Tarnish Drinking Song

[Skyfire]

Skyfire raises his mug and joins in then solemn toast. "To friends and comrades no longer with us."

After draining his near-empty mug and looking around for the next one (Did Twin Twist drink up his rocket fuel by mistake?), Skyfire asked Ultra Magnus, "The Stunticons? Isn't Dead End one of them? I think I met him in passing when I was in the Decepticon camp. Very gloomy fellow."

[Ultra Magnus]

Magnus peers at Skyfire with a disbelieving look on his face, baffled by the question. It isn't as though he knew the Stunticons personally; he's read their files, of course, for the tactical knowledge provided.

"Yes," he says slowly, "Dead End is a Stunticon, and as insane and homicidal as the rest of them as far as I know. They were locked down in the detention banks for a reason and it wasn't so anyone could get to know them better." His grip on his glass tightens. "And if there's one here?" he goes on quietly. "I'll give him a reason to be gloomy. For Whirl and Roadbuster." He stares into his drink. "For the Omnibots." Then he takes a long swig.

[Topspin]

The reasoning behind Twin Twist's feet drilling does make good sense, full stop, but Topspin knows there's more to it than that. "It's always the left foot when you do, though." He takes a small sip before staring at Twin Twist. "Always."

When Twin Twist mentions "all of them", Topspin doesn't blink. He's used to his sense of logic. It also probably helps that he's had something to drink, the things Twin Twist says make much more sense that way. "That many?" he shakes his head, quietly astonished. "That's rough, man."

Topspin raises his glass, joining in the toast, "To Whirl and Roadbuster, to the Omnibots, and the Protectobots." He pauses, adding silently, 'And to you, bro, wherever you are.'

[Springer]

Springer raises his own glass. "And to Rack 'n' Ruin."

Skyfire gets an odd look from Springer, and he puts forth a half-hearted grin as Magnus goes on about the Stunticons. "Yeah...we're not too into getting to know 'Cons, unless it's finding out where to shoot 'em. Not much for talking to them either, unless it's bantering, or yelling at them for whatever atrocity we're shooting at them for committing."

[Impactor/"Imp"]

OOC: Skipping Guzzle with permission.

Impactor winces at Springer's addition. "To Rack n' Ruin," he agrees, glancing to Twin Twist to get an idea on whether he should be toasting his own, as well.

Fortunately, none of the more sarcastic Wreckers from his own reality are here. If someone got it into their heads to toast him, he'd probably have to knock the idea back out of their heads with his mug.

"So anyway, who's up next?" He glances between Guzzle, Springer, and Topspin. "Seems we got quite a few from your group."

[Tessan Toov]

Twin Twist shoots Skyfire an odd look. What. Dead End can compose the most beautiful cantatas (cantatas are snooty and cultured, right?), but if he's picking on the weak - and he is, he wouldn't be wearing that purple badge if he wasn't - Twin Twist doesn't care what Dead End's like. The privilege of Twin Twist giving a damn is not extended to those who don't understand where the right to extend their fists stops.

He protests to Topspin, "You've only known me for a couple of weeks! You don't know that it's always the left foot with me!"

Speaking of the wrong foot, though, when Impactor looks at him, he blurts, "And Impactor?" Twin Twist was wondering earlier if they need to toast Impactor, anyway. Belatedly and with a sinking feeling, he realises what a mistake he has made. "Oh. Wait. No. It's just Roadbuster, with us."

He is not from the Pyrrhic Slaughter branch of the timeline, but Pyrrhic Slaughter is what Impactor may shortly be performing upon his person. Good thing Twin Twist's toasted enough that he won't feel much of it.

[Ultra Magnus]

OOC: Skipping Skyfire due to timeout.

---

"Springer," Magnus blurts out, answering Impactor. Just because he had to stop prodding the issue of Springer's odd slip doesn't mean he can't still prod the Triplechanger and, in fact, the impulse to prod is strong. He blames it on the drinks even as he adds, "I want to hear something from Springer." He watches Springer over his glass with the stare of the drunkenly avid. He hasn't had enough to really get drunk – not yet at any rate – but he does have a light buzz going. He eyes his drink wistfully and decides he'd rather be having another Stoner Sunshine. Maybe, if he asks nicely, he can wheedle a going-away bottle from Get'tree before they finally ship out.

[Topspin]

Topspin is about to take another sip when Twin Twist begins to protest. Instead, he sets his drink down and just stares into Twin Twist's optics with a steady, quiet intensity. "No. I know. It's always the left foot. Why?" After a few moments, he breaks the stare by raising a "brow" at his twin-but-not, as if to ask if he seriously thinks he's fooling anyone.

