Ep0 - Random Corridor - Closed
Dec 3, 2011 6:20:40 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Dec 3, 2011 6:20:40 GMT -5
(Bulkhead / Arcee - before Ironhide pummels Barricade)
Barricade was in their base.
Barricade. Was in. Their base. And he wouldn’t shut up.
Smug self-assuredness was as blatantly displayed as his faction sigal, and Bulkhead was giving the brig a wide berth because of it. He had no real history with the infiltrator, just knew enough from reports and rumours that Barricade was one of Megatron’s best and meanest, and having him in their brig was one of the most significant achievements of the war effort. And one of the most dangerous. Barricade was a master of manipulation and mental power games, conniving and slick on top of all the crimes he’d committed. It had put everyone on edge.
Bulkhead had just come back in from patrol and was heading straight to the still for a night-cube before recharge. His processor was buzzing, thumping with everything that was going on right now. Bumblebee, the Fallen Warship of Energon-Poisoning Death, and now Barricade. Just pounding inside his helm.
The big warrior stopped mid-pace in the corridor when he realized that the pounding was neither metaphorical or imagined. Something was striking unyielding metal, hard and repeatedly. With suspicions already in mind, Bulkhead followed the sound to investigate.
Arcee pounded the walls of Omega Base relentlessly. She brought him in, as is her duty to her Prime. She might skirt around his orders in order to accomplished the mission as she felt needed to be done, but her loyalty to Optimus was unquestionable.
However, that didn’t mean capturing Barricade had been easy for her.
The small melee fighter traded punches and kicks with the hapless wall. Her servo joints stung raw from the constant beating, but she paid the sensation no heed. The physical outlet barely relieved the mental tug-of-war within.
The spark of the matter laid in the fact Arcee didn’t know how she felt about Barricade anymore. Hence, her angered frustration.
The odd camaraderie from their Enforcer days surfaced to the front of her processor after forcibly burying the memories long ago when the team split. Who was in the wrong and betrayed the trust first between the two of them. Both. Neither. Perhaps the break up was envitable and both accepted each other’s choice at the time.
Low thudding footsteps echoed to her right, defusing her frustration a bit. She turned to face her incoming company and called out with a resigned sigh, “Hey, Bulk.”
Bulkhead had stopped a safe distance away, and now looked between the impressively tarnished wall and the small femme with an arched brow. “Hey ‘Cee...” He shifted his weight from pede to pede, scanners flicking to check they were alone and that her pummelling wasn’t drawing any more attention. “Fancy giving that wall a break and getting a cube of High Grade? I reckon with Barricade sat yapping away in the brig, we need as much of the infrastructure intact as possible.”
Arcee perked her optic ridges, “We got high-grade? Since when?” The idea of getting cratered was indeed tempting. Perhaps, it would help make her jumbled feelings and thoughts straighten out.
Ironically, Barricade always said the slurs of a drunken mechanism were the words of truth. He certainly pulled more than few secrets from her that way on the few occasions they had to celebrate. The femme shrugged, “Lead the way.”
Grinning, actually feeling like he was helping, Bulkhead stepped up close to her and touched a hand to her back before leading them further down the corridor. Two lefts and a right took them into the largely unused storage areas, and tucked inside one of the small bays was the still and a few crates of parts that would serve quite nicely as seats.
He knelt and produced an empty cube from his subplace, filling it from the tap at the bottom of the still and holding it out for her. Absently, Bulkhead noted the dents and scuff marks that he hadn’t quite beaten and buffed out of the frame from his ‘bonding session’ with Ironhide. Or the walls. Or the floor, for that matter. He filled a second cube for himself.
“Ironhide and I built it a few days ago. First batch finishing stewing a few hours ago, so I figure it’s fate. It’s Wrecker strength, so take it easy.”
Arcee accepted the offered cube of high-grade with shrug, unconcerned, swirling the cube’s dubious contents and inspecting it with a critical optic.
“Can’t be any worse the mixers my squad concocted from confiscated contraband stored at the Precinct back in the day. At least that’s what my teammates theorized our depraved Six got his supplies for our occasional off-duty party, get-together, or whatever you want to call it.”
The cycle-former drifted through the shambled room and hooked a pede on a displaced crate, dragging said crate closer to her frame. Enough experiences with experimental beverages taught Arcee very quickly she’d never amount to a pro-drinker. That and landing on her skidplate too many times, followed by the relentless laughter of her squadmates. She still could have sworn they did it on purpose half the time.
Settling on the crate, Arcee quickly chugged back a mouthful of the freshly made high-grade, swiftly covering her lip components with a small servo as the drink hit her systems like raw acid. Her EMF flared out from the shock to her system and barely maintained her grip on the rest of the cube. Arcee shuddered until finally the sensation passed. She placed a twitching servo to her chasis feeling a noticeable warmth emitting from her frame. The femme twisted back to face Bulkhead with an appreciative nod.
