Mini-Cons
Mini-Cons?
Written by Shaun Garin
G1 and Beast Wars owned by Hasbro/Mainframe Entertainment.
There were a few unwritten rules around the Ark. Most importantly however was "when the twins are too quiet, start checking your recharge bunk for pranks". Today was one of those days, Prowl decided as he went looking for them.
"And just what are you two doing?" demanded Prowl when he finally found the pair, trying to lever a rusty old door open.
"Trying to get the door open," replied Sideswipe as he worked the Autobot-sized crowbar with a ferocity that usually belayed his easy going attitude. Nearby, Sunstreaker was working on the old circuits that held the door shut.
"Y'know how the Ark was damaged and some rooms were made inaccessible? Siders figures that there's some neat stuff in here," replied Sunstreaker.
"Not figure, I do think so," grunted Sideswipe as he finally wrenched the door open wide enough for them to slip through. "I haven't seen some of my stuff since the Ark crashed. And since this was our old rooms…"
Prowl sighed as the metal gave way with a loud screeching noise. Looking inside however, the room was dusty, disused and surprisingly still running dim emergency lights. "You're right," stated Prowl. "It's a treasure trove of nothing."
Sideswipe opened his mouth to say something when something crunched under his foot. Lifting it, puzzlement across his face, Sideswipe held up what appeared to be a green arm, or at least a thoroughly mangled green arm. "GAH!" proclaimed the Lamborghini as he tossed it up in surprise.
The arm bounced a few times and then struck metal as Sunstreaker peeked into the room, flooding it with lights. He whistled as he looked at the numerous pieces of robots -- arms, legs, heads, wings, guns of all sizes. "What is this?" muttered the twin as Prowl pushed by them to stoop down at the base of the closest pile.
Picking one of the guns up, a red and silver weapon, Prowl examined it. "These are nearly human sized," mused the Porsche, "but a little too big for a regular human to wield."
Picking up a hand (and the twins shuddered), Prowl wrapped it around the trigger and aimed at a piece of upturned Ark.
The gun spat fire, flames in a tiny, but incredibly hot line. The metal heated quickly and Prowl let go, the finger of the hand he held letting go. Sideswipe whistled as he cautiously touched the metal, wincing as it felt far too hot for a mere human flamethrower. "What in the slag was that?" he demanded.
"Hey, there's more," added Sunstreaker, picking up a few more items, all roughly human sized. The largest of these was a boxy chain gun that when shook, sounded like there was still ammo in it.
Sideswipe picked up one of the heads in the pile, bug eyes and mandibles staring back at him, painted green. A curious symbol was on the side of the head and he quipped, "Alas poor Yorick, I knew him well."
"It's a treasure trove of some sorts, or a really macabre graveyard," said Ratchet as the officers were gathered around his workbench. Several whole bodies were found, albeit in pieces and spread out in front of the CMO.
A half-completed mechanical spider in purple and black, some kind of scorpion or snake (the triple changers in the Autobots speculated it was some kind of fusion of the two), a much taller red creature that looked like it was based on an ant, and many, many pieces of the green and yellow wasp-thing that easily made up 5 whole bodies when put together. Set to the side were piles of weapons, some of them in matching colors. Others were definitely not designed for the ones laid out here.
"Someone was a parts collector," stated Ratchet. "I've carbon dated these things, using a rough human estimate."
"And?" inquired Prime, staring down at the tiny weapons that were situated in front of them.
"If the human scale is correct, these tiny robots were in the Ark just a few years after we crashlanded ourselves." stated Ratchet.
"But that's impossible," protested Ironhide. "Ah woulda seen someone smuggle parts onto the ship like that."
"AFTER," stressed Ratchet. "There's evidence of these tiny things being carried in and out of the place. Possibly as war-trophies like the Decepticons do at times."
"What kind of weirdo would do something like that?" inquired Sunstreaker, puzzled. "I mean I can see the 'cons do it but not someone here."
"See if you can piece one of them together Ratchet," decided Prime. "If anything it would give us an idea of what they looked like fully."
Ratchet nodded and he shooed everyone out.
"Not bad," stated Spike as he hefted the red flamethrower. "I'm surprised it doesn't require two hands, being it's so big."
"There's tons of these that we dug up," said Prowl as he handed another to Spike, the boxy green spinning chain gun.
"And Ratchet's in there, putting one of them together?" added Spike. "This could become very good or very bad."
"Probably both," remarked Prowl as the medical bay doors slid open. "Well?"
"Come and take a look," stated Ratchet as Prowl and Spike followed them in.
It was like seeing something on display in the museum. A large green and yellow wasp was nearing competition, a few things missing here and there. "I've managed to put it together, but it wasn't easy since it had a organic alt-mode," stated Ratchet, making the pair startle in surprise. "Yee-ep, these are Cybertronians."
"Really SMALL, even by Mini-con standards," stated Prowl as he looked the others that were either half-done or almost completed. A large red ant and the scorpion-thing were mostly complete while the spider-thing wasn't even half-done. "Did you notify Prime?"
"He's on his way here," replied Ratchet as he poked the green wasp. "This one I'm surprised I found all the parts to. All it's missing is a SPARK."
"I wonder what it's name is," mused Spike. "After all, if it's from Cybertron, then why haven't we heard of it before?"
"I couldn't say," stated Prowl. "Ratchet, what does the tech look like?"
"Damned if I could figure it, but it looked like, at least to me, like Decepticon build, but with a few exceptions. Possibly based on the Insecticons if going by the general theme here. But for them to be on the ARK soon after we arrived gives me pause."
"Which begs to wonder; who on earth could have put that all there?"
65 Million Years, give or take a decade or so
"C'mon Rattrap, we need to finish loading the shuttle," called out Cheetor as Rattrap lugged along a pile of Pred Parts.
"Eh, keep your circuits on, kitty-bot, I'm coming. Do you realize how many Pred Parts I have? Not to mention weapons and our OLD weapons…"
"You're such a packrat," pointed out Blackarachinia as she walked by, dropping a pile of Rattrap's stuff onto the shuttle. "Do you even NEED all of this? There's at least five completed sets of WASPINATOR in there alone."
"But--! I want to show them off y'know?" protested Rattrap as Optimus stomped by.
"We'll miss our launch time if we load everything," said Optimus reasonably. "I'll get Teletraan 1 to seal the room with them in it. I'm sure they'll be safe."
Rattrap heaved a sigh as he picked up his box of stuff again. "Just like it to always mess things up."