We are a literate, intermediate to advanced AU Transformers RPG Based off of the first season of TFP with dashes of other incarnations sprinkled here or there. Characters from any continuity are welcome however must be restyled to match the TFPrime universe.
Active, with ongoing plotlines, we are always willing to integrate new characters into storylines once incorporated into the setting.
Though the kick was hard enough to propel Wheeljack backwards for a clear landing, it did not so much as stagger Maximus. The big mech leapt after him without pause, his stare intent.
"Oh yeah?"
In a heartbeat Maximus had closed in again. He loomed over the Wrecker, a dark silhouette outlined in floodlight.
"You have a problem with his leadership?"
His heavy fists struck out again. The first swept aside Wheeljack's arms to remove his guard, while the second drove in for his chest. At the same time Maximus crouched low and gathered himself and charged into the attack, throwing all of his weight and mass into the blow in an attempt to follow it up with a lunging tackle that his sheer size would make difficult to evade. The guns housed in his armoured legs rattled in their housing.
Maximus growled, "Or you have a grievance against the mech himself?"
This was...bad. Ish. Ish because there was never a situation that Wheeljack had failed to get himself out off and it wasn't going to happen just yet either.
Maximus had come after him quicker than expected and Wheeljack was hard pressed to keep up a defense. Those armoured fists had knocked his arms out of the way before he could use them to redirect Max's attack like he'd just done only moments ago. Before Wheeljack could recover, the warden's other fist drove into his chest in a crushing blow. Wheeljack's frame stiffened, his back arching away from the blow as pain seared through his receptors, carrying their message straight to his processor until he firewalled it away. The Wrecker's limbs locked up momentarily, their lapse lasted for less than an astrosecond but it was too late when Wheeljack regained controlled.
The full weight of Fort Max's heavy bulk slammed into Wheeljack, knocking the Wrecker backwards and off his feet. He hit the ground hard, only to have the warden's tackle and momentum follow him through to the floor, pinning him there in the mud. Despite the situation, despite the fact he had a mech who was easily several times his own weight and admittedly had more than a few concerning issues lurking deep in his processor and sounded kinda slagged that Wheeljack wasn't an outpouring fountain of respect for his commanding officer, the Wrecker was quite calm. He knew that his attitude towards Prime was not a popular one. He also didn't particularly care and was unafraid to voice it. That it had culminated out during a spar with Fort Max was kinda surprising and he'd probably be collecting a few hard dents or injuries for it, though the prospect didn't really worry him.
There was always a way out. He was just yet to find it. And this fight had only started anyway. The Wrecker was confident that he would see that it would continue for longer.
Lazily, he tilted his helm back. Rested it in the mud. The Wrecker was unphased by the sludge and dirt. Wheeljack gave a small flex of his pedes and servos, checking that they were responding as he mulled over the question. The metal on his back was pinned hard against the ground by the combination of Wheeljack and Maximus' weight but it did not hurt the Wrecker, like it would in some frame-types. Those pieces were more an artefact from his alt-mode and lacked proper receptors to fully register what was going on.
Wheeljack turned his head slightly, defiantly, and stared boldly back at Max's grim face. "A little bit of column A and a little bit of column B," he answered coolly. It was a personal matter, one solely between Wheeljack, Bulkhead by extension and Prime- and Prime wasn't even aware of it.
"Why, what's it to you? Does it matter?" the Wrecker wondered. His optics had narrowed, his gaze sharp and piercing. Wheeljack was still able to work and co-operate with Prime, still got things done despite his loathing.
He hadn't bothered trying to shove the warden off him, Max was fragging heavy and Wheeljack didn't have a hope of removing him by sheer strength. Although...the mud on the ground and on his frame...that did make things slippery.
Maximus leaned over him. He held himself out of the mud on one knee, while one of his plated forearms crushed down against Wheeljack’s chest to pin him to the ground. Rain dripped straight from the brim of his helm to the Wrecker’s face.
“Does it matter to me?” he said. “Does it matter to me?”
Both of his hands clapped down on the collar of Wheeljack’s chassis and dug in their grip. He yanked the Wrecker close.
“Not one damn bit,” he said.
With an abrupt heave Maximus gathered his legs beneath himself and rolled backwards, dragging Wheeljack with him. As he hit the earth on his back and treads he worked one foot up against the Wrecker’s midriff and kicked out, hard enough to launch Wheeljack into the air and send flying back over his head.
