Ep 1.5 It's On Again (Pyrotech and Roulette/closed)

[Deleted]

((OOC-When: Set during Week two, day two.
Where: Ass end of nowhere.
Why: Because Shockwave has...plans.
Permission to NPC Shockwave granted))

"Oh good, you're here."

Roulette knew the minute those words were spoken she shouldn't have walked into the lab. Without pausing mid-stride, the femme turned and headed for the door only to find it locked in her face. Son-of-a-If I turn around and he has a tool in his hand, I'm going to shoot him this time.

Instead of tweezers, or Primus forbid a probe, she turned to find a datapad waiting in his hand. She was still highly suspicious of this whole deal but carefully took the battered property and cradled it against her side. The thought of reading it didn't even occur to her. She had her own datapad for him to fill with notes and queries (which he did enough for her to have to purge the damn thing every so often) and while she was curious, she wasn't stupid. If he'd wanted her to know what was on the datapad, he would have told her to read it first.

Which he may or may not have instructed during his directions. Two minutes into the chat, Roulette had gotten tired of listening to the drone about blueprints and plans and started watching the sea monkeys swim around the tank. They were oddly soothing in their little gyrations. If only there was some ambient lighting to go along with their flailing. Maybe a mini disco ball or-

"If he refuses or asks for something unreasonable, I will take it out of your time."

Whoa, hold the fecking phone. That brought the femme around with a mental record screeching halt. She ticked back over the mental checklist she had made while he'd instructed her. Go to these coordinates, wait for pickup, talk to this mech (yeah, so far so good), and persuade him to work on Shockwave's project. So what in the slag was this about accountability??

"What the slag, I'm not responsible for him! If he doesn't want to work on your...whatever this is, why should I get in trouble for it?" There were times she really thought maybe she was finally going to step over that illusive line and irritate Shockwave. One day she'd push him too far and he'd do...something. It was the unknown threat of something that kept her awake some cycles. However, apparently this wasn't the day.

"You are my proxy, are you not?"

"...Fine. I'll go play recruit for you. Didn't want to be on the ship anymore, anyway." Which was a bold faced lie. As much as she enjoyed time off the Nemesis, ever since the attack she'd balked at the idea of leaving the safety net here. Behind the thick plating of the ship, she couldn't be caught or hurt again. As she turned to head for the door, she cut her optics at the scientist, partly suspicious of this being his plan all along. Forcing her out to deal with her fears so she couldn't sit and stew on them.

...pfft, what a thought. Like he cares. Good one.

The trip to the groundbridge took less time than she wanted. She was already fueled and locked and loaded. There was no need to stall but her pace slowed imperceptibly as she neared Soundwave's domain. So she was going planetside again. Big deal! She'd done so plenty of times and hadn't been hurt. Just because she'd gotten injured the one time, and by humans (who had been very well prepared) didn't mean it would happen every time. And she was being sent to a secure location that she didn't even know about.

The slag is that about, anyway?

With a twitchy shrug, she nodded to Soundwave and waited for him to set up her destination. The churning maw of the bridge swirled in front of her and she was glad not to hesitate before walking into it. See, she could do this. No big fragging deal. She could set foot on this stupid planet and enjoy the-

...flat, boring, monotone landscape. Wow, was this ever the worst thing she'd seen. How could there be so many shrubs in one area?

"..Oh wow, this sucks."

[Pyrotech]

Well, not only those grey-green spindly shrubs that barely came up past her ankle. There was yellow, dry grass and thorny twisted trees that fought upwards, wishing for rain.

... some rocks.

A lot of rocks.

Oh so many boring, boring rocks.

Dirt too, yellowish and dull against the rather barren landscape. The day was overcast but still uncomfortably hot. Tiny wisps of sky poked through the clouds but that was all they did; the slits of blue seemed sullen and dull. On one side of her the flat horizon shimmered and rippled. On the other side, a long stretch of hard terrain, shelves of black basalt stacked up on each other over and over. They lined deep gullies and sharp dry washes deep enough to hide a plane.

