[ti]Ep 2[/ti]For a Song [Closed/Vega]

[Sparkplug]

Episode 2 | Week 4 | Day 2

Deep within the labyrinthine corridors of the Nemesis, something was making a terrible racket. Clanging and banging echoed off the walls, punctuated by the rattle of tiny wheels over gratings and floor panels. Tragically, it seemed that despite millions of years of warfare-driven research - research carried out by one of the most technologically adept species in the galaxy - even Cybertronians had yet to invent a cart that didn't have one sticking wheel and a defiantly intense desire to lurch violently into walls.

Both hands planted on the pushing bar, one arm straight, the other crooked at an angle to allow for its considerably greater length, Sparkplug shoved the heavily laden trolley along, hampered by the fact that the piles of sheet metal and primitive bolts, fasteners and hinges weighed rather more than she did. Nonetheless, the white-plated femme seemed to be taking the difficulties in her stride, cursing out the trolley in a cheerful, good-natured manner each time it made a break for freedom.

In the gaps when she wasn't swearing at it, she was singing.

"A woman's touch, can weave a spell, the kind of hocus pocus that she does so well," she sang out as she navigated a tricky corner, interjecting, "Around the corner, y'malfunctioning heap of misbegotten, forgotten, unwanted, two-credit scrap." One wheel juddering and only fitfully contacting the ground, the hand-cart lurched onwards down a straighter section, letting Sparkplug return to her song.

She'd picked up the music from one of the thousands of radio signals bouncing off the ionosphere and raining down from the satellites above, attached to some kind of footage of humans cleaning and repairing a broken down habitation module. It reminded her of the work she was doing herself to fix up the disused storage room she'd been granted, and turn it into something usable.

Start with the good points: it was relatively roomy, for a chamber on the warship. That was pretty much where the good points ended. Some of the clutter and debris in there had been there for so long, she'd actually had to use her angle grinder to separate it from the floor. It was dingy, poorly lit, and every flat surface that used to be inside was so lumpy with rust and grime that it had been easier to cut it out, dump the entire mess into the on-board smelting plant, and start from scratch.

Still, here she was, with a big cart full of raw materials, a space of her own to work with, and a long afternoon full of cutting, screwing and welding to look forward to. Her spirits rising, she sang a little louder, tilting her helm up.

"A woman's touch, can quickly fill, the empty flower boxes on the windowsill... what's a windowsill, anyway?"

[Deleted]

The normally silent, winding halls of the Nemesis were oddly lively this day. The Vehicons roaming in the unlikely event of intruders that normally broke the rumble of the engines with their steps had an unlikely accompaniment. Actual song.... And quite a lot of banging. It was an odd thing to hear in this place. Something so upbeat in a dimly lit war ship filled with the deadliest militia Cybertron had to offer. The banging wasn't very strange but loud for certain.

Vega had been scanning over several topographical maps of large land masses - and every so often flipping to the tab she reserved for reading the works of Mr. Lewis Carroll - when she had heard it. She paused briefly in her stroll as one of the more sociable Vehicons greeted her politely in passing. With her attention turned from her research she heard all the commotion down the hallway.

"What in the world?"

Vega pivoted and followed the sound down the dim hallway. She had just rounded a corner when another bang and several curses echoed back off the plated hallway. Such profanity! Vega came to a slow stop as the jovial tune returned and it's origin followed behind. A rather cheery femme shuffling behind a rather run down looking cart over filled with what looked like scrap. The thing looked fit to fall apart at any moment. No wonder it had issues taking corners.

Vega blinked twice as she watched this scene. Why was this strange femme so bloody happy? What in Primus' name was she even singing? Vega had never heard anything like it before. She approached the stranger, lifting her free hand in an attempt to get her attention.

"Pardon me, but what are you doing?"

Her head tilted slightly and her finials mimicked the motion. She had seen some odd things in her life but this was the strangest in a very long time. She began to question just what kind of people made this army. It may be rude to say aloud but this femme didn't exactly exude 'Decepticon'. But that wasn't for her to say.

[Sparkplug]

Vega's approach was mostly covered by the rattling of the trolley, and whatever hints of movement weren't lost under the bang and rattle were buried under Sparkplug's cheerful singing. Thus, she was rather surprised to look up and find a tall, broad femme with an extended hand in the middle of the corridor, and had to haul on the handle to make the trolley stop before it rattled onwards into the flier's shins. Some of the plating piled atop it shifted forward a little, but nothing actually fell off.