Maximus continued rolling backwards over his shoulders, his arms flexing to throw himself into a handspring. He landed in a short distance away in a crouch, bent low to the ground with one hand planted for support. Mud dripped from his back.
“Three years, two months, and ten days,” he spat. “What does that mean to you?”
Before Wheeljack could put the mud to good use and start squirming, Max started talking again. The warden's tight grip came down on Wheeljack's collar and despite everything, the Wrecker kept still and made no attempt to resist or fight back. He had a feeling that things were going to get interesting if Fort Max kept speaking his mind, that this actually hadn't got much to do with Prime after all.
The warden's impressive strength dragged Wheeljack along out of the mud as he sought to reverse positions, rolling onto his back. As Max worked a pede between then, onto Wheeljack's middle, the Wrecker swiftly grasped what he was up to. Since he was very much in favour of getting clear of Max's grasp and putting some distance between them, he allowed the mech to kick him away, up over the warden's head.
Wheeljack had already shut down the sensors in his midriff, so when Max's heavy pede impacted with him, he didn't really feel it. The Wrecker was plunging towards the ground headfirst. He reached down with his servos, to catch himself in a handstand facing Max. The Wrecker shuffled himself around a bit so that when he bent himself back, pedes touching the ground and then lightly shoving against the ground with his servos to stand up straight on his pedes, Wheeljack still ended up facing his opponent again once he was the right way up.
When Max spat out a timeframe, a specific one, Wheeljack started to figure out where they were going here. His expression tightened the slightest fraction. Well, they really were venturing into interesting territory. Interesting but dangerous.
The Wrecker flexed his shoulders and arms, working the kinks out of them before settling himself into a defensive stance. He had a feeling that his next words were really going to provoke the big mech and he was going to need to dodge or run. Mud dripped down his plating and was soundly ignored. "When it's coming from you, I have a few guesses."
"Garrus 9. Overlord," Wheeljack's voice was sombre and steady, like he wasn't digging deep into Max's painful past. As with everything, the Wrecker took a blunt, unhesitant approach, cutting straight to the issue, no dancing about it. Whilst previously he had kept his silence, now that Fort Max had brought it up, had made it an issue, Wheeljack was unafraid to address it. That didn't mean he wanted to. "Everything he did to you. How far off the mark am I?"
He braced himself. Wheeljack's cohort may have built him specifically with blast shielding but he was pretty certain that defusing the living time bomb that was Fortress Maximus was not something they ever had in mind.
Maximus slowly rose to his feet. He moved stiffly, as if all of his joints had seized up. The whine his knuckles made as his hands closed into fists was audible even over the distance that separated them.
“We don’t talk about that name here, or anywhere else,” he whispered in a deadly tone. “No one does. This has nothing to do with – anything he might have done. And has everything to do with what the Autobots failed to do for over three years!”
The last words were bellowed into the rain. His red optics blazing, Maximus clenched his fists and charged.
This time he thundered down on Wheeljack without restraint. Over the sound of the rain could be heard the jerky roar of air through his cooling systems as they vented the heat a massive warbuild engine generated under stress. The warden’s feet pounded into the mud, until he threw himself into one long stride, then another, and finally kicked off into a ground–eating leap on the third.
With one leg bent Maximus drove for the Wrecker, aiming to slam his foot squarely into Wheeljack’s chest with enough force to cave in whatever it struck. Beneath the floodlights his face was locked into a grimace of fury. Even before he struck his fist was already reared back and swinging, a pulverizing blow that would fire into the top of the Wrecker’s head and crumple it into his chassis the instant Maximus hit the ground.
It was Wheeljack's personal belief that frag yeah, Overlord had a lot to do with the cause of Fortress Maximus's anger, given that he was the root cause of the original situation. However, okay yes, the slow response of Autobots , that was a problem. A huge problem. They'd failed Maximus and Garrus 9, allowed the prison to be transformed into a place of where atrocities had been committed and Maximus himself subjected to brutal, horrific torture. The Autobots had come far, far too late to put an end to things. That was a serious, unforgivable oversight, one that Wheeljack hoped that Fortress Maximus would take up with the actual people responsible at some point, instead of taking it out on him. Especially since Wheeljack was the last mech in the universe that would defend a decision by Autobot command and yet somehow had ended up dealing with the aftermath of a disastrous and callous one.