Wings and all. Not even a cropduster, no, some of these could no doubt swallow up a good sized jet and grind it to bits between the jagged teeth of the arid terrain.

In the distance all around Roulette were long stretches of faded brown hills. Lazy insects buzzed around the femme; drawn by the shadows of her body and the way her bulk blocked the slight breeze.

At least there was a road. It wasn't much of one as far as roads went. A was a dry path of hardpack dirt winding off into those hills. An access road, but one that obviously wasn't traveled very often by anyone except the rangers looking for fires or range cattle that had pushed their way over the barbed wire fences in the winter and clumsily clambered off to get lost among this wilderness.

She didn't have to wait long though, before there was a light click, a bit of a polite, careful touch against an open frequency that was common among the Decepticons. It didn't just barge across the line - there was a long moment before the caller spoke.

"Roulette? I was informed you would be arriving."

A mech's voice, calm and quiet. His accent touched every word, dry and urbane.

"One of my crew is headed to your position now, to lead you in. They won't be very long."

Then there was a pause. "I apologize for the rather unfortunate road ahead of time; I am under orders for this outpost to stay as low profile as possible." [/i]

[Deleted]

All of her fears of MECH were drying up in the baked atmosphere of Nowhere Valley. It was possible the human filth could show up and attack her but...would that be any more miserable than this bland land surrounding her? At least she'd hear them coming. There was nothing out here to drown out the silence, even if the bugs were giving it an honest go.

She twitched as one of the insects landed on her shoulder. The urge to slap it off with the datapad was up there but she kept her hands by her sides. The grasshopper couldn't do any damage to her other than mess her armor and she wasn't as fickle about her paint job. It had taken several cycles before she'd finally covered the damage inflicted by the humans. Had some part of her just wanted to cling to the marks as proof or possible punishment to remind herself not to fail?

In the heat, her refreshed black paint job fairly well gave off heat fumes. In moments the insect moved on to cooler perches and left her waiting for contact. She didn't have to wait long. As expected, contact was made through a secure comm and she listened, head slightly tilted to the side, trying to place the voice. Had she met him before or no? His voice didn't ring a bell and she would have remembered the slightly clipped tone. There was something about the voice that brought to mind...

"I'm used to taking a bumpy road but the warning is appreciated."

It seemed like every location Shockwave sent her had either no road or a goat path that pretended to be a road. Luckily she had a high clearance and didn't mind scratching up her new paint job.

[Feldspar]

There was a quiet chuckle. "Well, this one is worst than most, I apologize in advance. If I had my way I would fix it, but... I am afraid that is not an option. You are most welcome, though."

With that, there was another pause and a quiet, light click as the line politely disconnected.

It left Roulette with the sun baking down on her frame and the bugs that were droning off to go find a better place for shade. Tiny little feet prickled ever so lightly across the femme's paint and then with a whirr and a click the grasshopper launched off with a flick of blue wings, landing off in the brittle grass.

This stretch of road was made with heavy duty chassis and off road Jeep frames in mind. Large rocks were embedded in the dirt, and Roulette would no doubt have to go cautiously and carefully to keep from scraping her undercarriage all the way down it. She'd pass barbed wire fences as she traveled, bent over and twisted into rusty, sagging traps.

On one of them she passed a tiny grey bird. It sat in the in the sun on top of a rotting post and surveyed the landscape.

As Roulette drew abreast she would see that the animal had surrounded itself with tiny corpses. Insects impaled and drying along the sharp points of the old loops of wire; butterflies, grasshoppers, tiny moths. One of the myriad of bodies swung in the barely apparent breeze, the half-defleshed body of something with a brown fur and a thin, naked tail.

The shrike watched her pass as if surveying even her as possible prey, the car's gleaming black reflected in an equally beady eye.

Underneath her the road dipped sharply, and the flat horizon disppeared before curved around an outcropping of rock.

Roulette's sensors would sense the presence of another Cybertronian all of a sudden; the deep rut in the landscape had done a good job of blocking the bounceback. There was a graveled pull out here, a place where the rangers switched off their shifts. Today though, there weren't any humans. In fact, there had not been a single one to be seen this whole time.

