[ti]Ep 3[/ti]Flirting with Danger [Javelin]

[Carbine]

Episode 3 | Week 1| Day 3

Carbine was a scavenger. He liked to take things and use it to make better more useful things. Sometimes in the process he does take actual useful things to make things useful to HIM, but... he was trying to be good and not take legit things out of the base for his own gains! He bartered, used stuff from the storage room that seemed dusty, sad, and abandoned, and had started a new fun habit of looking through junk yards when he was given opportunity to do so. While there was a risk of getting caught, the boons of what he found for his particular goals were hard to argue with.

The most recent find, was something he didn’t even know he needed until he saw it.

The Ex-Cop knew he wanted to do a lesson with Javelin, and while it had been a good while since he promised it, it never left the back of his processor. He just... he really wanted to figure out how to make the lesson more entertaining to her. Something with a bit more substance than 'sand the chunk of metal on the floor until its sharp' which was how 99% of all blades were made in Garrus. Carbine didn't want to devolve to such primitive methods, and wanted something a bit more valuable. Maybe something using real effort like a makeshift forge of some kind.

With this in mind, Carbine's processor bloomed into a flurry of ideas once he saw IT.

IT was a trailer that was meant to be pulled on the back of a car, but said trailer had some kind of tube thingy that looked like a weirdly chunky canon. What it was seemed pretty unknown, any number of human thing, but once Carbine looked inside, he could put together it was an intermediate sized concrete mixer. The thing looked relatively clean, its exterior only had smudges and dirt from being left outside in the junk yard, but the interior was a quarter filled with concrete, and a thick film that lined the inner walls.

It must have had electrical issues or something, stopped rotating, and the person opted to ditch it rather than pay to clean out the super deep slab of stone.

One humans loss... Carbine's gain...

With the super heavy painfully obnoxious trailer in hand, and procuring a few far more easy to obtain tools over the following weeks, Carbine finally scheduled that 'date' that had been joked about before to attempt to teach something he only had a rudimentary knowledge over.

Carbine was down in one of the routed rooms in the basement. It was barren and rather sad, nothing lined the walls but it had seen good foot traffic despite it. Used for practice, used for training, or in this case used to set up the world's most slap-hack forge. The disabled concrete mixer was left on its wheels, a rope tied off to one end to make it easier to drag around like a wagon, while some holes had been bored through its side in intermediate almost random locations. Metal pipes fed away from these, before hoses trailed from their ends over to a 120 gallon propane tank which was probably the LEAST honestly obtained portion of this adventure.

Beside the cobbled nightmare fuel setup sat some other supplies, and Carbine who was squatted down counting the supplies and thinking. Hoping he had everything for this totally not a 'date' date.

[Javelin]

Javelin made her way down the hallway towards the room where Carbine had told her to meet him.

She had to admit she was more than a little curious about this lesson in making daggers out of scrap. She had knowledge of making arrows out of scrap, of course, and an arrowhead is sorta kinda like a dagger, only without anything to really hold onto. The hardest part of making arrows was that they had to be straight to fly properly, so she didn’t have to worry about handles or anything like that.

Her footsteps echoed off the walls as she approached the entrance to the room, a gait that was ever so slightly off rhythm, her right ped moving forward and tapping down a little faster than her left, as her left seemed somewhat unable to carry her weight properly. Forcing herself to walk with a more paced rhythm ended up giving her a pain in her hip and ankle after so long. When walking along the hallways alone, she relaxed, but as she approached the entrance to the room, she forced her stride to lengthen, forcing her left leg to take up the slack, worried Carbine might be able to hear it.

Javelin paused at the entrance, taking a deep invent, and letting it out slowly. She wasn’t steeling herself to deal with Carbine, but rather just to put aside the dark thoughts she had been having lately, and try to be more sociable. She was actually looking forward to this – their last time together had been silly and fun, and she hoped this would be the same.

When she stepped directly into the room, she stopped, startled for a moment, her optics zeroing in on the oddity in the room.

“What the hell is that thing!?”

Carbine was crouched down, doing....something...but next to him was something out of one of the horror movies the humans seemed to love.

Metallic and a brilliant yellow, there were tubes and lines running from it. It reminded Javelin somewhat of an old earth navy mine, and looked more than a little explosive, considering it seemed to be attached to what looked like a propane tank.

Cautiously, she made her way in, her gaze flicking from the tank, to the...yellow thing...to Carbine, and back.

“Please tell me you didn’t lure me down here in an attempt to just blow me up. Because there are much easier ways to just off me, you know. But I’d have to give you an “A” for complexity, if nothing else.”

