#from what i can tell though they were probably just someone who hyperfixated on biological warfare so much that they got the job
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transingthoseformers · 2 years ago
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It still gets me that no yeah canonically Shockwave was the tfp second in command at first, and that on technicality he was also the resident CMO. Shockwave was canonically a surgeon for a while. Is he a good one, or have any sort of medical training? Dunno, but I'm leaning towards somewhat no.
Knockout probably joined the Decepticons later and not at the beginning of the war, perhaps he was neutral? I've seen suggestions that he used to be an arms dealer, maybe he specialized in creating and installing integrated weaponry. I can check the tfwiki page for g1 KO and see if that might give us indications?
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woofools · 5 years ago
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Years ago I had a creative writing assignment while I was neck-deep in a Yin Yang Yo! hyperfixation, so I basically lifted a bunch of characters from the show, put them in a human AU setting, and changed their names.
BUT, I was talking with @yuckisalesbian, who was like “hey I’d read that!” This one’s for you, pal.
So here it is! A (sort of, very very loose) human/modern day AU! (Names changed back for clarity.)
Please be merciful this was written a while ago, as I’ve said. Beware of swears.
There was a series of crashes and the sound of glass breaking, then a muffled glugging noise. A pause, then, in unison,
“We’re so dead.”
Yo didn’t move from his spot in bed. He wasn’t sure of the exact time (checking it would require moving), but he was sure that it was too early for this shit. He entertained the thought of ignoring the sounds of rising calamity and just dropping back off to sleep, but then the smoke alarm went off. Regretfully, he had to let the fantasy of further sleep drop back to the hopeful abyss it’d sprung from. The noise, if nothing else, would keep him awake.
He still didn’t move, though.
There was the sound of feet approaching at a semi-frantic clip, and then he heard his door being thrown open.
“Heeeeeyyy, Yo, buddy, you awake?”
It was Yang. Yo grunted.
“Cool, that’s cool, so um, hey! Quick, completely random question that has absolutely nothing to do with our current situation: where do we keep the fire extinguisher?”
Yo heard Yin frantically yelling for her brother from the kitchen, and grumbled, “Back of the closet.”
“YANG!!”
“’KaycoolthanksYobye!”
And with that, his door slammed shut.
Yo stayed where he was for another thirty seconds, this time trying to convince himself that two twelve-year-olds could absolutely handle a fire on their own. Absolutely. In no way did they require his help. None at all.
Yang was distantly yelling, “How do you work this thing?!” as Yin screamed, “Squeeze it! Squeeze it!”
Yo groaned into his pillow, and pushed himself upright.
*****
An hour later, after the fire had been put out, the shards of dishware had been disposed of, and the half-gallon of milk had been mopped off the floor, the three of them sat on the sofa eating cereal out of pans (all the other bowl-like instruments were either broken or dirty). The twins kept glancing at each other. Yo braced himself.
Sure enough, after a minute or so of mental-twin-communication – or whatever the hell he was witnessing – Yang began, “So hey, Yo—”
“No,” he said through a mouthful of cereal.
Yin sputtered. “We haven’t even asked you anything yet!”
“Still no.”
Yang stuck his lip out. “Why not?”
Yo gave him an unimpressed, annoyed look. “Because I have to buy a new microwave.”
Both twins deflated.
“We were trying to make you breakfast,” Yin offered meekly.
“So you could butter me up for whatever you’re trying to ask for? Stick to something noncombustible next time.”
He watched the pair deflate further, staring dolefully into the last dregs of their cereal. Ah, and there was the guilt, right on schedule. Which he felt was (mostly) unfounded; he was fairly certain they weren’t as broken up as they were pretending to be, anyway.
And yet, here he was, falling for it.
“What were you gonna ask me?” he half-groaned.
The fact that they both instantly perked up only added to his “they’re just putting it on” –theory.
Yin began, “So our school’s hosting this thing—”
“—it’s kind of like a talent show—” Yang threw in.
“—and we signed up for it—”
“—because who’s more talented than us?—”
“And families and stuff can come to watch—”
“Yo, you have to come watch us!”
“Come see us do our bit pleasepleaseplease!”
They said all this very fast, and at roughly the same time. Yo reeled.
