A Team Effort

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"A Team Effort"
Publisher	Transformers Collectors' Club (online exclusive)
First published	September 23, 2010
Written by	Jesse Wittenrich
Illustrations by	Casey Coller
Continuity	Wings Universe
Page count	42pp

A strange meteorite approaches Cybertron as the Decepticon Warlords struggle for power.

Synopsis

Out in the Cybertronian wilderness, Decepticons Abacus, Datamine, and Deadbolt are holed up in a bunker, on the run from the Elite Guard and waiting for Megatron's reinforcements. Abacus' preaching of Megatron's greatness aggravates the other two, and while they argue, a laser point lights up on Datamine's chest. The Decepticons notice this, and seconds later their entire bunker is bombed by Halonix Maximus. The Decepticon Spy Satellites record this event, transmitting it to a meeting of the leaders of the many Decepticon factions: Trannis, Straxus, Preditron, Zardak, Hook, Reflector, Cannonball, Gutcruncher, Megatron's representative Shockwave, and Deathsaurus' representative Falcon. Tensions run high; some, such as Trannis and Preditron, refuse to work together, while others, like Straxus and Shockwave, realized that the Elite Guard is hunting for all of them. Reflector suggests that they all pool their resources together, and Shockwave listens in, planning to use the information gathered for Megatron. A while later, Gutcruncher meets up with his subordinate Charger, who has finally managed to locate an space object containing incalculable power levels. Gutcruncher is pleased, although his elation is somewhat diminished upon hearing that Charger has sent out Take-Off to find them transportation...

Take-Off travels to one of the most famous cross-factional bars on Cybertron to meet up with Axer. Axer pays no attention to the Decepticon at first, watching the bar intently; unable to read the situation, Take-Off blabbers, trying to impress the mercenary with Gutcruncher's plans. Take-Off reveals nearly every secret Gutcruncher has, and is silenced by Axer, who has been staring the entire time at an Elite Guardsman, Delta Seeker, who has been listening in the entire time. Unwilling to damage his reputation, Axer refuses to work with him, and leaves Take-Off to fret over what he's going to tell the others. In Detrona, Powerflash and his Stealth Team-con man Tap-Out, the somewhat disturbed Sprocket, and Rumbler, his no-nonsense brother-are briefed on this information by Sentinel Major, who assigns them the task of stopping Gutcruncher. Powerflash doesn't believe that any Decepticon could be that stupid, and assumes that it's a trap. Luckily for him, he and the others always love to spring the trap. Powerflash has Rumbler and Sprocket get some electronic paint as he finishes the rest of his plan...

Back at Elite Guard HQ, Sentinel reports to Magnum on his troop deployments. Magnum, however, has the capture of the Combaticons weighing heavy on him. Sentinel tries to cheer him up, telling him he already has two teams looking for them and the Strike Team ready to deploy, but Magnum tells him to call them back, knowing that Metalhawk could be emotionally compromised. Sentinel Major leaves, incensed at Magnum for overriding him, before colliding into Ricochet. Sentinel begins helping him pick up his dropped files, but when he finds an acquisition request from Powerflash with his forged signature, the outraged Sentinel stews off, leaving Ricochet behind. In Detrona, Sprocket and Rumbler finish painting up Powerflash and Tap-Out, or rather, neutrals "Bad Boy" and "Dealbreaker," and the four go to inspect their new ship, the freighter Darklon. Sprocket interfaces with the ships computer, getting "her seal of approval," much to Rumbler's annoyance. The twins hide away in a fake utility chest in the cargo bay, ready to spring out when Powerflash needs them.