[Carbine]

Carbine's helm would snap over to look at Javelin the second he could hear her entering the room. Making certain it was the femme, making certain someone wasn't trying to sneak up on him, and while the footfalls were insanely inappropriate to be Thunder, he needed to make sure that bludgeoning oaf didn’t get in-between him and his 'lady friend'. Carbine was really attached to his other... well... not other 'half' that was Bolo, but his long time pal, but if he was around he would completely ruin tonight!

Seeing it was Javelin and Javelin alone, he would crook up into a stand abruptly, weight tipping onto his heels to allow himself to roll-rotate-turn towards her without having to lift his peds off the ground.

"I thought we wou͝l̡d ͏do̢ ̧a̵ ́r͡ǫmantic suicide! Th-the two of us, ou͞t͢ with ̶a̶ ͞b͠la͠ze of flame! Oh so dreamy."

His tone of voice was pitched to be obviously a joke, humorous and lighthearted, rolling with her exclamation and setting some of the tone for this night. It seemed Carbine had enjoyed their last encounter as well, and hoped to flow back into the more comical flirting statements and over hyped 'romance' should he be able to. Whatever the case he let out a chuckle after this, forearms crooking up to place his left hand upon the arch of his hip plating, while left gestured to the abomination of a machine.

"I aint no eng͘i̕neer, but I can ̛m̨ake̡ ̨a͡ primitive forge!"

The Ex-Cop sounded so confident, so sure of his manufacturing, which was a complete lie and a half. All he knew about forges was that it needed to be fireproof materials, a nice layer of insulation ((in this case concrete)), a heat source that was spattered around and distributed, and a door to keep the heat in, or a small enough opening heat didn’t escape too bad. It is with that very basic loose guidelines Carbine manufactured his creation, not even remotely sure if it would work alright at all. But hey, they say to fake it until you make it, which typically was emotional and not having anything to do with explosives and fire.

"And ͠ho͜l̶d ̶u̴p͟ ̕now-"

Carbine let out an almost insulted scoff, his freed hand that had gestured at the forge lifting to plant fingertips down onto his chest like he was personally aghast at being insulted in such a way.

"Only an A?! I would kz̷zttt̕ what have ͜t̸o͡ d͠o t͏o̸ get an A plus? Make̷ i̡t̨ ̵o͟ne ͠of͏ ́those m-m-achines where the rolling ball bearing knock͏s͏ ͘ov̴ęr̷ ̨a̕ ̴swi͝tch to t-trigger something else all the way to death?"

His voice popped and jittered a moment, a few words swapped around though he didn't seem to even notice.

[Javelin]

The minute he started talking, Javelin couldn’t help but grin. She hadn’t been entirely sure what going into this was going to be like. Carbine sure as hell didn’t seem to be the type that would suddenly become ultra serious when teaching something...but you never knew. It was possible.

But in his first few words, the mocking tone, the foolish words, she instantly knew where she stood, and was relieved. Ahh...silliness, yet learning something important. Perfect!

She lazily crossed her arms in front of her as she approached, almost sauntering towards him, looking up at him as he stood so much taller. A bemused smile, a shake of the head.

“I know you’re just dying for me to call you hot, Carbine, but immolating ourselves is just a wee bit extreme.”

Shifting her servos to her hips, she walked past him to get a closer look at the thing he had slapped together. Tilting her helm to the side, she made a slow circuit around the altered concrete mixer, gaze moving over the rounded portion, following each metal pipe and line as it entered or exited the contraption. In her mind’s eye, she was trying to follow the path the propane and resulting heat would take.

Javelin loved to learn new things, and she took a delight in looking for patterns. After mapping out what she assumed was the path everything would take to bring the heat up in the hackslap forge, she looked up, meeting his gaze, and grinning again.

“Not bad. Not bad at all.”

Her grin widened slightly when he took on an injured air, posing for better effect. Oh, he was such a ham....

Sauntering around the mixer/forge again, she walked over to see what else he had brought out. She glanced up at him out of the corner of her optic as she did, “Oh...an A+? Let’s see now....”

Turning to face him, one hand planted on he hip, the other rising to lightly tap at her lower lip, she struck her own pose, “It would have to include nothing less than two bombs, some sort of trolley tracks, the remains of a dead scrapling, and one disgruntled human willing to push the button.”

Another saucy grin, “You want to impress me, boy, you have to work at it.”

[Carbine]

Ah yes, the game was on once again. Carbine simply smiled at her response about their cinematic immolation, his optics crooked up in a fairly easy to read grin, before he flowed into his aghast insult at not receiving a higher score.

As Javelin looked upon the floor, she would see quite the assortment of supplies.

