Transformers Familial Bonds Ch 1

Heyo, sorry for the late post. This was ready to go, I was going to post it Friday before heading out of town with the family, but ran out of time. Then I was going to post it while out of town, but the internet never once cooperated and posting anything long through the phone is an absolute nightmare. I just finished a one and a half hour drive through post July 4th traffic.

LET'S DO THIS!

Hope you like the story, cover art by my good friend Zoe. Turning a whole-ass paragraph of my insane ramblings into amazing art for...a good while now.

Y'all should hire her actually, she does awesome work, here's her Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/honeycatart_501?utm_source=qr

AAAANYWAYS.

Here is the first few chapters coming your way, hope you enjoy them. Drop me a comment if it pleases.

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“Ah! My oculus!” The scream of the gigantic humanoid robot vibrated Robert’s bones so hard that he could actually feel his marrow shifting about. He grit his teeth and squeezed the trigger again and again, sending five more .357 magnum hollow point rounds thudding against the gigantic robot’s metal face and hand as it finished flinching back and covering its face with its enormous metal hand.

The bullets all but detonated as they struck and flattened uselessly, he felt hot pinpricks against his skin as some of the lead shrapnel peppered him. The robot lowered its hand and pinned him with its gaze.

“Why you little! Just for that, I’ll take my time squeezing you into paste!” The giant robot said, glaring at him with one malevolently glowing red eye. The other cracked and flickering.

Robert took a deep breath and did the only logical thing he could. He bravely turned around and ran away. The thunder of metal feet that started up immediately as he did so informed him that unfortunately, the giant robot did not decide it had better things to do.

“Forget the squishy!” Said the other giant robot that decided to shit on Robert’s cereal today. “We’ll deal with it later!”

“Rust off!”

Robert did not pay them much attention, concentrating on running down the dry canal, juking around the concrete pillar holding up the bridge his truck had been run off of, sprinted down it, turned at the other end, then ran for the rusted hunk of an abandoned car that looked to have been in the canal longer than he’d been alive.

He ran across it, crouched with his back to it, and popped open the cylinder on the revolver. He pumped the extraction lever and used a speed loader to put six more rounds into the gun, then gently closed the cylinder with a quiet ‘click.’

Then he waited, the sounds of metal feet cracking concrete getting farther and farther away.

When they went fully quiet, he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Now he just needed to hopefully sneak away and figure out what to put on the insurance claim, because ‘a car crashed my truck, then turned into a giant robot and tried to kill me’ would absolutely not be believed.

He had to bite his lower lip to hold back the manic laugh that threatened to escape him.

There was a crashing sound behind him mere seconds before a vast shadow blotted out the sun.

He looked up into the too-human face of the giant robot with the cracked eye. It gave him a cruel smile. “There you are.”

Robert did the only logical thing he could. He tilted the revolver and pulled the trigger.

“AH! MY OTHER OCULUS!” The robot shouted, stomping down and crushing the front of the rusted car.

Robert was on his feet and running as the giant robot, screaming what he deduced where the giant robot version of profanities, started wildly shooting an honest-to-god laser gun.

Though, considering that the projectiles had travel time and exploded, it was probably more of a plasma gun…or considering its size relative to him, a plasma cannon.

One shot passed within thirty feet of him, and he felt his whole body burn as if from a severe sunburn. He ran for the pillar in hopes of it providing some semblance of cover.

A third giant robot stepped out from behind it. It smiled seemingly kindly as it saw him. “Ah, there you are, little guy.”

Robert did the only logical thing he could. And shot it in the mouth.

“Ah! My denta!”

Let’s back up a bit.

Losing one’s job is hard and stressful.

Unemployment benefits dragging their feet is harder and more stressful.

Robert’s one saving grace was that he’d always set about a quarter of his paychecks to savings, and he had enough boxes of fifteen to five year old MREs to last him a while, so he didn’t really need to worry overmuch about food.

Yeah, a diet that consisted of anything with the label ‘warfighter approved’ was far from ideal. But there was the dog bakery a few streets down if he ever wanted to treat himself.

He’d gotten his degree at a community college, he was far from ashamed of austerity.

Not to mention, the bacon, cheese, and potato treat on rye bread was genuinely one of the best things he’d ever eaten. If he had a dog he’d be hard-pressed not to buy it for the furry menace every other day.

Belatedly, he groaned and rolled off his bed, now hungrier than he was lazy.

Was he disappointing all the ‘six suck mah dick’ tryhards out there by not being up at the ass crack of dawn and ‘hitting the streets’ in his search for a job? Maybe, but sending over a hundred emails with his resume a day had been a different kind of exhausting.

Checking his phone and taking a few minutes to delete all the spam…no response from the latest batch of resume spreading, because why would there be?

He groaned and got off his bed, scratching his side as he went to his closet and grabbed a random bag from the box of MREs he had there.

‘Pizza slice, cheese.’