At Gutcruncher's base, Take-Off manages to convince his superiors that the deal simply fell through, and that he's on the look for another ship. Gutcruncher sends him off, and Take-Off goes to Roadgrabber, getting him to help him out to Take-Off digging him out of rubble. This deal turns out to be with "Dealbreaker" and "Bad Boy"; Take-Off is lured in with the Darklon's impressive size and "Bad Boy's" fast-talking, so much so that he doesn't even ask about any of the ships specs, and makes a deal with the "neutrals". Upon returning to headquarters, Gutcruncher and Charger are less than pleased that Take-Off made no inquiries, but with the energy source so close and time short, decide to not press the issue, and go to board the ship. Initially, Gutcruncher is quite pleased with the ship, but when Take-Off detects two faint Autobot signals in the cargo hold, the Decepticon warlord is furious. Gutcruncher has Take-Off go with the others to figure out what the signatures were, while he goes to the flight deck to confront the "neutrals". Upon arriving, he finds that the ship is in auto-pilot, and feels the tip of a gun barrel on his back. Poweflash and Tap-Out reveals their true identities to the warlord, telling Gutcruncher that his asteroid will be taken care of before he and any other Decepticons can get their hands on it. Tap-Out places him in stasis cuffs, and leads him to the brig. Powerflash goes to the cargo bay to take care of the others, but upon arriving, the electronic paint he had scrapped off allows for them to detect his Autobot energy signature, and he is forced to take cover. Powerflash springs towards the chest containing Sprocket and Rumbler, who force the Decepticons to retreat. In the corridors, Roadgrabber's constant cover fire begins to grate on Charger. The normally calm and composed Decepticon begins to breakdown as Roadgrabber refuses to stop, and snaps, throwing Take-Off aside and grabbing Roadgrabber. Charger begins to choke his subordinate before noticing Sprocket and Rumbler, and throws Roadgrabber aside, ready to take out the Autobots. Unfortunately for him, his anger makes him sloppy, and Rumbler simply knocks him out. In the brig, the stasis cuffs, designed to limit anger subroutines to make those in them more agreeable, have no effect on the angered Charger. Charger uses the energy bars to short circuit Gutcruncher's stasis cuffs, and takes the other two the armory, breaking their cuffs and stealing weapons.

Arriving at the asteroid, the Autobots detect energy readings of the scales. Sprocket warns the others that the ship says the radiation levels could be dangerous, and Powerflash has Tap-Out go to retrieve Charger. Upon arriving at the empty cell, Tap-Out reaches for his radio, but is knocked back by Gutcruncher, who jury-rigs the radio into a makeshift bomb for leverage. Outside, Rumbler and Powerflash wait on Sprocket to arrive with the survey equipment, but are soon forced to surrender by the heavily armed Decepticons. Sprocket soon joins them, but lets the others know that he forgot to charge the weapons the Decepticons are using since the last time. Gutcruncher informs them over the loudspeaker that he and the others will leave them behind once they have harvested the energy. Roadgrabber heads inside to find the recovered Tap-Out, while the other six head for the energy source. Upon arrival, Gutcruncher ignores Charger's warnings, and goes to touch the crystal, setting off a reaction that strikes all six near the crater, knocking them out. Gutcruncher is eventually awakened when Roadgrabber calls in to tell him Tap-Out's been taken care of; seeing the crystal depowered, he orders the others to transform and return to the ship, but they find themselves unable to. Arriving back at the ship, they attempt to close the cargo doors, but Rumbler manages to stop it from closing. The Decepticons find that their purloined weapons are useless, and Powerflash and Sprocket assist Rumbler, the energy giving them enough strength to force the doors open. Gutcruncher goes to activate the auto-defenses, while the other three stay to fight; Rumbler punches out Take-Off, Sprocket throttles Roadgrabber, and Tap-Out uses his vehicle mode to send Charger flying. Powerflash goes after Gutcruncher, whose attempts to activate the defenses are refused by the computer. Seeing no way out, Gutcruncher sets off the bomb...which goes off in a distance away from the ship. Rumbler knocks him out, and as the crystal reacts to the explosion, the Darklon blasts off back to Cybertron. Sometime later, Rest-Q and Crosscut report that the three are perfectly healthy, and that they will be able to transform again once the radiation wears off. How long that may be, they don't know. Sentinel Major congratulates the team for their success, and questions them on how they managed to stop Gutcruncher's bomb and why the ship didn't work for them. Tap-Out reveals that he was conscious when Gutcruncher created the bomb and relocated it after, while Sprocket claims that the Darklon didn't like him. Sentinel then goes on to inform them that the asteroid was a chunk of Hydrus Four, and that the pieces are beginning to re-enter Cybertron's atmosphere. The Guard is on the look for the energy signature in the meteorites, but Tap-Out figures it's nothing to worry about.

