Pyroat was quick to carve out a hole in the wall; super-heating her claws allowed her to melt a hole that was big enough for them to get through, and according to her it wouldn't draw much attention, considering how small they were.
Still, Aerocip had doubts on that theory; it felt weird to break out of captivity when your captor didn't know you were here to begin with.
The Protocons stepped out of the shop's door one by one, where the saw the night sky for the first time. Aerocip expected it to be pure black, but there were specks of white light in the sky, like shining, polished silver. There was a light in the sky that shone brighter than the others, Earth's moon, if Aerocip remembered correctly. It was curved like a sharp claw and stood out amidst the rest of the stratosphere, a beautiful compliment to the night sky.
"Does it always look this mesmerizing out here?" Aerocip thought aloud, her voice filled with wonder. Dyne was quick to respond, "No, actually. In residential areas there appear to be very few stars in the sky due to a phenomenon known as light pollut-" Pyroat smacked Dyne with her tail, "Shut your faceplate, you're ruining the moment!"
They marveled at the stars for only a moment longer before Dyne gave them a splash of reality. "We still need to find a way out of here, any ideas?" Aerocip agreed, while the view above was beautiful, the junkyard smelled like disease-laden rust and spoiled meat. Aerocip wished she could shut off her olfactory sensors due to the overbearing smell. Her optics searched for a way out; not the entrance, it was blocked by massive stone walls. She eyed the inside of the junkyard and noticed the large human-made scaffolding on the sides of the walls, she was once again reminded of the presence of humans in this place; most had left, but some stayed on the top of the walls and continued feeding garbage into the trash containers. A blue Terrorcon stayed up there too, who seemed to be leading them, shouting orders that could be heard even from the floor level.
"C'mon, men! You wanted to stay so you'll have to earn that precious 'salary bonus' of yours!" The beast encouraged; his gurgling voice echoing throughout the junkyard. The beast leaned over the edge and shouted down below at the flying Terrorcon, who seemed to regret being awake at this hour. "Cuttthroat! Are you doing your job or are you too bird-brained to work at this time?!" Despite the blue Terrorcon's small size, he acted like he ran the place, a fact that Cutthroat was quick to remark on.
"Rippersnapper, why is it that when given even a miniscule amount of power, you act as if Primus himself came down from the Great Spark in the Sky and ordained you the next Prime?" he asked with an obnoxious helping of sarcasm in his voice. The blue 'Rippersnapper' seemed unphased, perhaps squabbles like this happened often.
"Cause I'm not a geeky history buff like you, ya scrap-sniffin' spawn of a-" Cutthroat landed and perched right in front of him, some humans nearly tripped from the shockwave of his impact. Cutthroat towered over Rippersnapper.
"You neglected to mention my knowledge of anatomy as well. For example, I know how your body works, I could shove my talons directly into your spark chamber and pull out your spark right now with brutal efficiency. I could tear off your limbs and manage to keep you alive in inexplicable pain." Cutthroat hovered his dinosaur-like head over Rippersnapper, "Do I make myself clear that it is unwise to talk back to your superiors? You are the supervisor of the humans, and nothing more." Cutthroat dropped the flattened scrap in his talons in front of the humans, "Now it's back-to-work with you, Rippersnapper." Cutthroat flew back down for another load of compact garbage.
The Protocons made their way to the scaffolding, which made of sturdy wood and metal poles, and wasn't too wide either; clearly not made for many people (or human-sized Cybertronians) at once. Because of how dark it was, there was no need to go out of the way to be stealthy, so the three of them walked normally up the ramp-like scaffolding. Though it wasn't very wide, Pyroat and Dyne walked side by side while Aerocip was by herself at the rear. Out of the three of them, Aerocip was the last to come online, but that didn't make her naive to the obvious flirting between Pyroat and Dyne.
Love was a concept that Aerocip couldn't quite grasp, it was frustrating; that everyone else must know all the ins and outs of love, but she didn't. She'd heard her superiors tell her things about how emotions interfere with the mission. Specifically, her creator, Shockwave, had been anti-emotion; informing herself on the dangers of emotion, his lesson shone clear in her processor, even though it had been an Earth month ago.
