Duskwing finds his room

[Duskwing]

Duskwing stared at the datapad Hook had handed him; it contained his room assignment and brief directions. He looked up and around, and stared at the datapad again.

"Okay, if dat's the main gate, then I go dis way," Duskwing told himself, pointing to the left. The dark blue and purple Seeker stomped off that way, looking at doors as he passed.

"1, 2, 3... 4, 5! Yeah, number five." Duskwing scowled; there was a small sign taped to the door of room A-5.

"All prospective roommates will be dueled."

He stared at it for a long moment. "Huh. Dat's stupid."

Duskwing reached out and pressed the button to open the door...

[Sable Conolly]

The arrangement of the room is Spartan, in a very primal sense of the word. There is a military crispness to its arrangement. One side of the room is conspicuously unused. The other side seems little more touched.

However, there is a large, black Transformer indolently sprawled on the berth, recalling a satiated lion, chest down, head closer to the door, and legs neatly crossed at the ankles. His head is propped up with one hand, and with the other he manipulates a glowing, translucent screen that seems to hang in the air with no support. He seems rather intent in studying a set of orbital maps.

At the sound of the door opening, his attention snaps away from the maps and transfixes on the blue Seeker standing there. His head inclines, as if to ask, Yes?

---

OOC: After CtF, for reference.

[Duskwing]

Duskwing steps halfway into the room, then stops and stares at Scourge. He continues to stare for several moments. Finally he says, "You look like Optimus Prime."

[Sable Conolly]

"I am aware of that fact," Scourge drawls laconically. "Would you perhaps like to comment that fire is hot? That water is wet?"

He does not yet stir from his relaxed-looking pose, even if he is anything but. Scourge supposes that he should really ask the blue Seeker why he is here. Scourge does have to wonder what the heck is with these people and their dozen blue jets. Did they have a sale on blue paint or something? His reality didn't have this issue. Scourge has been trying to learn to tell the Seekers apart, as it would be shockingly unprofessional for the head of Intelligence not to at least know who everyone is on his own side. He's discovered that the tone and hue of the blue and the placement of accent colours are the keys. From the purple, then, this one must be the newcomer, Duskwing. Bother, Scourge rather hopes that Hook isn't doing what Scourge thinks Hook is doing. Scourge was rather enjoying studying these maps.

He inquires, "Duskwing, why are you here?"

[Duskwing]

Duskwing stares blankly at Scourge for a moment. "Why would I wanna do dat? Everybody knows dat stuff."

Duskwing's optics blink at Scourge's next question. "Oh, yeah. Hook sent me here. Dis is my new room."

[Sable Conolly]

Scourge rubs his battlemask with a hand and finally pulls himself back and sits up, feet lightly scraping the floor. Sarcasm is lost on this one, he sees.

His fingers clench a bit tighter at Duskwing's next tiding. So Hook did do what Scourge was afraid Hook was going to do. A room mate was inevitable, Scourge is aware. Their space situation is precarious enough as it is, and soldiers cannot afford luxuries. Scourge was enjoying, however, having a room all to himself. That's why he posted up that sign.

Speaking of which, he inquires flatly, "Did you see the sign on the door?"

[Duskwing]

"Yeah." The blue and purple jet gives Scourge a puzzled look, then scowls. "Look, Hook said go here, so I go here, see?"

He shrugs. "Whaddaya got that sign for, anyway?"

[Sable Conolly]

"It is a warning and a promise," Scourge answers evenly. Duskwing seems to be rather slow on the uptake. Let's see if Scourge is proven wrong.

He springs to motion from his sitting pose and attempt to spin Duskwing so that the Seeker faces away from him. Scourge can tell from the Seeker's articulation that he won't be able to shoot backward if he is faced away from Scourge. It strikes Scourge as something of a daft design, especially since they made so many with the same flaw. He then attempts to grapple Duskwing around the waist. The wing position does prevent an under-arm grapple, he supposes.

Scourge fairly lectures, "It is imperative that I assess the combat readiness of anyone who would be rooming with me, in case of an intruder. I need to know if you'll be able to face up a threat, or you'll be hiding under the berth. I find a hands on approach is best."

[Duskwing]

Duskwing, unfortunately, wasn't expecting combat with his new roommate. Not this early, anyway. Not being in combat mode means having to evaluate the situation on the fly and respond to it, and that is something that Duskwing is sadly deficient at.

About the time Scourge has finished spinning him around and grabs Duskwing around the waist, the dark blue jet-former unfreezes. "HEY! Knock it off! You got some kind of problem?" He digs his toes in.