He shrugged, got the k-bar knife out of his underwear drawer and tore the bag open then sheathed the knife and tossed it at his bed. Digging around in the bag he found a bag of jalapeño cashews, tore it open with his teeth, and emptied the bag into his mouth. Shoving the now empty bag into the pocket of his pajama pants, he grabbed the emotional support shotgun he kept in the corner of the room by his bed and walked out his door.

He turned in the direction of the room at the end of the hall, took a deep breath, then remembered.

He let the breath out slowly, muttered an angry and sad, “Fuck.” And walked downstairs.

The good thing about owning his own home was that he didn’t need to worry about rent. Sure, if he didn’t find a job, he’d eventually be unable to pay the power bill, or the water bill, or God forbid, he’d lose access to the Internet. But he was at least lucky enough to have the luxury to not be scrambling in search of a new job every second of every day.

Once downstairs he went to the kitchen and spread the contents of the MRE pouch on the central marble-topped island and shoved the main meal bag into the flameless heater bag.

He added water and finagled the thing into staying tilted up just enough not to spill the water, and forgot about it for a while as he tore open the chocolate flavored energy bar and absently tore into it. It had the consistency of particularly thick cardboard, and the texture of a partially dried out taffy, but it tasted exactly like what it said on the tin, or in this case the bag.

He tried to get the crackers out in one piece, failed, then tried to slather the chunky peanut butter out of the bag and onto the crackers, and also failed. A mess later, he’d consumed the vaguely flour tasting crackers with the somewhat concerningly moist and admittedly delicious peanut butter.

Seriously, why was the best peanut butter in the world confined to MRE’s? It’d quickly corner the civilian market if it were available. He’d say it was a conspiracy to entice people to join the military, but he didn’t want people to think things without first grabbing his tinfoil hat.

Picking up the paper bag of crushed red pepper from where it had fallen on the floor. He got the pizza out of the heater, tore it open, dumped the contents of the paper bag onto roughly the center of the pizza. And ate the half-cold half-hot piece of thick flatbread that tasted vaguely of cheese.

As he started sucking on the bag of apple sauce, he tossed the sealed bag with salt, gum, moist towelettes, etc, into the nearest drawer, then tossed all the trash into the MRE bag and that bag in the trash.

Body fueled, Robert cleaned the island top and went to the workbench with the disassembled bolt action rifle. Did the Winchester Model 70 need the deep cleaning? No, no it did not, but working on it helped soothe his nerves so who the hell cared.

After a couple hours of not working all that hard or diligently, the old rifle was reassembled, and the scope needed zeroing to be of any use.

Really not feeling like getting that done, he picked up the rifle and his emotional support shotgun, and put the former in one of the gun safes scattered around the house.

After sitting on the couch for a while, staring at the TV he hadn’t bothered to turn on, Robert did some mental arithmetic as far as his finances were concerned, then said ‘fuck it’ and got dressed.

Cargo pants, steel toe boots, and a polo shirt made up his usual uniform to face the day. He chose his favorite revolver to slip into the holster inside his pants and tossed a few speed loaders and a handful of loose rounds into his pockets, and put on the fancy and very expensive Bluetooth headphones that doubled as ear protection, because he really didn’t want to get tinnitus. His preparations done, he went to the garage.

“You got your gun boy? S’long as you live in under my roof, you better leave your dick behind before you step outta that door without your gun.”

Robert paused at the door and snorted. “How exactly am I gonna detach my dick, grandpa?” He asked the empty chair at the table he’d avoided using for weeks now.

The chair did not give him the customary answer.

Scowling, he muttered, “Fuckin’,” and stepped out into the attached garage. Closing and locking the door behind him, he stepped around the ramshackle steel exoskeleton covered in wires, steel cables, and a half-assembled electric motor, and climbed into his beaten up, rusty shitbox of a truck, slammed the door closed because without the oomph it wouldn’t remain closed, and pressed the button for the garage door to open.

When it remained annoyingly closed against his wishes, he got the remote out, went to the workbench inside and partially disassembled it so he could swap out its batteries. He got back in his truck and pressed the button, and the garage door opened slowly and noisily.

Robert sighed and drove out. The exo-suit project would be seeing a lot more time sunk into it now that he didn’t have a job…at least until the situation with his savings became distressingly dire.

Not knowing exactly where he was driving, he stopped at the dog bakery, bought a bacon, cheese, and potato bread, a cookie with bits of mango, and a stick of dried beef, and munched while he drove.

Seriously, if people were buying these things for dogs, then dogs ate better and healthier than he did growing up.

Not that that was a high bar to clear. His grandpa had been many things, but a chef was not one of them.

Driving around aimlessly resulted with him stopping at Home Depot, where he bought sixteen feet of .125” thick aluminum angle.

The current version of the exoskeleton used steel angle for the articulation of the extremities, but his hope was that switching the articulation out for aluminum would reduce the weight enough that he wouldn’t have to lock the thing’s legs every time he wanted to use the arms.

That, and the battery for the electric motors that retracted the steel cables that served for motor functions would last longer thanks to having to move the lower mass.

