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Post by Swerve on Aug 28, 2007 7:57:17 GMT -5
Swerve feels the hit. It's a solid hit, shakes his arm pretty good; smelt, Kup's built like a tanker or something. Swerve knows he made contact. He couldn't not know. He should follow through. He's going to slagging well follow through.
Before he can, Kup slides out of the way like he's on a grease patch. No – no fragging way! Swerve's vision goes from red-tinged green to black in the time it takes him to blink as, overextended, he pitches face-first to the ground; the landing isn't gentle and rolling into it doesn't help him as much as he'd like, but at least he doesn't wind up with an intake full of dirt. Primus, is his head ringing, though.
Is that old crank talking again?
"Ugh… shut up," groans the racer, not bothering to sit up just yet. That murmuring sound under the screeching in his head might be Kup talking. Swerve can't really make out the words. Just to be on the safe side, though, he would like to repeat himself. Getting back to his feet goes slowly and hangs up somewhere around one knee off the ground. He shakes his head and scowls at nothing in particular. "Shut up, shut up–!"
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Post by Kup on Aug 28, 2007 8:37:02 GMT -5
Kup steps back, spins, and crouches, preparing for another attack. He does not, however, move to restrain Swerve just yet. If he has to put Swerve back on the ground then he'll hold him down. However, the racer hasn't charged again, so it may yet be unnecessary.
Swerve shouts for the elder to "shut up." Perhaps in the most shocking development of the conversation, Kup simply nods his head. "All right," he answers, expression serious and thought. "'Til you're ready." And then... he does fall silent. Oh, he still has no intention of letting Swerve go until the younger mech is willing to listen to reason, but he can recognize when someone won't be able to listen to reason because they're not listening at all.
Transformers, if they're canny and take care of themselves, can live many millions of years. Kup, especially, is keenly aware of this fact. There's time. Kup can wait awhile yet.
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Post by Swerve on Aug 28, 2007 9:43:24 GMT -5
Sure, Kup actually went quiet, but Swerve hardly notices. He's still got alarms screaming at him for nearly letting himself boil over and he's fighting off an emergency shutdown.
"Just… shut up," he repeats again, heaving himself to his feet. If he means the alarms or the other Autobot, even he isn't quite sure, but he wants it quiet. He can't think; it's too hot and noisy. He needs to think, though. Gotta figure out how to bash in that lousy fragging face.
Swerve turns, abominably slowly, squares off against the oldtimer and glares, still furious but, for the moment, back down to a simmer. Snapping was just a temporary relief. He's still very angry and he still wants to make it painfully clear to the oldtimer. He just hasn't fragging figured out how yet.
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Post by Kup on Aug 28, 2007 10:06:04 GMT -5
Kup waits for Swerve to stand up. Oh, it's clear to him that the racer is still angry. The elder rubs the bridge of his nose with his right hand, shakes his head, and sighs. Part of him wonders if racetracks on Velocitron were anything like the ones he'd seen on other planets. Is Swerve just used to spending his time rolling in circles? Is that it?
Finally, he lowers his hand with a waving, dismissive motion. "Y'know what? I'm too damn old for this scrap. You don't wanna show up to training like everyone else? What, maybe too scared? Don't think you can handle it? That's fine. Whatever. But don't think I'm foolin' around when I say you don't show up there, you ain't going on the battlefield. And while I'd appreciate you not making me prove I can back up that statement, I can, and if you push me, I will."
Kup's not given up. Not by any means. But he's still got a lot of other interviews to take care of, and continuing to butt heads with the hot head is proving fruitless. He's still got time to figure out a new approach, one that Swerve will respond to better. Plenty of time, when you're a Transformer.
Kup turns away from Swerve and summons his 'notepad' and stylus. If Swerve thinks this means he's let his guard down, however, he'll be in for a painful surprise. He makes a few more notations as he starts to walk away, but still the disappointed elder takes time to growl out, "Have fun playing at your little games, boy. I've got work to do."
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Post by Swerve on Aug 28, 2007 18:30:17 GMT -5
There are tracks on Velocitron that could span a small continent, Kup. Go and run a lap on that, why don't you!
Swerve starts after the old Autobot, half in a second fit of rage and ready to have another go at him, then slows. Not because he's afraid – he'll be cold scrap in the back corner of an oil house before he's afraid of Kup – but the fluids running through his lines are too hot, too thin. He isn't cooling down, he's heating up again. He's having to scale back on processes; his limbs aren't moving properly. He's sluggish and a bit wobbly, and he's actually glad Kup's back is turned so the oldtimer can't see him stagger to a stop.
