Dysfunctional Team: Pilot

Waiting for Onslaught was boring. Very, very, very boring. Swindle had to curb his boredom by counting up how much everything in the room was worth. The screens were big and clear and could easily bring in a couple thousand. The control panels were built quite well and looked very sturdy. He could probably bring a few hundred from each one.

And he did that for everything else in the room. And when he ran out, he counted how much the floor and roof cost. Unfortunately, this end up making him sleepy instead of keeping him up. Counting money sometimes could be the exact same thing as counting sheep sometimes. Counting how much every single bit of the floor and ceiling was worth was just like that. Eventually, he couldn't take it any longer and slip off into recharge, remembering.

XXX

Many vorns ago.

Swindle walk through the hallways, with Vortex beside him. Vortex was red and yellow, and his alt mode represented a helicopter. Vortex, at the moment, was telling Swindle about a recent interrogation. "And then, he went on and on about his family waiting for him when he got back home. Honestly, I was getting a little bit bored hearing him scream. I've had been doing it for nearly a whole megacycle and he was still begging. I mean, come on, how long can one beg."

"Apparently, a long time," Swindle commented. "So, what happen next? Did you let him live or did you let him go, not that I don't already know what you did next," Swindle said, already knowing what Vortex did. Expecting a different ending to Vortex's interrogation was like asking Megatron to consider peace: it wasn't going to happen.

"Oh, I let him go. Hearing him scream all the way down made up for him begging to much." This is probably the point where one mentions Vortex method of interrogation: high-altitude flying while the victim was hanging onto a cable. "And when I found him, he was all smash up into many pieces. I'm pretty sure I found a lot of transmission fluid around the area." Typical day for Vortex. "So, why are we going to the command center?" Vortex ask, changing gears towards a new topic.

"I don't know," Swindle said, "you're the second-in-command, not me. You're suppose to be the one who knows what to do."

"Oh, yeah, your right. Hey, look, we're here." Sure enough, they were at the door. The two walk towards the door and it open up to let them in. In the room, there were several people. Blast Off and Brawl were standing near one of the corners, Brawl looking ready to punch something and Blast Off looking like he didn't care about anything, which was typical behavior of the two, and Onslaught was in the center of the room, planning something. Yep, normal day around here.

"Vortex. Swindle. Good, you're here," Onslaught said, addressing the tow new arrivals.

"Sorry we're a little late Ons. Someone here," he pointed to Swindle, "was trying to make a deal with Mixmaster about things."

"What?" Onslaught asked.

"Vortex, if you say anything about what I did, they won't find your body tomorrow," Swindle whisper to Vortex.

"About his paint job." Vortex lied, "I don't blame him either. I mean come on, purple and green? That goes together as well as Swindle and charity."

"I can agree to that." Swindle said, confirming Vortex's lie and his jab at him. Hey, Vortex wasn't lying.

"Well, next time, don't get distracted," Onslaught said, using his leader voice. "We got a important mission coming up."

"And what's that?" Swindle asked. Swindle, although not the biggest fan of getting shot at, was a fan of going to new places and seeing what he could loot. Before Onslaught could answer, Blast Off answered first.

"To Solaris." He said simply, bored. Onslaught gave the purple and brown con a look.

"And how did you know about that already?" Onslaught questioned.

"Word of mouth. Some people get too excited and just talk out loud so that everybody else can hear them." Onslaught looked at him for a little bit before speaking.

"I'll take your word for it. Now, does everybody know why Solaris is such a good place to target." No one answered. "Good. Then that means not everything from the meeting has been known, at least for us. Solaris is a big city and, as such, has a lot of things hiding in it. What is it we want, is only known to Megatron, but we do have a plan to take over the city.

"The main problem are the anti-air guns. Theirs dozens of them scour throughout the city, and will knock out anything in the air. If it flies, it dies. Their all situated at choke points and open areas, leaving them plenty of room to shoot them. If we want the city, we're going to have to take those out.

"The plan is to take a large amount of the troops on one side of the city with ground forces led by Motormaster and the rest of the Stunticons. We're planning on them to meet them with most of their forces so that we a small force, A.K.A. us, could go into this building." He pointed out a building on the map. "The problem with the anti-air guns is they are all hook up to one massive generator in this building. Take it out and the guns go down. Problem is, this generator was built to withstand any kind of damage from explosives."

"So how do we take it out if we can't destroy it?" Brawl, the dark green tank, asked.