But Wheeljack's desires had little to do with the current reality of the situation. Fortress Maximus was lost to his rage and out to cause some serious damage against the Wrecker's person. When Maximus jumped for him, Wheeljack threw himself out to the side to get clear. No offensive manoeuvres, no clever tricks, just a plain dodge to keep away from the big angry mech out for his spark. Wheeljack was back on his pedes in an instant, backing up and putting space between them, knowing that it wouldn't last and Max would be after him immediately.
The Wrecker narrowed his optics. He really, really wasn't quite sure what to do here. He had no desire to continue fighting Maximus with the mech half out of his processor with fury. Nor did he know what to do to defuse it. Wheeljack had not come here to be a target for the warden's misplaced anger and had no intentions to allow Max to beat him to a pile of scrap. As fond as Wheeljack was for working out his frustrations with violence, he'd never been so far gone that he would attempt to cause deliberate injury to an ally. Wheeljack honestly wouldn't have minded being an outlet for that anger if he didn't know it came with a guaranteed visit to the critical unit in Ratchet's med-bay. Which was occupied, last time Wheeljack checked.
Wheeljack had no idea what he should do. So he settled for straight up asking. "Fortress Maximus," He growled with frustration. "Tell me, what exactly do you want me to do about it? How can I help?"
Maximus hit the ground and rounded on the Wrecker, his fists already raised. He blew an angry blast of heat from the vents in his back, which evaporated the water gathering in them into a misty haze.
He stepped forward, his shoulders hunched and his glare laden with menace. But something about Wheeljack’s question made his optics widen.
Startled, Maximus stopped where he was and drew up sharply. For a moment he stood with his arms lowered and let the rain beat down upon his shoulders. Some of his anger drained with it, even as it eroded away the mud on his armour and washed it into the puddles around his feet. Then Maximus opened and closed his hands and shook his head.
“Nothing,” he said bitterly. “There’s nothing you can do to – wait. Wait.”
The big mech shifted on his feet. He gave Wheeljack a wary look.
“Maybe there is,“ he said. ”If I tell you something, can you swear not to breathe a word of it to anyone else? Not Optimus, no Ratchet, not Red Alert – no one. This goes no further than between you and I, at least for now.”
Honestly? Wheeljack hadn't actually been expecting to get a response to his question. He was surprised that it actually brought the warden up short and halted him for a moment. Slowly, Wheeljack relaxed as Max stared at him with startled optics, straightening up out of a combat stance. The Wrecker gave a slight shake of his frame, dispelling tracks of mud off him, with a final flick from those metal pieces on his back.
At the assertion Wheeljack could do nothing, the Wrecker didn't react. He liked to think he had a lot of resources available to him but Garrus 9, Overlord, Autobot command? Those might be a little bit out of his league. Wheeljack tilted his head when Max interrupted himself, then asked for the Wrecker to keep his silence if he was trusted with whatever Maximus was keeping to himself.
"You've got my word," Wheeljack replied gravelly. He quirked an optic ridge at the warden and continued in a drier tone. "Quite frankly, I'm kinda insulted that you think I'd go blabbing to Prime or Red. That implies I might have reason to want to talk to them."
And then, because Wheeljack always kept things on the level and since Fortress Maximus was asking for trust, Wheeljack figured maybe he should give some in return, to make things easier on the big mech. "For the record, I'm going to be leaving the Autobot base soon. Shockwave and I, we have a score to settle," Wheeljack turned a piercing gaze on the warden as he gave a slight shrug. "Haven't spoken a word to anyone about these plans. Not even Bulk."
Maximus gave him a sharp look, as if taken aback that the Wrecker had harboured such plans – and that he had chosen to voice them to the warden, rather than to one of Wheeljack’s oldest friends.
“I – all right,” he said. “In that case...”
He shook the tension from his hands and turned and paced away a few strides.
“I haven’t made a final decision yet, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about since I left the medical station,” he said. “And saw for myself how much things had changed since – since the war moved off Cybertron. So don’t think this is a rash decision spurred by recent events. It’s not. This is based on long years of mounting dissatisfaction with – everything. The army, and its current state. The Autobots. High Command. Myself, mostly.”
Maximus stopped. He stood a moment, his back to Wheeljack. Then he turned back around.
