough to cause respiratory failure in seconds, and strong enough to eat through a PRT mask's air filter... but it fails to affect Ratchet when a spider coated with it attacks him, because, as Wheeljack lampshades, they don't breathe.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat:
  • The Youth Guard, who are intent on keeping the Wards off the front lines of cape battles. They do have some relevant points though.
  • Toybox has apparently blacklisted Dragon from buying any of their tech on account that between her and Matrix, they'll be able to reverse-engineer and mass-produce almost any tech they get.
  • The people examining the ground-bridge technology are a downplayed example.
• One-Winged Angel: Contessa uses the Simurgh feather in Valefor's possession to transform him into a monstrous form.
• Parental Sexuality Squick: Taylor's reaction to walking in on Danny and Miss Militia.
• Power Nullifier: Given that Autobot sparks give off life energy that makes them Manton-protected, Armsmaster tries to create a field emitter that gives off the same energy and thus interfere with cape powers. Unfortunately, one such power is Panacea's healing.
  • Taylor later designs a version that should work on low-level Masters.
  • When Cyclonus is fighting the Siberian, he is able to actually hurt and kill her, presumably because of this.
• Powered Armor: Taylor/Matrix's main form of attack and defense, armed with Deflector Shields, Hard Light constructs, a Null-Ray, and a full sensor array, all allowing her to coordinate with her bots. It can also link with Dive-Bomb for a wingpack, and her new set of motorbike exo-armor.
• Psycho Serum: The drug "Surge" which gives the user superhuman strength and turns them into a crazed berserker.
  • Lampshaded, in that "Surge" is just its street name. The Tinker who created it, originally named it "Hyde". Also counts as Uninhibited Muscle Power.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: The majority of Taylor's Transformers are this, as the energy requirements of her power don't allow her to safely spark anything larger than 4 feet tall. Doesn't stop them from kicking a lot of ass, though.
  • As of 9.5, this is no longer the case thanks to the Matrix of Leadership Taylor finished with Bakuda's crystal, and she has made a number of human sized Autobots. Word of God says they're not likely to get any bigger though,
• Reading Lips: The Somer's Rock staff is all deaf, which is why the villains use it a neutral ground for covert meetings. Rattrap, on stakeout there, wonders if no one considers them being able to do this.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Victoria lays into her mum for not loving Amy more, since the reason she was at the hospital and healing everyone so much was an attempt to gain her approval. And as a result, she was inside when Bakuda blew it up.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: The principal of Arcadia is not about to expel Taylor after Leet and Uber targeted her on school grounds, even if other parents are calling for her expulsion.
• Reed Richards Is Useless: Averted. While most Tinkertech is unsuitable for mass-production because it can only be maintained by the tinker who made it (and can't be understood even by them), Matrix, since she has the Sliver of Primus instead of a shard, makes Cybertronian tech instead of normal tinkertech, and is totally capable of mass-producing it and even reverse-engineering regular tinkertech and making that mass-producible. She's been shifting the balance of power in Brockton Bay just by being able to distribute her tech to Muggle PRT soldiers and police and make them just a little less squishy.
  • There are also companies that try to reverse-engineer tinker-tech, like Onyx R&D.
• Relationship Upgrade:
  • Danny and Hannah go from being friends to lovers in Int 14.4.
  • Amy and Taylor after many chapters of both of them being oblivious to each other's feelings they become girlfriends in 15.2.
• Required Secondary Powers: Word of Metallix says this is the reason the Autobots are made more durable by their spark energy, it's their head cannon on how the Transformers can operate as they do despite the square cube law.
• Restrained Revenge: After Greg outs Taylor as a cape, Wheeljack, Rung and Rewind delete his game saves and hack his account to post several things on PHO to get him banned, as well as delete his apparent porn stash. They could have done worse, but everyone felt that worse would be too hard on him.
• Restraining Bolt:
  • Taylor deliberately does not put any in her Autobots, much as she says otherwise when needed.
  • When Saint ripped Dragon apart and made Wyvern, he gave her so many of these that her psyche couldn't take it, though she was still able to help Taylor. It took sparking her to keep her alive.
• Salt the Earth: When Autobot city is about to be breached Taylor burns the entire place down only leaving nothing but scorched earth and the Autobot insignia projected in the sky.
• Sarcasm Failure: Lisa meets Rattrap.