"Seconded, Boss." Topspin raises his glass to his leader with a small grin. He's both interested to hear a story that he might not actually know of, and doesn't feel like telling his own. Sorry, Springer, Fisitron, he ain't.

[Springer]

Springer swallows his drink a bit wrongly when Ultra Magnus puts him on the spot, making a face and smacking his chest a couple of times. "Geeze, make it go down my ventilation system, why don't you? Fine, fine, gimme a nanoclick..."

He drums his fingers a bit, thinking.

"Well, a bit before I got pulled here, we got a distress call from home. Apparently, Jetfire" he says, pointing at Skyfire. "Who looks and sounds a lot like you; went onto the surface of Cybertron with the Technobots. Here's the kicker, though - Cybertron is not a place you want to be. The war pretty much killed the atmosphere, and there's radiation all over the place."

A drink.

"Anyway - Jetfire and the Technobots get in over their head checking out... Primacron knows what, I don't even remember. Optimus Prime gets the signal, and calls me. Drags us away from trying to save Varas Centralus from the 'Cons to go home. We drop in, find Afterburn and Nosecone getting their afts handed to them by Centurion Drones." Springer grins a bit. "Whirl, Roadbuster, and Topspin drop in, make quick work of the drones. Once we get Nosecone and Afterburner stable, I have Twin Twist and Scoop start on a tunnel so we can drop in on whoever had the rest of their crew. We bust in, turns out it's Bludgeon - he's got a cult going and trying to revive Thunderwing - the 'bot who caused the downfall of our Cybertron in the first place..." Springer scowls, shaking his head.

"Anyway, we drop in on 'em with Optimus along for the ride. Asked him to stay out of the line of fire, but he pulled out a couple of rifles and came anyway. 'Take 'em out, Wreckers, hard and fast - save the IDs for the body bags!', I yell as we drop in on the lot of 'em. Took them totally by surprise! We get in a little deeper and find...Bludgeon tearing his own face off." Springer makes a confused face as he remembers it.

"It was weird - he was apparently doing some kind of polydermal grafting stuff - some kind of strange, unnatural exo-shell experiments that Thunderwing had done originally... Gave him power, but drove him mad. He turned into walking force of nature, triggered the cataclysm that made Cybertron a barren wasteland. And Bludgeon not only turned Thunderwing loose again, but tried to do the same thing to himself. Thankfully, he failed." Another drink. "Whirl and Roadbuster find Jetfire. He's rambling on about some 'axis cradle' thing that needs to be shut down, like we know what the slag he's on about. Prime asks what it is, Jetfire points at it. I shut the thing down with my gun. We thought that would stop Thunderwing, but..."

He shrugs. "That's where it gets interesting."

[Impactor/"Imp"]

Impactor slouches back in his chair and settles in to listen. His frown deepens faintly as Springer describes a barren Cybertron. Sure, his own Cybertron has certainly taken a beaten, and there are some swaths, such as Stanix, rendered uninhabitable, but the whole planet? When Springer describes Bludgeon tearing off his own face, he snorts. "Can't say I blame him. He is pretty ugly." Sure, the Bludgeon that Impactor knows is not yet a Pretender, but the zombie stands by his assessment either way. He adds, more growl, "Slaggin' Mayhems."

He turns to watch Twin Twist's reaction as the Technobots are mentioned. Those would be the ones that the Wreckers were making war against in Twin Twist's time, aren't they? And an Autobot Combiner, to boot? But then his head snaps back towards Springer as he talks about the 'polydermal grafting.' "Wait, wait... you talking about that shell thing Thunderwing's got? That destroyed your Cybertron?" he asks in disbelief. Sure, Bludgeon was not yet a Pretender at the point when Impactor had died, but Thunderwing had had an early prototype of the technology for quite awhile.

He reaches for his own drink, takes a long gulp, then frowns at it and its lack of flavor.

[Tessan Toov]

Twin Twist blinks and explains slowly, "Usually, folks step forward with the right foot, so they're still carrying most of their weight on the left foot. Hit that, and they go down. Basic principle of undermining." Is this not obvious to everyone?

He escapes from grape-and-banana flavoured vengeance! Excellent! Impactor will surely hit him later for some reason or other, though.

Twin Twist just can't listen to Springer's story, though, as his frown turns into a grimace. He staggers out of his chair and declares, "I need to get some fresh air," which is a pretty lame excuse. Twin Twist then wobbles and falls flat on his face, his world spinning. To make the whole thing look semi-intentional, he folds himself up into drill-tank mode.