"Vacuum, I noticed you have acquired a more... passive personality than the other two in your squadron. This leads me to believe you are especially susceptible to an awful thing known as 'emotion'. I have studied emotions and philosophy since before the Great War, and now that we are stationed on Earth I've researched the humans' findings on emotion. It seems we both have recognized it as a great enemy. Humans have named these '7 Deadly Sins' after emotions: Sloth, greed, and wrath among others. But the most dubious of all is Lust; lust knows no end, it will have you obsessing over another. I've seen Autobots foolishly give up their lives to save someone they 'love'. You cannot let such a disease get the best of you. Remember: clarity of thought before rashness of action."
She had listened to him to the best of her ability, and while she wasn't the type to question orders... how bad could emotion really be? If the world was driven purely by logic, it would almost certainly be a dull place. No one would take the time to enjoy the stars in the night sky, or the soft breeze on their fur, no one would celebrate anything, no one would 'waste time' expressing even basic gratitude like a simple "thank you".
Aerocip looked up after being buried in her thoughts for the last minute to see Pyroat looking at her. Pyroat snapped her digits at her and Aerocip jumped back at the sudden return to reality.
"Are you all-there, 'Cip?" she asked with a hint of concern in her voice. Aerocip blinked,
"Oh! Uhh, thinking." she replied hastily. Dyne noted her response, "Well, perhaps you thought of a way to get down from here and out of this area. Aerocip noticed that they had nearly reached the end of the scaffolding; she could stand on the end of her lower paws and peek over the side to see the area where a paw-full of humans were working.
If they continued along the scaffolding, they would be walking right up to all of the humans and be spotted within seconds. Now that stealth was of the essence, they sat down on the scaffolding as Dyne projected a small hologram of the junkyard.
"I've been mapping this place as we go." he explained, "and if this is accurate, there should be a hidden staircase built into the side of this artificial rock formation." A small slant along the outside wall of the hologram lit up, highlighting what Dyne was referring to. Per usual, Pyroat had doubts, "Nice map, but how are we gonna sneak past all those smelly humans? Best case scenario we get smushed together in a pile of garbage and we're sent to Primus-knows-where." Dyne smiled at her remark, "Now, that's when my plan gets interesting. First, we try to scan the form of those boxes up there so we can blend in, and if we prove incapable of doing that-"
A hissing voice from below stopped Dyne's explanation dead in its tracks. Cutthoat soared above the scaffolding and began looking around the scaffolding, "Do I hear humans conspiring against us? Show yourselves, traitorous fleshbags." He demanded.
-Cutthroat-
Cutthroat scanned the scaffolds as he continued talking, how could these humans have the audacity to betray him? "We gave you this low-effort job, and we can just as easily take it away. Need I remind you that you cannot harm a Decepticon without breaking the truce?" Rippersnapper turned and shouted at him as he was in the middle of his berating speech. "No one's turnin' on you, Cutthroat! My men are loyal and do their jobs well." Rippersnapper snuck an 'unlike some Terrorcons...' under his breath at the end of his sentence. For Cutthroat's own sanity, he pretended he didn't hear it and instead opted to ignore Rippersnapper completely. He had heard voices staging a coup, and when he finds the perpetrators he'll-
Cutthroat's optics stopped at the sight of the three fancy appliances sitting on the scaffolding. Has Sinnertwin lost them already?
That didn't matter, they were his now.
Cutthroat stretched his talons and grabbed the appliances as subtly as he could manage, and pretended as if there weren't anything in his grasp as he looked around for a safer place to store them for later dissection. Cutthroat hadn't had anything interesting to dissect in a while, when he first saw scraps of appliances in this junk-ridden place, they appeared familiar. This sparked a curiosity and (though he'd never admit it aloud), he became obsessed with dissecting machines. He soon discovered that human vehicles and Cybertronian anatomy were more similar than anyone had initially anticipated.
