A Small Start

Iacon Plain

The bright, golden light of Prima Facie and Altera lend this huge section of unbroken surface a soft glow, even through the thick layer of ground metal dust and debris that covers it. The flat, metallic plain continues as far as the optic to see, only to be broken in the distance by the broken ruins of a once great city. Like a Phoenix, the city of Iahex once rose from the ashes of Iacon, and like that same Phoenix, Iahex has once more burned itself out in the fires of war, returning again to ashes. Still, this dreary region of destruction and promises broken has an expectant quality to it, a waitfulness.

The Phoenix's cycle is never-ending.

Contents:

Fleet

Obvious exits: Fly &lt;Up&gt; leads to Sky above Iahex. South &lt;S&gt; leads to Tunnel of Retoris.

Scrapper is tiny, just the size of a human child. While he's inordinately strong for something the size of a human child, he's still... tiny. This makes building hard. And Galvatron is doing inspections! He really needs to get the Kaon Casino built, and fast! Sure, he has gumbies about to help haul the heavy materials, but they're /stupid/.

Fleet is not stupid! However, he's not really much use when it comes to construction, and thus he is, for all intents and purposes, another Seeker gumby. Still, he's bright enough that he's been allowed to do some welding as opposed to just hauling. He steps back from the section of frame he'd been putting together and glances over at Scrapper. "Erm, sir. Where next?"

Scrapper suspects that Fleet is a lot brighter than he lets on, but brightness doesn't particularly compensate for lack of task-specific training. He novers up to check on Fleet's work, his anti-gravs somewhat rectifying his lack of height. (He's usually short, but this is ridiculous.) "Hmm. Passable work on the entranceway. This will all be panelled over, anyway - support columns next. Ever worked with a piledriver before?"

Fleet winces and steps away. "Not... not really." He hesitates. "If it's not too difficult, I imagine I can pick it up. I mean, just how much training does that sort of thing usually take?" He looks around, checking for escape routes in case he just gave the wrong answer.

Yes, he's concerned with escape routes when confronted with a child-sized Constructicon.

Scrapper rubs the back of his helmet and admits, "Unless you're a cassette, working a piledriver usually requires an apprenticeship, but uhm... it's really just that you operate this big... hammer. Yeah, think of it as a hammer. And it hits poles into the ground, to provide support for a foundation." He gestures to where a Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dumb-like pair of gumbies are trying to set up the piledriver from the instructions and are definitely Doing It Wrong.

Fleet watches the Wonder Twins working on the piledriver and frowns as he tilts his head. He turns to look over at Scrapper and says, "I'm... no expert on the subject, but... is it supposed to work like that?"

Scrapper covers his face with his hands and groans, "No, no, it's not." He hovers over to the site of the crime and hollers, "Ugh, if you can't do it right, just go back to Nightsiege and fetch another load of rebar! I swear, you lunks would be more useful as flying buttresses..." He waves at Fleet, bidding him to come over and help him sort out the mess that is the piledriver.

Fleet starts to tip-tap-tip-tap after Scrapper, but hesitate as the threat of turning people into flying buttresses comes up. He frowns and shakes his head, deciding that bailing now would be a real good way to get turned into part of the building project, and closes the distance. The Seeker examines the instructions the other two had been using and frowns. "This isn't really /that/ confusing," he observes softly, then looks at what they were doing. "How did they get /that/ from /this/?"

Scrapper looks over the instructions and exclaims, "Hey, these are actually pretty good! Hmm, must have been written by a tech, not an engineer... and... I don't even want to speculate on how they read these wrong. I think it'll just kill microchips." He pulls out a small set of tools, since small ones are the only ones he can use right now, and works on taking apart an improperly assembled section.

Fleet isn't really advanced enough to de-assemble what the other Seekers have assembled, but he's bright enough to put together the parts that they hadn't touched correctly. "Erm, let me know if you need a hand - well, a larger hand with that." He pauses. "Have you, erm, made any headway on fixing it, or are we just leaving the situation as-is, since it looks like the Autobots caught the worst of it?"

Scrapper sighs and admits, "I've been a little busy." He then groans. "The main problem is that the ARAD had the subspace key, and it's exploded. Accessing a 'dead' subspace pocket is rather... difficult, at best. If it was easy, we'd plunder dead men's subspace pockets all the time." He seems able enough to take apart the incorrect parts, so that Fleet can put them back together again properly.

Fleet considers this a moment as he works. He tilts his head. "Point, although... perhaps that would be a worthwhile project at some point? Plundering dead subspace pockets, I mean. I imagine there must be /some/ people who had some pretty useful stuff in subspace when they died." He pauses. "Didn't Optimus Prime have a seige weapon in his trailer?"