“A good mixture you got here, Bulk. Some nice kick.”
“Just like you, ‘Cee,” he replied with a smile, taking a swig from his own cube with an appreciative rumble. A few minutes passed with just the comfortable tick and hum of their systems and the still’s own mechanisms breaking the silence. Bulkhead liked that they could just be quiet together - the Wreckers thrived on noise and physicality every waking hour, as if silence would hurt them in some way. He liked sharing the quiet with his teammates, now.
But, he knew, Arcee hadn’t been wailing on that wall for fun, and there were some things that had to be said, otherwise they would rust a hole from the spark out.
“So.” He arched an optical ridge, resting his elbows back on a crate and settling his weight comfortably across his pedes. “You gonna get the glitch that’s got you trashing the base off your processor, or am I gonna have to wait until you’re too cratered to stand?”
“Trust me, Bulkhead, you wouldn’t have to wait long to get me singing,” Arcee mumbled from behind her cube, grimacing though with less effect. She shook her helm already feeling her circuits frazzled from the potent brew.
The blue femme starred uncharacteristically at the still room floor unfocused for several minutes, her steaming cube forgotten in her servos as she struggled with indecision internally. Maybe it was the high-grade or maybe it was the lack of Cliffjumper to confide in privately. Cliffjumper already knew bits of her previous occupation before the war, but the bull-headed ‘bot was no longer an option.
“Ghosts, Bulkhead, that’s what.” Arcee whispered softly, not making optic contact. “I haven’t had to think about my old enforcer unit in a long time and I wasn’t necessarily expecting a reunion here on Earth with my Six, namely Barricade.”
A sympathetic engine rumble from the big mech, and Bulkhead kept his optics on Arcee as if she were about to look up. “Not the best of reunions so far as old units, go. Pit, I think you’ve topped me and the fake Jackie with this one,” he uttered quietly, mouth quirking upwards just slightly.
His expression turned serious, resigned, and weary in a way that he was seeing in just about everyone that had spent any one-to-one time with Barricade. There was just something... about that Con. “He mess with ya, ‘Cee? This more than just ghosts?”
“Barricade messes with everyone, Bulk. It’s part of who he is.” Arcee sighed. “He just does it with different degrees.”
The weary femme stretched her frame’s linkage and flinched from a sharp pain deep in her left shoulder. A physical pain representing the tear in her spark from confronting Barricade after all these centuries and hunting him down as the enemy rather than alongside a squadmate.
“‘Cade always chaffed with the higher ups. He despised getting orders from mechs of equal rank, but who had the ego the size of Primus himself.” The femme snorted harshly. “I can’t say I disagreed either. It’s no wonder he went AWOL so often. My team and I sometimes thought he would just disappear altogether, but the fragger always came back if at the worst of times.”
“You know him pretty well,” Bulkhead surmised quietly, gazing at his reflection in the cube of High Grade as if it might hold answers for them both. “What do you think we should do with him?”
Several drawn-out minutes passed till Arcee composed her own jumble thoughts on the subject of Barricade’s fate. “I don’t have a slaggin’ clue,” Arcee shot her optics to meet the wrecker’s.
“I’m probably the last person anyone should ask considering I used to be teammates with the glitch.” She tossed back another gulp and waited for the burning tingle to slide down her lines. “‘Cade had my back, my trust, once, and forgetting that ain’t easy, even though I know he crossed the line too many times.”
Bulkhead crossed the room to come and stand alongside Arcee, his massive frame feeling clumsy and awkward against her finely tuned movements. There were some benefits to his size, however, demonstrated as he slid down the wall to sit on the floor and gently tugged the two-wheeler into his side. Well: lap, really.
Enveloping her fully in his field, surrounding her with a tangible sense of cohort, loyalty and love, Bulkhead took great comfort in feeling the same back. “Well ‘Cee, we got your back now, whatever you end up doing. I think Ironhide’s more likely to tear that glitch-spawn a new one against Optimus’s orders at this rate than see him go, so he’ll probably get what he deserves and it wont be anything to do with you.”
Arcee squirmed uncomfortable at the unexpected spark-to-spark talk with Bulkhead of all people. Especially, since she always gave him a hard time about his clumsiness, but she gave the feeling back in return.
“Thanks, Bulkhead, I appreciate it. I really do.” The femme rose slowly to her pedes and slugged down the last of her cube. An uneasy simile danced across her faceplates, “I’m afraid things will only get more complicated here on out. Anything connected to Barricade always does.”
The two-wheeler placed the empty cube onto the still table and stumbled on her way out. Pausing she turned back to Bulkhead, “We’ll have to do this some other time, Bulk.”
