Cannonball
Minor
Me, I'm dishonest. And a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest.
Posts: 470
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Post by Cannonball on Oct 18, 2007 23:09:35 GMT -5
Then it dawns on the pirate captain. "Oi! Now I recall! You were at the station aftah ah went undercovah, and me an' that femme saw y--"
Cannonball is cut off by the mining worm roaring to life, and struck in the back, sending the pirate tumbling forward, up the hill a bit. His outcry of surprise is cut short when face becomes intimate with soil for a moment. The next, he rolls over and coughs, clearing dirt from his intakes.
"Blightin' glitchin' spawn of Unicron 'imself, 'Ook! What the frag gave ye the bright idea to bring that monster back online?!" he yells out from his spot on the slope of the crater.
The monster did one good thing for the captain, however - he won't notice for a bit, but other than the sizeable dent and scratches on his back, a good deal of Hook's custom job from earlier is gone, enough that a majority of his former skull is now visible on his back.
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Post by Hook on Oct 18, 2007 23:27:45 GMT -5
Spinister's transmission comes at a remarkably good time, really. While tired, Hook is in quite a good mood from all the delicate, difficult work he's been doing. //Hmm. I suppose that makes sense.//
He's still going to erase the base plans before Shockwave can get a look at them. Oh, spite, how you keep his fuel pumping warmly at night.
Then not-Midnight starts flailing about and yelling his name.
//You don't have any optics yet. For now, you're going to have to rely on other senses. Which do exist, and I tweaked them quite a bit to give you intelligible information. Now stop thrashing about, calm down, and try to work things out. In theory, giving conscious orders to the systems you are used to using should speed up the process of adjustment considerably,// Hook broadcasts over a generalized short-range band, since no one bothered to give him not-Midnight's frequency.
Hook doesn't take his optics off of the mining worm, ready to react to however not-Midnight responds to him. He did, however, here a lot of crashing around back there and a sharp, unpleasant crack of something breaking. Hopefully it was easily replaceable.
Note to self: Get a fabricator running, then get to work on the base itself. Or possibly delegate the fabricator to Needlenose, and how impure is the energon around here if he's even thinking of doing that?
Spinister's order gets ignored on the basis that Hook is already doing that, thank you very much.
Cannonball's shout, on the other hand...
"Honestly, it would be a waste of a Decepticon warrior and a useful piece of native equipment to leave him offline for the rest of his life. This is a perfectly normal reaction to such a radical change in bodies, and it simply needs to be ridden out."
Well, not quite perfectly normal. It is rather stronger and the not being able to make use of his alternate sensors was a bit worrying. Hook was confident, however, that it was just a side-effect of the body being of alien design with mostly alien hardware.
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Hellbender
Major
Mecha-Shai-Hulud
"Seriously."
Posts: 892
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Post by Hellbender on Oct 19, 2007 0:00:24 GMT -5
He can hear! He freezes for a moment; he'd heard the clash of metal striking metal somewhere behind him. He tries to turn around and look in that direction--
The worm head slews around, the forebody following suit, to point at Spinister. Calm who down? He hears the pirate's cursing--monster? Spawn of Unicron?
What has Hook done to me?
The answer comes on the heels of the thought, as Hook's radio broadcast breaks into his rising anger and confusion. No optics? I can't fly without optics!
...he can't fly without wings, either. What'd Hook say? Other sensors... audials work. They work very, very well. He can hear the echoes of movement bouncing off the surroundings--and what's this other thing, hey, he can make echoes himself....
Systems he's used to using? Does he have any of those? Try something simple, like his vocalizer....
"Midnight were a Decepticon air warrior. Ah'm not a jet; Ah'm a blind subterranean... monster. Call me Hellbender. Ah'm a Decepticon warrior." Hellbender's voice echoed from the gaping intakes set behind the borers, rendering it deeper and hollower than before.
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Skyfire
Major
I'm a scientist, not a....
Posts: 891
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Post by Skyfire on Oct 19, 2007 0:07:46 GMT -5
"Cannonball, Spinister, that is neither a 'monster', nor a 'thing'. Hook had to do an emergency core transplant for the warrior we found in the swamp. His original body was all but destroyed," Skyfire said, a touch reprovingly.