The other femme was tall, as tall as Starscream, and considerably broader than the dagger-edged mech. Sparkplug, while not skinny, only came up to the middle of the flier's chest, and she had to tilt her head back to look her in the optics. Her field broadcasting good-natured friendliness, she gave a little wave of her left hand.

"Oh, hey there," she replied cheerily, looking Vega over. "Heck, you sure are big, aren't you. Don't reckon we've met, since I'm pretty sure I'd have remembered the sudden eclipse. I'm Sparkplug. Nice to meet you."

Leaning on the trolley handle, which sidled forward with a squeak, she went on, "I'm pretty new around here, and I've not long been assigned a room to work in. You would not believe the mess in there. Had to hack everything back to the walls and floor, basically. Still needs a lot of loving attention. But this little pile here-" she patted the heaped odds and ends atop her trolley, "will go a ways towards remedying that. Reckon I've got the makings of a decent tilting table, some work benches, got some fresh illumination elements for the lights, all sorts of things. Got to make a little weapons range, too, so that's what the armour slabs are for."

Shaking her helm, Sparkplug laughed. "Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. Just excited, you know? It's a lot of fun kitting out a new place, and it's been a long while since I got to try doing it from scratch. So what's your name?"

[Deleted]

The stranger came to a rolling halt, Vega taking a single cautionary step backward as the items on top shifted forward. The other femme was noticably smaller than her - her eyes meeting Vega's chest plates - and was unfathomably cheerful. A wash of good natured merriment threatened to drown her as the smaller femme's field surrounded her. It was...so bizarre. Such a stark contrast to the dimly lit and high rising halls of the Nemesis. Then she began talking...

... By Primus she could barely keep up. Somewhere in there was an introduction or at least she thought there was. It was hard to tell through all the other information being dumped on her. Once she was certain she could speak freely she cleared her throat.

"Ah... Yes I do suppose I am taller than most others aren't I? A pleasure I'm sure."

She kept her tone soft, polite, and held her field close to her to keep her befuddlement a secret from Sparkplug. Vega didn't want to upset the smaller femme and make her think she was overwhelming. She'd met far worse, espcially when said individual was so intoxicated they felt the need to blubber on and on about their personal problems. Sparkplug was a pleasure by sheer comparison.

And at least she seemed polite.

Vega slowly lowered her eyes to the large quanity of...things the smaller femme had acquired. The old push cart was nearly buckling under the weight of how much she'd placed inside it. There certainly was a large workload ahead if she felt the need to take this much. Hopefully she wouldn't be getting a knock on her door from a very miffed storage room worker. The fins on her head lifted as Sparkplug mentioned a weapons range. That was certainly a topic she was more than willing to discuss.

"A firing range? How delightful."

She was curious what was the matter with the ones provided onboard but perhaps it was something of a personal matter. Vega wasn't one to question others decisions. Even if it could damage their own personal effects. But that wasn't her business either. Finally Sparkplug asked for her name and the larger femme gestured to herself as she lowered her head in a silent greeting.

"I am Vega."

[Sparkplug]

"Vega, huh? Nice to meet you," Sparkplug responded cheerfully. As was expected of their race, with its heavily skewed gender balance, there'd not been many femmes around - or at least, if any of the purple-clad identikit soldiers roaming the corridors identified that way, they hadn't given any visible sign of it. "I'd say I'm not sure how I've missed you so far, but big as y'are, you could lose a hundred of either of us in this place and never trip over them again. Frankly, I've got lost a couple of times myself, and if it weren't for the vehicons all over the shop to ask for directions, I might still be wandering around down there."

She gestured loosely down at the deck plates, indicating the lower levels, where the humming complexity of the engines and forges lay, then rested her secondary elbow on top of the cart. "Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, 'Sparkplug, why are you building a firing range when there's plenty of perfectly decent ones onboard already?' Well, that's pretty simple."

Gesturing to herself, her slim digits touched the deeply incised Decepticon sigil marking the upper slope of her curved chestplate, a deep, vivid purple that contrasted with her white and green chassis. There was an unfeigned brightness to her, her field radiating friendly good humour, and a smile on her flexible lips.

