Scraplets

 The Scraplets are a race of small creatures who have adopted the ability to transform into nuts, bolts, screws, etc. Once in contact with a robot, they are able to hold on extremely tightly and multiply rapidly. In the meanwhile, they feed on the robot's metallic body. They are killed through contact with water. They have the ability to combine to form a single entity.

Comic Bio (US):

The Scraplets are a race of metal-eating metallic beings which disguise themselves in the shapes of harmless-appearing metal objects, like screws, nuts, and bolts. Scraplets are akin to a disease or infection for mechanical life forms, such as The Transformers. They reproduce and multiply when they have "infected" a victim and spread from mechanical organism to mechanical organism in order to feed. The diminutive-statured Scraplets also demonstrated an ability to merge into a single tectonic entity with a collective group mind when their threat was discovered and they became physically threatened.

The Scraplets were discovered accidentally when Ratbat--leader of the Cybertronian Decepticons at the time--dispatched a shuttle bearing the "Car Wash of Doom" to Earth. The shuttle passed through what the Decepticon pilot thought to be harmless space dust, when in fact, it was a detachment of Scraplets which infected him. The pilot was overcome by the disease and crash-landed on Earth.

The Decepticon Triple-Changers were sent to investigate the crash and they, too, became infected. Autobots Goldbug and Blaster, working independently, also went to investigate the crash site. Blaster engaged the Decepticons in battle and succumbed to the Scraplets as well. Goldbug, accompanied by a human scientist, left the skirmish in order to find a cure for the disease but was infected as well. The scientist, Charlie Fong, managed to get Goldbug to a gas station. The single Scraplet which had originally infected Goldbug had already spread out over his entire body.

Meanwhile, on Cybertron, Ratbat had engineereed the capture of the Throttlebots who were making small fuel raids. Ratbat learned of the Scraplet disease from the Decepticon Triple-Changers isolated on Earth and decided to use acid to destroy Blaster, the Decepticon Triple-Changers, the shuttle, and its contents rather than risk the chance of a Scraplet epidemic. The existence of the legendary cure for Scraplets was too risky for Ratbat and he delivered an ultimatum to the Throttlebots; if they did not destroy all the infected Transformers, he would decimate the entire Earth with the Throttlebots still on it.

Thus motivated, the Throttlebots departed for Earth. There, two of the Throttlebots--Rollbar and Wide Load--found Goldbug dying at the gas station. Moments earlier, Charlie Fong had accidentally discovered the cure for Scraplets: water, which was nonexistent on the metallic world of Cybertron. Before Rollbar and Wide Load could destroy Goldbug with acid, Charlie demonstrated the effectiveness of the cure by infecting Wide Load and curing him with a splash of water. Revived, Goldbug contacted G.B. Blackrock in order to gather enough water to destroy all the remaining Scraplets.

Once Blackrock and his water trucks arrived, Goldbug and the Throttlebots took them to the crater where the shuttle had crashed. Goldbug informed Blaster, who had become the Decepticons' prisoner, of the situation. Rather than be cured alongside the Decepticons, Blaster chose death by acid. Reluctantly, Goldbug relented and was ready to use the acid on the crater when The Scraplets learned of their impending demise and formed into one gigantic being to deal with their antagonists. Sent to Earth without weapons, the Throttlebots were no match for the giant creature. Goldbug took the initiative and cured Blaster and the Decepticon Triple-Changers who tore into the creature with a vengeance. Blaster delivered the final blow by dropping a water truck onto the Scraplet entity. It was also at this time that Astrotrain left a small mind-controlling chip on G.B. Blackrock which led to the Car Wash of Doom, which was stored inside the errant shuttle.

Article submitted by Nick Yu



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