Strewn out in some semblance of organization were a few tools to hopefully make what she wanted to make. There were a couple monkey wrenches, a normal non adjustable wrench, a couple pipes, a screwdriver, a hammer, a grinder, a modest vice, a bucket of oil, and a bit of chain, duct tape and a few newspapers he had Miko help acquire... all of which was probably stolen and not at all legitimately gotten. However, there was a good chance the tools were from the storage room though, for they looked beaten up and worn, unlike the pristine ones that were polished clean for a medical environment. The larger things such as the vice and grinder, would undoubtedly be returned, but the other things were more questionable.

While Javelin described all the labors he would have to do in order to impress her and gain an A+ in such a ludicrous situation, Carbine's optic crooked up into a raised brow, trying to commit everything she was saying to memory to try to reference at another time. Perhaps there would be opportunity for a joke to be pulled into play, some throwback to this moment, but he really had nothing now other than a scoffed sound. What he COULD respond to was her last comment, a chuckle slipping out.

"Aş a cop by ͡p͝rofe͟ssion, I live to serve."

He mused this out while dipping at the waist, crooking his upper torso nearly horizontal while right arm swooped down and to the side in the over dramatized motion of a bow. It seemed to pair well with other gimmicks he did, harking back to clichés for a good laugh and to lighten the situation.

"Now, if you p-permit, we can start do͘wn̨ t̀his magical road of lethal weapo̵n͘ ̡ex͜pl͏or̀ation-"

He crooked up some at this, helm twisting to look over at his assortment of supplies that were far more than he ordinarily would use. Really... this was so overkill but it made him look more clever and smarter, so he would do what he could. This said, after this suggestion, his visor turned back to look at Javelin, his forearms folding at his lower back. To pair with this, his rotors flicked slightly, a twitch that caused the slats to scrape a small amount.

"Or I̡ ̷c̸a̵n find other ways to i͢m̡press should you͢ ͘w͟ish."

A low rumbled purr, his fingertips drumming against his forearm still at his back.

[Javelin]

Javelin found herself grinning at Carbine’s overdramatic bow, tilting her helm some and arching an optic ridge. The way he could just slide into that over-the-top attitude never failed to amuse her. Sometimes she wondered if he ever took anything seriously.

She turned and regarded the rest of the assembled bits and bobs he had brought there. Her optics roamed over them, but as of yet, she couldn’t really see how they were going to be used. Because she had been forced to make arrows to use, when the energon shortage had forced her to turn off her bow’s energy arrow capabilities, Javelin found she could look at a piece of scrap metal and know how to shape it to make an arrowhead. How to warp and press other pieces of scrap to make shafts, what to use to make useful flights.

But arrowheads were not daggers. An arrowhead didn’t need a good strong handle. They weren’t going to be held or thrust, but rather flown at their intended target, and once in, they weren’t supposed to come out. Or at least, if they did come out, they were supposed to do as much damage as possible. Arrows had to be light, thin, and extremely sharp to be able to slip through most armour.

Daggers, or at least she assumed, were meant to be sharp, yes, but heavy enough to punch their way through some armour, possibly withdrawn and plunged in again. So daggers were out of her knowledge.

She shook her head, smiling, “Oh, I’m sure you’d love to try to find other ways to impress me...but no. Let’s start in on what you promised me. A nice weapon I can use to stick people with.”

Curiously, she moved towards the assembled pieces, and picked up a wrench, turning it over in her hand, before putting it back down and moving the chain with a finger, “Are these things you’re going to melt into slag, or....” How would one use a wrench on a dagger, anyway?

She turned back to peer at him, “Where did you learn to make daggers, anyway? Is this something you’ve done a lot?”

[Carbine]

"I c-c-can show you a REAL wea̧p̛o̵n to stick people with-"

Fast on the draw, not even a second of hesitation, Carbine chirped this back in reply to Javelin's comment about wanting a nice weapon to stick people, with an aura of smug amusement and joy bubbling through his field. As with almost all the time around the blue femme, his optics were still crooked up in a sort of happy expression, overly proud of his lewd joke and looking forward to her reaction of shock if it even did shock her. Moving on quickly however, he reached his hand out with the roll of a wrist to continue in a sort of passive tone of dismissal while gesturing down at the pile of tools and parts.

"-But I suppose͠ ̨t̡hese will hav̸e͝ ̢to suffice."

Disappointed, but not really, his field was still plenty happy as he maneuvered to the other side of the pile of supplies so that Javelin could walk right up to them. Yellow optics settled upon her as she picked up a wrench to look it over, wondering if that would be her starting point or what exactly she hoped to use. At her question though he let out a somewhat more genuine dismayed sound since his skills couldn’t really go that far, knowing that what they would make today wouldn't be that fancy.

