Scraplets

Scraplets are alleged to be the deadliest disease known to mechanical lifeforms in the entire galaxy. It is a complicated form of alien parasite, which lives solely to eat, reproduce, and eat some more.

Scraplets have evolved to resemble pink and blue nuts and bolts, washers and screws. However, when brought into contact with mechanical life, Scraplets instantly and painfully embed themselves into the skin of said creature and rapidly begin to self-replicate. The living metal around a Scraplet quickly corrodes, decaying and cracking away as the embedded Scraplet feasts. This process is painful and inevitably fatal for the infected robot. In a matter of hours, a single Scraplet can reproduce enough to completely infest an average-sized Cybertronian to the point of physical breakdown.

Scraplets are capable of transforming into vaguely humanoid robotic configurations, each capable of elementary speech and reasoning abilities. There are many different forms of humanoid Scraplet; the number of limbs, eyes, fangs and claws vary, though they are all quite tiny by Transformer standards. They use the locomotion afforded by this mode to spread out from a dead or dying host and infect mechanoids whom they might not otherwise be able to come in contact with.

A mass of Scraplets can also merge into a combined humanoid form. In this form they have enormous strength and agility and a primitive group consciousness. However, this form also carries with it some limitations, as they present a larger target and become vulnerable to conventional assault.

Their sense of vision seems to be based on a combination of heat-seeking and metal-detection which is primarily geared towards identifying edible silicon-based life-forms. Carbon-based life-forms are all but invisible to the Scraplet, and usually of no interest.

It is said that there is a rare chemical of legend that can kill a Scraplet, but this is doubtful.

“	They pick you apart from the inside out, going for the small, juicy bits first, fuse by fuse, circuit by circuit, until there's nothing left. And I mean nothing... not even your optics.	”