“…Lemme get this straight,” he said slowly. “You two were planning to bribe me into coming to see your school thing?”
“Yeah.”
“Pretty much.”
“Which won’t actually cost me anything other than my time?” Yo went on.
“Uh… yes?”
“Is that a trick question?”
Yo wasn’t sure what to make of the outrageously hopeful faces boring into his soul. “That’s… that’s not something that needs bribing…”
“That mean you’ll come?” they asked in unison.
“I– yeah, knuckleheads, that means I’ll come.”
He rode out the mini-explosion of joy and excitement by grumbling that this was probably the stupidest reason they’d had to date for inadvertently destroying his kitchen.
*****
The twins left for a nearby park shortly after finishing their cereal, claiming they needed to go practice their act. They refused to tell him what the act was exactly, because for some reason kids relished the idea of surprises. Yo, who was old, took surprises with a mixture of apprehension and distaste. But it was making them happier than he’d seen thus far, so alright, fine, whatever. “Surprise” it was.
Yo was grudgingly heading out to Sears to pick up a new microwave. Microwavable meals had been the majority of what they’d been living on, so not having a usable one around the apartment would only make life that much more difficult. As the “adult” it was his sad duty to put aside his plans for the day to go get one. As compensation, he decided that this meant that there were two kids who wouldn’t be getting an allowance for the next three months. He hadn’t bothered to mention that to them yet. That should be a fun conversation.
He stood waiting for the elevator, absently swinging his keys, when a voice down the hall suddenly decided to take a metaphorical cheese grater to his eardrums:
“Yo? That you down there? Oooh how’ve you been? I haven’t seen you in ages!”
He heard the woman shuffling down the hall towards him, and weighed the merits of pretending to have a heart attack and die. She linked arms with him before he could make up his mind.
“Hello Edna,” he said stiffly instead.
“Oh, Yo, it’s so good to see you, I was getting so worried! I never see you out and about lately, and whenever I go to check on you, you aren’t home!”
“Really? Huh. What a strange and completely unintentional happenstance.”
“I told my Herman— I said, ‘Herman, if poor Yo doesn’t show up soon, I’m going to need you to do something Herman!’ And d’y’know what he said? He said, ‘Yes Mother!’ He’s such a good boy, my Herman, he was worried about you too—”
“Interesting,” Yo grumbled, internally demanding God tell him why the elevator was taking so long.
“So you gonna to tell me where you been? Where you going now?”
Not seeing a way out, Yo said, “I have to go get a new microwave.”
“Really?! Why’s that?”
The elevator doors finally opened, but just as Yo was about to (happily) excuse himself, he realized what had taken it so long in the first place: a couple of guys were trying to move a couch. How they’d managed to cram the thing in there was a mystery to Yo, but now it seemed to be his unhappy privilege to get to watch them try to wriggle it out.
Despondently, he replied, “Kids blew up the old one.”
“Oh yeah, you’ve got those kids living with you now…” Edna’s grip on his arm suddenly got a little tighter. “So, what are they anyway? Niece and nephew? Second cousins?”
“Uh… no? They’re… y’know, mine.”
“Really.” Unless he was imagining things, her tone had iced over just a touch. “Adopted?”
“…Yes and no…”
“What?”
This was undeniably the last thing Yo wanted to be talking about right now. But then, talking to Edna was undeniably the last thing he wanted to be doing period, so in a way it kind of fit. “They’re my real kids – biologically, I mean – but I’ve only really been their ‘parent’ since last year.”
“Ah. And the mother?”
“Gone.” And fuck you Edna, because that was all he was saying on the matter.
But apparently that was good enough for her, because all she said was “I see,” and then resumed snuggling into his arm, warm and bubbly as ever. “I’ll bet she just took the kids and ran, didn’t she? How horrible for you! Well, I guess she got her just desserts, isn’t that right Yo? And now you have your precious little babies back!”
Yo didn’t say anything this time. He was too busy trying to convince himself that it was indeed a real person hanging off him, not some cartoon escaped from a kids’ show.