"Ah no, I d-d-don't know how to do that kind̶ ̨o̵f a͡dv͞a̢nced stuff, but thé to͡ols are a start!"

Actually chopping up metal and trying to make a crucible was a huge undertaking in his eyes, and while he was trying to play competent and smart that was a bit beyond his know-how to do right. Maybe if he was given all of the components and tools, permitted to just play with them it would be something else. But given the fact he had to cobble a forge that looked more like a bomb, it'd be scary to see what he'd use to make an actual pot and mold for liquid metal.

"Go ahead and pick ̛o̵u͜t͜ any of the wrench̸e͠s̨ or th̀e̵ sçre̛wdriver you think feels best. Screw͏d̀ri̕v̨er is more... stabby than shanky though..."

Screwdriver would be insanely easy. Belt sander and done! But hey... if she wanted a stabby he would help her make a stabby. It could almost be seen as a bonus weapon since he would whip that out and completed in a few minutes. If it was on the prison floor though it'd take a few days... but that was another topic, one which was coming up fast in the subject matter if he didn’t talk around it since Javelin asked a rather direct question.

"I had to begrudgingly spend some̵ tim͠e̸ s̸er͏vi-ze̛r̡v-̷k̡z̵z͝zt̸t͢-reporting to Garrus-1, and while p-patrolling the halls you learn what̷ th̕e̛ i̴n̨m̡a͏tes did to try to get an upper hand on one an͡oth̀er."

The best lies held some truth. Carbine was painting the scene with the fact he looked like a police mech, and how he used terms such as patrolling to try to paint a picture. To know the truth the sentence still made sense, but out of contest he hoped it could appear he was acting as a guard for a short bit before being moved to another sector. Or so, this was his goal, as he punctuated it with a sort of displeased sound and a squint of his eyes, wishing he could grimace.

"So many͝ ͞c̡o͞nfiscated weapons..."

Oh boy where there. Weapon fabrication was an entire other business within Garrus, and it was only a matter of time before they'd be found and thrown into a smelter before going out to be recycled into far more useful things in society. Despite having been an inmate, Carbine never understood how so many Cybertronian could just MATERIALIZE metal seemingly out of thin air to make their tools. It was a borderline magical skill.

"BUT it kind̴l͠e͢d ͜c͏uriosity w-w-which has landed us here tod̴a͠y!"

[Javelin]

At Carbine’s lewd joke, she cast him an exasperated but slightly fond look of, “Really?” before turning to watch what he was talking about. She hefted a second wrench, balancing it in her hand slightly, trying to get a feel for the weight of the thing. Spreading her hand, letting her fingers droop, she watched as it rocked a small bit, but remained in place.

Keeping her eyes on the wrench, she spoke, “Stabby versus shanky, hmm? Stop using those big professional words, you’re confusing me.”

A flash of a grin, eyes still on the wrench, “So what’s the difference, exactly? Don’t they both just...”

Here she raised her optics to his face, and wrapping her fingers around the wrench, made a weak stabbing motion towards him.

She suddenly paused as the rest of his words caught up to her, and she blinked up at him.

“Wait, you were in a prison? You were in Garrus-1?! That place was where only the worst criminals go!” She lifted a hand, resting it on a hip, letting her other arm dangle with the wrench hang slightly, her voice held a slight tone of awe, “Slag, Carbine, you did some serious police work, didn’t you? I’m impressed.”

She looked like she was about to ask something else, but suddenly changed her mind, and dropped her gaze back down to the wrench in her hand, “Yeah, I guess so! You learned from the experts, I guess.”

Javelin looked back up at him again, smiling. She honestly seemed impressed with his past history.

She raised the wrench in a mock-threatening gesture, “So, which do you think is better for me, Mr. Prison Guard? A rounder handle of a screwdriver, or the flatter wrench. I kinda like the heft of the wrench...it doesn’t feel like it might get pulled out of my hand as easily.”

[Carbine]

"Stabby is̴ m̛ore... small p-punctures, easy to remo̶ve͡ and stabby again."

They were a common weapon of choice in Garrus, the words shifting between shank and shiv dependant on who was talking about it, but Carbine liked to call it a stabby. It helped define exactly what type he was talking about rather than the gray area of definition where things could get muddled. Small pipes, lean tools such as screwdrivers, the clawed finger of another inmate who got it torn off in a brawl... One time someone actually got hold of one of those fancy metal stylus' from a guard, made heftier than typical ones to look 'expensive'. That lucky son-of-a-glitch toted that thing around for ages after he sharpened it to a point.

