Chapter 1

Swindle curled up on his berth doing his best not to cry. He was a Decepticon after all. He wasn't supposed to be so weak. But he was alone and terrified, and had betrayed his brothers in the worst possible way. He had sold them for spare parts to a Filthy little human. Sure, he was a greedy fragger, and he was loyal to no one. Except his brothers. Why then, had he nearly destroyed them? It wasn't his fault. No, really, it wasn't.

His brothers were all he had. At the end of the day credits couldn't comfort him when be needed someone there or watch his back when he was hurt. His brothers had protected him ever since the five of them were younglings who had been cast out into the street. They had raised him, fed him, kept him alive. And though he would never say it out loud Swindle did love them. So why then, had he abandoned them? It was that human's fault. Swindle winced remembering what had happened.

After Defensor had kicked their afts, Swindle found himself as the lone functioning Combaticon. He had lain on the pavement, dazed and wondering what to do next. It took a while, but once his processor stopped spinning, the youngest of the brothers was finally able to recall the he had a human contact in the area. El Presidente ran a large chain of chop shops, among other "business" ventures. He would have the parts needed to patch Vortex, who was the least damaged of the four, back together, and the copter could fix the rest of them.

Pushing himself to his pedes, the swindler had begun the long trek to the flesh bag's closest hideout with the intent to convince the human to hand over the goods, free of charge, of course. He had been completely surprised when a human stepped into his path, seemingly coming from nowhere. Despite being startled Swindle didn't bother to reduce his speed. If the human wasn't smart enough to get out of his way, well that wasn't the Combaticon's problem. The tiny creature wouldn't even dent Swindle. Needless to say, the Decepticon was stunned when the pathetic fleshy pulled out... some sort of weapon and shot him. Electric pain had raced through his circuits, shutting down neural pathways and leaving him completely unable to move and stuck in his alt mode.

The human called himself Zeus, after the king of Gods. He had had a proposition for Swindle. His minions, the minor Gods, had reported to him that several alien robots had been scrapped. Swindle was going to sell El Presidente them as spare parts. Why Zeus didn't want them directly, the youngest Combaticon didn't know. The wannabe God had told him that once he had gotten what he wanted then he would see to it that the four mechs would be returned to the Decepticons. Swindle had refused. All he had to do was wait until his systems reset and be would be able to crush the so called "king". At least, that had been the plan. Then Zeus had played his trump card. The gun he had used to paralyze the mech didn't use bullets or laser fire or any such thing. It had fired a small tag deep into his chassis. The tag would respond to a remote detonator that could be triggered from anywhere in the world. When that happened, the tag would send jolts of electricity through him. At low doses it would simply cause extreme pain and some minor damage to his neural systems. Over time, however, the mild jolts would cause that minor damage to build up and eventually it would kill him. The Constructicons had firm orders not to fix him for any reason, after all, so he wouldn't be able to prevent major damage. The fragging weapon also had more than one setting, and at high doses it would not only cause massive amounts of agony, it would completely paralyze him and eventually kill him. The maximum setting would run through his systems for a full minute, causing massive damage before killing him. Swindle wasn't naive enough to think that this human would give him such a quick death. Having no other options the jeep had agreed.

So now, here he was, twenty four hours later, alone and terrified. He had done as he was ordered by the human, which had displeased Megatron. Of course, he wasn't foolish enough to tell his leader that he had been bested by a human, so now everyone thought he was a traitor. Including his brothers. Thankfully, Megatron had ordered Hook to remove the bomb from his head, giving him one less thing to worry about, even if the operation had been extremely painful.

Deciding that moping in his quarters was not helping (and would likely get him a beating if Brawl or Vortex came home and found him in their shared living unit), the young Decepticon left his room, quickly making his way to the launch tower. The Reflectors barely spared him a glance as he input the commands that would raise the tower. Megatron had told the swindler to get out of his sight until further notice, and the best way to do that would be to get off the ship completely. On the way up Swindle tried to think about anything but his current situation. Instead, he thought about the Reflectors. They were creepy those three, but good business partners when they wanted to be. He tried to distract himself with thoughts about business and money and the latest fight that Braw… fraggit! He didn't want to think about them right now. He wanted to get away, to find a way to pull the blasted barb out of his chassis and for everything to go back to normal.

Unfortunately, that wasn't going to happen. A burning sensation ripped through his chassis and knocked out his knees, sending his sprawling against the wall. Slag that human! He tried not to scream, biting his denta till they bled. He couldn't let anyone know that this was happening to him. No one could know about the human. He would solve this himself and then squish the stupid fleshy for daring to do this to him! But first, he had to wait for the pain to go away so that he could stand properly. It was a weird coincidence that the moment the lift doors opened, allowing him outside, the burning went away. Firing up his boosters, Swindle fled from the Nemesis. He didn't know where he was going or what his plan was, but he would figure something out. He always did.

He savored the deep, rich wine, sipping it slowly as he watched the video feed. A tan and purple robot emerged from the sea, taking flight as soon as he was stable. Zeus was pleased to see the faint tremors shaking the (relatively, after all, the thing was bigger than he was) frame. The little bastard had crossed the wrong man, and Zeus intended to make him pay. He had studied the aliens for so long now; he knew exactly how to hurt them, physically. But his minor gods had brought him some interesting information recently; the creatures had families. So, he decided, a change of plans was in order. Swindle would die, yes, but he would make sure that the brothers got a front row seat. And then he, a human, who these beasts had thought to be inferior, would prove who was the most powerful of them all.