“But you said they blew up your microwave? That must be something they picked up from their mother’s side, I’ll bet you any money— Y’know Yo, if you want, I could send Herman over to talk to them for you— OOH! We could have a family dinner together! The three of you could come by tonight, I’ll make my famous creamed pork just for the occasion—”
The guys had finally freed the couch, thank Jesus. Swiftly untangling himself, Yo said, “Sorry, I’ve got plans,” and practically leapt into the elevator. The last thing he saw as the doors closed was Edna looking as though she’d just had her favorite treat snatched out from under her nose. Sighing in relief, he slumped against the back wall of the elevator.
He’d made a solemn promise to himself that the only way he’d ever have dinner with Edna Laskey was if someone’s life hung in the balance. He had no intention of breaking that promise today.
*****
Yang stuck the landing from his jump off the monkey bars, then spun around to face his sister, arms outstretched in showmanship. Yin nodded, smiling.
“Nice. I still think we should have some streamers though…”
Yang made a face. “We don’t need any stupid streamers, Yin. The act’s fine the way it is.”
“Says the guy who wanted to use rocket packs…”
“It would’ve been cool!”
“Uh-huh. Tell me again, where did you think we were going to get the rocket packs?” Yin asked, head tilted challengingly.
Yang pouted, and didn’t answer.
“I rest my case.”
“…still would’ve been cool…”
“Still would’ve been completely impossible, meathead.”
Yang stuck out his tongue, and his sister returned the gesture. Then his face lit up.
“Okay wait hold on… If we did use streamers—” (Yin squealed,) “—Lemme finish. If we used streamers, then could we also add some fight moves?”
Yin suddenly looked much less enthused. “‘Fight moves’?”
“Yeah, like karate kicks and stuff. We could throw ‘em in at the end.” Yang took the opportunity to display his karate-kicking prowess, with copious amounts of “hi-yah!”s and “chee-hoo-wah!”s for good measure. With a final, vicious kick, his sneaker went flying off.
“Nice going, dork-butt,” Yin said dully as she watched the shoe fly through the air.
The park they were in was, unfortunately, at the top of a high hill. At the bottom, there was a Walgreens and an attached parking lot. The twins watched the shoe plummet from the sky before rolling down the hill, right underneath the maroon Impala parked at the edge of the lot.
“Aw crud,” Yang groaned, stalking down the hill. His sister hopped up from where she sat and trailed after him, snickering.
Upon reaching the car, Yang ducked down and stretched his arm as far as he could. Which, since he was a twelve-year-old, wasn’t very far at all.
“I can’t get it,” he grunted. “Can you reach it from the other side?”
Yin circled around the car and imitated her brother’s actions, with similar results. “Nope,” she called back. “Try crawling under on your stomach.”
Yang grumbled irritably to himself, but nonetheless dropped to his stomach and began trying to worm his way under the car. Yin straightened up, using the door handle as leverage.
The door opened.
Yin stumbled, landing hard on her rear. A chunky Manilla envelope fell from the car and landed in her lap.
“What’re you doing?” Yang asked from under the car.
“The– the door opened.”
She heard rapid shuffling from under the car. Seconds later her brother came from around the front, hopping on one foot as he tried to tug his sneaker back on. By that point she’d already gotten to her feet, and was just about to toss the envelope back into the car and slam the door.
“What’s this?” Yang asked, plucking the envelope from her hand.
“It fell out of the car,” she said, trying to snatch it back. Yang dodged her hand and retreated several paces.
“Whatcha think’s in here?” he asked, holding it up to the light as if trying to see through it.
“It doesn’t matter dorkasaurus, it’s not ours! Give it back!”
“Lighten up dorkasaurus-rex,” he said, lifting the metal tab, “I’m not gonna hurt it.”
“Yang, don’t—!” but he’d already lifted the flap.
“Holy—”
Yin moved to her brother’s side and peeked into the envelope he was holding. Her jaw went slack.
The envelope was filled with thick rolls of hundred dollar bills.
“Put it back, Yang,” Yin begged. “If the owner comes back and catches us holding this—”
Yang hastily resealed the envelope and lobbed it back into the car. It landed in the center of the bench seat in the back, on top of a pile of blankets that had been heaped there. Yin could also see what looked like a champagne glass full of water (??) in the cup holder, and several journals strewn about the floor. As she wondered what any of these things were doing in the back of an Impala, she noticed, through a crack in the blankets—
She screamed and grabbed her brother’s wrist, dragging him back up the hill as fast as she could manage and ignoring his alarmed questions.