"Multiple holes ra͞t̡her tha͡n͟ ͟one, v-very fast."

It was the type of weapon you were meant to have gored into a target three or more times before they even fully comprehended what was going on. Favored by smaller Cybertronians who would then make a quick escape, but not unheard of in other's hands. A brute could easily slam a larger one deep enough to create holes to internals, but that wasn't really applicable here.

"Shanky is ḿóre..."

Carbine fiddled his fingers some, trying to think how to describe it.

"T-t-trying to make the hit cou̶nt ̴a ͢l̕òt͢ ̕more. Slower. Roug͘h ed͜ges to tea͡-t͘e-t-̢kz͡ztt́-͝rip."

Hooking into armor to rip out chunks... broad edges that had a higher chance of severing lines and separating joints... It tended to need more power behind it, but Carbine didn’t think shed be foolish enough to try to ram it into someone's chest. She seemed the type to go for the throat in his opinion, which would be super bad news to others.

At Javelin's following words, Carbine's tank twisted a bit in stress.

"That place was where only the worst criminals go!"

She was trying to be supportive, he could tell that... complimenting him on his rank as a police officer to get appointed to one of the absolute worst prisons out there. What would have been a praise and would boost his ego, instead was a bit of her own shank right into his side however, a sort of pain that she had called him one of the worst criminals out there to have ended up in such a place. He knew he wasn't a good person! He had no doubts he was destined to suffer there... but to hear it bluntly slapped out by a friend other than Thunder who already knew what he was? That stung.

"M̀m͜.̸.. ỳes"

Brushing over the comment, he moved on quickly.

"Given your scale, I th-th-in̶k̢ ̡t̕he ̀w͘re͟nch would go well! J-just gott'a aim at joint́s ͞or ͏bet̸ween slats."

While his field had retracted some, he did well to feign a sort of happiness still, casually looking her over while he figured out what he thought would work for her. Carbine went so far to feign normality and keep their game going by making it 'obvious' he was passing her a more lewd look-over for humor's sake, the smile crooked up under his optics.

"Can ma͝k͜e̵ ̴b͜oth tho' to trial em!"

[Javelin]

Javelin noticed right away that her compliment didn’t really land well. Carbine, though he tried to hide it well, seemed a little uneasy, drawing back a tiny bit, and she made a mental note not to bring it up again. He was clearly not comfortable talking about it – perhaps that’s where he got his extreme aversion to having his back touched. Possibly he had been attacked by one or more of the inmates there.

Regardless, she pushed it aside.

Javelin reached out and picked up the screwdriver, moving it slightly in one hand, the wrench in the other. Hefting them both.

“In that case, I think maybe stabby is probably better for me. I don’t know if I have the strength to make a good deep hit. But I can probably manage a good three or four hits, fast. I know I have speed with my bow – so that might be the best route.”

Another slight bounce in her hands, and still holding them both, she looked up at him again.

“We can make both? Thanks, that’s a good idea! I can get a better feel for how they work. Give them a trial run.”

A grin slipped onto her face, “And just how am I going to test them out? You just happen to have a victim hiding around here somewhere? Man, you really do come prepared, don’t you?”

[Carbine]

"In second ̷t͝h̸ou̸ght, it g-good you want to learn both! Each ̨awe͟s̕o͠me for different applications."

Carbine chirped this out a bit, seeming thoughtful as his forearm drew up. With a tap he clicked his pointer finger a couple times on the ridge that framed the bottom edge of his visor, gaze peering off to the side. This continued until Javelin mentioned a victim.

"WELL Thunder has͜ ͟no ͟feeling in h-his forearms, can͘ alw͟a͜ys..."

He lifted his hand in a fist and made a sort of stabbing motion down a couple times. It was bold of him to throw Thunder in front of a metaphorical bus, but hey... Maybe he could convince him to play along! Though it would probably backfire super bad all things considered. Carbine was willing to bet that Thundercloud would take it as an opportunity to try to ruin any good footing he had with Javelin, out him on being the awful little piece of shit he knew he was. So with this in mind, the jet was probably a BAD idea, so Carbine scrabbled for a secondary target.

"Can also find some ͢s͟tuf́f͞ i̷n the store room to sha͡n͞k, or͘ ̨we͘ c͝an͞ ̴go to a scrap yard and eviscerate a car."

A totally brutal and dramatic suggestion, or... it would be if human vehicles were not mindless tools that had no concept of pain or consciousness. While such a vehicle wouldn’t have the same sort of armor quality as a Cybertronian, it could still give her some kind of idea what she may like or dislike. If they were lucky maybe they would find one of those more armored vehicles, but that was probably a long shot unless they raided a military outpost that was under Fowler's watch.