"Swindle is the one for the answer to that," Onslaught answered.

"Huh?" Swindle spat out unintelligibly.

"You have something for this right? I told Megatron you did." Onslaught said.

"Uh, maybe. It's a prototype schematic for a bomb I found earlier. Instead of regular explosives, it's a EMP. It has a short distance, but more than enough to take out the generator. It's activated either remotely or manually, although why you have a manual switch for a EMP bomb is something I don't understand. It's basically the same as killing yourself if you activate it manually."

"Good. Once the anti-air tanks are down, we'll have air support led by Starscream to attack the city and then it would be only a matter of time before the city falls to us. Nice, quick, and clean. Any questions? No? Good. Rest up, we're going to attack the city tomorrow." With that, the meeting was done and everybody left, leaving Vortex to annoy Swindle.

"Hey, Stumpy," he said, using the nickname he personally give to Swindle due to his size difference when compared to everyone else, "what do you think of the mission."

"I don't know. Right now, I got a bomb to build."

"I thought you already build it?"

"I didn't. I said I had the prototype's schematics. I didn't say I'd build it, yet.

"Oh, well, sucks for you. Later." With that, Vortex left without another word, looking to stalk someone else for the time being. Swindle, now by himself thought about the mission. Sneak in, plant the bomb, leave, and activate it while looking cool (okay, the last part isn't really needed). Nice, quick, and simple. It should be a easy mission.

Unfortunately, that proved to be far from the truth.

XXX

"Swindle, wake up." Swindle optics snapped opening, looking straight into Onslaught's optics.

"I'm up. I'm up. I'm up. What is it?" Swindle asked, still a little sleepy.

"Well, you fell into recharge mode, for starters. How long has it been since you've recharge?" Onslaught asked.

"It's been a while," Swindle admitted. "Today's been a long, stressful day."

"You probably need to recharge for the rest of the day," Onslaught said, hoping Swindle would listen to his advice.

"Nah, I'm good. I've done worse. Did you just wake me up to check on me?"

"No, I didn't. I've been informed by Dead End that you're going to have another person joining you."

"Who?"

"Misfire."

"Misfire? Wasn't he one of the few survivors of Blackout's squad?"

"One of two. Him and Makeshift."

"Why is he joining my mission? Last thing I want is someone who can't ever shoot a gun." Swindle said. He really didn't want him on the ship.

"Because he happens to be one of the medics, Hook, patient. By patient, I mean for therapy." Onslaught said, pointing out the last part.

"Therapy? Now I really don't want him."

"You either take him, or your going on the trip without Hook and Scavenger, but with either Scalpel or Flatline. I highly recommend keeping them, considering I consider them the least likely to kill you during operations." Swindle took that last part in before picking an option. It really was a easy choice.

"Fine. Misfire can come, but he better not be a burden on this trip. I really don't need dead weight. So, how's everybody else?"

"Skywarp just got out of surgery. He's going to make it and, surprisingly, is expected to make a quick recovery."

"What about the missing arm?" Swindle asked.

"They used Thundercracker's arm to replace it. Thundercracker's arm actually sustained very little damage from the blast and was kept mostly intact."

"Wait, hold up. They use his recently deceased trinemates arm to replace it."

"Yeah. What else were they suppose to replace it with?"

"How about the spare seeker arms I have in my ship." Onslaught looked at him with a slightly disgusted face. "What can I say? Unlike most people, I take 'arms dealing' very literally.

"There's nothing wrong with it," Onslaught lied, clearly disgusted with it, "I'm just surprise you actually keep arms in your ship. Exactly what else is in your ship?" Onslaught asked, asking a really good question.

"Enough illegal stuff to probably sentence me to life in prison," Swindle said casually, as if it was normal to have that many illegal goods in one spot. "I probably have enough explosive to take out the whole Autobot army at its best."

"Alright, well, aside from Skywarp, Shockwave is being work on right and now, and then Killshot is next. Do you, by any chance, happen to have a spare eye for Shockwave?"

"Actually, yes I do," Swindle replied, Onslaught looking at him with a face that said 'you got to be kidding with me'. "You want it I'm guessing, so follow me." Swindle walk towards the door and head out. Onslaught looked at him as he went, noting that things do change quite a lot. Swindle had never sold body parts, last he check, which, to be honest, was a long time ago. Swindle probably just expanded his business as usual.

With that in mind, he followed Swindle out the door.