"See, I'm lodged in this obscure corner down the science side of the ship. Dusty, rusty, pretty far away from anything. I'm setting up a weapons development lab down there - I'm a researcher-designer, you know? Well, anyway, I can hardly scoop up a prototype, wires dangling off it, haul it through the ship to a range and go back and forth every time I need to tweak the thing. Heck, I couldn't even tweak my own cannon without blowing a hole through the wall down there. So that's why I'm setting up an armour-plate box that I can fire into without making a mess of anything."

The big femme was honestly pretty impressive, structurally, and Sparkplug decided she felt like prolonging the conversation if she could manage it. Nodded at her cart full of parts, she remarked, "Been having a bit of a fight with this heap. If you're not busy, maybe you could give me a hand wrestling it down to where I'm setting up? Y'know, if you're not doing something important. What kind of duties do you have around here, anyway?"

[Deleted]

At least this femme had a half decent grip on proper social conduct. Vega was thankful for that at the very least. The overwhelming good humor and towering wall of speech could be forgiven, but crude and down right impolite tendencies would not be. Vega could not even fathom a reason why one wouldn't carry themselves properly, they were a civilized and highly advanced race. It was her humble opinion that they should behave as such. She had to agree with Sparkplug as the smaller femme motioned to the lower depths of the ship. Even taking her size into account the halls of the Nemesis were so complexly weaved together mecha larger than her could easily lose their way. She wouldn't admit aloud but she had gotten lost at least once in her brief time on board.

Then Sparkplug promptly addressed the elephant in the room - Vega not even having to ask.

Her reasoning was truly logical, and the mention of engineering weapons promptly grabbed her full attention. It was quite a task she was placing on herself. Considering one poorly welded seam could potentially jettison her and whatever prototype she was working on out of the war ship. But she seemed educated and experienced enough that it wouldn't truly be an issue. Perhaps she'd be paying a visit to her once the armor-plate box was completed.

"Fascinating. What sort of weaponry do you specialize in?"

Sparkplug motioned toward the large pile of materials in the overburdened trolley, asking if Vega could lend her a helping hand getting it to it's destination. Polite smile on her face Vega nodded in response.

"I see no harm in it, certainly."

She circled around to stand beside Sparkplug, subspacing the datapad temporarily.

"I am officially a Navigation Officer, but with how much time has been spent in this infernal corner of the universe there isn't truly much to navigate. I really spend my time reviewing map points to provide more in-depth detail of them. But I also dabble in weapons myself, specifically the repair and maintenance of said."

She leaned over pushing several bits on the top around to settle them in more secure places. Hopefully she hadn't lost anything already, they'd spend more of the day searching for missing florescent element than actually working.

[Sparkplug]

Sparkplug's expression brightened as Vega agreed to help her, and she shifted along the trolley bar, making room for the big femme. Gripping it firmly, she nodded at Vega and pushed, putting her back into it to get the trolley moving.

"Now that is way easier to control," she remarked cheerfully, quickly finding that she barely had to do anything at all once the other femme started pushing. "I'm down this hall, and to the left two junctions."

Idly wondering what Vega's alt-mode looked like, Sparkplug added sympathetically, "Yeah, I can imagine why you'd be going crazy down here. All that specialised navigation knowledge, and you can't do a darn thing with it. I'd be getting pretty impatient myself, in your position. Now, me, I wouldn't know which end of a nav console to start from. When I set out to come here, I ended up having to pay these scabby little organics for a spot on their rust-bitten, carbon-scored, scraplet of a frieghter. Amazed they got me to the right planet."

Indicating the right corridor, Sparkplug did her small best to help wrestle the trolley around the corner, pushing a loose piece of equipment back on as it threatened to work its way free of the overall mass. Even by the low standards of the Nemesis, this corridor was dark, and by the tarnish on the deckplates that grew thicker as they proceeded, it really wasn't much frequented. A couple more turns, the faint sound of the crew's movement dying away behind them, and they were more or less alone with the distant grumble of the ship's engine.

"Specialisation? Energy weapons. Cannons, for preference. I am really, really darn good at energy weapons. But you can't specialise so hard in one thing that you're no good at the others, because you miss out on all the synergies. For instance, there's this system that I was working on a little while back. Big, smoothbore cannon with a little laser riding on the side. What it does, it kicks out a big explosive shell into the air, all wrapped around with shrapnel in the case, and when it reaches the right point, the laser snaps on, flash-heats the ignition point and boom! Perfectly timed mid-air explosive. There's a few other weird bits and pieces I'm working on the schematics for, too. Left all my prototypes behind, but the data's in here." She tapped the side of her helm.