“I’m tired,” he said tensely. “I’m warborn, and I’m tired. I don’t think I’ll be returning to the Autobot base. Like I said, it’s not a finalized thing yet but... I think I’m gonna leave the army. And the Autobots.”
The simple difference between Fortress Maximus and Bulkhead, why one knew of Wheeljack's plans, his full plans, before the other, was that Max knew about Shockwave. Bulkhead didn't. And wouldn't ever, if Wheeljack had his way. His brother would only know that Wheeljack was leaving again, though not why or where. And if Wheeljack succeeded in his mission, then there should never be any reason for Bulkhead to learn of the events that had befallen Wheeljack.
It seemed being honest with Fort Max was enough to cajole the big mech into speaking his mind. Wheeljack listened quietly and patiently to what the warden had to say.
Whatever Wheeljack had been expecting to hear though, this...this really wasn't it. Quite frankly, Wheeljack didn't think anyone would be expecting to learn of the decision Fortress Maximus was currently weighing up. Leaving the faction wasn't a choice made lightly. Pits, it wasn't something you even thought off unless the situation had deteriorated to the point it was the only option you had left.
The Wrecker hadn't know Max was war born. You met all types in the war. But Wheeljack had always thought such mecha were a tricky ethical issue, especially those sparked for military service. Allegiance to the Autobot faction should be made by choice, not because one was sparked and commissioned to it, the Wrecker had felt, in accordance to the values supposedly espoused by the faction. They were expected then to fight in a war which gave them nothing, for a peace they'd never experienced personally, for values that they themselves may not uphold.
Small wonder Fortress Maximus was tired. Wheeljack didn't begrudge him for his decisions. The Wrecker was all for people forging their own paths and quite honestly, given his own troubled history with the Autobots, would be the last mech to try and coral Maximus back to the faction.
The rain poured down over Wheeljack's frame, helping to clean mud off him. The Wrecker shifted uncertainly on his pedes, not sure how to respond to the entirety of the warden's speech. It was a big decision, leaving the Autobots. One not to be made lightly. A terrifying decision, in fact.
And one that Wheeljack had faced before.
Suddenly, he knew where to start.
Maybe, by sharing this, the warden would find some clarity in the choices he was facing.
"This personal grievance I've got with Optimus…" Wheeljack began slowly, haltingly as he tried to get the pieces of this story together. "When I woke up after Shockwave did his best to demolish most of my memories, there wasn't a lot I could remember outside the war," the Wrecker stated blandly. "Still don't in fact. But I did know a few things. That even in the midst of all the fighting I had found cohort. Family. Brothers. I had it all."
Wheeljack paused. "I could remember that so clearly."
"And I also remembered that thanks to Prime, his leadership, his orders," the scorn was clear in Wheeljack's voice but he did not allow the pain to surface, "He took that from me. It's gone, all of it. I ain't ever going to get it back. Some of them are still alive actually but as far as I was concerned way back then, they may as well be dead."
Magnus taking command of the Wreckers and stripping the group of its spark. Bulkhead leaving because Prime was the 'real deal.' Wheeljack had put up with it until he realized that there was one simple solution, that if he left then he wouldn't have to deal with it anymore.
"I remembered that I decided that enough was enough. So I left. Walked away. Struck out on my own. Never went back. Deserted really, if you must know," Wheeljack thought over it and gave a quiet, humourless laugh to himself. "Everyone always says that dying is the only way out of the Wreckers and they're right for the most part. But I left. Decided I was my own mech and that was it. And I stuck with that decision even after my memories got scrambled. Even now, still haven't returned to any active Autobot rosters. Call myself a Wrecker, an Autobot, but technically I'm not."
"Thing is, I still agree with Autobot principles, just not with Command. So, I go where I want and help out how I want. I just don't answer to anyone but myself." Wheeljack frowned to himself and tried to bring this fumbling little speech full of deeply personal and uncomfortable things to a close.
"I guess what I'm trying to say is, believe it or not I kinda understand where you're coming from and leaving the Autobots...it's most certainly doable. It's possible. I've done it. Our situations are completely different though and what you do with yourself afterwards is your own decision. What I've got going works for me. But if you want to leave, Maximus, know you've got my support and help if you need it."