"Hellbender, you might want to stay in this crater until you get the hang of your new circuitry. There is very little that is breakable here, apart from us. That's just a suggestion; Hook may have more useful orders."
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Post by Spinister on Oct 19, 2007 6:41:56 GMT -5
"Skyfire, it's not a Pretender shell, and I can't see a single transform seam. You don't want me calling something unknown a thing? You tell me what it is before you set it loose," Spinister explains in a low, raspy whisper. With a groan, he stands up and points a hand in the general direction of everybody else. "Nobody saw fit to tell me poor Midnight, er, Hellbender is in there."
His helicopter blades, both the maimed one and the intact, droop. Sure, Spinister understands that field repairs can be drastic, but he's really feeling bad for Hellbender. A fellow Decepticon shouldn't have to go through these things. At Skyfire's suggestion, Spinister almost sounds irritated, "Only until he has the kinks out. I want to see a roof over his head after."
Not one word about making him stay in tunnels of his own devising unless it comes from Hellbender himself. Bad living conditions lead to bad condition Decepticons.
Gingerly, Spinister reaches back and feels out his rotor damage, sighing. "If we're all done here, I'll show you where the energon is."
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Cannonball
Minor
Me, I'm dishonest. And a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest.
Posts: 470
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Post by Cannonball on Oct 19, 2007 11:46:16 GMT -5
Cannonball grumbles a bit, joining Spinister in complaining in the direction of Hook and Skyfire. "No one told me, neither. Ah jes' thought he were scrappin' the nasty buggah fer spare parts. And after tangoin' with th' beast shortly after arrival, I'd say ah 'ave some justification in callin' it wot ah want, whethah there be one o' our own in thar or not!"
Getting to his feet, Cannonball huffs, then hocks out some more dirt from his throat. "...t'be fair, though, ah've seen scarier things. Jes' caught me off-guard were all." With that, he turns toward Spinister once more, ready to find the fuel.
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Post by Hook on Oct 19, 2007 12:18:24 GMT -5
Hook is willing to forgive Spinister for not being as quick on the uptake as he ought to be. After all, most people don't think like the Constructicon.
Cannonball, however, has once more gone down in the engineer's estimation. He was right there, watching Hook install parts into the machine, he should have realized what was going on. Feh.
"Hardly any of us have roofs over our head now, Spinister. I think it's a bit much to request one for Hellbender. I'll add his quarters to the plans, of course." Hook's visor brightens a bit. "In fact, if no more crises happen during the night, I should be able to get started in the morning on building the base. With Hellbender's aid, the whole task should go quite a bit faster than previously estimated."
"Speech is good, Hellbender." And here Hook's voice takes on more gentle, cajoling tones. He's brought enough people online to have a good idea of how to make the orientation process go smoothly. "Now, have you ever done instrument flying?"
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Hellbender
Major
Mecha-Shai-Hulud
"Seriously."
Posts: 892
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Post by Hellbender on Oct 19, 2007 16:15:23 GMT -5
Hellbender's head slews around to face Hook. "Of course ah have! Whaddya take me for, a factory-fresh?" The robot worm sounds irritated. "What's that got to do with anythi--hey, there's a radar! And somethin' else that's giving me almost the same picture..."
// This here's Hellbender. Radio check. An' while yer at it, can someone tell me what in the Five Slagpits is goin' on? //
Hellbender's attention wandered from Hook as he tried to figure out what his flight controls actually did in this form. The long silver tail lashed back and forth, followed by a sinous writhing the length of the worm body.
"Yeah, Ah think Ah can get the hang of this with a bit a' work. What do ya got my turbine controls hooked up to? Ah don't think Ah got any jets. Seriously." There was a growl of powerful engines followed by a wicked whirr as the mining machine's boring heads spun up, multiple sinister cones of whirling spikes.
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Skyfire
Major
I'm a scientist, not a....
Posts: 891
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Post by Skyfire on Oct 19, 2007 16:40:23 GMT -5
Skyfire nodded; Hellbender looked like he'd be in good enough hands with Hook.
"Spinister, whenever you're ready, I could use that drink you mentioned, and I'll answer your questions as best I can," Skyfire said pleasantly.
--- Skyfire is ready to post out of this thread with Spinister. Assume he follows if Spinister heads out.
