Dinner Date for Two

[Phobia/Pierce Fobster]

The death has a profoundly different affect on Phobia. Mostly it just makes him even more sick and thoroughly ill-prepared for the sudden shift in Rampage’s mood. He’d barely managed to heave himself upright before the crab throws the corpse at him.

The bike only has the time to scramble back before the grey body slams into the console. He doesn’t entirely escape unscathed however; one of the limbs catch him in the ankle and looses balance quite dramatically, crashing onto his back.

When the static clears from his vision, it’s in time to see Rampage stalking towards him.

“He is Optimus Prime!” the bike nearly yells in mounting panic. “I wouldn’t trust death alone to hold him if I can!” My but this was beginning to quickly spiral out of control, wasn’t it?

[Rampage/Xavier Goodkind]

Rampage looms over Phobia, having temporarily gained the advantage of height for once. His processors buzz with the static of too many emotions, rage predominant, making it hard to think. It's a sensation not unlike being in the center of a crowd on Omicron, before he reduced its population to two. Is this a normal symptom of energy depletion?

Driven by anger, Rampage stoops, his hand reaching for Phobia's throat, ready to grasp, squeeze, destroy, destroy the threat... Threat? This thin, panicking thing? Before his fingers can reach their goal, he recoils, his mind abruptly clearing. For a moment confusion floats to the top of his mind, but he quickly tries to drown it in dark, maniacal amusement and that insistent hunger that plagues him.

"And what would it take for you to consider him safely disposed of, hm?" he taunts. Dropping into beast mode, the crab crawls onto the sprawled corpse and sets to work with his massive claws, prying up panels and snapping struts. "Shall I tear his empty spark chamber from his body and crush it between my claws?"

[Phobia/Pierce Fobster]

“Don’t come near m- nh.” Phobia gasps as his back hits the wall, feet scraping frantically against the floor as he tries in vain to back away from that hand. Having no other way out, the bike shuts off his visor and prepares for the inevitable-

… That never comes.

Slowly relighting his vision, the bike peers up at the crab in terrified bewilderment. The whiplash from the sudden change in emotions leaves him stunned for a moment, but he doesn’t let himself relax, not even after those fingers were withdrawn when Rampage transforms. In fact, he stays frozen exactly where he was, watching on in mute, morbid fascination as the Predacons begins tearing into the corpse.

Rampage’s only answer is a quiet whimper in the meantime.

[Rampage/Xavier Goodkind]

"Tear out his circuits one by one... crack the hydraulics, drink the fluids..." Rampage mutters on, though he's not really even addressing Phobia anymore so much as losing himself to hunger fantasies. His claws lay the late Optimus's chest open and he digs in, his claws ripping out or slicing off bits of armor and circuitry and internal structure and ferrying them to his mouth as fast as he can manage.

He's just so hungry at this moment, and everything is just so blissfully delicious, filling cravings he didn't even realize he had. He should probably be worried about this, surely it's not just energy depletion, but he's too primally content to do so.

Phobia's presence fades to the back of his mind as the almost instinctual urge to feed takes the fore.

[Phobia/Pierce Fobster]

Whether Phobia had liked it or not, he had come to be familiar with the smaller mech over the course of their stay on the Ship- enough to know this was a very extreme deviation from his typical behavior. The hunger, the exhaustion, the sudden changes in mood... and the strange, sickly, squirming just under the surface.

It a takes a moment for the bike to pull himself together, frantically piecing his thoughts into something more coherent than panicky gibbering. For the time being, the crab’s attention was directed at the corpse, lost in a haze of an all-encompassing desire to feed, but he didn’t seem particularly inclined to hurt Phobia. Not yet anyways.

The bike glances at the door, contemplating simply running for it or calling for help. He would have to answer for abandoning his duties for the former however, and Rampage wasn’t actually hurting anyone thus far. In fact, he was disposing a rather dangerous enemy quite thoroughly. What was a problem however, was the unusual behavior and that was technically Phobia’s specialty.

“Rampage,” he says softly, nervously, after a very long moment. He sends off a radio call, just in case things took a turn for the worse. “Are you alright?”

[Rampage/Xavier Goodkind]

"Never better!" Rampage says with a cackle, before stuffing another bit of circuitry into his mouth and devouring it loudly and appreciatively. He feels so much better after a good meal! Positively elated even! Good enough that he doesn't really care that Phobia went talking about him on the over the general frequency.

A fuel line splits beneath his claws, spilling out sweet energy in liquid form across the Optimus's torn circuits. Transforming once again, he pinches off the broken end to still the flow, then pulls the line free and raises it to his mouth, lifting part of it high to let the fuel flow and drinking deeply.

Wiping a stray drop from his chin, Rampage's gaze turns to Phobia, his horns curling as he smirks darkly. "And you? Not feeling a little... hungry?"


OOC: Bluh, sorry for taking so long! Crabby is not being co-operative. D:

[Phobia/Pierce Fobster]

Deciding he’s had enough trauma for one day, the bike shuts off his optical sensors so he doesn’t have to see Rampage pulling out the energon line. His audio sensors are already doing a wonderful job of supplying him with that information without the gruesome visuals. That would have been shut off too if he weren’t so afraid to be completely unable to track the crab.

“I... doubt I can even process wires.” Phobia utters queasily, pressing himself back a little further against the wall and resting his forehead on his knees. Running was beginning to look more and more tempting and that tone in Rampage’s voice did not bode well. Not in the least. All he had to do was get up, wobble out into the hall and gun for it. It was ever so easy.

At least the Predacon was feeling better.