On their left, the parade of identical, grubby doors was interrupted by sudden outlier, nearly at the end of the corridor. This broad door was considerably cleaner, with the scratches of fresh buffing still faintly marking its surface. Sparkplug hauled on the trolley handle, nodding at it. "This is me. Let me get it open."

Keying a quick code into the door panel, Sparkplug stepped back as the door hummed and slide aside smoothly, revealing a dimly lit space within. The fairly sizable room was simply empty, without a trace of furniture nor fittings, though the deck plates were marked in several places by the silvery scars where uprights had recently been cut off flush with the surface.

"In here, please. Y'know, if you've got some experience tinkering with weapons and you're bored out of your central processor, you could always spend a bit of time down here, help out a bit. I'm used to working in a lab with a few other mecha around."

[Deleted]

As Sparkplug gave a hearty shove Vega placed her weight forward on one foot and shoved away with the other, the trolly moving much smoother now with four servos to guide it rather than two. Vega was never a manual labor sort but with her size she could at least offer some sort of physical strength. At least enough to aid Sparkplug. As they walked and Sparkplug spoke Vega lifted her shoulders in dismissal.

"I'm certain that, when the time is right, my skills will be implemented to their fullest. But until that time is upon us I will make do with what I can."

Vega was not going to press the matter, if she was required as a navigational officer than so be it. If not than she had other skills that could be beneficial to the cause. If nothing else Vega was patient and was not in any form of hurry. When called upon she would happily comply. As she followed the nearly glow-in-the-dark femme she took quick note of the state this side of the warship had slipped into. Not many had been here - as evident by the lack of scuff and paint transfer from passing pedes on the floor. It was far darker than the much more traversed hallways, and with how low the lights were normally set that was quite the statement. Vega slowed as they walked making her steps cautious to keep from tripping.

Sparkplug then began to delve into further detail on just what she did, and the prototype she had in mind. Vega smiled as she spoke thoroughly enjoying the idea of such a robust and unique weapon.

"Delightful! I would very much enjoy to hear more!"

She merrily spoke as they came to a rolling stop. The doors along this hallways didn't even look like they would fully open simply relying on the system inside, however this one looked more compliant. Sparkplug excused herself to enter the pass code and the door obediently irised open. The room inside was....empty. Not even sparse, just empty. Vega felt a little pity for the smaller femme, but Sparkplug didn't seem to mind it. Vega gave the trolly a firm tug and pulled it into the center of the barren room.

"Your invitation is noted and very much appreciated! I will certainly swing by once you have your work station operational. I look forward to seeing your work."

[Sparkplug]

It had been a long time since anyone had told Sparkplug 'I would very much enjoy to hear more', or anything along those lines. The trick was stopping her from talking, not encouraging her to go on, and Vega's remark prompted a delighted smile from Sparkplug in return.

Circling the trolley, she kicked on the brake, locking it in place, and began rapidly dismantling the pile of materials atop it. A couple of boxes of bolts and other fasteners, an articulated framework long enough to lie on when unfolded, a fairly chunky linear actuator and a couple of slightly used second-hand monitors were among the more recognisable components, mixed in amongst simpler sheets of plate metal and a couple of crates of miscellaneous odds and ends. A few serious slabs of hull armour were left on the trolley, rather than trying to move them yet.

"So, you been up to much since you arrived on this mudball?" she asked conversationally as she worked. "I know there's this treaty in place, but it's not been around all that long, from what I gather. Just my luck; I land, and peace has broken out. Well, peace between them and us, anyway. Sooner we get around to squashing this bunch of uppity organics, the better. It's what they deserve for sticking their weird little appendages in where they're not wanted. Did you get the chance to get mixed up in anything fun beforehand?"

Opening one of the crates, she took out a long, slender case of lighting elements, rated for high output. "Ah, now this is more like it," she interrupted herself. "Had to turn off half the lights in here, since they were either stained, or flickering. This nasty little 10hz buzz, was giving me an ache right behind my left audial. Mind y'self, I'm cutting the overheads."

Strolling over to the wall, she touched a couple of recessed controls. The feeble overhead lights died, clicking out in pairs until the room was as dark as the inside of an unlit furnace. After a moment, Sparkplug's twin, shoulder-mounted rectangular headlights snapped on, bathing the room in a shifting cone of light. "You're pretty tall. Mind swapping out the light filaments while I hand them up to you?"