In his fortress, Deathsaurus watches the proceedings in Kaon of the Decepticon War Council. Deathsaurus notes that Hook and Reflector have fallen under Megatron's command, and that Shockwave never showed up. Deathsaurus watches as Falcon takes the stand, bringing a supposed "message" from Deathsaurus. Lyzack steps in to tell him that the captain of the Skyraider-Seeker Brigade is here to meet him, but Deathsaurus tells her to wait. Falcon presses a button on the box containing the message, and in a few seconds, all 5 warlords, Falcon, and Deathsaurus secret camera are vaporized. Pleased, Deathsaurus has Lyzack bring in Starscream, who congratulates his commander for his victory, although with less Warlords, he worries that the Elite Guard might focus more on them now. Deathsaurus brushes off his concerns, telling him he has something to deal with them, and tells him that he needs a new lieutenant...

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Notes

• Characters mentioned who do not appear include: Megatron, Halogen, Radio AM Robot, the Combaticons, Thunderwing, Blue Bacchus, Octus, Legonis, The One, Roadfire, Big Bang, Metalhawk, Sentinel EnN, R-First, R-Second, Yoketron, Grandus, Swindle, Breakaway, Rosanna, Roadstorm, and GADEPs.

Continuity notes

• Several details about the make-up of the Elite Guard are mentioned for the first time outside of the OTFCC panel at BotCon 2010. The Elite Guard is split up into several teams, including:
  • The story's main cast, the Stealth Team.
  • The Combaticons, also known as the Special Ops Team (their renaming explained as being the result of the name "Combaticon" receiving bad publicity.)
  • The Alpha Team, under Thunderclash; they are not mentioned in Sentinel Major's mobilization report, being currently stationed at the Centry Quadrant during the story, as mentioned in "The Coming Storm".
  • Metalhawk's team, dubbed the Strike Team.
  • The Artillery Team, seen at the beginning of the story but unnamed. Made up of Halonix Maximus, Padlock (who, being a sniper, most likely was the one who painted the Decepticon bunker at the beginning of the story), Windsail, and Clear Out.
  • The Recon Team, made up of Roadfire, Delta Seeker, Crosscut, and Rest-Q. Both it and the Artillery Team go unnamed in the story.
  • The Fast Attack Team, whose members are unnamed in-story; it is composed of Ranger, Blacker, Braver, and Laster.
• Abacus makes reference to the Hall of Records, from The Transformers episode "Surprise Party".
• Reflector commands an army called the Photons, all of whom are identical to himself/themselves; presumably, this explains the legions of identical "Reflectors" seen in the first season of the The Transformers cartoon.
• Hook is among the Decepticon warlords in the first meeting. Of note, this takes place before his and the other Constructicons brainwashing by Megatron in "The Secret of Omega Supreme"; later fiction in the Wings universe would explain this seeming discrepancy. Hook is noted to take interest in technology found in the ruins of Gygax; Sprocket's comment's later in the story, along with Bruticus' profile in issue #36 of the Club magazine would make it clear that this is combiner technology.
• Thunderwing and Blue Bacchus were noted to be captured by the Elite Guard in "The Coming Storm: Part 3".
• The Combaticons were captured by Deathsaurus in "The Coming Storm: Part 3".
• Pneuma-lions were previously mentioned in "Flames of Yesterday".
• Roadgrabber was buried alive by the Elite Guard in "Flames of Yesterday"; Take-Off notes that he stumbled across him while in Median.
• Powerflash names drops Crystal City, introduced in "The Secret of Omega Supreme".

