Skids



The dopey-looking Skids spends a lot of his time arguing with his twin brother Mudflap and trying to outdo him in crazy stunts, all while believing he's the responsible, level headed one. In his own mind, everything dangerous and dopey he does is simply making him a better warrior. And that means one day, one glorious day, Optimus Prime will notice him! Prime even looking in his direction makes him babble, fall over, and generally fail to make an impression, but that won't stop him trying! Underneath it all, he harbors a secret fear that Mudflap is actually the superior warrior of the pair... which is probably true.[1]

Skids' hyper-reactive optical imaging scanner allows him to process tactical information faster than anyone (except his twin). Add that to his supreme firepower and his unpredictable actions, and he's a pain in the aft for any Decepticon who wants to counter him! And that's only if they spot him. He changes alt-mode so much it's hard to keep track of him. On Earth, he's already been part of an ice-cream truck (combining with his brother), and more recently a Chevy Beat, but that's unlikely to last very long.

Fiction
Some time after hearing Optimus Prime's rallying call but before making it to Earth, Skids and Mudflap were kidnapped by Thundercracker and taken to an unspecified Decepticon outpost. There, unscrupulous Decepticon medic Flatline attempted to forcibly reprogram them into loyal Decepticon soldiers, but all he ended up doing was knocking out a good chunk of their intellect and reasoning skills. They probably would've spent the rest of their days locked up and experimented on if a recently upgraded Arcee had not sprung them from their cell. Even though they didn't understand everything the silly biker ladies were saying, Skids and Mudflap let Arcee escort them both to their stolen ship, past hordes of drones, Flatline and Thundercracker himself before the outpost self-destructed.

Skids and Mudflap arrived on Earth as part of Autobot reinforcements that Optimus Prime with Topspin, Leadfoot, Roadbuster, Sideswipe, Arcee, Chromia and Elita-One on the Wreckers ship Xantium. The ship and the Wreckers stayed behind in NASA, Dark of the Moon. They both chose the combined form of an old, beat-up ice cream truck. The newly-arrived Autobots joined the human-Transformer military alliance NEST and began training in earnest on Diego Garcia, but soon had to be deployed to Shanghai, China. Skids first met Bumblebee when they were about to be thrown into a smelting pool. He and his twin are well known for tall tales and messing about, enough so that people have stopped believing their claims.

Skids and Mudflap happily stayed on Cybertron, going through intensive training (which totally wasn't goofing off) and having extreme-sports contests. Neither wanted to leave their homeworld, and they were the only Transformers on it until Starscream turned up with a Decepticon army. When they heard him mention a Star Harvester, they realised they should tell someone...but Skids worked out the fastest way to do that would be in person, meaning they'd have to leave their homeworld.

The decision was made for them when the Decepticons attacked. Skids angrily blew away some of the jet-drones when they shot his brother, using an impressive missile barrage, and used transform-and-shoot moves to keep their pursuers away...but he realised this was delaying the inevitable. They fled the planet, with Skids remembering to head for Earth, the site of Optimus's message. he twins made it to Earth soon, crash-landing in Toronto, Canada. On the way in, Mudflap hit a big tower, but Skids felt it wasn't that big a deal. They swam their way to Ball's Falls, where they picked up Earth alternate modes and set out to try and find local Autobots and warn them about the Star Harvester. Driving along the wrong side of the Interstate (Skids wanted a challenge!), the twins were attacked by the Seeker Ransack, trying to kill them on the Fallen's orders. While Skids dissed Ransack's retro alt mode, he pursued them across open countryside. With their energon levels low, the airborne enemy kept up with the twins, and Skids soon collapsed, unable to run any further. He and his brother would've both died, if not for Bumblebee arriving and forcing the Seeker into retreat.

Now living at NEST's Californian base with Bumblebee as their minder, Skids and Mudflap repeatedly asked to deliver their info to Optimus Prime—and only Optimus, much to Ironhide's annoyance. He was more annoyed when they ambushed him (Skids tipping crates on him!) to get to Optimus...who, as it turns out, was away on a need-to-know mission anyway.