As she’d looked at the pile of blankets, she’d seen an eye looking back.
*****
Yo didn’t know up from down when it came to appliances, so after thirty minutes of futilely trying to compare microwaves against each other, he broke down and just bought the cheapest one they offered. As he exited the store with the box under his arm, he felt his cell buzz insistently in his pocket. The ID read “yin.”
“Y’ello?”
Of all the things he could have possibly expected to hear on the other end of the line, frantic, hysterical sobbing wasn’t on the list.
“Yin?”
She was saying something, repeating it over and over, but he’d be damned if he could pull a single legible word from the mess.
“Yin? Yin, you gotta calm down, what happened? Yin—?”
Yin gave a sudden loud exclamation, there was a sharp sound he couldn’t quite place, then silence.
“Yin…?”
For a horrible second, Yo thought the call had gotten dropped. But there was what sounded like shuffling from the other end; was that someone messing with the phone, or some kind of weird feedback? Then, a distant, very male, very adult voice said,
“That just won’t do, now will it?”
The line went dead.
*****
The cop had a bristly blonde mustache that hovered over the stubble covering the rest of his chin. His paunch threatened the integrity of his shirt’s buttons, and he had sweat stains under his arms. He paced absently in front of Yo while his partner sat off to the side behind a table, watching them. After another moment of silence, the mustached cop said, “Tell me what happened one more time.”
Yo’s fists clenched involuntarily, but he steadied himself with a deep breath. “I woke up this morning to a lot of noise because my kids had accidentally blown up the microwave—”
“No,” interrupted the cop, “from the beginning.”
Yo faltered. “That– That is the—”
“Where’d you get the kids in the first place?” the cop’s partner specified, the fluorescent lights creating a shining spot on his balding head.
“From… Their Mom went missing a year ago—”
“And what was your relationship to her?” asked the first cop, who was now standing directly in front of Yo, staring down at him.
Yo shifted a bit in his uncomfortable plastic seat. “Is there a professional way to say ‘one-night stand’?”
“Did you know your ‘one-night stand’ had gotten pregnant as a result of that night?” Mustache asked.
“…yeah. She told me.”
“But you didn’t want kids, did you?” asked Mustache, sneering.
Taken aback by the cop’s sudden hostility, Yo blurted, “What does this have to do with—?”
“Answer the question,” Baldy interjected.
Yo was quiet for a second, feeling suddenly disoriented. Eventually, he managed to grind out the half-lie, “No. Not at the time.”
Mustachio looked grimly triumphant. The queasy feeling Yo had gotten when he’d first heard Yin sobbing over the phone now had company: a twitching, pulsating kind of foreboding. He was having a harder time working out the origin of this new feeling, though.
“Keep going,” Mustache pressed (though Yo was starting to realize he most likely knew all this already). “How did you end up taking care of the kids you’d previously abandoned?”
“Their Mom had gone missing, and there was no one else to look after them,” Yo said, feeling like a child being grilled by a particularly sadistic teacher.
“So she did,” said Mustache, now falling heavily into the seat in front of Yo. “We had a look at the file before we brought you in, didn’t we Brian?”
Baldy nodded, producing a folder from somewhere underneath the desk and handing it to his partner. Mustache casually flipped through the papers inside.
“Mom was supposed to pick the kids up from school. Never showed. They had to walk home. Called the police four days later when she still didn’t show up. Kids didn’t have anyone else to stay with, so they briefly went into foster care. You, Mr. Yo,” the cop’s eyes darted up to observe Yo briefly, “were on their birth certificates as their biological father, so you were contacted. You showed up, the situation was explained, and after all the legal issues were ironed out, the kids were packed off to live with you. That sound about right?”
The cop’s steadfast refusal to focus on the fact that two children had just been abducted in favor of rehashing a year-old case made Yo’s frustration (and phantom sense of dread) increase by a factor of five. He nodded stiffly and hoped he would get to the point.