Transformers references

• Multiple new members of the Elite Guard are introduced in this story, including:
  • The members of the Stealth Team. Powerflash and Rumbler were European exclusive Action Masters, while Sprocket was an Action Master from the American toyline; he still has his Attack Cruiser, much like how Over-Run still has his Attack Copter. Tap-Out is the odd one out, being an exclusive from BotCon 2002.
  • Halonix Maximus (AKA Halo and Gigantron) is based off the holographic Autobot seen in The Transformers episode "Heavy Metal War". According to this story, he transforms into a bomber. Sentinel notes that Big Bang gave him the callsign "Gigantron"-Gigantron was an alternative named considered for Halo by Fun Publications.
  • The Stealth Team, whose disparate members include their commander, Roadfire, a Powered Master from the Zone toyline; Delta Seeker, an Autobot from the Robotmasters toyline; Crosscut, an e-Hobby exclusive based on the Diaclone version of Skids; and Rest-Q, named after the GoBot and based on a prototypical version of Hubcap seen in the Toy Fair 1986 catalogue.
• Datamine hails from the Badlands, an area of Cybertron introduced in the BotCon "Reaching the Omega Point" storyline.
• Datamine claims that Deathsaurus has "a stack of gold coins as tall as an Omega Guardian." The Omega Guardians were introduced in "Spotlight: Hot Rod".
• The Decepticon Warlords, too, are composed of numerous Easter eggs, including:
  • The main warlord in this story, Gutcrucher, one of the Action Masters from the end of The Transformers toyline. His minions, Take-Off and Charger, were European-exclusive Action Masters.
  • Trannis, a Decepticon warlord mentioned in the one-page prose story "Cybertron: The Middle Years!" from the UK Marvel The Transformers comic.
  • His successor, Straxus, who showed up as the Decepticon leader on Cybertron in the early issues of the Marvel US The Transformers comic. His position as lord of Darkmount is referenced here.
  • Zardak, who, aside from being a reference to another toyline of transforming robots, (see "Real-world references"), is repurposed from the Henkei! Henkei! Dark Skyfire toy.
  • Cannonball, referencing the pirate of the same name from the Cybertron toyline. The Maraudicons were named for a design created by author Jesse Wittenrich for custom Transformers sticker website, Reprolabels.
  • Preditron is repurposed from the evil version of Beast-Bot from the Playskool Go-Bots toyline. His subfaction, the Destrongers, take their name for the name of the Predacons in the Car Robots series.
• Gygax was introduced in "The New World".
• Sprocket's imaginary friends include Councilor Halogen, Grandus, and Sensei Yoketron, characters from Exodus, Return of Convoy, and Animated respectively. All of them are indicated to be real, but Sprocket doesn't actually know them like he claims.
• The asteroid featured in this story and Charger's obsession with it reference his original bio, which noted that in his free time, he researched how to harness energy from a burning meteor.
• Charger's findings "spur excitement in Gutcruncher's rigid grill structure"; "rigid grill structure" was one of the early online Transformers fandom memes, based on a confused parsing of a post about Beast Wars Dinobot and a quote by Tom Servo that served as said poster's signature.
• Among the patrons at the bar that Take-Off meets Axer at (likely Maccadam's Old Oil House, due to the cross-factional nature of the bar) are Constructicons, Protectobots, Recordicons, and Cassettrons (the Japanese name for Recordicons).
• Radio AM Robot was among the South American-exclusive toy releases for the original The Transformers toyline from licensee Comando Toys.
• Axer was another Action Master from the tail end of The Transformers toyline.
• Take-Off claims Gutcruncher can take a stratotronic fighter jet and turn it into a mobile headquarters and a tank-the Statotronic Jet that Gutcruncher's toy with, of course, does just that.
• Tap-Out is stated to have a 65356-9292-346 body, a designation introduced into the Animated continuity by The AllSpark Almanac II for Bumblebee's body-type. The numbers are taken from the barcode number for Bumblebee's Deluxe class toy.
• Electronic paint originates from Animated episode "Where Is Thy Sting?".
• Octus and Legonis were part of the Decepticon Triumvirate seen in the Marvel UK The Transformers comics.
• Tap-Out's "Dealbreaker" paint-job is based on the Japanese-exclusive black variant of the Fun4All keychain re-release of the original Cliffjumper toy, the toy which Tap-Out was redecoed from. Powerflash's Bad Boy disguise, meanwhile, is based on the GoBots Renegade of the same name , using his original olive green and silver colors instead of the blue and white of Bad Boy's e-HOBBY release.
• According to Wittenrich, Breakaway is G1 version of Revenge of the Fallen Breakaway. His design would be based on the original Decepticon Jet trio's toys, in the colors of unreleased "Conehead" Sandstorm from Generation 2. This was inspired by Revenge of the Fallen Breakaway sharing a mold with that incarnation of Thrust.
• The lights of the Darklon's control board is noted to make Sprocket's face look like "Rosanna's retro dance floors"; Rosanna was an Autobot cassette introduced in the Kiss Players franchise.
• Tap-Out enhances his disguise with a cy-garette, referencing the cy-gar, a piece of technlogy introduced in IDW Publishing's All Hail Megatron.
• Ballobots and basketrek were mentioned in issue #21 of the Marvel The Transformers comic.
• Roadstorm is repurpsed from the Galaxy Force Roadstorm toy, sold in America as Cybertron Lugnutz.
• Rigel III was mentioned in issue #44 of the Marvel The Transformers comic.
• Roadgrabber claims that he was buried underground while fighting an army of GADEPs, the Japanese name for the Guardian robots.
• Charger inquires Take-Off as to whether or not the Darklon has a number of items, all of which correspond to Action Master Slicer's Power Plans.
• An alternative form of stasis cuffs (a technology introduced in Animated) are used by Powerflash and his team in this story; instead of freezing all motor functions, they dampen the aggressive sub-routines of whomever they're attached to, rendering them childlike.
• While affixed with stasis cuffs, the pacified Take-Off claims that Charger has a "fire beast" inside him. Fire Beast is the name of Charger's Action Master partner.
• Although it's never actually stated in-story, the energy crystal is Nucleon, as shown by its effects on those exposed to its energy; the asteroid it was on was a chunk from the planet of Hydrus Four, the origin of Nucleon in the Marvel The Transformers comics.

