| abstract
| - The Combaticons enter an unidentified city for no discernible reason, then all transform to vehicle mode for no discernible reason. They then drive (yes, even the flyers drive) about ten feet down the street and form Bruticus for no discernible reason. He is immediately destroyed with a single shot by Defensor (who's there for no discernible reason). Defensor just leaves the pile of parts alone and unsupervised, apparently not bothering to alert the other Autobots or anything. This enables Swindle—who has somehow survived without a scratch the explosion that reduced all the other Combaticons to a pile of parts—to gather up the bits. No human authorities are involved either. Swindle then visits the generically evil foreign guy "El Presidente" on his ship filled with weapons in order to buy parts to repair the Combaticons. Meanwhile, Megatron is running a simulation of his new orbital disruptor cannon. After Starscream whines, Megatron explains that once the Moon is knocked from orbit, they will use Soundwave's new device to control the tides. They will then use this colossal power to flood a single canyon, creating "a limitless source of power". At the Combaticons' base, El Presidente's men load up the weapons and more advanced computer systems from the wrecked robots, as apparently Swindle forgot about that whole "repair" thing. Swindle then leaves to take the remaining parts to a dump. Shortly after they all leave, Skywarp arrives, noting no one seems to be home. He discovers a piece of one of the Combaticons, then notices there's a trail of them. Confused, he asks Megatron what to do. Swindle arrives in a junkyard, where he threatens a junkyard worker before he starts to dump the leftovers. Starscream and Skywarp discover him in the act and capture him as he tries to escape. Back at the Decepticon base, Soundwave installs a bomb in Swindle's head; he has 15 hours to reassemble the Combaticons before it goes off. Swindle takes the parts back from various mid-80s evil foreign stereotypes and reassembles the team. However, they are unable to combine into Bruticus because Brawl's personality component is missing. Swindle is charged with getting the component back or the bomb will still go off. Meanwhile, at Benjamin Franklin Pierce High School, Mr. Robbins' demonstration of a laser is sabotaged by two sociopathic students, Martin and Roland, who boost the laser's power output so high it instantly burns a hole through steel. Rather than involve the authorities, Mr. Robbins threatens them with an "F" in his class if they don't win a blue ribbon at the science fair, and assigns Elise Presser to assist them for no discernible reason. Outside, the two jagoffs meet the meek and spineless Elise. They realize a high-rise is on fire across the street, and witness the Protectobots coming to the rescue (well, four of them; Blades appears to blow two window-washers off their rig with the wind from his rotors—the bastard). This inspires them to build a robot for their project. The three rummage for parts in the same junkyard where Swindle dumped the Combaticons' leftover remains, and Elise discovers a random piece of machinery. They spend the night in the school's lab assembling their machine, and Martin dubs it "B.O.T.". After several failures, Elise installs the random piece of machinery, which turns out to be Brawl's personality component. Naturally, Brawl-B.O.T. goes postal and starts trashing the place. Martin grabs the laser and fires, and B.O.T. runs off. The kids run to the school's preposterously-advanced computer lab, and use it to call the Protectobots. Teletraan I gets the S.O.S., and Optimus sends Gears, Ironhide and Bumblebee to investigate. Swindle re-threatens the junkyard worker, who says that maybe some kids took the part Swindle is after. Swindle mutters "you better hope so"... then proceeds to rummage through the trash, seemingly instantly forgetting that whole "kids" angle. The Autobots arrive at the school. The kids seem disappointed that they didn't get the Protectobots, but quickly lead them to their runaway creation in the school's cafeteria. Brawl-B.O.T. knocks all three Autobots over with a single serving pan of corn on the cob (That high-school food, I tell ya, huh? Huh?), then deflects Gears' blaster-fire with a pot lid. Ironhide shoots molten lead at Brawl-B.O.T., but he leaps to grab a light fixture, avoiding the attack, and the now-weakened floor collapses under Ironhide. Brawl-B.O.T. runs for it, barricading the door out with remarkable speed, and heads for a seemingly abandoned building... as Swindle watches. The Autobots follow, telling the kids to stay put. They enter the building, and find that Brawl-B.O.T. has taken an elevator thirty floors up. Ironhide wedges a stick into the doors, and the trio run up the stairs. Outside, the future serial killers grow instantly impatient, and drag Elise inside the building. They remove the stick, enter the elevator and head up. A blast erupts behind the Autobots, and Ironhide orders them to shoot up. They shoot at absolutely nothing, Ironhide declares they hit whatever it was, and they run right into Swindle. Meanwhile, the elevator has stopped. Roland is lifted up so he can open the emergency hatch, and discovers B.O.T. is trying to break the elevator cables. Sadly, B.O.T. is prevented from snapping the cables by an energy blast to the back. The Autobots pick themselves up, seemingly having been soundly thrashed by Swindle all by himself. They all run outside to witness Swindle driving away. Back at Decepticon headquarters, Brawl is restored and the bomb removed, and Bruticus is formed again. At the school, Elise inspects the remnants of B.O.T. to find that the "funny component" is gone. Martin decides to hunt it down by reworking the machine that read B.O.T.'s "brain response" so it can track the signal. The three drive to the ocean, and Elise rewires B.O.T.'s speech synthesizer so it receives and decodes signals rather than creating them, letting them hear what Brawl hears. Megatron insists on a test-run of the cannon, and picks Autobot headquarters as the target. (Because it's in orbit, you see. Wait, no, it isn't.) The kids rush off to warn the Autobots, who send a signal to the Protectobots' base. The Autobots apparently just sit around and wait for Megatron to set up his giant cannon, get his troops into position just outside their base, and for the Combaticons to assemble Bruticus before starting to defend themselves. Bruticus basically stumbles around until he falls apart. The Protectobots arrive and random fighting ensues. Inside the base, the kids think they need to help, and Elise has a rare moment of spine. Using Teletraan I, she sends B.O.T. out into the battlefield on a beeline to the disruptor cannon. The Protectobots combine into Defensor and generate a force field, protecting about four other Autobots. The Decepticons wait until the force field wears off, then one shot blasts Defensor to pieces. Bruticus re-forms and tries to fire the cannon, but it turns and blasts Starscream and Soundwave instead. B.O.T. is working the cannon using a conveniently-placed control panel at the base, and causes it to explode by hitting the clearly-marked "overload" button, sending Bruticus flying away and forcing a Decepticon retreat. Back inside, the Autobots thank the kids for their help and offer their apologies for the loss of their robot. Elise asks if they have any spare parts so they can try again... and Roland and Martin duct-tape her mouth shut and drag her away while the Autobots just watch argh argh argh...
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![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)