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"You'll bring no weapons," the disguised voice hisses over the line to you. "No friends. No grudges. You can keep your badge, but it's scrap metal with us. You start a fight, you try to reveal our location, you get on my nerves—you wake up in Chicago with no memory of us. Got it?"
You agree to his terms. You're too scared not to.
He meets you in the hollowed-out remains of a parking garage. The alien structure reminds you eerily of barracks: a utilitarian structure with hundreds of rows of spots for soldiers to lie down side by side. Most of his kibble resembles a human cop car, but for his chest and an arm that have been ripped off and replaced with parts for someone much larger; his arm now ends in a Constructicon's massive claw.
Two full Constructicons flank him, chained to his transplanted arm; some sort of fuel lines or power lines weave between the chain links up into the Constructicon's chests. It doesn't look like he even designed the cuff fastened around his wrist to be removable. You wonder how much faction really won't matter in his hideaway, with an Autobot leader keeping Decepticon slaves. But even at that, better Prowl than Cemetery Wind.
Out of desperation, you agree to go into stasis for the trip. When you wake, you're not sure you've moved. These barracks are, if anything, more utilitarian than the parking lot.
But when you step outside, you're in a subterranean city of concrete and steel. You see dozens of Constructicons above, expanding the high roof and extending towers into the new space. Prowl's waiting outside for you to wake, and you ask, flabbergasted, how long this hidden city's been under construction.
"Since I arrived on Earth," he says. "I predicted that the humans would do exactly what they're doing, and prepared accordingly."
You want to ask more, but one of the Constructicons tugs on his chain, jerking Prowl's arm and making him stumble sideways. Through the tube of the fuel line woven between the chain links, you can barely see a rivulet of glowing fluid running down into Prowl's wrist. "New arrival's awake," the Constructicon grumbles. "You satisfied? Done your welcome wagon duty?"
Prowl nods. "I—"
"Then let's go." The Constructicons trudge away from you, and Prowl hurries behind them.
You realize that they were never chained to him—he's chained to them.