"Scared?" he snarls after Kup, voice maybe a little rougher than it was before. "I'm not scared of you! And I can take anything a sprocket-stickin' gearhead like you can dish out!" Smelt, he's probably taken worse. Fragging oldtimer. Fragging training. Fragging Autobots. "I'll be there!" he adds. "I'll be there and your slaggin' training ain't gonna do a thing!" It's a struggle not to slump and let his ventilation kick in full right then and there. He forces himself instead to walk – the other way, opposite Kup – and stay upright. He makes it all the way back to that stupid chair Kup tore from the road before he sways and stops. He'll have to do a lot more tune-up and tweaking if he wants to take on the oldtimer. What is it with these mechs and their armour, anyway? He scowls and turns just enough to glare back at Kup. "…And this is work, slag-sucker!"
Once Swerve figures he's safe enough to do so, he leans heavily on the chair and lets ventilation take over. It probably won't hit him until later that, much like Emirate Xaaron, Kup just got him to talk himself into doing what the oldtimer wanted. He won't be very happy at that point.
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Post by Kup on Aug 28, 2007 19:10:30 GMT -5
Kup, for his part, counts this as a partial victory at best. He got most of the information he wanted out of Swerve (still missing the leadership thing, but ah, well) and he managed to get the boy to agree to show up for training, which is a step in the right direction. But he's going into it determined not to learn anything, which is one hell of a stumbling block. The elder makes a couple more scratch marks on his flat sheet of metal, then shuffles it back into subspace.
He mistakes the roughening of Swerve's voice for simple anger and so does not turn completely around. Thus, he misses the rest of the tell-tale indications of Swerve's condition. He shakes his head a bit sadly, then calls back, "I'll see you there, Swerve." Then he steps off the metal highway, transforms, and drives directly back to the city, taking the most direct route and not bothering about the road.
Showing off his ability to off-road? No, not really. Is he simply taking the direct route because it's shorter? Well, if asked, that's what he'd tell someone.
But the truth? When you're built for off-road driving, driving that way is simply more pleasant. More enjoyable. More... fun, even. After how badly things went with Swerve, Kup'd prefer something to clear his head and cheer him a bit before he faces his next interview.
So who's next... hmm. He can ask that other fellow from Xaaron's universe about those two, Spinister and Needlenose. Of course, as with Swerve, Kup doesn't actually have Nightbeat's frequency yet (a fact that Kup would think particularly frustrating if he knew that it's very likely that Nightbeat knows his). So he calls over broadband once more.
//Hey, Nightbeat, got a moment? Where are you, anyway?//
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Nightbeat
Minor
Lord High Instructor, Duke of Snack
Cybertron's Greatest Detective
Posts: 373
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Post by Nightbeat on Aug 28, 2007 22:10:41 GMT -5
Nightbeat probably does have everyone's frequency by this point. Or has managed to figure them out. Hey, it's what he does.
Kup, along with Emirate Xaaron, are two of the only Autobots here he actually has any real amount of respect for. The one because, well, the Emirate's basically the grand poobah in Autobot terms. Optimus Prime may well have been the military leader and head of their main forces, but Xaaron was the one who made things work. Prime had existential crisises, Xaaron just sent the Wreckers out to kill people.
And Kup? Well, the Kup he knows is the toughest son of a gun in the galaxy. Every Autobot knows Kup, or has heard of his legendary exploits. Even other old soldiers like Nightbeat himself. He's also quite possibly the only person who's ever managed to drink Nightbeat under the table at Macaddam's, and Nightbeat had been spiking his oil that night.
//On my way.//
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Post by Kup on Aug 28, 2007 22:36:59 GMT -5
It seems every interview presents wildly different new challenges. The whole situation's got old Kup, who, until this planet had thought he had damn near seen it all, more than a little off balance. So far he's been dealing by focusing on what is familiar, what he does know. He knows war. He knows the War. He knows security. He knows Autobots. He may not know these Autobots, but odd looks or strange gods aside, at the end of the day they still feel like Autobots, and it's not like he hasn't seen a lot of faces and body styles come and go over the years.
But, while Kup may not be aware of it, he is about to hit another first. Xaaron may have known of a version of Kup, but Nightbeat, whom the elder hasn't had much chance to talk with thus far, actually knows another version of Kup, has worked with him, fough with him, gone drinking with him.
It remains to be seen how much longer the elder can maintain his balance.