As Wheeljack had listened to him speak haltingly of his own thoughts, so did Maximus listen to the Wrecker talk soberly of his own experiences. The big mech stood quietly, his expression grave and his optics lowered to the Wrecker. Only the laboured huff of his cooling systems broke his self-imposed silence.
Some of what Wheeljack spoke of he had overheard in the medical bay - Shockwave, the ravaged and missing memories, the history with the Wreckers. The rest of it...
Maximus turned his gaze aside and let the words fall over him.
It was more than he could ever recall hearing Wheeljack say at one time before. And not once had he spoken this much at length about his past or the personal code he lived his solitary life by. Usually the Wrecker came across as laconic, someone who seemed content to let his actions speak for him. That was fine by Maximus. He saw little point in talking when it served no concrete purpose.
Once there had been a time when he had reviled deserters. Even now he saw no pride in abandoning your comrades to a fate that you were afraid to face yourself. But Wheeljack did not strike him as a coward. To stand and listen to him admit to his desertion and realise that he could understand his reasons for doing so was - unsettling.
But also a odd relief. Maybe it meant the Wrecker understood Maximus' own.
Rain drummed against his back. Maximus licked his lips and nodded.
"I - also still agree with Autobot principles," he said. He spoke tautly, his optics averted in discomfort. "And I loathe the Decepticons. That will never change. I'll stop fighting them when I'm dead. But I'm not fighting for the Autobots any longer. The army is a shadow of what it used to be. I have no faith in what it's become, and it no longer has a place for me. I can't - put my trust in the Autobots like I used to. Every day I find more things I hate about them. I wasn't like that before. I think I'm just tired."
Maximus sighed. For a moment his shoulders hung heavily as the big mech stood in the rain and rubbed his optics with one hand, low and defeated. Then he let his hand drop and glanced back at Wheeljack.
"I didn't know all that about you," he said quietly. "Your situation, I mean. Thank you."
It had been...uncomfortable to say the least, to speak so openly about his past. Wheeljack preferred to keep most aspects of his life private. But he hadn't minded sharing in this regard, there had been no one there to talk to when Wheeljack had been struggling with this very same decision. Bulkhead had been long gone and the Wreckers…
Well, when Maximus spoke of how the Autobot army felt like a shadow of its former self, that was exactly how the Wreckers had felt to Wheeljack at the point in his life. There had been no one Wheeljack wanted to confide with. Magnus had torn apart the team dynamic and Wheeljack had wanted nothing more to do with it, with everything.
The Wrecker didn't twitch or comment at Max's criticisms of the current state of the Autobots. Honestly, the mech hadn't been paying all that much attention to what had been going on. The inner politics and command decisions being made, pretty much all flew over his head. So long as it didn't impact him, Wheeljack couldn't care less. That Maximus was dissatisfied with it was a good enough reason to leave, in Wheeljack's opinion and the extent of his concern.
"I didn't know all that about you. Your situation, I mean. Thank you."
The Wrecker gave a wan smile, shifting his weight restlessly. "Don't mention it. It's a tough choice you're facing and I...didn't have anyone to talk about it. When I was making it. Sure could have done with a friendly audial back then. If it doesn't feel right, then it's not right, simple as that, I've decided now."
Wheeljack's thoughts turned back over to those cycles. The struggle, the decision. Then the aftermath. Freedom. Which...hadn't lasted very long once Shockwave came into the picture. The Wrecker's scarred lip-plates downturned as his thoughts darkened. There was the downside of leaving the Autobots, no one goes looking for a deserter after all, except in punishment.
Which reminded him…
"'s might be a bit of a change in topic," he rumbled, folding his arms and keeping a cautious watch over the warden in case this set him off again. "But when I left, there was no one to go looking once Shockwave got his servos on me. And 'ccording to base scuttlebutt, you've had a run-in with one big Decepticon coupla weeks back. Saw him, big mech with the forks and turns into some garbage truck, only a few cycles ago. Didn't have much to say about me but was quick to blab on about you…" the Wrecker's face tightened.
"That name no one talks about, Forks seems like a fan of his work and pretty fixated on ya. I'd watch my back. Or maybe not, Forks can barely shoot straight to save his life at a distance and the last I saw of him, he was sitting a top an island set to blow. Could have bridged out though at the last second, though. Oh and by the way, if Fowler ever asks, you can tell him that the little island off the coast of Scotland that blew up a couple of cycles ago, that was me. Forks said a couple of things I really didn't care to listen to. So I didn't, deleted that little delightful spiel right out of my memory core."