[Ultra Magnus]

Hearing of Optimus's involvement seems to sour the tale for Magnus; he sighs and shakes his head, marvelling privately at the apparent predisposition of Autobots who share his brother's name to doing stupid and occasionally suicidal things. More distressing is hearing that the war ruined Springer's Cybertron. Could Magnus's Cybertron have gone the same way without the Great Shutdown?

He leaves those thoughts for some other time. Twin Twist gets most of his attention instead with the abrupt, unsteady attempt at a departure that ends in vehicle mode. He very nearly moves over to offer Twin Twist a hand before he remembers what a poor opinion the Jumpstarter has of him – or someone like him.

"…All right there, Twin Twist?" he asks instead, hanging back.

[Topspin]

Topspin looks at Twin Twist, then down at his drink, then back at Twin Twist. Either Topspin is more drunk than he thinks he is, or they've got to inundate Twin Twist with this stuff, because he's making spectacular sense. Still, he'll give him his due credit. "That's pretty clever, Twin Twist." he says, entirely without sarcasm. He's slightly disappointed for all of a moment, but it passes. The reasoning is a bit anti-climatic, but whatever gets the job done.

When Twin Twist falls on his face, Topspin laughs a little before shaking his head. Smooth. "He'll be fine. Sometimes I think he's Hardhead's brother." His mouth is still open a moment, looking as if he wants to say something else, but he closes it and instead rubs the back of his head. "Fresh air does sound good right about now." As fresh air gets on this planet, anyway. Cripes. Downing the rest of his drink, Topspin gets up and moves to Twin Twist's side with ever intention of following him out. It might not be from Springer, but he's still hoping to get a story.

[Gertrude Huldon/Guzzle]

When the toasts are given, Guzzle raises his own glass. He hasn't fought with the Wreckers for long, but he does know of one casualty at least, so he says in a gruff, low voice; "To Twin Twist." Hopefully Topspin won't hear that; a bit of a sore point, after all.

Guzzle listens to Springer's tale with interest. Not just because it's his own reality and the wasteland that was once Cybertron is a bummer, but also because he never heard what exactly went down with the second Thunderwing situation; just vague rumors. He's about to take another gulp from his drink when Twin Twist acts like a drunk aft and topples out of his seat, peering over and shaking his head before returning his attention to his drink.

----

OOC: Sorry for the missed rounds guys!

[Springer]

Springer nods at Impactor. "Yeah, it was some kooky kind of method to give our race an organic shell to protect from the upcoming cataclysm. It was gonna happen whether Thunderwing did anything or not - he just sped it along. He was actually trying to make this system to save us - allow us to stay on Cybertron, but he had to go with the weirdest, most revolting method..." Springer makes a disgusted face.

"The thing backfired - Made Thunderwing obscenely powerful, but totally off his lugnuts; cyber-bat-scrap-crazy." He shakes his head, then glances at Twin Twist - but Topspin and Magnus seem to have the concern covered.

"So yeah - Jetfire says shut down fancy tech thing - I shut it down. Turns out Thunderwing's still running, and has decided to come back to Cybertron and finish it off.. We go and fight this thing, and well..." Springer makes a face, and shrugs with a sigh. "We get kicked back, a bunch of 'Cons show up to help. Guess they didn't want to see Cybertron totally destroyed. However, it was starting to look like that was the best course of action - we may as well have been shooting blanks at the damn thing."

Springer shrugs. "Then along comes Optimus - he had been with Jetfire, analyzing the thing from a secure area. They must've had an idea, 'cause here he comes with a bunch of reprogrammed Centurion Drones. They're blown away with next to no effort on Thunderwing's part, and then Thunderwing transforms... Like he had a second robot mode that was bigger, uglier, and nastier.'Cons start retreating, and then Optimus snaps." Springer straightens up, and mimes holding a rifle at an invisble target, and does his best Peter CullenOptimus impression, which isn't very good to be honest - "'Thunderwing, this ends NOW!' Prime yells, and just starts pounding away on Thunderwing relentlessly with all sorts of firepower he's got strapped on. And not only that, he starts making a speech at Thunderwing. You know how he is." Springer groans, leaning back in his chair.

"And thus, somehow between Optimus' relentless ordinance--and verbal--assault, Thunderwing was stopped, and we're all on the sidelines just gawking. Been fighting our afts off, and he just waltzes in and takes the thunder. Don't even let us in on the plan so we can help." Springer frowns, then knocks back the remainder of his drink.