It was only a black low-slung car, covered in road-grime. Surprisingly, it had the same technical feel to the design as Roulette's own alt mode did; all hood and little care for passenger capacity or fuel efficiency.

Neither Roulette or this car were at all like the new models that flitted along the highway, sashaying along with their bland cookie-cutter silver paint and oh so stylishly all the same rounded corners.

However, the car's wheelwells were thickly caked with dry mud and more had patterened back along the flanks. The long, sloping hood nearly touched the earth beneath it, and dry yellow grass brushed against the front bumper. There was no engine noise; the car was simply waiting in the heat. It bore old Oregon blue and gold plates. One rear tire was half-cocked sideways.

Something was apparent in an instant because of how it had parked itself.

Under the grime, a faded and mangled Decepticon sigil sat in the middle of a grey lightning bolt.

Already though, the car was straightening up. The mirrors flicked forward and then the vehicle lifted its bumper out of the dirt and grass. A whuff of air ruffled the dirt into little whorls. Sniff. Huff.

Then, out loud, it called quietly to her. "Ma'am? I- I've been sent to guide you back to the outpost."

[Deleted]

Shaking her head, the femme stashed the datapad into subspace and transformed to follow the road. Roulette was liking the scenery less and less. She could tolerate bugs over, even if their feet felt wretched across her plating. (She wasn't even going to think about how that would feel under the plates and in her sensitive bits.) But the psychotic birds are where she drew the line at. Was there anything on this planet that wasn't fracking nuts?!

I never thought I would say this, but, I miss home. There, I said it.

She followed the rutted road and grumbled internally at each rut and pothole. Well, at least she didn't have to worry about being approached in stealth out here. MECH was good but they weren't that good. The valley was too open for a surprise attack by air and the uneven terrain would require a vehicle with a much bigger (louder) engine than something stealthy.

Meeting up with her escort was about as she expected this to go. She couldn't even be bothered to snap a peppy one liner at the guide. Just rolled to a stop, in a plume of dust larger than herself, and gave the tiniest of tremors trying to displace the grime. Ah ha, that did nothing...

"Right, right." She sighed, the vents exhaling dust into the hot air. "Take me to your leader."

[Feldspar]

One of the Trans Am's pop up headlights raised slightly. A tiny snort escaped out from under the long hood, as if it was blowing some of the thick dust out of a vent to clear it.

"Yes ma'am," she murmured, and the headlight squinched back down. The car dipped gently towards Roulette with a bob of tires. The engine chattered, rattled and caught finally, there was a soft rumble with an underlying tick as if the vehicle had a bad lifter. Or maybe it needed a serious tuning.

Gears shifted, the car turned and slipped in front of Roulette. It was obvious she'd taken this road quite a bit, she led Roulette around the worst of the rocks imbeded in the dirt, careful to keep at a pace that didn't throw up huge amounts of dust.

Fifteen minutes passed; the other Decepticon didn't make any small talk. She gave off the general impression that she spoke when she was spoken to, and not much more than that. A few buzzards circled on an updraft in the distance, the long black wings smoothly cutting the sky. Something over there was likely dead or dying.

The road turned less dusty, but that was because it had come to the end of the DNR road and now was simply short scrub grass and brush. The car in front of Roulette turned left into the dry landscape. It was so flat that well, the road really didn't matter now. Brush would slap and scrape against Roulette's undercarriage. You really couldn't avoid it. At least the scrub bent and then sprang back up behind them, effectively covering their path. Her guide was picking the path carefully though, trying to make as gentle on Roulette as possible.

After twenty five minutes or so the car came to a stop on a rocky rise. The Trans Am turned on her front tires, shuffling them in the dirt. "We have to walk from here, ma'am," she said apologetically. "It's not too far though."

[Deleted]

The long, slow, annoying drive out into the boonies of The boonies gave Roulette plenty of time to think. Did I do something to piss Soundwave off? I can't fathom what. Was it that "mounting" Megatron thing? That wasn't my idea! There is no slagging reason to put the slagging bridge this far out. This is fuc-

Her internal rant was cut off by trans am coming to a stop. The other femme seemed, if at all possible, even more sheepish. Roulette couldn't figure out why. She wasn't a ranking officer or even that important. If anything, she was probably lower ranking then the other femme!