Bulkhead smiled a little. “Any time, ‘Cee. I’m not going anywhere.”
-*-
Barricade was in their base.
Barricade. Was in. Their base. And he wouldn’t shut up.
Smug self-assuredness was as blatantly displayed as his faction sigal, and Bulkhead was giving the brig a wide berth because of it. He had no real history with the infiltrator, just knew enough from reports and rumours that Barricade was one of Megatron’s best and meanest, and having him in their brig was one of the most significant achievements of the war effort. And one of the most dangerous. Barricade was a master of manipulation and mental power games, conniving and slick on top of all the crimes he’d committed. It had put everyone on edge.
Bulkhead had just come back in from patrol and was heading straight to the still for a night-cube before recharge. His processor was buzzing, thumping with everything that was going on right now. Bumblebee, the Fallen Warship of Energon-Poisoning Death, and now Barricade. Just pounding inside his helm.
The big warrior stopped mid-pace in the corridor when he realized that the pounding was neither metaphorical or imagined. Something was striking unyielding metal, hard and repeatedly. With suspicions already in mind, Bulkhead followed the sound to investigate.
Arcee pounded the walls of Omega Base relentlessly. She brought him in, as is her duty to her Prime. She might skirt around his orders in order to accomplished the mission as she felt needed to be done, but her loyalty to Optimus was unquestionable.
However, that didn’t mean capturing Barricade had been easy for her.
The small melee fighter traded punches and kicks with the hapless wall. Her servo joints stung raw from the constant beating, but she paid the sensation no heed. The physical outlet barely relieved the mental tug-of-war within.
The spark of the matter laid in the fact Arcee didn’t know how she felt about Barricade anymore. Hence, her angered frustration.
The odd camaraderie from their Enforcer days surfaced to the front of her processor after forcibly burying the memories long ago when the team split. Who was in the wrong and betrayed the trust first between the two of them. Both. Neither. Perhaps the break up was envitable and both accepted each other’s choice at the time.
Low thudding footsteps echoed to her right, defusing her frustration a bit. She turned to face her incoming company and called out with a resigned sigh, “Hey, Bulk.”
Bulkhead had stopped a safe distance away, and now looked between the impressively tarnished wall and the small femme with an arched brow. “Hey ‘Cee...” He shifted his weight from pede to pede, scanners flicking to check they were alone and that her pummelling wasn’t drawing any more attention. “Fancy giving that wall a break and getting a cube of High Grade? I reckon with Barricade sat yapping away in the brig, we need as much of the infrastructure intact as possible.”
Arcee perked her optic ridges, “We got high-grade? Since when?” The idea of getting cratered was indeed tempting. Perhaps, it would help make her jumbled feelings and thoughts straighten out.
Ironically, Barricade always said the slurs of a drunken mechanism were the words of truth. He certainly pulled more than few secrets from her that way on the few occasions they had to celebrate. The femme shrugged, “Lead the way.”
Grinning, actually feeling like he was helping, Bulkhead stepped up close to her and touched a hand to her back before leading them further down the corridor. Two lefts and a right took them into the largely unused storage areas, and tucked inside one of the small bays was the still and a few crates of parts that would serve quite nicely as seats.
He knelt and produced an empty cube from his subplace, filling it from the tap at the bottom of the still and holding it out for her. Absently, Bulkhead noted the dents and scuff marks that he hadn’t quite beaten and buffed out of the frame from his ‘bonding session’ with Ironhide. Or the walls. Or the floor, for that matter. He filled a second cube for himself.
“Ironhide and I built it a few days ago. First batch finishing stewing a few hours ago, so I figure it’s fate. It’s Wrecker strength, so take it easy.”
Arcee accepted the offered cube of high-grade with shrug, unconcerned, swirling the cube’s dubious contents and inspecting it with a critical optic.
“Can’t be any worse the mixers my squad concocted from confiscated contraband stored at the Precinct back in the day. At least that’s what my teammates theorized our depraved Six got his supplies for our occasional off-duty party, get-together, or whatever you want to call it.”
The cycle-former drifted through the shambled room and hooked a pede on a displaced crate, dragging said crate closer to her frame. Enough experiences with experimental beverages taught Arcee very quickly she’d never amount to a pro-drinker. That and landing on her skidplate too many times, followed by the relentless laughter of her squadmates. She still could have sworn they did it on purpose half the time.
Settling on the crate, Arcee quickly chugged back a mouthful of the freshly made high-grade, swiftly covering her lip components with a small servo as the drink hit her systems like raw acid. Her EMF flared out from the shock to her system and barely maintained her grip on the rest of the cube. Arcee shuddered until finally the sensation passed. She placed a twitching servo to her chasis feeling a noticeable warmth emitting from her frame. The femme twisted back to face Bulkhead with an appreciative nod.