Kup finally returns to the alley where he started out in, the one with the two abandoned vehicles set up as chairs, of sorts. Not much of an office, but there's not yet space to spare in the "base." The alien pick-up transforms and once more de-subspaces the metal plate covered with seemingly random marks and his sharp-pointed metal "stylus," wondering how long the mechanoid he had automatically been calling, "Xaaron's boy" will take to arrive.
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Nightbeat
Minor
Lord High Instructor, Duke of Snack
Cybertron's Greatest Detective
Posts: 373
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Post by Nightbeat on Aug 28, 2007 22:54:31 GMT -5
"Door was open," a voice--Nightbeat's--says. Seeing as how there's no real door--or room for that matter--he just might be playing to his cliches. "Figured I'd just make myself comfortable until you got back."
He's somehow managed to get behind Kup, peering over his shoulder at the symbols written there. They don't mean anything... yet, but give him long enough to process them and they will.
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Post by Kup on Aug 29, 2007 9:07:26 GMT -5
Kup is rather confident in the security his note-keeping method, since another person would have to have visited pretty much all the planets Kup has visited, often at the same times Kup had visited them and during the same events, and have a firm knowledge on the way the veteran's mental chains of associations work, to actually get anything useful out of them. However, as someone who's been in security in some form or another, from common guard to planetary chief-and-more for longer than most mechs have existed, he's got a fairly deep-routed set of instincts in that direction. One of those instincts says, The more interested someone is in seeing something, especially something that contains potentially sensitive information, the less they should be allowed to see of it. So, when Nightbeat begins peering over Kup's shoulder at his notes, Kup sends the sheet of metal and the "stylus" back into subspace; he'll write down the notes on Nightbeat after his interview.
"No problem," Kup answers casually to Nightbeat's spoken words, although he is, in truth, impressed that the other made it here so quickly. He gestures to the two vehicles he's set up as chairs. "Have a seat?" Then he settles himself down on one of them. Morbid? Perhaps, but sometimes you've got to make do.1
Once he's settled, Kup begins. "I'm not sure if Xaaron gave you a heads up, but since we're all stuck here together for who knows how long and, in many cases, don't know each other, I'm running a series of interviews to try and get an idea about force capabilities. To make this fair, you're also free to ask whatever questions you might have about me and my abilities. When I'm done, though, I plan on making a full report to... whoever's in charge by then." He grunts a bit disapprovingly, still not happy with the vote.
"I haven't had much chance to observe you so far, so I only know what I got second hand from Xaaron, and that ain't much." Kup wasn't even there for the run-down Xaaron gave the rest of the Autobots about Nightbeat! "So, to start with, I need to know your function, your area of specialty. What specific skills do you offer here? Also, can you give me a general idea on your level of general combat experience?" He still has other questions, of course, but those are enough to start with, and give Nightbeat the chance to ask a few of his own before Kup goes too much further.
1 The situation does, however, remind Kup's player of her grandfather. In response to any complaints made during mealtime, he would respond with, "Well, at least you never had to eat lunch while sitting on a dead Jap on the beach!"
To this day, the family of Kup's player has no idea why he didn't just get up and move a little further down the beach. It just didn't seem the thing to ask. However, the common assumption is that he stayed put so he would be able to tell the story at mealtimes for years later.
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Nightbeat
Minor
Lord High Instructor, Duke of Snack
Cybertron's Greatest Detective
Posts: 373
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Post by Nightbeat on Aug 29, 2007 12:46:47 GMT -5
Nightbeat takes a seat, not off-put by the strange accommodations in the slightest. Something about way Kup speaks of whoever's going to be in charge strikes him as unusual, but he won't press the issue right now.
"Well," he says, steepling his fingers, "I like to think of myself as a little bit of everything. Tinker, tailor, soldier, currier, I've played all those things. But if you're talking about what I hand out on my business cards, well, then you can call me a detective. You give me a crime, I'll solve it. You send me to find somebody, I'll find 'em. You give me a puzzle, odds are I can figure it out."
He laughs. "Kind of like working security, but without having to play by the rules, really. Xaaron says I've got something called "counter-logical" thinking. Me, I just think I'm damn good at what I do."
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Post by Kup on Aug 29, 2007 13:00:21 GMT -5
Oh, lovely. Yet another person who thinks that 'rules' are what happens to other people. Kup smirks slightly, though it's not the most pleased expression, and suddenly glad he stuffed his 'notepad' away.