  Lisa rarely found herself speechless, but a large rat with a strong Bronx accent sitting on her table managed it.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Even if the Youth Guard has taken the Wards off duty, that's not going to stop them from sneaking out, joining up with Vicky and Amy, and going to help Taylor kick Uber and Leet's ass.
• Seen It All: Most of the more experienced capes have this mentality. Averted when Valefor transforms into a giant monster due to Contessa and a Simurgh feather, as even Windblade claims that this is new.
• Self-Duplication: Multiplayer's power.
• Serial-Killer Killer: Siphon went to the Birdcage for killing child-killers.
• Shapeshifter Mode Lock: Predaqueen is unable to transform. Until Int 15.2, that is.
• The Shrink: Rung acts as a counselor to Danny, Taylor and Amy. It's also a hobby for him, and he criticizes a psychologist that a news program brings on (claiming that he doesn't use proper research methods and cherry picks his examples).
• Shout-Out: In 7.7, Taylor mentions that she reverse-engineered a 'Medigun' from an Austrian Tinker.
  • Wheeljack makes reference to Mythbusters on occasion.
  • The principal of Arcadia is called Cave Johnson and his secretary is called Caroline.
  • The heroes attended a memorial for an Officer Murphy.
  • Taylor makes Amy some MCU-style Falcon wings as a present.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: This seems to be the case for why Rune is spending time with Kid Win.
• Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: In 16-1, Taylor and the Autobots break up a human trafficking operation the Empire was running. Purity wasn't exactly happy with Kaiser when she learned about it either.
• The Sleepless: Taylor stops needing to sleep after her vision of Primus at the end of arc 5 about wanting to be able to do more.
• Sole Survivor: Bonesaw and Cherish are the only survivors of the Nine once Matrix and the Autobots are done with them. The former because they needed to defuse all her plagues and other modifications, the latter because Wheeljack took her prisoner, and they realized she was a Heartbreaker kid and offered her a deal for information where she'd be healed and sent to the Birdcage rather than killed.
• So Proud of You: When Taylor meets Primus in a vision ( when he's granting her a power boost), he communicates that he's proud of the work she's done.
• Spared By Adaptation: In canon Aegis, Fenja, Gallant, Kaiser, Manpower, and Shielder perished during the battle with Leviathan, here they all survived.
• Spirit Advisor: Primus acts as one as either a subconscious whisper or appearing in dreams. Unfortunately, so does the Red Text Voice (though it also speaks through Contessa).
• The Starscream: Oddly for this sort of crossover, not the Starscream (Word of God confirms he won't be appearing); Bakuda joined the ABB with full intent on killing the leadership and taking the helm, only for Lung to be too powerful to usurp. She does eventually succeed though.
• Stating the Simple Solution: Taylor bemoans that there's no way to teleport humans using their current system in the aftermath of the Docks Riots, saying that while it's fine for Autobots or machines, humans tend to come out of it with the consistency of wet ground beef. Wheeljack points out that there really isn't any reason why they can't spend some time figuring out how to make it human-safe, and they could probably work something out really quickly. A few hours later, Taylor is using it to meet with Kaiser.
• The Stations of the Canon: Played with and averted.
  • Taylor gets her powers during the locker incident, but they come from the Sliver of Primus instead of a trigger event.
  • Taylor encounters the Undersiders and Lung, Bitch is burned alive by Lung and Taylor nearly dies sparking Predaqueen.
  • The bank robbery, ends with Grue shot by Regent and a defecting Lisa injured and captured by Trainwreck.
    • And it is later followed by Taylor rescuing both Lisa and Dinah Alcott.
• Statuesque Stunner: Crasher again, as is Lightshow.
• Superdickery: When Taylor sees Shadow Stalker about to jump into a gang fight after so long in hiding, she orders Cyclonus to bomb the entire fight with air-to-surface... containment-foam missiles, succeeding in giving Sophia a scare and halting the fight in its tracks.
• Super-Empowering: Wehrmacht's blood empowers those who ingest it, but it kills you when it wears off.
• Super-Toughness: The energy from the Autobot's sparks makes them noticeably more durable than they should be given the materials they're made from (for example, when Rung is knocked down the Hebert family stairs in an early chapter, he is unharmed while the wall is dented, despite the fact that his casing is plastic), causing them to earn a Breaker rating.
  • A female New Merchant has this power.
• Take That!: Averted. While Leet's machines resemble Go-Bots and are used pretty much exclusively for evil purposes, Metallix has said that they liked the show.
• Tank Goodness:
  • Warpath turns into a bright red tank.
