Something Robotic This Way Comes

Trick or... treat? Yeah. Treat. Beep.

Synopsis

In the far future, on Cybertron, once a year the Mini-Cons gather to pass on stories in an oral tradition. This is one such story, as related by an extremely old Mini-Con.

It's Autumn in South Dakota, and Alexis, Carlos, and Rad have gone camping with their Mini-Con friends. They discuss that night's Halloween celebration — Rad is intending to go as a zombie, while Carlos's costume is a secret. Alexis professes to be above all that, and is going out collecting for UNICEF instead. Confused, the Mini-Cons ask what Halloween is. Alexis explains how it was an end-of-summer ritual which started in Ireland some 2500 years ago, but is now used by children to obtain candy from strangers. The Mini-Cons are still confused, so Rad suggests the kids bring the Mini-Cons with them when they trick-or-treat.

That night, in the school yard, Rad tells a ghost story, which causes the Mini-Cons to panic. While he's laughing, Alexis turns the tables by creeping up on him from behind and making him jump. Carlos asks to be helped into his costume, which turns out to be a poorly-constructed facsimile of a Mini-Con, and they go trick-or-treating.

Arriving at a street, they are initially uncertain as to what to do with the Mini-Cons, until Rad and Carlos decide they can come beg for candy. Alexis reveals her costume — she's trick-or-treating as a princess. The boys manage to keep straight faces. At the first house, they encounter a dog, but the residents restrain it and distribute candy (and money for UNICEF to Alexis and Sureshock). Afterwards, they go over the rules again. Rad explains that if they don't get candy, they can later return to the house and "soap their windows or t.p. their trees". This established, the three humans and three Mini-Cons continue trick-or-treating.

The story ended, the Mini-Cons announce that the lesson to be learned is "be generous in spirit, and others will be generous to you." The old Mini-Con, who is Sureshock, puts on an Alexis mask and, waving their bars of soap and rolls of t.p., the Mini-Cons go trick-or-treating.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Notes

• Sureshock is male in this story.

Errors

• "Transformed" is spelled "trandformed" on page 114.
• "Bag" is misspelled as "big" on page 117.

Continuity notes

• This story takes place in an Armada continuity where the Autobot/Decepticon war effectively hasn't ended, but the Mini-Cons have returned to Cybertron anyway.
• Lincoln is located in South Dakota pointing to this story specifically taking place in Dreamwave's comic continuity.

Real-world references

• Appropriately for Halloween, the title is a reference to the classic line "Something wicked this way comes" from "Macbeth".

Trivia

• Let's hope they don't t.p. ol' Megatron's place, or there'll be hell to pay.