Strolling back to the centre of the room, case in hand, she unfastened the end and slid out the first of several new lighting elements. "Just twist the ends, and it'll drop right out. Try not to drop it, mind, might shatter from that height. So like I was saying, seen any fighting here? I've not seen a whole heck of a lot. Did spend a spell not far off the front lines when I was still proving myself, and I've travelled for a few live-fire tests of my ordinance, but mainly, I've built the tech and fitted it to others, then stood back and watched the show. Never been anywhere this close to you-know-who."

She gestured along her right arm, indicating the arm cannon of their supreme leader, her shoulders shifting with the movement and changing the angle of the light pouring out from her. "You ever seen him? Talked to him, even? Got to admit, I almost hope I don't. I mean, that'd be terrifying. Talking to Starscream made me nervous enough, and he's pretty nice. Managed to steer clear of Shockwave so far, too, but that's gonna come sooner or later."

[Deleted]

Vega watched curiously as Sparkplug began unloading the contents of the over ladened trolly, the frame steadily lifting away from the wheels as more and more weight was removed. She certainly hoped Sparkplug had clearence for all of this. Lifting her head as the brighter femme inquired about any escapades since her arrival Vega sadly shook her head. Fins flattening into a disappointed slant.


"Unfortunately the majority of my time has been spent in the company of Knock Out. He was concerned over the state of the injury to my leg-" she lifted it slightly to indicate the healing mesh "-and kept me under medical survey for quite some time. Then this bloody truce is enacted, no less shortly before he sees fit to release me to active duty. Fate has not been too kind to me as of late."

Her scientific mind scoffed at such a silly implication as fate. But it had become increasingly more difficult for her not to believe some outside force had been bending the rules. It wasn't every day one was successfully rescued from a decaying planet from a shotty at best signal halfway across the galaxy.

"Otherwise I've spent from prior to the exodus vying for survival on Cybertron. And I couldn't agree more, these..."humans" need be reminded that they should not persue things that they do not understand."

Over confident little cretins. The lights flicked off and Vega quickly readjusted her optics in the darkness. Then again to the light spilling into the room courtesy of Sparkplug. Vega quickly set to work, reaching for the first in a long line of filaments and gently twisting the ends free. Carefully lowering the old into the cart for temporary safe keeping ahe reached for the second her finger tips gripping the ends with care.

"Some, yes. Though never alone and it wasn't often since most of my companions were flight frames such as myself. Not too many Autobots I knew who could fly after all."

Her pantomime wasn't very hard to grasp and again Vega shook her head.

"No I have not formally spoken to our master, or had a proper audience with him. Seems he's veey busy as of late. Intimidating as he may be I do wish to make a formal introduction. It is only proper after all."

Starscream on the other hand? Vega lowered a third then a fourth filament into the trolly before speaking again.

"The commander was actually the first introduction on this planet, followed shortly after by the good doctor. Both are rather intriguing, Starscream in particular. A very skilled opponent in chess."

[Sparkplug]

"Well, spending a whole bunch of time in Knock Out's company doesn't sound too bad," Sparkplug offered as she handed up another light fitting. "He was pretty welcoming to me, made sure I was all in one piece after a bit of a rough landing. Between that finish and that voice, well. Y'know, on another bot, that level of Towerling purr would make you want to slap them, but he carries it off and makes it work for him. Sorry to hear about your injury and all, though. How'd that happen?"

Glancing up at the tall flyer, Sparkplug went on, "At least there's plenty of flyers here. Assuming you count the mass-produced ones, which you should. Still got working minds in there, even if some of them are a bit blunter than the others. Weird to see them, though. All that uniformity, it bothers me. Reminds me of the bad old days, when the council got real strict about how chassis ought to look for particular tasks, and cut off the bits that didn't fit. Planning to hand out some custom weapon mounts, get some variation in there, once I'm all set up."

She was quiet for a couple of moments as she ran through her slowly increasing list of custom designs she was intending on working on, taking the old, corroded filaments from Vega and grimacing at the green-black traces that marked the end-caps as she slotted them into an empty storage carton. "As for chess, can't say as I know that one. Is it anything like Advantage?" The game she named was a Cybertronian one, though it had been originally adopted from another culture in ages past. It involved two boards, one of which held a series of round counters that worked something like draughts, moving back and forth across a hexagonal grid, while the secondary board worked more like backgammon, letting players vie for additional advantages that could be brought into play on the main board.

