Welcome to What Goes Around, Comes Around. Hope you enjoy your stay - if not, perhaps the Decepticons can arrange something more comfortable for you...
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Shanghai, China – Industrial District
1948 Hours Local Time
Dusk had begun to fall over the grimy warehouses and factories, which were nearly done shutting down for the day. This was not an area of the city that suggested modernity; the buildings here were rusted brown, either abandoned to an entropy of weeds and flaking paint or home to local industries. Shanghai certainly had modern manufacturing plants, but all that resided here were vague shadows of past glory.
One such shadow moved behind a building. Too tall to be human, but too fluid to be a lifeless machine, this shadow's caster moved with a fluid, bipedal gait compromising the two. A trickle of oil and coolant followed it, accompanied by the dragging of feet.
Whatever it was, it was wounded.
The tall, mechanical shadow lurched into the massive and hollow shell of a rusted refinery, the largest building to be found for several blocks. Its eyes burned a smoldering red, two embers in a dying furnace, and it began to unload a large compartment on its back, looking for all the world like a dulled-silver backpack.
"What has our courier brought us?" inquired a deep, rumbling voice. A larger pair of orange eyes, set in a steamshovel head on a gantry of a neck, had extended over the intruder.
The owner of the shadow practically jumped out of his metal skin, dropping two large barrels of oil to the floor.
"Zagh! Demolisher, I told you not to surprise me like that!"
The steamshovel head chuckled to itself, a sound not unlike the burble of a diesel engine.
"You're too nervous for your own good, Sideways. Come now – show us what you managed to procure."
The shadow's owner – Sideways – stepped backwards into a patch of light, revealing himself as a twenty-foot tall mechanical man trimmed in silver. His broad shoulders sagged, but not under the weight of his cargo. More than a few coolant and hydraulic lines had been punctured, and bilateral symmetry had been compromised by armor plates cracked, scorched or outright missing. The damage wasn't physically extensive, but the silver robot's body language told everything: he was rattled.
"It would be nice if one of the others could go out for a run some time. Seriously –"
"Sideways."
"- it was horrendous. There was this truck, this stupid truck, painted pink with a glowing thing on the roof and tinkly music playing – "
"Sideways."
"- and it split down the middle and turned into a couple of Autobots – idiotic ones, but were they rogue or are they going to lead them onto us – "
"SIDEWAYS," Demolisher rumbled. Sideways looked up from the wound he'd been showcasing.
"Fine – I'll can it. Here's what I found."
A third oil barrel arrived, along with two decrepit motorcycles and the frontal innards of an older, Japanese sports car. Soon the pile had grown to include half a crate of motor oil, all sealed up in tiny little plastic jugs nearly too small for the robot's claws to open. Various other bits of trash collected upon the heap: computer motherboards, broken devices such as cell phones and cameras, old monitors and cathode-ray tubes.
Demolisher's head hovered, sauropod-like, above the trash heap, regarding it with equal parts approval and resignation.
"To think," he rumbled, "that proud Decepticons have fallen so far, to resort to scavenging not our own waste, but that of the insects. Such is the way of things, I suppose."
"Decepticons, come see what brave Sideways has brought you."
A low clatter arose from the myriad shadows within the building, and slowly a half dozen or so shapes began to slink towards the light. A motorcycle, devoid of a rider, crept forwards before slits ran down its plastic fairing and its internal structure twisted itself into a crude parody of a human form, lopsided with wheels for feet.
Joining the motorcycle was a rusted forklift, unfolding into a squat robot with lifters for shoulders, while a tiny robot formed from a self-propelled lawnmower sorted through the rubbish looking for a new blade. A military-beige robot slightly larger than Sideways sat in a corner, rocking its head back and forth.
A dark green robot, considerably slenderer than Sideways but nearly as tall, pushed itself out of a slouch against the wall and came to investigate the trash heap. It sidled up next to the silver courier, its hands folded across a narrow chest.
"Dibs on the motor oil?" it asked. Its voice was reedy, electronic, and unmistakably feminine.
Sideways shrugged. "I don't need any of this stuff, besides some new armor. Demolisher said last time was gonna be my last run for a while, but now this –"
"Sideways," rumbled Demolisher, and everyone jumped. The lawnmower robot almost sliced its hand off.
"It's been getting entirely too dangerous out there for Rotary, and you know that. You know I didn't want to risk her on this, considering her lack of experience."
Sideways and Rotary wheeled on the big 'bot.
"Inexperienced?" she spluttered. "Just because I haven't been on many missions –"
Sideways cut in. "- doesn't mean I can't lend her my suppressor for a couple runs. Honestly, she could make a run with Kickstand over there –"
The lopsided motorcycle looked up with a sheepish grin, face covered in iron filings.
The slender green robot resumed. "I mean, I haven't seen any real combat yet. What kind of Decepticon am I if I haven't blown anything up yet?"
"Enough!" rumbled Demolisher, sending a vibration through the concrete floor. "Rotary, you're staying put and that is final. Go claim your oil and I will think about allowing you to raid the insects, but it will not be soon. I will not allow any of you to get yourselves slagged upon my watch."
"I'm partly slagged," grumbled Sideways.
Rotary gave him a light punch on the shoulder. "Come on. There have to have been some fun bits, right?"
"Define fun."
"Tearing through the streets of this insect colony at high speed, taking corners, the screech of the tires…"
"Right, and getting attacked by a couple of bluescreens who talked like they were mainlining the worst of that noise the humans call 'music.'"
Sideways turned his head from Demolisher's orange gaze, keeping his voice low. "Make no mistake, Rotary – I think those robots that attacked me were registered Autobots, not just rogue Cybertronians."
Rotary's blue eyes flicked to the pile of trash, and the young and weak Decepticons sorting through it. The lawnmower had fallen to squabbling with a human game console for some bit of trash, until the forklift moved in to break them apart. From Kickstand rooting around looking for more ridiculous treasure to the big military-looking robot rocking his head back and forth in the corner, this was the closest thing to a family these Decepticons would likely have.
The blue eyes shifted back to meet Sideways' red ones. "Meaning what?"
Sideways gestured to their little mob. "Meaning unless I'm wrong – and for once, I hope to slag I am – the Autobots are going to find us, and this little family is going to be broken up."
"And it's going to happen soon."
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Author's Note: I don't own Transformers, and I only claim my OCs as mine. All others are the registered property of Hasbro, General Motors, Audi, and makers of fine death unicycles everywhere. That said, hope you enjoyed it. Leave a review and I'll see you next time!