Mustache carelessly tossed the folder back onto the desk and pushed himself out of his chair. “Kind of suspicious that both your kids and their mom would inexplicably go missing, don’t you think? Especially only about a year apart from each other…”
He resumed his pacing, speaking almost thoughtfully. “Here’s what I think happened: I don’t think you planned on so much as calling this woman after you were done with her, so when she calls you saying she’s pregnant, you panic and hit the bricks. Years down the road, she tracks you down. Maybe she’s in desperate need of money. Maybe she just wants you to finally do right by your kids. Doesn’t really matter the reason; you want nothing to do with it. Angry accident or preplanned move, one way or another that girl ends up dead.
“I don’t know how or where you got rid of the body; that’s an issue for another day. Bottom line is you thought that was the end of things. But then you get the call. They tracked you down. There’s no one else to pawn the kids off on. And you don’t like that.
“Now the story as I see it can go one of two ways at this point: either you’d decided before they’d even moved in that they wouldn’t be staying with you for long, or you’d tolerated them until they made your microwave go bang, and then that set you off. Either way, you decided to do exactly what you did the last time you had a problem you couldn’t get rid of. Isn’t that right?”
The cop was staring at him with savage triumph, every inch the person who thought they’d seen through and dismantled a cunning ruse. Yo stared back in dumbstruck silence. He understood the foreboding he felt now, and understanding only made it stronger.
The police thought he was responsible for the disappearance of his children.
They weren’t going to help him.
*****
It was 2:00 am before the police finally let him leave. They didn’t have enough evidence to hold him, so when hours of trying to bully a confession out of him didn’t work, they let him go with a warning not to leave town and the promise/threat that they’d be in touch. By the time Yo got back to his darkened apartment, he was so numb that a faraway part of his consciousness questioned if he was still even a real person at all.
He closed the apartment door behind him, but paused as he went to lock it. Slowly, he removed his hand from the latch. He went to walk away, but stopped as he got to the corner of the hallway leading to the bedrooms, looking back at the door.
Sliding against the wall, he sat down on the floor and stared at the door.
He sat there for hours trying to convince himself they wouldn’t be coming back through it. He didn’t listen.
*****
Yin was sitting on the couch, trying to read a book. Yang was also sitting on the couch, trying to annoy her by imitating various bodily functions. Usually the twins’ squabbling set him on edge, but right at that moment Yo couldn’t have cared less. They were home, bickering like they always did, unhurt and whole. They both went silent when he hugged them, but then Yo wasn’t normally a hugger, so their surprise was justified. He suspected he’d be doing a lot more of it from this point on though, if he ever let go of them to begin with—
The phone rang.
Yo jolted slightly, and looked around, disoriented and groggy. He was on the floor, slumped against the wall facing the door of the apartment. Where had the twins gone? They’d been here, he’d felt the weight of them in his arms, heard their voices, they’d been here—
He stood up, head sent spinning, and stumbled down the hall. They’d gone to their room. They were just in their room. He ignored the phone.
Yin’s bed was neatly made, while Yang’s merely had its blankets haphazardly thrown back up over the bed. But they weren’t there.
Reality came smashing back down on his head. They weren’t there. They hadn’t been there all night. He didn’t know where they were.
The phone rang and rang in the background. Yo made no move to answer it. Eventually, it went silent. They weren’t there.
Haltingly, he pried himself away from the doorway. He wondered, dully, distantly, what he should do with himself now. The question was met with an agonizing barrage of white noise.
The phone rang again.
Yo stared at it for a couple of seconds before slowly reaching over and lifting the phone from the charger. He answered it with nothing more than a small “hm?”
“Took you long enough,” snapped the person on the other end. For a moment the white noise returned to completely consume the scope of Yo’s thoughts, and then he was white-knuckling the phone as he held it to his ear, eyes wide. The voice on the other end of the phone was the same one he’d heard when Yin and Yang had gone missing.
“You’ve misplaced a pair of things, correct? Did you know to find things you’ve lost, sometimes it helps to retrace your steps back from the place you lost them?” The voice paused. “In case you happen to be a complete imbecile, be at the park in twenty minutes. If you’re late or bring anyone with you, we won’t be speaking.”
They hung up before Yo could get a word in.
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