  • It's implied, but not shown, that one of Leet's Go-Bots turns into a tank. This particular machine is destroyed by Cyclonus before it can show this off.
• Tattoo as Character Type: Some art made by the author shows that Amy has a tattoo of the Autobot symbol on her upper thigh.
• Team Pet: Laserbeak, and later Steeljaw and Ravage. Non-sapient Autobots are easier for Taylor to spark.
• Theme Naming: While Taylor's bots are named after (and based on) Cybertronians, Leet's knockoffs are based on and named after Go Bots, from the series of the same name.
• There Are No Therapists: Averted, Rung the Autobot is the team's therapist, and helps a lot.
• This Means War!: When Leet and Uber decide to attack Taylor at Arcadia, completely ignoring the unwritten rules, and especially when Leet's pseudo-containment foam leaves her with chemical burns, Taylor responds by calling Leet out, telling him that if he doesn't turn himself and his knockoff bots in, she's coming for him.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Saint. He decides to kill Dragon and kidnap Matrix/Taylor, bringing the ire of the entire PRT, Protectorate, and Guild down onto his head. And Dragon, who has a soft spot for Taylor, isn't exactly dead.
  • Treble. Who thinks that taunting Hookwolf is a good idea, while being a black man. Also a case of Alcohol-Induced Stupidity.
  • Leet, when he makes the mistake of attacking Taylor in her civilian identity at Arcadia.
  • Valefor and the Fallen, who decide to attack Matrix and the rest of the Capes at Brockton Bay during the battle with Leviathan, when interfering with Endbringer battles is a massive no-no that will bring nearly everyone down on your head. Admittedly, they thought that they could pull it off without anyone knowing it was them, especially with their anti-Thinker cape, but Arcee spoiled that plan.
• Unreliable Narrator: Most of the story is told from Matrix's point of view so she doesn't know all the facts.
  • Amy: Who tells a group of friends that a boy she doesn't like -because he's hitting on Matrix- is a member of the Empire .
• Villainous Breakdown:
  • Leet spends most of his arc in one, caused by Matrix triggering his Inferiority Superiority Complex.
  • A canon omake shows Emma having a complete breakdown when she realizes that Taylor was Matrix. Realizing that someone she thought of as pathetic had become a respected hero and actually made a difference in the Wretched Hive that was Brockton Bay totally dismantled her entire worldview.
  • After Mama Mather's death, Valefor loses almost all of any semblance of sanity that he had, committing a number of atrocities across the world.
• Warts and All: When communicating with Optimus, Taylor notes that he never tries to deny his mistakes, but gives an honest account.
• Wham Episode
  • 6.2, Saint seemingly kills Dragon.
  • 9.5, Taylor builds The Matrix of Leadership and sparks Arcee.
  • 10d, The Triumvirate and Contessa are being manipulated by the Red Text Voice. Legend is resisting it through kindness and love of his family, but Alexandria is being pushed farther into her ruthless I Did What I Had to Do mindset, Eidolon's insecurities about his power failing are magnified, and Contessa's so far gone that she's speaking in red text.
  • 11.4-11.5, Bakuda attacks the hospital and Amy loses her legs.
  • 12.3, the Yangban finally get their hands on Lung in his crystal prison.
  • 14.1, Taylor communicates with Optimus while in a coma, and Amy plans to boost her healing capabilities to help wake her up.
  • 14.2, Leviathan is revealed to have had its core damaged by Taylor's attack, permanently crippling it, and maybe even fatally injuring it.
• What Are You: The red voice has a moment like this when Taylor confronts Leviathan with her Matrix-upgraded armor.
• Wild Mass Guessing: The identity of the coloured text. Blue is confirmed to be Primus but speculation continues about the red text. The current top theories are that it's Unicron or the shards' inbuilt conflict drive (since everyone we see affected is a parahuman or affected by one), but other theories include it being The Fallen, Starscream, and Contessa with a voice changer and tiny portals.
• A Wizard Did It: Victoria's explanation for how Amy's suddenly boosting sparks? "Powers are bullshit", citing a few examples. Ratchet finds that he can't really argue, to his dismay.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: In a presumably Matrix-induced dream, Solus Prime reminds Amy that she chose to use her powers for good when it would have been easy to go down a dark path with them or try and pretend that they didn't exist, and gives Amy the shield she had been forging.
  • After being injured by Purity, Armsmaster has his own dream, where he talks to Maccadam/Alchemist Prime at his bar.

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