When The Decepticons Invented Protogens

-Swindle-

Swindle was parked outside the junkyard, hiding inside a hologram with Vortex stationed next to him, they appeared as a large rock against the outside of the place.

"Swindllleee..." Vortex started; more than a hint of uncertainty in his voice. "Did you really make the right play here? If the Terrorcons find out you've duped them..." Swindle brushed it off,

"Relax, I know what I'm doing. Scrap, I doubt they'll even notice that the Protocons are gone once they escape."

"What makes you think they know that they should escape? Maybe they like it there!" If Swindle were in bot form, he'd be shaking his head.

"Course they don't like it there! And I'm sure they've got the message that they need to escape, I didn't even hide our energy signatures; they can detect that we're waiting for them out here." Vortex made a medium-pitched humming sound with his voicebox,

"I dunnoooo... sounds kinda riskyyy..." Swindle chuckled at the statement, what a thing to say to a professional conman!

"Well then its a good thing that I've always been a gamblin' bot."

-Dyne-

Dyne waited for Sinnertwin to stomp out of sight before planning their escape. Sinnertwin proceeded to round a corner; heading back into his tinkering room. Perfect; aside from the low hum of the lights and the relatively distant sounds of Sinner and Twin bickering, it was completely silent.

The silence was broken mere moments later when Pyroat transformed, stood up, stretched and growled.

"Unbelievable! Every one of those Combaticon guys we've met has wronged us!" Dyne transformed and held his paws up to comfort her, but Pyroat didn't seem to notice as she went on.

"First that flying sicko chained us up for no reason, and now we've gotten SOLD OUT by a 'TEAMMATE'!" dark smoke was billowing out of her vents at that point, Dyne was worried that the smell would give them away. Dyne grabbed her shoulders (which were uncomfortably warm to the touch) and held her still before she could do something she might regret. The smoke abruptly changed to steam as Pyroat went completely silent and looked up at Dyne, but before he could say anything reassuring, Aerocip transformed and let out a barely-muffled sneeze.

"It is so dusty up here, how can that Sinnertwin guy live in a place this untidy?" 'Cip eyed the shelf they were stuck on; which extended to the door on the other side of the tunnel. It was, admittedly, incredibly unclean. At least the wood it was made out of seemed to be of passable quality.

Dyne thought Aerocip might be contemplating transforming back into a vacuum just to clean up the shelf. It would be an illogical move, for they had much more pressing matters to look into, such as escaping. Escaping! He still hadn't come up with anything yet!

"So," he started, letting go of Pyroat now that she had calmed down. Now that Dyne had both their attention, he began to speak; holding up his holographic map and showing it to the other Protocons.

"Based on what we know and what we can see here, Swindle and Vortex are waiting for us outside. We must find a way to escape or we'll be stuck here for who knows how long. That being said, any suggestions on a way out?" Pyroat shrugged offhandedly, Aerocip slowly raised her paw, Dyne let out a soft sigh and pointed to her, permitting her to speak. (even though he didn't need to do that for her to talk, but at least she takes her work seriously.)

"Well, we're gonna need to get off of this shelf, right?" Dyne nodded, 'Cip continued, "Why shouldn't we jump off for me to lessen our fall with my Air Compression Thrusters?" her paw transformed and she shot a small puff of air out the end; sending dust collected by the shelf into the air and directly back into her faceplate. Her tail twitched and she sneezed again, Pyroat remarked on her idea,