But these human appliances here were special, he had never seen their models before, even though they could be clearly recognized as a toaster, laptop and vacuum. Who knew what fascinating discoveries awaited him?
"Hey Cutthroat," Rippersnapper said while looking up at him. "What are ya lookin' for? The garbage is down there, as it has been for the last two stellar cycles." Cutthoat once again ignored Rippersnapper. Sadly, the idiot didn't get the hint to shut up. "Oh great, and now one of my teammates are deaf! Between Sinnertwin's greed, Blot's stupidity, and Hun-gurr's gluttony, I thought me and you were the only competent Decepticons in this joint! But it turns out I'm the sole normal one out of you nuts-and-bolts I call my teammates!"
Cutthroat couldn't ignore him anymore, he had nearly reached his limit. He dashed over to Rippersnapper and stared him straight in the optics as he hovered over the outside of the junkyard.
"Now, what was it I told you about talking scrap to your superiors?" Cutthroat inquired. "I wouldn't threaten someone of my position if my very spark was on the line." Rippersnapper looked back at him as if Cutthroat had invited him to a staring context instead of threatening him,
"Don't care." Rippersnapper gurgled, "and besides, you don't have the ball-bearings." Rippersnapper spat a fat wad of coolant directly at Cutthroat's faceplate; splattering against him with a squelch.
Cutthroat had had enough disrespect.
He sliced his talons across Rippersnapper's fat, fish-like snout; disabling his olfactory sensors. Rippersnapper held his claws up to his snout, covering the wound.
"Was I really that rude?!" he gurgled, "Arg! I can't smell scrap!" The nearby humans looked att Rippersnapper, some holding in a laugh, most looking concerned for his well-being. "What are you guys lookin' at?! Bird brain here just gave me a steel wound, that's all!" Rippersnapper grunted in pain then continued, "And worse, Cutthroat dropped the next load of scrap in his talons, so grab some more and let's end this shift already!"
Cutthroat paused, in his fury he had forgotten he was holding anything. Wait... oh no, OH NO. Cutthroat looked down at the rocks below, he didn't even see the remains of the appliances he was carrying, they had been completely obliterated.
"No..." he said to himself in disbelief. Rippersnapper remarked on his comment, still clutching his snout in pain. "Yeah, don't think I didn't notice those fancy human appliances in your talons a moment ago. Oh well, they're gone... You gonna do your job now?"
Cutthroat breathed in, and slowly breathed out, then repeated. It wasn't helping his mood at all.
"Rippersnapper, excuse me for a moment as I blow a gasket." Cutthroat leaped upward and soared high above the clouds in the sky.
Then he yelled with all the anger and frustration his slithery voice could muster.
-Aerocip-
The Protocons were falling to their deaths, likely going to splatter on the massive boulder below them. Aerocip looked to her left and saw Pyroat in animal form spinning around uncontrollably in the air, to her right was Dyne; who was rapidly shouting out his own thoughts as they fell.
"Due to the Earth's gravity being slightly weaker than Cybertron's, we have a chance to survive this, albeit a slim one. Unless we can slow our descent we will almost certainly meet our demise by-" Dyne was cut off by Pyroat shouting over him, "'CIP, SPARE US HIS YAMMERING AND USE YOUR AIR ARMS TO SAVE US ALREADY!"
She was barely used to propelling herself with her arms, but she supposed it was worth a try.
Aerocip converted her paws to her Air Compression Thrusters and pushed herself over to Dyne, Dyne converted to his smaller laptop mode and tucked himself into Aerocip's bag on her back. Despite her alt form of a vacuum, she had never needed to function as one, so there was minimal dust resting in her back-bag. She wondered for a second whether Dyne could sneeze while in laptop form but was snapped back to reality when Pyroat shouted for help.
Aerocip sent herself over to Pyroat where she hastily dove into her back-bag and converted to toaster form to take less space. Pyroat zipped the bag closed from the inside as Aerocip blasted air to counteract the rate they were falling.