[Rampage/Xavier Goodkind]

Phobia's discomfort is like a siren call, now that his hunger has been sated. He doesn't exactly feel normal. He feels better than normal. Almost overenergized. And it makes him feel... playful. In much the same way a cat feels playful around a mouse. And under that there's curiosity. If he was suffering from energy depletion, if there's a problem with their energon rations, then surely Phobia would be experiencing the same issue? He doesn't feel tired or hungry, not in the way Rampage did...

"So you can't eat wires," he answers. Grabbing the fuel line, he rips it free from the corpse, pinching both ends shut before it can spill all its contents. "But have you been getting enough to drink lately?"

He saunters slowly towards Phobia, and if he reaches the bike without him bolting he'll let a few drops of the sweet fuel drip down onto Phobia's head.

[Phobia/Pierce Fobster]

Euphoria. Rampage was actually feeling euphoric. The sick nausea fades slightly under the onslaught of the Predacon’s emotions, but, eugh. Sigma below.

There is a sudden shift in Rampage’s attention that makes Phobia glance up. And then he promptly bolts. No, he was absolutely not letting the Predacon nearer to him than necessary and especially now that he sees the hose the crab had clasped in the other’s stained hands.

“I’ve been drinking just fine,” the bike answers unsteadily from the opposite wall; he can stagger blindly with surprising speed when he really puts his mind to it. Rampage trying to put dead people fluid on him was (or Rampage being near in general) was pretty good incentive. That and the crab’s own contentedness was helping somewhat, even as it displeases Phobia to leech off of it. He’s still quite dizzy from sudden movements however and his next escape might be a bit more delayed.

[Rampage/Xavier Goodkind]

Stop leeching off his positive emotions, Phobia! He prefers you cringing and horrified out of your mind.

"Are you sure?" Rampage says, an edge of mockery to his voice as he turns to face Phobia - he is a quick one, isn't he? "Not feeling a little peckish?"

He twines the fuel line around his fingers, eyeing the bike up and down and considering just how he can go about force-feeding someone he can't touch. And he is quite determined to do that, now that the idea is in his head. Must share his bounty with his current object of interest, mustn't he? Keep his strength up.

Also because it will surely mess with Phobia's troubled little mind. That's the main reason for these games of his, yes? Yes. He must remember that. "I assure you, it's quite delicious. You simply must try it."

[Phobia/Pierce Fobster]

If Phobia was frightened out of his mind every time something like this happened, he wouldn’t be alive! And feeling like radioactive sludge as he does right now, Rampage’s giddiness is the only thing keeping him on his feet. Empathy was a bit of a double edged sword like that.

“I am quite properly fueled, Rampage,” the bike answers stiffly, voice virtually dripping with forced politeness. “You need the fuel a bit more than I do, really. You should keep it for later, perhaps, if you are too full now.” The world has stopped spinning at least. It takes a long moment to refocus his senses and when he does, he shifts them all onto the Predacon once more, trying to gauge his next move.

“We should really go back to watching those rocks,” he adds pleasantly after a moment, a nice little smile on his face as he edges a bit further away from Rampage. “Never know when another unfortunate might pop up.”

[Rampage/Xavier Goodkind]

"I don't need to look at them to watch them," Rampage says, which Phobia should know very well. Then again, as distracted as he is, would he even notice if another presence showed up? ...Surely he would. He glances back at Optimus's body, then leers at Phobia. "And there's plenty more where this came from."

He follows after Phobia, optics narrowing. He's still not sure how exactly he plans to do it, but he determined to force Phobia to choke this fuel down. One can always use a boost to their rations, yes? Yes. And Phobia is weak. He needs to be strong. More fuel will help make him stronger.

Rampage doesn't quite notice that his logic is slipping away again.

[Phobia/Pierce Fobster]

“I’m sure,” Phobia mutters in reply, keeping Optimus’ gray form in the corner on his vision. Rampage was currently very confusing. He was a miasma of quicksilver emotions that changed rapidly from one second to the next- rather different from the previously established emotional pattern he’d come to know. The brief moment of familiar, morbidly playful clarity was now overlaid by something else just a beat later. A... muddled protectiveness of sorts? Of what?

Phobia doesn’t get let Rampage get close enough to find out. He boots up his lifters and rockets to the ceiling, well out of arm’s reach. He’s not too sure what he’d do if the Predacon pulled out his weapons, but he’ll deal with that hurtle once it comes.

[Rampage/Xavier Goodkind]

Rampage is actually startled when his quarry suddenly floats up to hover next to the ceiling. He's used to only those with flying alt-modes or clear robot-mode flight modifications being able to fly. Even in a clear state of mind, he likely would have been caught off guard by Phobia's sudden display of his home universe's tendency to install anti-gravs in all Decepticons.

He stands still for a long moment, staring blankly at Phobia, who is now so close and yet so unreachably far away. Then his face contorts into a scowl and he growls, "Get down here right now."

And eat your dinner, young man.

[Phobia/Pierce Fobster]

If he were anyone else, Phobia might have laughed at the utterly surprised look on Rampage’s face. He might as well have, really, considering the brief amusement that flares up before he can properly smother it; the bike may have mastered outward appearances, but he’s not managed to turn it all inwards as well quite yet. He probably never will. Emotions were annoying like that.

“Rampage,” Phobia says, trying to sound reasonable. “I’d really prefer not to.” No, he absolutely did not find this funny. If he finds this funny, he’s pretty sure the Predacon would be sending missiles his way very, very soon. One the bright side, at least that’d give Phobia a good enough excuse to leave the room.