Scrapper's optical band takes on a wicked cast, and he admits, "Pulling Optimus Prime's trailer out of subspace and using it against the Autobots would be worth all the trouble, just to see the looks on their faces." Meanwhile, he's having to use almost all his body just to wrench off some bolts.

"Erm... I can get that," Fleet says, reaching over to help Scrapper remove the bolts. "And yes - no doubt they'd be quite shaken, given their sentimentality." Scrapper grudgingly accepts Fleet's help with the bolts. He really does need it. "Though we did have that evil Optimus Prime just last year, didn't we? Hrm. Maybe I should raid Wheeljack's subspace pocket. I'm sure he had some interesting goodies in there..."

"I recall hearing about that," Fleet answers as he finishes pulling off the bolts. "And before that, the evil Ultra Magnus." Of course Fleet remembers that. He was there when Ultra Magnus was replaced! The Seeker glances over at Scrapper, hesitates, then adds, "I, erm, suspect they're still out there. Or he's still out there." He may not have been there for the evil Optimus Prime's disappearance (though he certainly remembers LOSING HIS FACE to him), but the Seeker /is/ bright, and he has some... inside information on the matter.

Scrapper rubs his chin and adds, "And the evil me! And the evil you. But I don't think the Autobots were as concerned about the evil us, since they normally think that we're evil, anyway. Can you imagine that - us, evil? I mean, just because I tore down Crystal City, make death lasers, and turn into a foot, and just because you're a Seeker..." He shakes his head sadly. "Intolerant. That's what Autobots are. Intolerant." The piledriver now has all the wrong parts removed, so Fleet can finish assembling it properly. Tiny little Scrapper flits off to work on wiring, because he doesn't need to be big to do that.

Fleet gives a very brief but very vicious grin. "That's quite all right. I'm intolerant of Autobots." The grin flickers back into existance for a moment, stronger. "And I probably /am/ evil." He remembers being old. It was strange, him and not him, but he is determined to get that old 'naturally,' and if he has to do unnatural things for it, so be it.

Fleet has disconnected.

Fleet has connected.

Scrapper pauses in working on wiring to briefly stare at Fleet, and he mentally revises his evaluation of Fleet from 'smarter than he looks' to 'odd, odd duck'. He hmms a bit to himself and asks, though he'll probably regret it, "Er, what makes you say that?" Ugh, braiding cable harnesses is such a pain... "You seem quite the upstanding chap."

Fleet gives a shrug of his right wing and shoulder. "I've made deals with demons, led others to do the same, and would do it again if it served my purposes." He grins again, this time a more 'normal' grin. "Of course, many Decepticons probably would. If the Sweeps are to be believed - you know, about Unicron being a 'dark god' or whatever - we currently have one for an Emperor, anyway."

Scrapper grumbles, "Demons and dark gods are a crock, anyway. Uhm. Even if I may have worked for a demon before and may currently be employed by the Herald of a dark god. But anyway, even if magic wasn't a load of nonsense, that doesn't make you evil! Bad civic planning, now /that/ is evil." The construction engineer sniffs. Okay, so the ground line goes along here...

Fleet hmmms softly as he finishes assembling the piledriver according to the instructions. "I suppose definitions of evil vary from person to person - something the Autobots won't acknowledge. But that's quite all right. If I were to define evil, it would be to act contrary to one's purpose. We Decepticons are built for war and conquest, and we conquer and make war. The Autobots were intended as ser-" and then Fleet realizes that maybe he should /not/ be continuing along this line of throught near Scrapper and he 'accidently' drops a beam he'd been dragging into place onto his foot. "YOWCH!" The Seeker stumbles back, snarls, and tests his foot carefully. "By the Eigth," he mutters.

Scrapper's optical band starts to narrow as Fleet goes down that path, and then, Fleet so clumsily drops a beam on his foot. Scrapper once against covers his face with his hands. He grouses, "Fine, let me have a look at your foot. You're not half that clumsy in the air - can't you just hover on the job site?" Scrapper pauses what he's doing to flit over nearer to Fleet.

"Certainly, though that might be viewed as a waste of energon," Fleet answers, letting Scrapper check his foot. "The damage seems pretty minor - I'm pretty sure my self-repair systems can handle it quickly."

Scrapper agrees with Fleet's assessment that the damage is minor. So he just chides, "Safety is key! Safety is what separates us from Autobots. That and better fashion sense." That warning delivered, he gets back to work!

Fleet gives Scrapper a faint smile. Well, that is what seperates /Scrapper/ from the Autobots, perhaps, though Fleet knows better than to let hold that little detail against the Constructicon. He's proven himself true Decepticon in far too many ways for Fleet's comfort, and Scrapper's responsible for repairing Fleet. Important reasons not to piss him off!

"I'll keep that in mind, sir," he answers before returning to work.