All too eagerly, Roulette transformed and gained her feet. Delicately, she waggled her feet, sending small rocks and debris from the textured pedes before they could work their way into armor seams. All the while she eyed her guide and tried to puzzle her out. She didn't think she'd ever met the femme before but that wasn't a surprise. The Nemesis was gigantic and there were whole levels she hadn't explored yet.

"Just so we're clear, I don't have to go through a trial on the way, do I? We're not going to stop to slay a dragon? Perhaps detour to fling a fragging ring into a volcano? Because I feel like I'm being led out to die here." The sardonic humor was great with this one.

[Feldspar]

As Roulette transformed and shook herself out the Trans Am turned on her tires and waited quietly for her to find her footing. Underneath the car's grimy hood the engine tick-a-ticked and then whirred into near silence. The little pebbles pinged off of Roulette's toes and bounced off down the gully into a dry wash.

The left headlight raised again at Roulette's comment. The car hesitated and then there was a soft little whuffing sound from under the hood. Then it transformed. Everything folded, tucked, sleeked down on the flanks, even the tires became hidden. At the end of the transformation sequence, the femme did not end up on her feet. Instead, she was crouched in the dirt, balanced on her fingertips and knee with a foot stretched behind her; the position of a sprinter in the blocks.

A moment later she was on her feet, tall and lanky; but the first thing she did was nod her head and offer Roulette a quick salute, a brush of her fingers against her sigil.

"No ma'am," she replied, unsure. The rear spoiler of her car mode had ended up behind her narrow shoulders, the tips pricking up over them as she focused on Roulette. "Er, no dragons. I think the last one got um, shot by this fellow with a Black Arrow, honest. As for the ring..."

"St. Helens is only a bit of a detour," she said. "It's still active."

Abruptly her attention was caught by something else. She turned her nose and glanced down into the valley below them.

A red mech was standing there in the distance near a series of rocky outcroppings. His body posture appeared calm and relaxed, he was simply waiting for them.

"Sorry, ma'am," the femme offered quickly. She took a few steps down a bit of a narrow path; no way their car forms would have traversed the slope safely. "It's not far now. Careful on the edge here, it's not entirely stable."

[Deleted]

At least the femme wasn't a complete stick in the mud. She'd been around Shockwave too long. Roulette was starting to suspect everyone had his deadpan way of seeing everything. But this femme got the reference, more or less, and even indulged in a fit of stupid. Which the gunslinger found to be very important for sanity.

"So, what's the deal with this place? Why the big secrecy and ah..." She gestured as she picked her way down the treacherous path. "...distance? Is it really so important I have to trek to get here? Not that I'm against a walk in the dusty, disgusting outdoors as the next gal. I'm just thinking I'm intruding on a place my middling ranking aft shouldn't be."

She wasn't even exaggerating. The thought that she was being a party to something that was closed off to grunts really bothered her. She didn't want to be privy to things. Things got one in trouble. It was bad enough being bosom buddies with Shockwave. She got to see the truly questionable slag the mech got up to. Bad enough when he decided to work with another officer.

[Feldspar]

The scruffy femme was picking her way carefully down the hillside. Her heels dug into the dirt; she slid about half a meter. There was no flailing from her though, no awkward grab. She merely shifted her weight and brushed her fingertips to the soil, her spoiler lowering a tick to counterbalance herself.

Tiny pebbles ground against the bottoms of Roulette's feet. The stones around her wavered in the heat. Perched on a rock, an Alligator lizard flicked out his tongue and fixed her with a beady yellow stare of haughty alien disapproval.

When Roulette spoke, the other femme glanced back up at her. Her spoiler pricked again over her shoulders, and then she looked around them, at the soft greens and the dry reds of the terrain. At the layers of grey stones and the blue haze of the mountains in the distance.

Some small, wistful expression seemed to cross her face at her surroundings, and then she carefully stepped the rest of the way to the bottom of the trail, patiently waiting for Roulette.