Real world references

• The story (including its title) pays homage to The A-Team. Each of the characters homage a member of the titular team; Powerflash takes the place of John "Hannibal" Smith; Tap-Out's portrayal is based on Templeton Peck; Rumbler replaces B. A. Baracus; and Sprocket fills the role of Howling Mad Murdock.
• Abacus' speech patterns and purple coloration homage Preacherbot from Futurama. Datamine mockingly calls him "Preacher-Bot" at one point.
• Decepticon warlord Zardak and his Maladroids were inspired by the Convertors toyline. Zardak was a small version of the Macross VF-1S Super Valkyrie toy; the larger version, of course, was released in The Transformers toyline as Jetfire.
• The city the Stealth Team is stationed in, Detrona, is named for Detroit and Daytona Beach.
• The Transmorpher Freeway is named for The Asylum's knock-off film of the 2007 Transformers film.
• Tap-Out quips that "sometimes missiles don't fall far from the sprue", paraphrasing the idiom "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree" (plastic sprues, of course, are also known as plastic trees).
• Take-Off indicates that Gutcruncher's headquarters are located near an Energon-Os ad; Energon-Os were part of a skit from some of the BotCon voice actor panels, where actors would perform a sales pitch for the fictional cereal as the characters they voice.
• R-Third is named and based on Arthur, partner of The Tick, whom Sentinel Major's inspiration, Animated Sentinel Prime, was visually based on.
• The Darklon takes her name from Destro's distant cousin, from G.I. Joe.
• Take-Off is noted to turn into a three-wheel Speedstar, named for an automotive shop in Ontario that author Jesse Wittenrich had felt was a good name for an 80's cartoon-related story.
• Powerflash/"Bad Boy" claims that "every con and bot from here to Treskellon with a ship" is talking about Take-Off's need for a ship. Treskellon is named for the planet from Star Trek, Triskelion.
• Rest-Q and Crosscut's pairing is inspired by the duo of Tocot and Grunchlk from Farscape.
• Zardak notes he has a relative in the Centry Quadrant. Going off of the Convertors toy bios, this is a Transformers version of his brother, Zark.

Trivia

• A poll was held on the Official Transformers Collectors Club' forums to choose which Elite Guard team would be the subject of the next prose story. The Stealth Team won with nearly half the overall votes, beating the Recon Team, Artillery Team, and the Fast Attack Team.

External links

• "A Team Effort" at The Official Transformers Collectors' Club