Dyne and Pyroat clanged around in Aerocip's back-bag as she resisted gravity. Wind whipped up against her blue-and-white fur, she was pushing with all her might but it was barely doing anything, they had almost hit the boulder. If only she had a few more seconds to push against the overpowering force of gravity.
As if by magic, they phased through the massive boulder as if it were a mirage. No, not a mirage, a hologram. They thudded on top of Swindle, who was hiding next to Vortex inside the boulder-hologram.
"OW." stated Swindle after the Protocons had slammed into his soft top; which was battered on the landing, but also cushioned their fall. Aerocip slid herself off the top and onto the ground below, but nearly fell due to the imbalance of weight; she had nearly forgotten her comrades in her back-bag. Aerocip unzipped her back-bag and grabbed Pyroat and Dyne and took them out, they immediately transformed into animal mode.
"Ohh I feel sick..." stated Pyroat, holding her head still so she wouldn't fall over from dizziness. Dyne patted Aerocip on the back, "Good thinking, 'Cip!" he thanked her. Pyroat muttered "It was my idea." in a jealous tone, A small plume of smoke rose from her vents.
Unexpectedly, Vortex spoke up in a giddy tone. "I don't care who's idea that was cause it was AWESOME nonetheless!" He laughed out loud, "Let's do that again, I'll put it to a vote: I vote ONE MILLION YESES!" Swindle transformed into bot mode and tossed the destroyed soft top on the ground.
"Scrap, I just bought this the other day and the first time I try it on it gets broken!" Swindle pointed a digit at Aerocip, "You owe me big-time, little lady!" Vortex converted to bot mode and cocked his head at Swindle, "I thought you told me you stole that topper, right?" he inquired, his voice lined with suspicion. Swindle was quick to shoot back, "Eh, potato tornado, or whatever the humans say. Point being, it was high quality and they owe me money now." Vortex just stood there, "Uh huhhhh..." he said. Swindle shrugged it off and converted back to vehicle mode,
"You three coming or not?" he asked. The Protocons hopped in and drove off with him; the first step of their mission complete.
-Cutthoat-
The sun arose the next day, as was usual on this desolate rock he called home.
Unusually, he was the first one up; he simply couldn't believe that his appliances had just fallen down and disappeared without a trace. Someone must be behind this occurrence.
He flew back down to where he dropped his shiny, new appliances yesterday. He went to land on a boulder but he then phased right through it.
"What sorcery is this?! He yelled, thrashing about before picking himself up to find that no one was attacking him. He looked around for clues in the dust, and found a small device that was projecting the boulder hologram, it seemed as if the last bots down here had forgotten to pick it up before they sped away. He picked up the trinket and crushed it between his talons, "Deceivers..." he whispered to himself, infuriated and betrayed by those he hadn't known of. He looked around where the projection had been, perhaps he could salvage the parts of the appliances down here. He found no appliances, but he had found a cloth-like soft top for a car, it appeared to be made for a Jeep-like vehicle.
He already had a good idea of who it belonged to, but he didn't want to jump to conclusions. He held it up to his faceplate and sniffed it, just to be sure.
It smelt of expensive motor oil, high-quality energon, and... fur? He was unsure what to make of the scent of fur, but he'd recognize that motor oil anywhere. It was unmistakable, Swindle had been here. Cutthroat turned and recognized tire tracks leading into the distance, tracks of which matched the exact specs on Swindle's tires. Swindle had gone, he had been gone for a while, but Cutthroat would make him come back.
Even if it meant he'd have to transport his body in boxes.
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Thanks for reading!
It's been fun expanding on the characters of G1; pretty much all the characters had little-to-no personality shown in the Generation 1 Transformers show (The personalities I give to lesser characters are based directly off of comic writer Bob Budiansky's character profiles of them), and it's nice to see my story expand with the help of you kind people!
Summer is coming up for me, so my publishing schedule might shift around some, but I'll stay as consistent as I can, many thanks for your support, and as usual, leave a comment and/or vote if you enjoyed reading!
:D