[Sable Conolly]

Scourge attempts to heft up Duskwing and carry him off, as a black knight might a fair princess. Of course, he's expecting Duskwing to put up more of a fight than a fair princess, unless he was some sort of warrior princess, and if Scourge was carrying off a warrior princess, he probably has something else on his mind instead of dueling her.

Then again, maybe not: he does so love a good fight.

Scourge replies, "Don't whine. I'm just going to take you the solid light simulation chamber."

[Duskwing]

Scourge is one of those people like Megatron who can actually heft a full-scale Seeker. Seekers are big; they dropkick minibots. Duskwing is strong but he's not that strong. The lift comes as a surprise; from the way Scourge grabbed him, he expected to be frog-marched out the door, or possibly slammed face-first into a wall. Uncertain whether he should escalate to using engines and guns (Don't fire on an officer unless it's to kill and you can hide the body, whispers his survival instinct), Duskwing settles for thrashing relatively ineffectually for the moment.

"I'm not whining! I don't whine. I never done whined! I'm a Decepticon warrior!" Duskwing snaps, red optics flaring bright with anger. Then his CPU gets around to processing the rest of his comment. "Da solid who-what?"

[Sable Conolly]

Scourge has a very good reason to be like Megatron; he is his progeny. At the thrashing, Scourge grips a bit tighter and being to stroll on down to the solid light simulation chamber. As he walks, he explains, "Prattling, then. Cease it. The solid light simulation chamber is like a really fancy kind of video game, but instead of a character, you have yourself. It's good for intensive training, because you can get damaged or even killed without taking the damage in reality."

He pauses in talking but not in walking. Scourge resumes, "But I get ahead of myself. I am Scourge, head of Black Operations and Intelligence. I am not Motormaster, Optimus Prime, Octane, Wildrider, Uther Pendragon, or Mordred. Scourge. One syllable. It's easy to say and remember. I am not the other Scourge, who is a Predacon locust - Predacons are the ones with squishy animal bits on them. That Scourge reports to Hook. Get it right, or I'll beat it into your cranial unit."

My, but it sounds like Scourge has had issues with this before, doesn't it?

[Duskwing]

"Slag. All ya hadda do was ask," Duskwing said sulkily. "Don't have to carry me like I had broken joints. Why didn't you say youse wanted to play a video game?"

Head of Black Ops and Intelligence. Oh, great. His roommate was an officer, a high-ranking officer and he liked to run his vocoder and hear the feedback it made. What'd he do to make Hook hate him?

"Scourge, yeah, got it. Anybody else youse not?" Duskwing said in a surly tone.

[Sable Conolly]

Scourge replies, not loosening his grip, "A coward might have fled, and a lazy mechanism might attempt to duck out on training."

Now why might a coward flee? Well, aside from cases of extreme cowardice, someone who has command-level access into the systems (and a background at sabotage, for what matter) can discover, through noodling around with the system, that it can be made to turn realistically lethal.

Scourge also answers, "Not to my knowledge, but people have this very bad habit of mistaking me for other people." Luckily, Scourge didn't hear the Onslaught and Kickback comments out loud. "Some of my operatives would kill to have this many faces, I suppose. Now, I know that you report to Sky-Byte. You may have heard that he and I have differences of opinion." Okay, what Duskwing may have heard that Scourge's first action upon showing up here was to pick a fight with Sky-Byte. Rumours like that have a way of getting around, especially such a small base. "Just remember, before you think to get entangled in any intrigues, that I know where you defragment, and that if you go into a battle with improper intelligence, you may not come out."

In other words, don't plant a whoopie cushion or a thermonuclear device on Scourge's berth just because Sky-Byte orders it. This does raise the question of why Scourge is in Intelligence at all. He doesn't seem like a Soundwave or a Ravage or even a Spinister. Intimidating Scourge may be, but he seems rather more apt to smash someone's head through a wall than attempt blackmail.

Someone who knows Scourge very well would realise that Scourge would quite happily do both. He likes having more than one tool in his box, no matter how physically satisfying a sledgehammer may be.

[Duskwing]

There's a good chance Scourge can't actually see Duskwing's optic narrow from where he is, but the more than surly tone is obvious.

"You shouldn't oughta keep saying that word," Duskwing growls. "Someone might think they gotta hurt you if you do, see?" There's a high-pitched whine as his arm guns charge up. He really doesn't like this officer implying he's a coward, not to mention talking down to him constantly. He's getting tired of being carried like a sack of parts, too.

"I don't rank enough for anyone to en-en-- get me mixed up in dem intrigues. Do I look like Starscream to youse?" Duskwing snaps. "And put me the slag down! I ain't your personal bag of spare parts!"