[ti]Ep 2[/ti]Reporting to the Commander [Closed / Starscream / Flatline]

[Flatline]

While Flatline's own mind was wandering about the past tools he once owed, he was not completely oblivious to the jerking movement that came from the small femme. Bladed tools could be very dangerous; especially those that were going at high speed. A rotating saw only needed one broken connector to suddenly turn into a projectile that would not be fun for most everyone with a lighter armor class. Heck, even those with heavy armor would probably be rather displeased to be pegged with one, even if it wouldn’t gore super deep from a glancing strike. It is because of this he paused momentarily when Sparkplug was tugged forward, only really registering the fast movement with a fleeting thought of 'do I need to put my arm out?' though it was pointless.

A: Because nothing actually happened.

B: Because his reaction times weren't fast enough even if it had.

Focusing back to the task at hand, Flatline scooped up another piece of metal once he drew near, pivoting on the thin points of his peds before walking at an at ease pace back to the scrap piles. The help really wasn’t much given the severity of the situation, but he didn’t know her full intention for everything that remained, so he wouldn’t join in and start hacking apart other chunks of things with his own circular saw. Whatever the case, his help did falter some as Sparkplug started to speak once more, his helm rising to watch her while she transferred her thoughts over.

::You certainly like to turn the simple complex::

Amusement, with a bit of disbelief. Sparkplug had taken a straightforward foldout table design, and effectively mutated it into a more complex monstrosity with locks, posts, and springs that unfurled like an insect. Granted, in the broad scheme of things it wasn’t THAT complex when compared to other options that would be applicable, but that didn’t take away from the end result.

::If I am understanding correctly, the only error is the fact the fold out panels would need additional pieces to fill the gap between sides, less your surface area becomes a cross with gaps at the corners::

Walking back once again, he stood to Sparkplugs side, so that if her circular saw did slip free somehow it would not hit him, patiently waiting for the next chunk of metal.

::However, adding that additional complexity can take away structural integrity, and let's be honest, the ability to step into those gaps may be beneficial for work. I would not bother coming up with something else to rectify::

A flip of his hand, Flatline seemed to be casting aside the idea of trying to find a solution to that issue with a borderline sassy approach before he focused back down.

::I wonder if a simple drop leaf table would be easier, but this is your lab and I am gathering that you have a certain penchant for the overly intricate::

Flatline's rather droning voice from before, flicked up in amusement at this with a paired grin, the words perhaps bordering the edge of teasing or mockery, though he wasn’t intentionally being snoody or mean. He could understand the femme's love for finding out complex but practical means to save time in the long run, he honestly could. Flatline had been evolving his work area ever since he got here.

::While I would be happy to help you should you want, I think we have bigger problems to attend to first...::

The amusement was gone then, a sort of oppressing dread at the level of cleaning that needed to be done.

::Is everything getting cut up here? Are you saving anything?::

The answer to this could guide him so he could see about trying to double their time and get some progress before Starscream made another horrific appearance...

[Sparkplug]

Sparkplug looked up at the complex, multiply articulated mech, letting her gaze trail obviously over his layers and banks of plating, then grinned.

::Oh, I wouldn't say overly intricate. Exactly as intricate as you need it to be and no further, that's the key::

Bending back to her work, a fresh spray of sparks flaring across the floor and dying out in little specks of cooling metal, she vented a sigh, nodding.

::You're right, though, the fun bits will have to wait. First it's just hacking all of this out. If you want to do a poke through the shelves for anything intact, you're welcome to, but I can't see a single thing in here that's not got rust spots or water-flow contaminants washed into it::

Her saw spun through the support, nibbling away at the last strands of metal until they were severed completely. While the blade was hardened and coated, she was going to have to do a lot of cutting... she'd probably have to either replace the blade, or get it sharpened and re-coated before she was through.

::No, I think this whole filthy mess can go, and as quick as I can manage. If I knew exactly how tough the bulkhead walls are, I'd be tempted to use my particle cannon, just slice the whole mess apart. I'd probably blow right through a wall, though, and that is not the way to make an impression on your new commander. Not a good one, anyway::

[Flatline]

Oh Flatline liked that.

Sparkplug's commentary on how intricate design is only as much as it needed to be and no more, somewhat hit a small point within Flatline's cynical and bitter spark and cut through some of the resentment of being forced here. It was a wonderful way to look at things, and may actually be a summarized way that he thought on some deep level that he had not put into terms. Sure cutting down on the frivolous was his current process of thinking, but in the past there was some fun to be had in the flair and design of what was being done. Make something impressive but functional, intricate but not delicate... these thoughts caused a more genuine smile to form, a misshapen grin that was a bit lopsided while he looked down at the femme and the following spray of sparks.

While his interests had been picked at a moment there, wanting to perhaps make comment on that, his own past beguiling want to be efficient came back to bite him as the topic turned to stare down the task at hand.

Just as fast as the grin formed, it faltered, red eyes scanning back over the mess as if he were forced to see it for the first time again, and accept just how much of a chore this would be.

::I agree.... the repairs to salvage even the savable may not be worth the time::

A lower grumble through the Communication relay, before his voice picked up again.