After this defeat, and with Ironhide having bluntly told them nobody believed them, they desperately asked to join in a NEST op in Las Vegas...getting turned down, because they were too crap to get involved. Annoyed with this, Skids went along with Mudflap's suggestion to go to Vegas and show Ironhide just what they could do! What they could do, it turned out, was screw up a successful mission by freeing a captured Decepticon by trying to "shoot him down". Skids was left mortified. Ironhide, recognising what they were trying to do, told him that maybe they could work on training the twins not to jump in without looking, and that the trick was to learn from mistakes. The twins claimed they'd try.

They soon wished they hadn't, as they were condemned to NEST's Orkney Islands base for days of sim-com (simulated combat) training under Sideswipe. Skids had a nagging feeling this was just an excuse to keep them away from the main action, and both protested to Sideswipe that they could handle Decepticons. Him pointing out their failure with Grindor shut them up. However, the training was interrupted when a huge metal cat monster broke into the base, KOed Sideswipe, and tried to eat the twins!

They transformed and fled, drawing the creature into a trap where Skids used his weaponry to bring the roof down on it. When that failed, he deferred to and helped Mudflap carry out his plan of trapping the beast in a sim-com session on maximum setting. With that done, and with it revealed that the creature was sent after them by another Decepticon, they tried to fill in the revived Sideswipe... except the creature had gone, leaving their instructor with the view that they'd knocked him out in revenge for their training. Between that and Grindor, he thinks they're up to something... New Tricks

The twins were later taken to Diego Garcia, and ecstatic to learn Optimus was coming there! Sideswipe stated he didn't know about their info and wasn't here to talk to them, cutting off Skids as he attempted to mention the "dude they call the F-". While their trainer told them how they weren't to see Prime, the twins cunningly drove off when he wasn't looking and headed for the base's runway. The mood soured when Skids noticed Mudflap was planning to pinch the credit for their intel, and soon the two of them were having a big fight and slagging match on the runway...

And so their first meeting with Optimus Prime was to be yelled at for conduct unbecoming of an Autobot warrior. (Mudflap started it!)

That was when Scorponok made his attack, blasting at the distracted Prime. Skids made the situation worse by accidentally tripping over Optimus, preventing him from taking control, and so Scorponok liberated the prisoner Sideways. Sideswipe, watching from a distance, believed Skids had done that deliberately, and convinced Prime that the twins were traitors: they must have helped Scorponok get here and now assisted him in his mission, on top of freeing Grindor and attacking him at Orkney! Skids and Mudflap protested they were being set up because they knew too much, but it fell on deaf ears as they were taken into custody.

Following this, the decision was made to exile the twins into orbit. A disgruntled Skids remarked they should've minded their own business and ignored the Fallen, but help was at hand... from the Decepticons? Freed by a Decepticon attack, an angry Skids realised they'd been framed again and now the Autobots would think they were massive traitors. The two went underground to clear their names, and hit on the foolproof plan of abducting Sam Witwicky from his house and pleading with him to tell their story to Optimus. All this did was cause Bumblebee to launch an attack to rescue Sam. Skids spat out the kid, remarking he'd need to clean his seats to get the organic off them, but that didn't stop Bumblebee holding him at gunpoint...

...until Soundwave arrived, gunning down the Autobot and offering the twins sanctuary in the Decepticons. Skids quickly agreed Outlaw Blues, intending to get into a position where they could whallop a Decepticon and hand him over to the Autobots to clear their names. After some fun times of annoying the other Decepticons, the twins were dispatched to bring in an AWOL member; Skids was annoyed to find Mudflap didn't know they were just pretending, and hoped Soundwave would be sending a minder (either Grindor or Sideways) they could ambush.

The AWOL member turned out to be Ransack. Skids quickly lied to him, saying they'd totally been sent by the Fallen to bring him in from the cold. This deception worked, until the Decepticon minders attacked... both of them! Skids ordered Mudflap after Sideways while he launched suppressive fire on Grindor and dodged each shot. Unfortunately, the chopper bugged out with Ransack held captive. While the twins had captured Sideways, Skids wasn't satisfied: he was tired of taking the fall and being pushed around. He decided they were going to go gunning for Soundwave and bring down his whole conspiracy! Turnabout

Upon returning to the Phobos base, it suddenly occurred to Skids that they had no plan... but, as Mudflap wisely pointed out to him, that never stopped them before! The twins stormed the base, but initial success was undone when Starscream and Soundwave fought back. Luckily, the two Decepticons were forced to run off after Ransack, who'd fled talking about reporting to the Fallen. Skids was left feeling that they'd just seen part of a really big, confusing picture. Unfortunately, this was just a short respite, as the twins discovered just what that army massing on Cybertron had been planning: to arrive at the Phobos base en route to Earth...