“A good mixture you got here, Bulk. Some nice kick.”
“Just like you, ‘Cee,” he replied with a smile, taking a swig from his own cube with an appreciative rumble. A few minutes passed with just the comfortable tick and hum of their systems and the still’s own mechanisms breaking the silence. Bulkhead liked that they could just be quiet together - the Wreckers thrived on noise and physicality every waking hour, as if silence would hurt them in some way. He liked sharing the quiet with his teammates, now.
But, he knew, Arcee hadn’t been wailing on that wall for fun, and there were some things that had to be said, otherwise they would rust a hole from the spark out.
“So.” He arched an optical ridge, resting his elbows back on a crate and settling his weight comfortably across his pedes. “You gonna get the glitch that’s got you trashing the base off your processor, or am I gonna have to wait until you’re too cratered to stand?”
“Trust me, Bulkhead, you wouldn’t have to wait long to get me singing,” Arcee mumbled from behind her cube, grimacing though with less effect. She shook her helm already feeling her circuits frazzled from the potent brew.
The blue femme starred uncharacteristically at the still room floor unfocused for several minutes, her steaming cube forgotten in her servos as she struggled with indecision internally. Maybe it was the high-grade or maybe it was the lack of Cliffjumper to confide in privately. Cliffjumper already knew bits of her previous occupation before the war, but the bull-headed ‘bot was no longer an option.
“Ghosts, Bulkhead, that’s what.” Arcee whispered softly, not making optic contact. “I haven’t had to think about my old enforcer unit in a long time and I wasn’t necessarily expecting a reunion here on Earth with my Six, namely Barricade.”
A sympathetic engine rumble from the big mech, and Bulkhead kept his optics on Arcee as if she were about to look up. “Not the best of reunions so far as old units, go. Pit, I think you’ve topped me and the fake Jackie with this one,” he uttered quietly, mouth quirking upwards just slightly.
His expression turned serious, resigned, and weary in a way that he was seeing in just about everyone that had spent any one-to-one time with Barricade. There was just something... about that Con. “He mess with ya, ‘Cee? This more than just ghosts?”
“Barricade messes with everyone, Bulk. It’s part of who he is.” Arcee sighed. “He just does it with different degrees.”
The weary femme stretched her frame’s linkage and flinched from a sharp pain deep in her left shoulder. A physical pain representing the tear in her spark from confronting Barricade after all these centuries and hunting him down as the enemy rather than alongside a squadmate.
“‘Cade always chaffed with the higher ups. He despised getting orders from mechs of equal rank, but who had the ego the size of Primus himself.” The femme snorted harshly. “I can’t say I disagreed either. It’s no wonder he went AWOL so often. My team and I sometimes thought he would just disappear altogether, but the fragger always came back if at the worst of times.”
“You know him pretty well,” Bulkhead surmised quietly, gazing at his reflection in the cube of High Grade as if it might hold answers for them both. “What do you think we should do with him?”
Several drawn-out minutes passed till Arcee composed her own jumble thoughts on the subject of Barricade’s fate. “I don’t have a slaggin’ clue,” Arcee shot her optics to meet the wrecker’s.
“I’m probably the last person anyone should ask considering I used to be teammates with the glitch.” She tossed back another gulp and waited for the burning tingle to slide down her lines. “‘Cade had my back, my trust, once, and forgetting that ain’t easy, even though I know he crossed the line too many times.”
Bulkhead crossed the room to come and stand alongside Arcee, his massive frame feeling clumsy and awkward against her finely tuned movements. There were some benefits to his size, however, demonstrated as he slid down the wall to sit on the floor and gently tugged the two-wheeler into his side. Well: lap, really.
Enveloping her fully in his field, surrounding her with a tangible sense of cohort, loyalty and love, Bulkhead took great comfort in feeling the same back. “Well ‘Cee, we got your back now, whatever you end up doing. I think Ironhide’s more likely to tear that glitch-spawn a new one against Optimus’s orders at this rate than see him go, so he’ll probably get what he deserves and it wont be anything to do with you.”
Arcee squirmed uncomfortable at the unexpected spark-to-spark talk with Bulkhead of all people. Especially, since she always gave him a hard time about his clumsiness, but she gave the feeling back in return.
“Thanks, Bulkhead, I appreciate it. I really do.” The femme rose slowly to her pedes and slugged down the last of her cube. An uneasy simile danced across her faceplates, “I’m afraid things will only get more complicated here on out. Anything connected to Barricade always does.”
The two-wheeler placed the empty cube onto the still table and stumbled on her way out. Pausing she turned back to Bulkhead, “We’ll have to do this some other time, Bulk.”
Bulkhead smiled a little. “Any time, ‘Cee. I’m not going anywhere.”
-*-