"Haven't played Advantage in ages. I'm only so-so at it. Never had that kind of tactical grasp that some mecha do. But then, if I did, guess I'd have been out on the field more, trying to make sense of the battlefields, instead of off in a cosy lab figuring out how to extract the highest-yield explosion from the smallest cubic energon/breem consumption rate. Nice that you get to spend some sociable time with Starscream, anyway. Nice enough mech, once he'd settled his attention on me from whatever I interrupted, but I didn't feel like spending more of his time than I had to was a good idea."

"Spending any of Megatron's time doesn't seem like a good idea," she added after a small pause in which his foreboding outline took shape at the back of her processor. "Think I'll be expected to make a formal introduction too?"

She stepped back, watching Vega fit the last replacement tube into the ceiling, then nodded in satisfaction. Crossing the room with a few quick strides, she doused her headlights, and flipped the main switch. Clean white light burst into life overhead, filling the formerly gloomy chamber with radiance. Her paintwork caught the brightness and threw it back in highlights from her curved chassis. "That's more like it," she said in satisfaction.

[Deleted]

She wasn't wrong per-say. Knock Out was good enough company and diligent in his work. But even good company could overstay. It had taken intervention from Commander Starscream for her to finally be discharged and in that time she had grown rather tired of the flamboyant medic. Caution was not an unwelcomed face in the medical field but that wasn't why the doctor kept her. She had made the mistake of offering simple aide to him and he had pounced on that notion fast as he could.

Still, she was thankful for all he had done thus far.

Vega offered another worn filament to Sparkplug before answering her question. "Some time before the exodus I was tasked with mapping potentially valuable points in The Sea of Rust. I was with three other flight frames and a grounder when an unforseen storm began. Seperated from my escorts I crashed, my leg recieving most of the damage. Since then I've lost count of how often it's been reopened and poorly sealed again."

Advantage? Vega hadn't played that game in ages. Reflecting on the two she nodded stiffly as she twisted a new fixture into place. "The strategy is similar but the board and pieces are different. I myself was fairly adept at Advantage, but I rarely played it."

Starscream was....an aquired taste. Civil as he seemed he had some very unfaborable aspects to him. At least she seemed to be on his good side, for the time being anyway. She agreed, wasting the time of their liege lord was a dreadful notion. "I would assume so." Vega rarely wasted time but when she did make her apperance to him she would keep it brief as possible. He had far more important things to do. The room illuminated and Vega reset her optics four times in quick succession. Better indeed.

[Sparkplug]

"Guess I'd better get ready for it, then. As much as I can do; I mean, heck, I'm not even sure what preparing for it would look like. Some mecha, you know what you're getting into before you end up standing in front of them. Him, not so much."

Sealing the box of discarded filaments, Sparkplug set it back onto the trolley, then turned to survey the empty space happily. "That's way better. Can't work if you can't see what you're doing. Let's see here... let's get the armour plate for the range together while you're here, since the armour's pretty darn heavy and I'm pretty small."

Shoving the cart towards the far end of the room, Sparkplug went on, "Sorry to hear about your leg, there. Sounds like it's a nasty problem. Might end up being easier just to remove at the joint and reconstruct, if you get the time and attention. 'course, that means reacclimatising to the limb, which is more downtime, and I think you're pretty much done hanging around waiting for something to happen. Now as for me, I could do work when I was readjusting to the new builds, so I was a bit more free to tinker. Wasn't like I was running around doing athletic things anyway. Mostly."

"When I've got all this set up, I'm planning to do some work on the vehicons and the like. If I can persuade any of them to sign up, of course. Got a whole suite of things I want to try out. Close combat stuff, like chainsaws, or stunners. Had this idea for an electro-trident I want to try out - so you've got this nice long shaft with triple spikes, that you punch right through the armour, then you pour a jolt of electricity down the ends, and it'd do some awful mischief to the innards."