An act not even Carbine was dumb enough to try.

At this, the black and white mech clapped his hands together once, his rotors flicking up a small amount at the motion with a soft rattle of the slats clicking against one another.

"AN̸Y̴WA̸Y!"

Carbine moved then, long legs somewhat awkwardly folding beneath himself so that he could kneel down upon the ground. His sharp triangular peds pressed onto the concrete floor, while the back of his legs rested upon his heel wheels. He took a moment to get comfortable, changing the placement of the narrow rings a couple times so they didn’t 'cut' and irritate his legs.

"The screwd͡r͏i͡ver ís ͟rat̢her easy to conten̴d͠ ͠w̷ith. ͟F́a̧st-i̧sh to make when in a pinch."

Reaching over, he plucked up one of the spare wrenches, pretending it was the screwdriver that was still in Javelin's possession.

"Super c-c-common in prison, if ̡y͏ou g͢e͢t c͟a̢ptured and the 'Cons aint kill-kill-ki-ed yah yet... sc͡rabbl͡ing for any metal object or b-being badass 'nuff to rip it off yourseĺf̀ ͝w͘orks ͞g͏r͏eat."

Carbine then held up his hand, changing his grip on the wrench to show Javelin how he was holding it. His fingers were not wrapped fully around the object, but were pulled back to a point it was the side of his thumb clutching one edge, and the side of his pointer on the opposite, trying to keep his fingers pulled back. The bulk of the 'handle' was resting along the heel of his thumb.

"Idio͘ts̛ wrap t̸h̴e̴i̛r hand all the way r-r-r-ound the int͏e͞nded ͡w̨-we͟a͠p͘on, which will result in yah' knuckles and fingers ge͘tt͢ing̡ s͟cr͢aped tah piss and back."

[Javelin]

Watching as Carbine showed approval of learning both, she had to blink when he suggested Thunder as a “target”.

She hadn’t met Thunder yet, had only seen him at a distance, while talking to Carbine, but the large mech was quite obviously heavily built and not a soft target at all.

Javelin also felt a little...uneasy towards Thunder.

Carbine hadn’t spoken about him too much, but it was apparent to the femme that Carbine and Thunder were close. They had obviously been through a lot together, although Carbine never went into detail, and while Carbine spoke about the large jet as if he were a major pain in the ass and an annoyance, Javelin could read people well enough to know the difference.

If Thunder decided he hated her, for whatever reason, would she lose the friendship that had formed between her and Carbine?

Javelin didn’t necessarily make close friends easily. Oh, she could be light friends with just about anyone. Talk and laugh and carry on. But a close friend...someone she could open up to...they were rare. And she had a feeling that Carbine might be someone who wouldn’t care too much about her past....although he had been a police officer...

“Oh. Uh...no, I don’t think I should stab him. No.” She laughed lightly, making sure he knew she knew he was joking, “I think maybe a car would be better, yeah...”

Javelin then hunkered down herself to squat beside him, hands resting easily on her thighs, looking quite comfortable in that odd position.

She listened as he explained the ease of which to get a screwdriver as a weapon, squinting slightly at his hands as he displayed the method of holding onto it. She attempted to mimic his hand position on empty air, “How can I use any strength this way, though? Won’t it just pop out of my hand when it encounters metal?”

Again, Javelin imitated a stabbing motion, “I know it can’t go through heavy armor, but this looks like it’ll just fly off when it hits anything.”

[Carbine]

There was a flicker of confusion when Javelin asked if it would pop out of her hands once it encountered metal, a small spark that evolved into a full blown stall of his processor at her following words. His gaze scrunched some as if his brows were furrowed, a confused look as he peered at how she made a stabbing motion with the screwdriver. This stall seemed to faultier a second, pieces clicking into place before he shook his head.

"OOPS no, I mus̛t͡a̧'͜ n̨ot̕ ̸been clear, I'm snowin' how͡ ̸t̨o̷ ͘MAKE it if you are captured an̶ḑ ͡d͟oņ’t͝ ̨ha̴ve your bow or fancy blade."

He shed off the confusion from before, trying to explain what he meant far clearer. With these words he wiggled the wrench he was holding in the air a few times to punctuate his words some, still holding onto it in the odd grasp he had shown her with fingertips clutching at its sides. He then flicked to use the tool as a pointer as he gestured vaguely at the supplies and his 'bomb' forge.

"The real blade̷ ͡we ̢g̢o̢t to use all th-this other stuff, to mak͟e ͢it fa͟n͝cy!͞ ͝But that-"

He then gestured at the screwdriver in her hand.

"-is a good 'mer͠ge̵n͡cy 'I don't h-have a we̕a̸po̡n and n-need one' weapon."

