Hanley Riordan

Hanley Tomas Riordan (a.k.a. Hotrod)

There’s not much that Hanley Riordan remembers of his early childhood though given what he does, he pressumes it was for the best. Coming from a lower middle-class household in Dublin, he was a ‘difficult child’ as his parents would put it; rambunctious, hyperactive, prone to outbursts, fidgety and having next to no sense of self-preservation.
He did poorly at school, lagging behind considerably when it came to reading and often struggling to finish the homework allocated to him due to being easily distracted, to the point where everything from detention to outright abuse was used to try and ‘correct’ his behaviour.
None of it worked however, and no one attempted to understand and help him deal with his issues, which eventually led to his father walking out on them when he was nine after blaming his mother for him being the way he was.
In turn, she blamed him for ruining the family and he internalized that guilt, which only compounded when she left one day on an errand and simply never returned, leaving him to the mercy of kind neighbours who fed him after he had been left alone for a day and half, but who had to surrender him to the authorities since neither were equipped to raise him.
He went into the system, moving from one foster home to another where he suffered either similar abuse from those trying to ‘set him straight’ or apathy from those who were just there to collect the monthly check and after a while, he decided that he wasn’t going to be anyone’s problem anymore and ran off before the system could assign him to another home.
At fifteen, he hitched a ride to Belfast with a bag of clothes and a hundred dollars pilfered from his most recent foster home’s last government check. He figured that the authorities wouldn’t put the effort into chasing down some punk kid that far and that the city’s booming economy could afford work for a school dropout who was never even assigned a work class.
He wasn’t quite wrong, yet wasn’t quite right either.
Work wasn’t hard to find; there wasn’t a shortage of unscrupulous employers who didn’t think twice about hiring a minor to carry out manual tasks for a pittance of what fully-employed staff were paid. Keeping said work however, was a different story as the same issues which plagued him at school haunted him still, whether it was distractions, his ‘twitchiness’ or him impulsively telling a boss to take a running fuck at a rolling donut after being screamed at to abide by arbitrary workplace rules.
He bounced from one job to another during the day, moonlighting at local pubs as a dishwasher and eventually as a bouncer once the owner of the property got wind of his talent for fistcuffs which was honed on the streets.
Despite his near-perpetual restlessness, his recklessness, the fact that he couldn’t read beyond a second-grade level and that he was late to work at least three times a week, he found friends among the street youth and took on the role of big brother to the younger children, even landing up with a benevolent boss, Liam Gallagher, who paid him fairly and made allowances for his ‘quirks’ at the smithery the man ran.
When the Clampdown began however, violence erupted in the streets as Sedgewick Princeton (Sentinel Prime) sought to increase control over UK’s cities to flush out dissidents who were decrying the institutionalized poverty and inequality driven by the working class stratification.
Belfast, as an industrial and commercial centre Sedgewick was dead set on “keeping in line”, quickly became a battleground between his security forces and the local populace spearheaded by workers’ unions and activists.
Hanley found himself in the thick of the conflict, establishing a street patrol group called the Hounds of Ulster with the youths he befriended to alert those in Castle district to security raids and sweeps, buying them time to hide or escape.
Liam led a sect of the workers physically involved in the protests, promising to bring Hanley into the inner circle and extolling the young man’s bravery to anyone who would hear about it.
When news came out on the grapevine that a massive meeting would be held with all union heads and activists in attendance to plan out their biggest rebellion against Sedgewick’s forces, Hanley was finally invited by Liam to attend the gathering as the leader of the Hounds who would officially be utilized not just in Castle district, but across all of Belfast as their scouts and first responders.
Hanley’s excitement turned to confusion and then suspicion as Liam brushed off his inquiry about a new scar they had on their left temple and brought him to an underground route which ended up in the bowels of a facility located in the heart of the Victoria district, which was Sedgewick’s stronghold.
Liam didn’t take well to his refusal to go any further, and the two were involved in a vicious struggle which would have ended up with him knocked out cold and dragged feet-first into the facility, which was dedicated to Mnemosurgery, had it not been for the timely intervention of Omar Parvez (Orion Pax).
Omar escaped Liam’s pursuit with Hanley in tow and brought him to a bunker where he met Morgan Trayton (Megatron) and the rest of the rebels fighting against Sedgewick’s rising dictatorship.
Here he found out about the true extent of the conflict beyond Ireland’s coast, and when he demanded answers as to what happened to Liam, Megatron explained that the man was likely compromised due to Shadowplay when told about the new scar.
While desperate for a way to get back the Liam he knew, the two rebel leaders told him about a rising concern——that there was no telling who else had infiltrated the protesters’ movement and that something dire was on the horizon.
Utilizing the Hounds of Ulster as ground support for Jace Zayden’s (Jazz) spy work, it was revealed that the gathering was a trap for the Union leaders and activists and their supporters, as Castle district was where the rebellion movement was strongest.
A bomb had been planted underneath the warehouse they were meant to gather at, linked to other explosives planted at locations known to be frequented by protesters and activists via the gas line underneath the district.
It was also revealed that the factories in the area, now run by compromised individuals, were churning out highly-lethal weapons of war for Sedgewick’s use.
With time running out, Omar instructed his team headed by Preston Wan (Prowl) to discreetly conduct evacuations of the citizens over the span of three days with the Hounds, as to not raise the alarm and escalate the situation, while he and Morgan went to the warehouse to try and save the heads of Belfast’s rebellion, who could not be contacted by normal means as they were underground for their own safety.