She paused, taking her hands off the trolley bar to sketch the outline of the weapon in the air. "No onboard power supply - you'd need a modified hand, with contact patches to supply the power, but it makes the weapon nice and sleek, and if any other scrapper tries to take it off you, it won't work. You can get a better voltage potential off an energon-burning system than a capacitor bank, too. I'm sure I can talk one of them into the right mods. Pretty sure some of them are gonna be tired of being identical to all the rest. Got some plans for a more esoteric hand mod, too. Vibration and resonance based. Interesting stuff. And that's just the short-range material."

Looking up at the ceiling thoughtfully, Sparkplug considered the structural girders supporting the deck above. "Hm. That looks pretty solid, I can probably bolt the plate direct to the ceiling in here, but I think what I'll do is, I'll put the wall pieces up first, then rest the edge of the ceiling slab on top of them as well. That'll give it a bit more integrity."

Grabbing a chunky slab of armour plate with the glyph for 'wall' scrawled across one face of it, she began heaving it off the trolley and towards the wall, visibly struggling to shift the huge sheet of armour and more than happy to accept any help Vega might provide. "If you can get this up against the wall and pin it, I'll bolt and weld."

[Deleted]

Sparkplug made a fair point. How would one prepare to formally encounter someone of Lord Megatron's stature and place on the proverbial food chain? Was she even prepared? It came as a sort of shock to her that she had yet to even glimpse him briefly in the halls let alone holding a proper audience with him. But who was she to know the struggles of leading an army? Audiences could wait she supposed.

"To be honest I'm not quite sure myself what that would require. Certainly some form of mental fortification."

Heaps of it no doubt. She had only heard trifles of their liege and observed his speeches from a safe distance with masses between them. Even then she could feel his intimidating nature. What would it feel like with only a few feet's distance and nothing to buffer it? The very thought was...frightening. Vega followed behind Sparkplug, deciding burning that bridge when she came to it the best course of action.

Then the smaller con began to talk of her ideas again, the wonderful mods she had in store for those brave enough to allow her to affix them. Vega hung on every word a delighted smile firmly on her face. What wondrous things she had in that mind of hers. "How marvelous! I would love to see a prototype of this design once you have one."

Vega lifted one side of the armor plate from the cart, aiding Sparkplug in it's removal. She leaned the thick metal against the wall heaving it into place. Hopefully Sparkplug wouldn't take too long in bolting it to the wall. Size or no Vega was not meant for this kind of work. Her left foot slid slightly under the weight and quickly she placed it back to keep the plate from moving away from the wall.

Knock Out would probably be having a fit if he saw her putting this much strain on herself.

[Sparkplug]

Sparkplug couldn't help but grin delightedly to herself as Vega praised her design concept, so taken with the larger femme's reaction that she completely missed the fact that the other con was actually struggling a little with the weight she was supporting. Sparkplug's left hand collapsed into a welding torch, and she darted around the armour slab, tack-welding the corners to help support the weight and keep the huge slab of reinforced metal and composite pinned to the far wall. Darting over to the pile of supplies, she plucked a handful of massive, thick-headed bolts from a crate and slapped them against a magnetised patch on her thigh, where they stuck.

"Got rubber spacers for the bolts," she explained off-handedly as she morphed her left hand once again, shaping it into a thick drill. Reaching up high above her head, she pressed the drillbit against the armour, beginning to slowly chew into the tough metal. Shavings rained to the floor. "If the armour's secured too tightly to the wall, it can't disperse the recoil from the shot, can't flex at all. Give it a bit of that kind of punishment with nowhere to dump the kinetic energy, and it'll rip the wall apart. Nothing on the other side but a shower room, but if any mecha was in there at the time, they'd sure be surprised."

Sparkplug worked her way along the armour slab, pinning the corners first, then adding subsequent bolts along the edges. Her hand shifted nimbly from drill to wrench to welding torch, unusually flexible in the number of configurations it seemed to hold, quite aside from its weapon-bearing capacity. Eventually, she stood back and nodded approvingly.

"Alright, then. That's the biggest slab, right there. The rest of them, I'll get into place later, get some hydraulic jacks in here to make sure they're in the right place, maybe. Everything else is safety and insurance, but that big slice of massively reinforced gorgeousness, that'll take the brunt of it. I'll give it a live-fire test later." In fact, speaking of massively reinforced gorgeousness... Sparkplug strolled over to one of the crates and sat down on it, kicking another to indicate it. "Might as well have a sit down for a bit. Kind of curious about you in my professional capacity too, you know? What weapons systems are you hiding in there? What sort of firepower have you got tucked away?"