A bit of scrap metal... a small item that could be pried out from the inside of the cell... tearing off one's own plating if there was a decorative flare... Carbine knew if the 'Cons got him and he NEEDED something, he would probably make a valiant attempt to rip off one of the angular white plates on his chest, or one of the ones that etched up his forearm, or even a chunk off his rotor if he knew he wouldn’t need to fly to escape. While it would severely hurt like a son of a BITCH, if it meant he could have something to fight back other than fist and foot he would need to take on that challenge.

Whether or not he could follow through with it was something else to see.

"If we make̶ th́e̸ ştab̶by easy mode, it's j-just rolling it along the belt ̷sa͝nder."

Boring, easy, and simple enough any idiot could figure it out should they marginally dedicate themselves. Which is probably why Carbine was so 'good' at making them... Whatever the case! They could crack out a dozen of those things in seven minutes or so should they have enough bits of metal and screwdrivers with the sander, but to make it the brute force way was a different ballpark.

"To make it i͜n a͠ ̴c̛ell, yah put the p-palm of your other hand́ ̕at͏o͘p ͜your forefingers, keeping digit͠s͢ ̕ơut so you don't jack them up."

As he said this, he held the wrench down against the ground, clutching the broader wrench side as the handle was placed along the concrete. It was angled at roughly ten degrees, rather close to the floor which is why his fingertips were grasping the sides as he was. To go with his previous instructions then, Carbine's free hand draped over the fingers of the other, the side of his palm resting against the metal of the wrench.

"Angle low, and pres͝s ̧h́ard before scraping forward w-with a sm͠ǫo͞t̛h motion."

A snarled push then was made, Carbine hefting his weight down some to sheer the wrench along the ground with a grating noise. It left a white streak against the concrete in its wake, a gritty smear that undoubtedly left a rather shallow groove as well within that line. After this, he pulled back, showing the burred scuff that now edged the hardened metal and sheered a bit of the material away.

"Wrench is too thi͝ck for this style of craft͘i̕n͘g... it would take ages, b-but that thin one no͜t ͘s̀o ̴much."

Carbine sounded pleased as if he just unlocked an entire world for Javelin on impromptu weaponry that could be made to slam into an unsuspecting Decepticon that thought they had confiscated everything!

[Javelin]

Javelin watched Carbine as he explained, and felt a burst of stupidity at herself. Nothing like making yourself look like a dimbulb in front of someone!

“Oooh, ok, I get it,” a slight laugh at her own expense, and then she nodded at the rest of his words.

Javelin approved. While she wasn’t really a fighter, she always believed that you fought back when needed and you didn’t need an actual weapon to do it. Anything would work in a pinch. Once she had clocked someone with a chair, almost crippling him. She had almost been about to relate this to Carbine, but stifled it back. She knew Carbine was a bit rough around the edges, but he had still been a cop before the war...

...and Javelin didn’t really trust cops. Not back then.

Javelin’s history was filled with some shady things before the war started.....and some seriously dark things after....and she still didn’t really know Carbine well enough yet to trust him with that information. Things she wasn’t sure if she was ashamed of...or not.

Although the comment he had made about not having her bow at hand made a slight shiver run through her frame. She hated not having it at hand....it felt unnatural, and left a faint tinge of panic right on the borders of her mind. When she had had to leave it behind when they had travelled to Haven, she had locked it away in her personal quarters, literally hiding it under her recharge slab. It went beyond love of a weapon....her bow was worth her life to her, for a particular reason.

She leaned forward slightly, wincing slightly as her injured leg protested, shifting it smoothly and hoping it hadn’t been noticed, and focused her attention on Carbine’s hands as he readied the wrench against the floor. A grating noise sounding, Javelin winced again slightly as the tool left a gouge in the floor. She narrowed her optics, gaze on the edge of the wrench as the mech held it up for inspection.

“Huh. So it can just be ground down on anything? I never thought of that.”

Her expression changed slightly, almost calculating, optics still narrowed on the wrench as if it were an answer to a long living question. In her mind she were already thinking of different ways she could use this information....and how to use newly created weapons.

She turned her gaze from the wrench to Carbine’s face, her gaze still oddly impersonal, “What’s the best one you’ve found? When in prison, which one was the most lethal, the one that killed the quickest?”

[Carbine]

It would have been a bit difficult for Carbine to not notice the wince.

While he was showing Javelin how to craft a weapon, and had to explain things smoothly while trying to watch how she was holding the tool to make sure she didn’t scrape her knuckles open... he was also always giving her a bit of a once over. He couldn’t help himself; it was just so natural for him, so... ingrained into him to be a bit of a pervert. It just was who he was! Because of this he did pick up on her pain, though refrained from drawing attention to it.