And the next time Wheeljack encountered the damned rubbish truck, he'd be sticking his sword straight into the mech's spark. Perhaps a little side quest on this hunt for Shockwave he was going on.
The reaction that Wheeljack's news evoked was swift and powerful.
Maximus staggered.
He backed away. His optics flickered, and for an instant he stood rooted and stared at the Wrecker in horror. A surge of dread and nausea rolled through his field before he wrenched it back under control. Immediately Maximus turned his back on Wheeljack and walked off a few strides through the mud before rocking to a halt.
He stood there, sick and light-headed, his hands flexing convulsively. He knew exactly what Decepticon the Wrecker was describing.
All at once all thoughts of the Autobots flew out of his mind. A hollow roar filled his audials as he remembered his encounter with that Decepticon, and what had been said. Ugly, leering words that should not be spoken of anyone, whether they were true or not. Even if they were not they still invited ridicule and speculation and, and - worse.
Maximus could only imagine what ugly things Wheeljack had been told. Or what he had wondered after hearing them.
"What did he tell you?" he said jerkily. "No - no, wait, you said you deleted the memory of it. You don't remember?"
He rounded back on Wheeljack, his expression dark with rage. "Can you swear, on your honour as a Wrecker, as a - a - I don't care what! You swear you don't remember a damn word he said? You heard it, you know it was bad, but you don't remember what it was?"
Wheeljack had carefully kept himself bland and neutral as he delivered this information. He could have been commenting on the weather, going by his tone. He didn't want Maximus to think Wheeljack had held the slightest interest in what he'd heard. To make it as easy as possible on the big mech.
Even still, his dry delivery provoked a strong response, everything that Wheeljack was trying to avoid. The Wrecker wasn't close enough to feel the turmoil in Max's field but he did see the horrified expression that had flicked across the warden's face before he had turned away. Respectfully, Wheeljack averted his own gaze from Maximus' distraught form, instead turning his vision upon the dark and distant heavens. He'd suspected that the warden wouldn't take the news well. Wouldn't have wanted anyone to have heard the toxic words the Decepticon had spewed. Hence why Wheeljack had chosen to remove them right out of his processor before they could fester. The altered memory file had a meta tag attached to it, a footnote denoting what he'd deleted for future reference:
Decepticon talked a whole lotta slag about Fortress Maximus. Sounds like some sort of fan of Overlord's work. Overlord wannabe? Intends to emulate Overlord? Might want to finish what was started back at Garrus 9 or continue it? Potential Wrecker killer? Con needs to die regardless.
When Maximus turned on him, enraged, the Wrecker wasn't precisely surprised by his vehemence. The Wrecker lowered his helm to meet Maximus' angered optics with his own. Wheeljack was relieved that he'd hadn't hung on to the Decepticon's taunt. Who knew what it would have done to the warden if he had?
"I swear on my spark," Wheeljack said gravely. "Figured you wouldn't want anyone carrying those words around. The Con was looking to use them as weapons and I had no intention of being part of his game. They were gone almost as soon as I heard them."
Maximus stared hard. But the Wrecker spoke solemnly, without a trace of duplicity. If he was lying, then Maximus could not detect it.
That would mean that Wheeljack truly had wiped the words from his own head, just to spare Maximus from the knowledge that a friend had been given a glimpse of the humiliation he had suffered in his past. He hadn't lied; he had actually exorcised the words and the memory of them from his mind. Wheeljack, a mech who already bore enough unwanted gaps in his memory as it was.
Maximus... didn't know what to think about that.
His head buzzed. He didn't want to think about any of this any longer.
Maximus backed off and paced a few strides through the rain, back and forth. It no longer felt right, glaring down at the Wrecker. And he didn't want to do it.
"I am going to murder that 'Con the next time I see him," he seethed. He turned on his heel, his engine revving in agitation. "I don't know why I spared him the first time. It won't happen again. Next time I'll tear his damn head off before he even has a chance to open his mouth. Just like I would any other Decepticon out there. I've learned my lesson. "
Maximus slammed one fist into the other hand and came to an abrupt stop. In a desperate attempt to change the subject, he looked back over his shoulder and said, "Did you really blow up an island?"