Was that an intelligent purchase right now? No, but today was a day for poor decisions.

After securely tying off the angle, cut down to four lengths of four feet for ease of transport, he made his way home.

He did not see the Porsche that slammed into the side of his truck coming at all.

The weirdest thing was, right before impact, he would have sworn that the car struck parallel to his truck, not head-on as would normally be required to drive his truck off the road and onto the acutely sloping wall of the dry canal he’d been driving toward.

The airbag punching him in the everything didn’t help matters either.

Or maybe they did. He was pretty sure that getting punched by the airbag was supposed to be a good thing in a bad situation.

Once the world stopped heaving, he felt as if a rush of warm water had trickled down from the top of his head down his face and neck. Cristal clarity vanishing away the fog of confused pain.

Robert took quick inventory of himself, aches and pains, but the basic structure of his body was uncompromised, which meant that he could move and if he could move he had to move.

He absently thanked his grandfather for all the drills, his mind finally catching up to a body that had already finished steps one through five of safely exiting the vehicle.

He consciously finished sliding out of the window of his truck, made certain the motor was off and that nothing was actively on fire, then looked around. Spotting the Porsche, he made his way over to check on the driver who had crashed into him.

Getting him to fill out his end of the insurance could wait until after Robert made certain he wasn’t going to die.

With a dual crash of metal striking concrete, an enormous robot painted chrome and bright crimson landed between him and the Porsche.

Two malevolently glowing red eyes set in a too-human face literally sparkled as they focused on him. “Well look what we got here. The meat creature survived, color me impressed.”

A big blue and grey truck rumbled down the canal wall, screeched to a stop, and turned into another giant robot, taller and wider than the first one. “Want me to take care of it? I don’t want to deal with you complaining about washing blood off your paint.”

“Human refuse not only ruins the paint, but their hard bits are just strong enough to scratch my finish!” The big red one said with a haughty sniff.

Robert did not know what was going on, but he recognized hostile intent when he saw it, so he did the only logical thing he could do and drew his revolver, its checkered walnut grip settling into his palm with the familiarity of an old friend shaking his hand.

“Oh? Breakdown look! It thinks it’s dangerous!” The red robot said with a cruel smile. “How adorable.”

The bigger blue robot sighed and turned its back to Robert. “Just put it out of its misery, we have a job to do.”

The red robot opened its arms wide. “Come on little human, I’ll let you have the first shot.”

Robert cocked back the hammer.

And now we’re all caught up.

The white and gray robot he’d shot in the teeth finished flinching back and covering its mouth. Robert wisely used that time to turn another direction and resume running.

Big Red continued to scream weird profanities and fire blindly. Except as the old wisdom went, accuracy by volume was a perfectly adequate strategy.

Big Red had a plasma bolt with Robert’s name on it, and by golly he shot until he found it.

Robert had most of a second to look down the barrel of the huge gun as it began to glow, then the big white and gray robot he’d shot in the teeth dove on top of him. He’d say tackled him, but that would have resulted in Robert being turned into meat paste, and what ended up actually happening, was that with a weird noise as well as a bewildering series of metal pieces moving in beautiful complexity, he was suddenly in the driver’s seat of a car that was speeding away, the big pink explosion of superheated death destroying the pavement a ways behind him.

Robert took a deep breath.

Let it out slowly.

Then popped out the cylinder of his revolver, pumped the extraction lever, and replaced the two cartridges that he’d used before closing it with a quiet click.

Feeling better now that his shooting potential was back to maximum capacity. He very calmly screamed. “WHAT THE FUCK!?”

“Hey my man, I’d appreciate if you didn’t use expletives while you’re a guest here.” Chastised a voice inside the car that wasn’t coming from the speakers.

“Ah, sorry.” Robert said instinctively. “Was just startled is all.”

“No probs lil’-bro!”

Robert blinked.

Twice.

“WHO IN SHIT THE FLYING GANGRENOUS FUCK!?” Robert screamed calmly and very reasonably. “Who are you!? What are you!? Why did I almost die!?”

“Hey man! Language!”

“JUST ANSWER THE FUCKING QUESTIONS!” Robert demanded. “I’m being kidnaped by a talking car! And I’ll have you know, I am armed and very willing to make that someone else’s problem!”

“Okay okay let’s just calm down!”

“I AM CALM!”

“Right! Well, my name is Jazz. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” The car, Jazz, said. “I was cruisin’ along minding my own business, when suddenly I got rammed in the side by a Decepticon. Then I crashed into you, and thanks to you distracting one of them long enough, I was able to make my escape. And since they’d kill you before leaving, I brought you with me.”

Robert took a moment to internalize the car’s answers, Jazz’s answers, then said. “That simultaneously answered my question and left me with many, many more.”

And that’s when a racecar painted a familiar shade of annoyingly bight red, sporting cracked high beams, pulled up beside the Porsche and tried to run it off the road.

Robert clicked his tongue in annoyance, and thumbed back the hammer of his revolver. “Lovely.”