The twins stood ready to make their last stand, and Skids told his brother it had been an honour to work with him... when Optimus arrived with the other Autobots! The twins had been tracked to Phobos and to their shock, the other Autobots had realised they weren't traitors and were even apologising! And with all the street cred of uncovering the Phobos base, the twins were welcomed to the Autobots' Earth division. Skids briefly wondered if they should mention "the Fa-" again, but was convinced not to by Mudflap.

Skids and his brother were part of a taskforce deployed in Shanghai to root out Decepticon activity. In their combined ice cream truck alternate mode, they rolled through the evacuated zone, taunting and trying to lure out the Decepticons in the area. When the Decepticons did show themselves, they gave chase to the escaping Sideways. However, their slow and ungainly choice of vehicle could not keep up with the fugitive, and they rounded a corner too sharply, tearing their combined form in half. Even though Mudflap took the blame for the separation, Skids still berated (and smacked) his brother for his failure. Skids reminded his brother that they were in a combat situation and wondered what was wrong with him. Yipee! It's Mister Whippy!Upon arrival at Diego Garcia and NEST headquarters, the twins received new, separate alternate modes. A fight broke out between the two of them over which vehicle they wanted, and Skids "called" the Beat, resigning Mudflap to the form of a Trax.

Later, the twins, along with the other NEST-allied Autobots, were dispatched to look for Sam Witwicky when Decepticons were detected heading towards his college. After Optimus Prime was killed by Megatron, the twins helped the Autobot force fight off the Decepticon leader and Starscream, allowing Sam, Leo Spitz, Mikaela Banes and Bumblebee to make good their escape. Skids and Mudflap met up with Bumblebee and the humans, and together they fled to a remote location. After teasing Leo for a while for his panic attack, Sam inquired whether one of them could interpret the Cybertronic symbols he had become obsessed with, but the twins claimed that they couldn't read the ancient Language of the Primes, and weren't much into reading, anyway.

With the help of the Decepticon Wheelie and former Sector Seven agent Seymour Simmons, the group made their way to the Smithsonian, where the humans reactivated the venerable ex-Decepticon Jetfire. He teleported them all to Egypt before telling them the tale of the original Primes, the Star Harvester, which had the potential to destroy all life on Earth, and finally, the Matrix of Leadership, the key to activating the harvester, and possibly the only thing that could bring Optimus Prime back to life. When the Matrix could not be found at the ruins of Petra, the twins began arguing with each other over why they were following Sam, which soon escalated into physical violence. As their brawl nearly crushed the humans, Bumblebee picked up the twins in each hand, slammed them together, and threw them outside the ruins, which Skids considered to be just rude. Fortunately, their bickering created a hole in the wall where the Tomb of the Primes lay, and with it, the Matrix.

Making their way back to the Pyramids where NEST waited with Optimus Prime's body, the group came under attack by Starscream. Mudflap, Skids, Leo and Simmons acted as a decoy to lure the Decepticons away from Sam and Mikaela. Unfortunately, they attracted the attention of the Constructicons, who combined into Devastator and attacked by vacuuming up loose objects such as sand, cars, and Mudflap. As Skids mourned the loss of his twin, Simmons realized that the safest place to be was directly under the giant. But Mudflap had survived being vacuumed up by Devastator, and to escape he had blasted a hole through its head. To buy the humans time to escape, Skids clambered up Devastator's right forepaw to assist Mudflap. Skids threw a cable to Mudflap, who grabbed it and swung off Devastator's head onto his arm. However, once they landed, Mudflap accidentally shot Skids in the face, knocking them off the arm and knocking out Skids' gold tooth in the process. At Megatron's command, Devastator continued onto the Great Pyramid of Giza.