"We were over run once, back in Australia," she offered quietly after a moment once they started pacing onwards towards where the mech was paused. "I think my commander is, well... he's just careful, ma'am. Energy signatures on the bridge. Not enough of a team here to hold our ground any more if the Autobots find us. He's working on something, but I'm afraid I really don't know what it is either."

[Deleted]

"Ahh, security counters. I gotcha." The steep slope didn't pose too much of a challenge for Roulette but it didn't make for graceful descending either. She stopped trying to stay upright and instead, let the loose scree and gravity do the work for her. Lowering herself into a crouch, with one leg extended, she slid sideways down the slope. Her forearm rested over her bent leg to counter balance and control the rate of the slide. Once at a level that was less likely to make her bust her ass on the loose rocks, she easily pushed herself to her feet and adjusted the datapad still clasped in her hand.

"You actually like it out here, don't you?" She halfway turned to regard the femme, open interest on the sharpshooter's pretty face. "I'll admit, I haven't had the chance to explore. Kind of miss having the free time to just enjoy myself."

Unfortunate side effect of being a Decepticon was never getting the chance to actually just leave. Roulette was a solitary creature at the best of times but she was tethered to the ship. And yes while being out in the open in range of possible MECH attack was dangerous, she did have the faintest inkling to see the rest of the planet.

[Feldspar]

The femme watched Roulette's decent all the way down the unstable hill. She rocked over her toes, ready to step forward and offer her support if needed. This femme was sleek and glossy and pretty - well, minus the road dirt from their excursion so far, and she honestly didn't think Pyrotech would be happy if this guest did a faceplant in the dirt.

He could see them, and she'd get blamed later for not taking the proper precautions. Whatever this meeting was, it was important to him, and Dart did not want to take any chances of anything going wrong at the moment.

At Roulette's query, she blinked slightly. Blue optics eyed the data pad clutched in the smaller femme's hands and then quickly away from it. She shifted her weight again and tucked her hands quietly to the small of her back. A quiet duck of her head, her spoiler twitched and settled back slightly, the tips splaying back a tad bit.

Where her expression had been wistful, now it was wary, unsure. It was obvious she wasn't sure how she should reply to Roulette's question. The way she was standing exposed the nasty, deep damage done to her sigil, four parallel grooves through it. There was also another mark on her shoulder; a hastily slopped weld over what the sharpshooter no doubt would recognize easily as blast damage- some sort of small bore pistol.

"Yes ma'am," she finally answered. Her voice was cautious and careful. "So much room to... well, just run. S'a pretty place, Earth."

If she was going to say anything else, it was interrupted by the red mech deciding he'd waited long enough and had begun to walk towards them. Immediately the femme turned back to Roulette, made sure she was totally okay on the soil and then began to lead on once again, picking her way easily over the terrain. Where she stepped was solid, stable terrain, easy for the smaller femme to navigate without any problems.

[Deleted]

Huh, that's weird. I think I'mma have to get this one away from her superior over there. He could be a Captain Downer.

She made a mental note not to use that name to his face or within his hearing. Seemed a poor way to start negotiations. She doubted Shockwave would be thrilled if she returned empty handed because of her fondness for stupid pet names. She didn't want another trip to the fecking frozen tundra in her future.

"Hey, maybe we can go exploring some time. Off time of course. Wouldn't want to make anyone mad," she murmured to the femme's back as they picked their way across the terrain. If she was forced to admit it, Roulette was starting to maybe, sorta, kinda enjoy the quiet of the place. Yes, there was nothing around except a stupid array of scrub and rocks to be found. But the open plains were at least interesting under the play of sun and clouds.

Across the distance, she took the time to study the mech she was meeting. Shockwave, ever the rube that he was, gave her scant little to go on. He droned on about his credentials and rank but that didn't tell Roulette pit about what kind of mech she was meeting. Was he a tight ass? Did he like his job? Did the mind numbing amount of scrub grass around them drive him just a little batty?

I'd name one Terrance. Seems a fitting name for a plant...