The thing is, part of working security is making sure everyone plays by the rules. There are names for folks who spend their time making others play by rules they won't follow. Most are politer than the names Kup would use.
Although sometimes, as Kup was forced to admit, one of those names comes right back around to being "security" again.
"I know what a detective is, lad," Kup answers a bit cooly, despite the faint smirk's lingering presence. "Good at solving puzzles, huh? Well, tell you what. I'll take you up on that right now."
"What do you think about all this? You got any ideas on what the blazes is going on, or you still missing too many pieces, Nightbeat?"
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Nightbeat
Minor
Lord High Instructor, Duke of Snack
Cybertron's Greatest Detective
Posts: 373
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Post by Nightbeat on Aug 29, 2007 14:16:51 GMT -5
Oh, Nightbeat understands the value of the rules, he's just equally aware that there's a time and a place for them. Neither of which are anywhere he happens to be. Can't exactly get a confession out of someone when you've got a bunch of glitch-biters complaining that you can't hold a suspect over the edge of a really tall building until he talks. And then they'd still tell you you shouldn't have dropped them afterward.
Wimps.
"Well, I have been giving that a lot of thought. And none of it's good. We've got people from multiple points in at least five different realities. Yours, mine, the one that Swerve comes from, the one those couple of guys who look like they're inside out came from, and Wedge's. There's some common points and plenty of differences too. Even you. I mean, you look like the Kup I know, and you sound like him, but you're also the wrong color.
Back where I came from, we've got a god called Primus... not to mention Unicron, who seem to take an unholy amount of delight in playing dice with us lowly Transformers. This kind of thing sounds right up one of their alleys."
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Post by Kup on Aug 29, 2007 15:17:16 GMT -5
Kup listens intently to Nightbeat's proposal, and he automatically looks down (and then shrugs) when he gets told that he's the "wrong" color. He frowns thoughtfully at the proposed theory. The whole business about gods and whatnot seemed fantastic, but now this is two canny, apparently serious-minded mechs who spoke of Primus and of Unicron's godhood with absolute certainty. And the universe (multiverse?) was sometimes a pretty fantastic place.
"Xaaron explained to me about this... Primus. Swerve swears by him, too. Me, I never heard of the name before I came here. Cybertron started life as a factory planet, and Cybertronians as... consumer products. We do... did have a Unicron, but he wasn't a god. Created by some guy named 'Primacron.' Destroyed by the Matrix a couple of years ago. But, well... since it obviously ain't just my own universe we're dealing with anymore..." Kup trailed off as he considered.
"I s'pose it's something to think about," he finally allows, disturbed. He also bumps up the priority of trying to get an interplanetary radio working. "But it still seems a bit early to be jumping to that sorta conclusion." So this is what Xaaron means by 'counter-logical,' huh?
Finally he shrugs. This really is beyond him. At least it is now, but time has taught Kup that sometimes when a large problem seems impossible, it's best just to focus on the immediate and wait for something else to present itself. This works more often than one might expect.
"Well, I ain't in the habit of dealing with gods or anything. But... there're still Decepticons here, and them, I am in the habit of dealing with. Xaaron suggested I ask you about Spinister and Needlenose. Said you had some personal experience with them, so you'd be a better source to talk to. He said something about Needlenose being maybe not yours, though, on account of the power level he was showing in that last fight. Alternate, or future, or something." The elder rubs his chin, and his optics look a bit distant. "Seems kind of strange to me that he'd just stick to the ground when attacking, too... you'd think he'd'av been able to get more out of his weapon from the air."
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Nightbeat
Minor
Lord High Instructor, Duke of Snack
Cybertron's Greatest Detective
Posts: 373
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Post by Nightbeat on Aug 30, 2007 14:09:52 GMT -5
"That is pretty strange," Nightbeat agrees. "Spinister was all up in arms over us poisoning or torturing Needlenose. Didn't make much sense at first, but then I put it together with what our Grimlock was doing before he headed off. You ever hear of a fuel called "Nucleon?'"
He leaned forward. "Prime had, but said it was too unstable to be usable. But Grimlock stole a shuttle to go look for it anyway. He's been a class-A grouch ever since the rest of the Dinobots got blasted apart by Starscream. Wants 'em back and fighting with him at any cost. I'm bettin' that Grimlock found his Nucleon and pumped it through all the stasis tanks, bein' too dumb to think there's anything but 'bots there.
That coulda given Needlenose the power-boost he had. But if it's as unstable as some seem to think, maybe it screwed with his ability to transform."
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