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Post by Spinister on Oct 19, 2007 18:08:42 GMT -5
Hook has unreasonable standards, are what Hook has. If Spinister wanted forgiveness, he'd go see the chaplain and take his forgiveness by putting a hole through the head of the silver and gold buzzard. There is nothing obvious or intuitive about condemning a Decepticon air warrior to a life underground, trapped in one form. When Spinister has repairs that he himself cannot handle, he's going to crawl a thousand miles by his fingers through heated silica particles to see that Needlenose does them before he allows this Hook to touch him.
Spinister notes to Hook, //Y'know, Transformers – from my reality, anyway – we tend to suffer pretty bad depression if we get trapped in one mode too long.// That's half the reason that Decepticon folklore often insists that Emirate Xaaron is a demon. Since when has the guy ever transformed? But mainly, being stripped of one's transform and being left to go mad is just a cruel torture that some interrogators enjoy inflicting. Luckily, losing his jet mode just seems to have turned Needlenose irritable, rather than melancholy. Still, they had better get that fixed fast.
He shrugs and raises up his arms at the elbows, explaining, "That's what I meant." No leaving Hellbender out just because he's trapped in a woefully inadequate alien body! That would be not on.
He just waves a hand to Skyfire and leads him up and out of the craeter.
OOC: Off to Snack Time!
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Cannonball
Minor
Me, I'm dishonest. And a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest.
Posts: 470
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Post by Cannonball on Oct 20, 2007 3:21:36 GMT -5
Oh, like Cannonball knew the exact nature of what Hook was doing! Sure, Cannonball knew block and tackle, but that was sailing stuff. He's got subordinates he pays to know what Hook was doing.
Either way, he follows Spinister out.
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OOC: Out as well.[/i[
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Post by Hook on Oct 20, 2007 14:01:51 GMT -5
"Given the number of jets who can't handle Smokescreen, it is a great leap to assume that you magically know how to fly blind. Practice that skill - it will be the only way you can 'see' for some time to come."
Hellbender's whirling boring heads earn him a wary look but nothing more. Hook is quite confident that the other Decepticon will realize how foolish it is to think about hurting him.
Spinister's note about possible psychological problems for Hellbender down the road is noted... And then everyone wanders off.
Hook turns to look after them, crossing his arms. "Lovely. And does anyone offer to get the surgical engineer who has been doing the work for the past several hours a drink? Of course not. Miracle-workers obviously don't need anything but a few hours to sit in the dark, and they'll be just fine to get up the next morning and conjure a base out of thin air!"
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Hellbender
Major
Mecha-Shai-Hulud
"Seriously."
Posts: 892
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Post by Hellbender on Oct 20, 2007 14:59:17 GMT -5
Smokescreen? That name seemed vaguely familiar--Autobot with blinding smoke and radar jammers.
"Flying completely blind with no radar is a purty neat stunt," Hellbender points out. "Okay, so these whirling grinder things are for digging? Seems like they'd be pretty good for grindin' Autobots, too."
If he hadn't been offline at the time, Hellbender could have pointed out that Spinister's invitation encompassed everyone there, except possibly Hellbender.
"Speaking of conjuring up a base, you said something about wanting me to work on it? Once Ah figure out how to do things here, that is." The borers spin down and brake to a halt. A long shudder passed the length of the worm body.
"Er, Hook? Ah'm havin' trouble finding my transformation sequence..."
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Post by Hook on Oct 20, 2007 15:37:22 GMT -5
That would be why the key word and tricky phrase in Hook's complaint there was 'get me a drink'.
"Hm? That would be because you can't transform. You don't have the parts for it, and you likely won't for some time to come. Once we have something resembling an infrastructure up and running, modifying your body to meet standard operating requirements will be a priority but not until then."
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Hellbender
Major
Mecha-Shai-Hulud
"Seriously."
Posts: 892
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Post by Hellbender on Oct 20, 2007 15:57:00 GMT -5
"Ah can't transform?" The worm head freezes in place, no longer swaying from side-to-side; there's something broken-sounding in his voice. I can't transform, I can't fly, I'm blind, and I can't even sit down with the boys for a jug or two!
"Go get your drink, Hook," the worm growls. "Ah'm grateful you saved my life, but right now, you'd just better get the slag out of here."
The boring heads spin up again, rapidly spinning up to their maximum safe unloaded rotational velocity.
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