[Feldspar]

Now that he was walking out of the shadow cast by the stones, the red mech's finish gleamed with obvious care - totally the opposite of the femme in front of Roulette.

From the tip of his helm to his feet, his primary color was bright, glossy vermillion, touched with black and cool grey and a smattering of yellow. He was also accented with brilliant touches of chrome, mostly a ladder angling from behind his left shoulder and along the front of his chest.

Roulette, being the sharpshooter she was, would instantly spy a cannon on the same shoulder.

He walked with deliberate steps across the dry, arid ground, confident in how he moved. The doors of his vehicle mode angled up behind his shoulders; he was a grounder with a car mode of some sort.

In front of Roulette, that spoiler twitched back slightly across the courier's narrow shoulders, and then lifted, ever so delicately. One notch, then another, and it betrayed a flash of surprise, perhaps, a tiny bit of delight in that someone was asking to explore the world.

This world that Dart loved and wanted to show, to share, to point out all the amazing things around it and try to encourage the awe in them, so that maybe, just maybe, they'd appreciate it for something other than a resource mine. See the humans for what they were, souls as different as each one of them. No, Cybertronians were not that far apart from them. Honest.

Yes, yes, I'd love to explore- she nearly blurted, and then she pulled up on the reins of her response hard. Words never made it past her thoughts.

It was one of those things Dart had come to understand over the years. Most Decepticons offering a friendly word, a bit of energon to share, a kind gesture... were likely doing it because they wanted something out of it for themselves. Especially when extended towards a low ranking dirt runner. Ulterior motives abounded among the ranking.

Dart couldn't help but feel a terrible twinge over the fact that she was honestly far more wary about acts of kindness from her fellow Decepticons than a straight forward snarl and a boot to the head.

"I don't get much time off, ma'am," she said finally. It was not a yes or a no or anything else. Quiet statement with a touch of apology.

That and- she sort of guarded that smidge of off time right now. Held it close with the little things. Taking pictures on her datapad of stars under a dark California sky. Playing Tetris - she still couldn't beat the high score. Finding quarters in the parking lots. Asking a nice old man behind a glass counter if it was at all possible to buy a just a pinback by any chance, while she was purchasing the postcard with those reclaimed quarters.

The man had liked the pin when she'd brought it out to show it to him, so careful not to drop it. He'd known it was old and surprisingly, what it had been given for. They had chatted for a while, since no one was in the store, and he had given her a look of approval when she'd said oh, she was fixing it for her professor. They'd chatted about schools in Oregon. Dart had known most of them. In the end, he'd given her the pinback for free, and wouldn't take any payment. Nope, he'd told her. Broken pins happen here with the tourist kids. Glad to help out.

Then the courier realized that her words might possibly be taken as rude by Roulette.

"I mean- I just-" she murmured. "Patrols and all that. Not enough of us here."

That was all she really had time to say before the red mech was within a distance she knew he could hear them.

"Good afternoon," the mech called out, his optics on Roulette. The courier immediately stepped aside to let them speak and tucked her hands behind her back, looking at the ground between her feet.

"As I mentioned earlier, I apologize for the state of the road," the mech offered. "You appear to have handled it well, though. I hope the warning was sufficient...?"

[Deleted]

Roulette tried to be put off by the femme's reaction but she couldn't. The hesitation and guarded demeanor was fully expected even in the friendliest in the ranks. Decepticons didn't make friends. There were allies and there were fraternizing but no one was truly friend material. One could have friends when a war wasn't obliterating the last of their race down to their dwindling numbers.

That didn't mean that Roulette was going to leave the femme alone in the future. Turning the sharpshooter away was just raising a challenge to be over come. Which is probably why she ended up in more trouble than she would if she'd just mind her own damned business. But where was the fun in that?

Unfortunately, it was time for business and Roulette respectfully turned her attention to the mech. She gave a polite salute because opening a negotiation with insolence was less likely to achieve anything. That and the mech had been nothing but courteous so far. Except for the shit road, she sourly thought to herself.

"Let's face it, I've been to far worse places under Shockwave's command. He has a particular talent for ruining a good time."