Hanley demanded to join them, desperate to get Liam to safety as well even if the man was compromised, even when Morgan warned him that there may not be enough of Liam left to save after the procedure, and Omar allowed it.
They arrived at the location just in time for the start of the meeting as Hanley volunteered to distract Liam while Omar and Morgan got the rest of them to safety. He attempted to force his way in, claiming Liam had invited him to attend the event and caused enough of a ruckus that Liam took him outside to talk.
The argument and threats that ensued were cut short by the sound of gunfire, as one of the activists who had also been compromised and were sent to the meeting as a plant was shot by Morgan when they attacked him.
Chaos ensued as the leaders ran for cover from traitors among them and Omar covered their escape as Morgan dispatched the attackers swiftly.
Hanley fought with Liam who radioed in reinforcements from Sedgewick’s forces, who began to swarm into the district upon the realization that the plan had fallen to pieces in an attempt to round up and kill any rebels and activists they could find.
Preston in the meantime had successfully co-ordinated the evacuation of 85% of the district’s populace but requested for more time to retrieve the remaining people, which led to Morgan and Omar splitting up to take on the swarm of security forces to keep them from sections of the district which hadn’t been cleared.
In the heat of the fight, Hanley managed to get through to Liam by bringing up the first time they met and how Liam had mentioned that he was like the son the man never had the chance to have.
Liam, wracked with guilt over how many people he had either killed or lured to Sedgewick’s facility to be ‘rewritten’, told him of an act that could deal the biggest blow to Sedgewick’s efforts to take over the capital; by being a plant once more, this time for the rebels, and luring all of Sedgewick’s men and resources into the area before blowing it up.
Hanley retorted that there was no need to go there, but Liam handed the detonator he had been given to Hanley and told him to make the choice; they could keep the area and struggle to defend it until Sedgewick’s money and influence eventually wore them down and the whole place was turned into the man’s personal weapons production plant, or they could make the man hemorrhage enough to be finally driven off these shores.
He radioed in Sedgewick’s head of security as Hanley, unable to change his mind about going down in flames, ran off to find Omar and informed the rebel leader of the plan.
They managed to evacuate the remaining residents just as 5,000 of Sedgewick’s men stormed the district after Liam announced that he found where the rebel leaders and their team were hiding.
As Hanley, Morgan and Omar got to safety, Stefan Scavarro’s (Starscream) aerial report indicated that the swarm had realised the ruse when a check on Liam revealed that the detonator was nowhere to be seen, and they couldn’t get the information from the man as to its location.
Omar told Hanley that as the trigger had been entrusted to him, it was his choice to make, before that choice was taken completely out of his hands; This was his home.
Hanley pressed the detonator after deciding that they could rebuild, though only if Sedgewick’s forces were wholly repelled, though it didn’t make it any easier to see a blast the radius of 19km engulfing the district in flames, all of it at his hands.
With Sedgewick’s ground forces and land resources completely obliterated and Victoria district’s rebels (having heard of the chaos) taking the opportunity to launch maritime attacks on the man’s fleet, he was forced to retreat, giving Belfast a conclusive victory for the first time since the conflict began a year ago.
As the fires in Castle district raged on for days, Hanley, crippled by guilt over the decision he took and that Liam had died in it, confided in Omar who supported him and gave him space and time to grieve.
He was the first to volunteer to help clean up Castle district after the fires had given way to smoke and ashes.
However, upon hearing that Sedgewick was actively rebuilding forces to launch attacks in other areas, he wanted to stop the man from inflicting similar suffering on untold millions and asked to join Omar and Morgan’s fight against the man.
They agreed to bring him in and he passed on leadership of the Hounds of Ulster to his second in command, promising to never let Sedgewick set foot on these shores again.
It was in Omar’s company that he finally had answers to why the way he was (He had a combination of undiagnosed ADHD and Dyslexia, and he cried in secret at the revelation, relieved at the idea of not being lazy or an idiot, which he had internalized since childhood), and it was during this time that he finally found proper coping mechanisms, aided by Omar himself as well as Benjamin Bane (Bumblebee), Charlie Watson and Memo Gutierrez, who made him remember what it was like to be a big brother figure.
He latched on to Omar (whom he would refer to as ‘Aul Man’ on several occasions) as a mentor and was devastated by the man’s purported death at the hands of Sedgewick, though he refused to join Morgan after witnessing the man’s nonchalance to killing unarmed prisoners…. more so after Morgan taunted him about his distaste for it after having caused the death of 5,000 men.
News of Omar’s miraculous reappearance gave him faith that he wasn’t destined to lose every single father figure in his life, and he was instrumental in the plan to liberate the newly-minted Autobots from Megatron’s Decepticon forces.
To this day he’s got his reservations about whether he is or isn’t a blight on those who care about him, but that they’re supporting him more than he thought was ever possible is all he can really ask for, and despite his quick mouth, he’s loyal to Omar and his new ‘siblings’ to the death.

by Oniwanbashu

Social

Hobbies & Pets

In his free time, he enjoys reading comics, watching wrestling shows, listening to podcasts and playing the guitar

Honorary & Occupational Titles

Frontliner

Age

23 (Start of war)

Birthplace

Dublin, Ireland

Pronouns

He/Him

Gender

Male

Eyes

Green

Hair

Russet red and curly, work in a half-ponytail at shoulder length

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

Pale cream, heavily freckled

Weight

5'11

Known Languages

English, Irish Gaeilge