[ti]Ep 3[/ti]Unwanted Company [ Kup | Open ]

[Hot Rod]

Timeline: Week 1 | Day 1
Location: Hot Rod's lost so it's a hallway somewhere
Characters: Kup/ OPEN

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     Hot Rod had heard there were more Autobots arriving, but he hadn't really paid much attention to who it was since he figured he'd eventually run into them anyway because of being confined to the base for the time being. The truce was over but he hadn't really bothered to make friends since arriving and he didn't have anything to do otherwise. He never really cared to know anyone's designations while he was at the Academy, so the likelihood of him even knowing them was practically zero anyway. 

     "Hm?"

      He'd been wandering the halls when he had heard a voice that he thought was familiar to him tickled at his audials and he snapped to attention. Someone from the school? An opponent that he had pummeled into the ground, or vise-versa? He raised an optic ridge curiously as he followed the direction that he thought it was coming from.

     Left. Right. Left... corridor.  Somewhere?

     Hot Rod hoped that the wandering wouldn't be for nothing, since he wasn't very familiar with where everything was yet and if he got lost he'd have to call Ratchet to find him in this makeshift maze. 

     It proved to be a worthwhile trip when he finally came in sight of the owner of that voice, even though the sight of the odd color teal mech was not one he was particularly happy about. Without even waiting to be noticed, Hot Rod yelled so loud that surely he wouldn't go unnoticed buy anyone who happened to be in the base at the time with how his voice carried. He didn't know where he was anyway, but he didn't care. He was just focused on Kup.

     Unfortunately for the old mech.

     "You WORTHLESS pile of SCRAP! I should kick your ass all the way back to the pit where you crawled out from!"

[Deleted]

"You worthless pile of scrap! I should kick your ass all the way back to the pit where you crawled out from!"

"Easy, Lad," Kup said. "You're starting to sound like a broken record. I thought we'd moved past this,"

The Old Warrior had known that Hot Rod had it out for him over having been seemingly abandoned on another Planet not by him, but by others higher up in the Command Chain. He'd profusely apologized, or at least tried to explain that he'd tried to mount a Rescue Mission for the younger Mech and how Kup had been over-ruled by those in Command. Though, he knew Hot Rod blamed him entirely for it since he hadn't been able to have retrieved him from whatever Planet he'd been on. He'd considered trying to reason with the lad, but it hadn't taken a rocket scientist to have figured out tat least by Hot Rod's words and the pulsing EM Field surrounding the younger Mech that to have reasoned with the younger Mech would have been as futile as getting Megatron to have given Optimus Prime an apple for good behavior.

"What can I say that will lay this thing between us to rest?"

He'd been to the Wash Racks to have a nice warm coating of oil especially on his joints and had waxed his the panels along his frame for good measure, and had been on his way back to his Quarters when his Former Pupil had stopped him in the corridor.

"You were one of my best Students, and I came to like you. You were what the Natives on this Planet would have called the Cohort -- er, the Son I'd never had. I respected you, lad, and if you're here then you've learned to Survive,"

[Hot Rod]

     “Don’t you even try to give me that shit. You’re as full of it as you were back at the Academy!” Hot Rod growled in annoyance at the old mech, though, as if realizing that he couldn’t just stand here and strangle him without someone seeing and probably facing some serious repercussions from it, he let him go and took a couple steps back.

     “I didn’t learn to survive, not the way you’re trying to imply that I have. I was stuck on that measly planet all this time so I didn’t have a choice but to just stay out of the way. That’s not called surviving. That’s called being a prisoner.” He scoffed some at him and crossed his arms as he felt his urge to strangle Kup returning. “If you think that’s surviving, then please… I invite you to hurl yourself in the brig and stay there until the war is over. Cause that’s pretty much what it felt like to me until I finally managed to get the hell outta that pit and make my way to Earth. Of course, with a nice parting reminder that I had to have my memory of its location erased and that it was a one-way ticket. Not that I would ever wanna go back to that place.”

     Hot Rod couldn’t believe that the old mech wanted to put it to rest between them. Just like that he expected to be buddy-buddy with him again? As if all the things that happened could just be erased. That the centuries of hurt and isolation could just be purged at the snap of his fingers?

     “If you expect that I’m gonna forget my feelings over all this shit like I’m flushing a toilet, you’ve got another thing coming. If you knew where I was, if you cared even the slightest, you would have come for me. Don’t think that excuse of ‘my superiors this’ is gonna fly with me. You could have looked after everyone left Cybertron. You were probably glad that I was finally outta your grill.”

[Deleted]

"You're going to hate me until the next light-cycle aren't you?" Kup asked.