For a flick his gaze now ran across her frame not in appreciation, but looking for an actual WOUND or weld mark. He wasn't familiar with what happened in Haven with her, more in the knowhow of what occurred to him and Patch. Pinned under rubble, twisted in a strained position with Bolo part splayed beneath his frame from the compression force. He thought he would never be able to straighten out again, parts of his body going numb from lines being part crimped in his contorted pose.

While Carbine was fine after being freed and permitted to just lay flat and straight awhile, as well as pop out dents and patch a few scrapes and practically replace his twisted rotors... for all he knew Javelin's paint was hiding something worse beneath. Deep damage that could not be seen from surface appearances alone. He knew better than to divert however, having a sort of sense in the way she quickly hid the response that it probably wasn't a good topic to breach. He didn’t want to play-fawn over her injury if it would get him socked in the faceplate.

"Paitence̕,̵ an͢d̷ you can m-make some deadly stuff. Time is alway̧s̨ ̕a ̶c̵oncern though."

In Garrus, an inmate could work on a weapon and hone it across years, making some astronomically clever devices and tools. They had all the time in the world to fiddle, make things perfect, and learn how to hide the components from guards so they can keep their 'business' open. As a prisoner of War however? It would be a lot rougher. More frantic movements, more desperation. Decepticons weren't going to let you hang around for weeks as far as Carbine would guess, so it would be a 'race to the finish line' approach rather than super sneak mode.

Then Javelin asked a question that gave him pause.

"Oh whoof... oka͘y ̢uhh..."

Carbine seemed really put on the spot by that question, the field of options to choose from so incredibly vast his processor scrambled a second on how to even approach an answer. His forearms slumped down then as he thought, resting above his knees, while the wrench bobbed ever so slightly in his hand. There was a pause as he stared at the ceiling before he muttered.

"Primus there ̶we̡re so ̵m̶a̡n̴y..."

Soft words, betraying how far back he was probably rooting through his files to try to pick out some kind of grand champion of the prison. There were a TON of memorable weapons, some incredibly ingenious things! Turning the most mundane objects into horrendous tools... but trying to pick a single one? It was impossible really, other than a broad label of a weapon.

"Z-zip guns werę rea͝ll͠y͢ ͞ba̡d."

He seemed to snap back to reality then, yellow eyes looking down at Javelin as helm evened out.

"B-basically homemade gu͢ns. Bu͢t͘ íf̴ you were incar̡-͞iņca͞r̨-͟k̕z͠zt̸t-̨çaged long enough to know how to make one of th-those the con's are so dumb you just could k͢z̨z͝ţt ͜probably walk out."

Those were true champions of the prison. The ability to range take out someone without them able to backhand you down was a borderline magical power. Make it small enough and guards may even be confused as to WHERE the shot came from to begin with, making the culprit avoid a stint in solitary confinement, or just a good old fashioned guard smack down.

"Really it kinda' came̸ ̧down ͞t̶o using was kt̴ķz̀z͢ who it and not͞ ̕s͜o ̢m͠u̕ch͏ ̢the͢ to̴ol. Stabbies hidden in religi͝ou͢s ͠emb̕lems... some̸ ̡mad͝ȩ f̛r̡om c̷r̀yst̸allized Energon..."

Carbine wasn't stressed, but he was talking a lot, which sometimes made his voice degrade. Whatever the case, he could be here for days talking about the crap that was made, from one crazy bastard making a straight up spear, to another somehow getting a string of razor wire and making a garrote. The most memorable ones were always those that had a signature to it to give their target a final farewell, some kind of morbid irony to it that scared others in line.

"One monstrou͡sly la̧rge mech wh͞o̧ ̕w͡às͡ a̶s s͞m͞art as a c-c-cardboa͡rd̷ ͢b͢o͠x ͢had a fįş-̷̡͡f̶̛͠ì̷̡-̶K̡T̸T̴Z͏̧Ǵ͡H̡́ ͘tk̸̢ ̶̧t̕k̸̴ ͘t̴͠k..."

Carbine lurched some then, his voice crackling out into broken static. It happened occasionally, something that he just... had to live with if he wanted to talk in longer chains, but it was embarrassing for it to tip over right now in front of Javelin. He seemed to swallow hard then, a couple spats of static as he reset his voice a couple times, before continuing as if nothing happened.

"k̛t̶k... fist full! of me̛t̵al͏ ͟for his 'shiv'. The thing wasn’t sharp, but he could cl͏obb͞e͟r so hard it killed anyway so he believed it was."