"I've never forgotten you, Lad. There are things I can't forget or ignore, and as much as this faulty RAM of mine would have otherwise it isn't possible for me to forget. I scoured the space ports, auxiliary depots and more junkyards than I'd care to remember searching for a space cruiser. There weren't any or at least any in working condition. There weren't any technicians to spare that could work on repairing or refitting a space cruiser with many technicians either having already fled Cybertron or had been taken offline. The few worthy space cruisers that were available were guarded heavily by the Decepticons, or were used towards efforts in the Exodus," the Tesaran explained. He'd known it wouldn't have made a spit of a difference with how Hot Rod felt or what had happened to him. Kup had wanted to search for Hot Rod, and when his petitions had fallen on deaf audio receptors he'd searched for a means to find the other Mech and to rescue him.

"I did eventually find a space cruiser, a Patrol model in fairly decent condition and had only climbed into the hatch to find it had booby-trapped. The opening of the hatch triggered the timer on the explosive device, and by the time I'd heard the chime there wasn't even enough time left on it to do anything other than put enough distance between me and the hull. The devices ripped apart the hull, engulfed in flame when the Decepticons arrived. A patrol arrived, and I had to fend for myself. I managed to lose them after finding an old shed that belonged to one of the workers. Between the Exodus Project and the Decepticons, there weren't that many options for anyone to get off planet by that point," the Old Warrior explained.

"I wanted to find you, Lad. I wanted to come find you, and to take your hand to pull you through the hatch before we set course somewhere," Kup said. "I wish that I'd been the one to have taken your place. I know that won't make up for what happened, for what you went through or even that you'll still hate me after this. The only time I found a cruiser still capable of breaking orbit had been the one I found in another junkyard, and on my final approach to this Planet a fire broke out causing that craft to disintegrate around me,"

[Hot Rod]

There was a lengthy sigh that escaped from Hot Rod that could have rivaled the time it took for Kup to tell the story that just spewed out like water from a burst water line. He pinched the center of his eyebrow ridge with his index and thumb digit and scoffed at the end of it.

"No, Kup, I'm not gonna hate you until the next light-cycle."

There was a pause and he opened his optics the stare at the mech. His shoulder vents opened and shut, a sign that he was irritated and venting out some of the hot air he had accumulated.

"That's not nearly long enough. I'm gonna hate you until I stop functioning!" The youth followed the words with a growl and brought his arms to cross at his chest again. "And then after that I may just hang around so I can haunt you for the rest of yours, ya old clunker!" Many probably were happy that Kup was still around to share his experiences with them, but Hot Rod definitely could have done without it. That mech had stories for centuries to tell, and he would if someone gave him the chance to! He'd listened to enough of them to last him several lifetimes! "I'm surprised they even let ya loose in here. Last I remember you had a few screws loose that they thought made you dangerous to the safety of others. Unless no one here knows about any of that."

He hadn't seen anyone from the Academy here, so it WAS possible...

[Deleted]

“I'll admit I've probably left behind parts on the field or in a hangar, but it comes with age. As for when Sentinel Prime thought I was a danger, he was a special case. He viewed me more as a danger because I knew more about him than he wanted anyone to know, but the Autobots here don't really have to know that. It isn't relevant,” Kup said.

“When you get to be my age, you'll be lucky if you can remember what part of your anatomy's missing and if you're even more lucky you'll be able to trace your steps,”

“You would haunt me? I've had Mechs and even Femmes threaten me with that over the Ages and even more than a few Quintesson, but I haven't seen a specter yet. I haven't seen a Mech or a Femme rise from the pit. Lad, your threats aren't bothering me,” the Old Warrior said. He'd played the Old Doddering Fool enough to have fooled most, but his reflexes were still as finely honed as when he came out of the production line. There had been a side of him even the Autobots at the Omega Outpost hadn't seen, and one even Sentinel Prime feared. It wasn't that he managed to get in the way while playing the Old Fool, but that Sentinel Prime had seen the fight that had still remained. He hadn't been ready yet to reveal that side of himself to the others since he hadn't really had the need or desire to, and it had often played out better to have the younger Models to prove themselves. He'd play the Old Fool for a bit longer, if only to teach the younger Models a thing or two and it seemed even the Decepticons -- at least on Cybertron -- had been thrown off by it thinking he'd been far less of a threat.

[Hot Rod]

"You've never dealt with me, ya old rust bucket. I'm spiteful in life, so just imagine what I'm like in death. If I say imma do something, you can bet your aft that I'm gonna carry it through."

He bristled, almost as if he were defending his honor or somethin against Kup's challenge. How dare he think that Hot Rod wouldn't follow through with his threat! And grouping him in with the others he mentioned as if he figured that just because they couldn't do what he said he would that he couldn't? The NERVE. He'd show him.

"It's not threat when you know you can follow it through. It's called a promise." 

"And if I ever reach your age, I would hope someone would disconnect me so I wouldn't have to risk running around not able to find what's missing. Or not know that it's missing or whatever other long list of issues you have with your processor. I don't even want to imagine not being able to be with it all of the time and never knowing if you're coming or going. It's best to take that sort of control yourself rather than waiting for the 'what if'."