::You know, when I first arrived I was struck down simply for speaking my thoughts too candidly to Megatron... and I know Knock Out got an entire wheel crushed because he had the audacity to act out of line. If you tore a hole through the ship, you may just get thrown off it::

Part joke, part warning, full truth right there. Flatline has not been an official part of the Nemesis for very long, but the way things seemed to work here was painfully clear. Whatever the case, he then walked over to a different patch of metal, his forearm holding out in front of him while secondaries tucked back flush against his chest plating.

A sharp pulse, a snarled hiss, a sudden split ripped through the center on Flatline's palm, and pulled the hand apart from itself, only to continue down past the wrist, and split open a channel on the gently curved forearm itself to expose glinting silver. The action was fast, as with many of their transformations it happening in a blink of an eye as a fraction of a second later the silver unfurled into a circular saw, and his hand curled and socketed away into the limb itself to protect its fingers.

Soon a second screaming saw tore into the confined space, as he started to try to work down the chunk he approached.

::I wonder if we have the authority to get Vehicons to help::

A sideways comment, honestly having no clue if they were permitted to order troopers off task or not.

[Sparkplug]

When dealing with a figure that was nothing short of legendary, it was hard to know where the truth stopped, and the rumours began. Worse, the truth was often the one thing that didn't get spread around - truth being inherently less exciting than an appropriate exaggeration - and so the only way to even guess at the real nature of things was to weigh all the excitingly unlikely stories, and guess at the hidden events behind them.

Take Shockwave, for instance; Sparkplug really didn't know whether to expect a scientific genius, the kind of towering mind that had driven Decepticon weapons superiority for hundreds of thousands of vorns, or a mad scientist-slash-butcher that was as likely to dismantle you as look at you. Avoiding him was probably the safest option, until she knew more. But when it came to Megatron...

Well, there were so many contradictory stories about him that it was basically impossible to know anything for sure. Some said he was a warrior-philosopher, like the greatest of the ancients - he'd taken the name Megatronus, after all. Many said he was the most inspiring leader that had ever lived, capable of seeing into a mecha's very spark and knowing exactly how to win them to the cause. To some, he was a wise tactician; to others, he was a relentless battering-ram of a leader, charging recklessly into the maw of the enemy no matter how many of his followers fell. Universally, he was said to be indestructible, undying; that no force in the galaxy could snuff out the fire burning in his spark. He seemed to be all things to all Decepticons; whatever they valued most in a leader, he embodied.

Sparkplug, though, had been an Autobot for a long time before Optimus's insane betrayal of their whole race had driven her into the arms of her former foes. She didn't have the same hero worship of the Warlord that so many Decepticons did; he was simply the only one capable of punishing Optimus as she felt he deserved. Her loyalty was to the faction she fought for, not to its leader - an unusual position in the Decepticon ranks, which were very much a cult of personality, and not one she advertised.

Now, listening to Flatline's words, she didn't doubt them for a second. It was as she'd feared; he was violent towards his own soldiers on a whim, capricious and cruel. Best avoided, if at all possible. Thank Primus she'd been brought to Commander Starscream instead, a mech that had shown interest in her potential and set her a task to prove her capabilities.

Busy with her own thoughts, she barely heard Flatline's final comment through the radio link they shared, and had to replay it before she absorbed what he meant.

::Hm? Oh, yes. Sorry, I was thinking about what you said. Kind of nervous about it. A lot nervous, actually. I mean, I'm here because he's here, Prime is, and I want to see him get crushed. Hope I get the chance to spit in his faceplate when it happens. Probably should stay out of the Warlord's way, if I can manage it, though. You know me, I talk a lot, and I'd like to have a functioning vocoder at the end of the cycle::

She mimed a stabbing finger at her own throat. From what Flatline had said, he probably didn't react well to 'chatty'.

::Anyway, vehicons. Don't know. Place I was at before this, there wasn't a whole lot of hierarchy, and there sure weren't any mass-produced models knocking around fetching the energon cubes and handing over the tools. It'd probably speed things up, mind. If they could find some cutting tools of their own, they can help clear, and even if they can't, they could be getting rid of the scrap we're piling up. Think it's worth asking some?::

[Flatline]

Flatline mulled over her previous words in silence, responding about the Vehicons first.

::I would ask Starscream next time you see him perhaps. Better to get confirmation before we start pulling troopers away from tasks that are more important... I would ask myself but after that little stunt I don't intend to place a ped out of line again anytime soon and ask for favors::

For a moment he was truly into the idea of getting some additional help pulled in, trying to speed up the process so Sparkplug would be free to work on the more enjoyable prospects of constructing a laboratory. However, after he had said the initial idea and considered it further, paired with her insight, it caused him to recoil a bit and backtrack on his initial wishes to this more uncertain reply. It may have came off as insecure, but considering the fact he just admitted Megatron strangled him, and how he had gotten in trouble not long ago prior, it was easy to see why he may be a bit 'gun shy'.

Pressing his weight forward a bit more, Flatline's circular saw ripped through the beam of metal with an angry squeal, the newly freed chunk rattling to the ground loudly and rolling a short distance before settling down and into place. While the beam was still rather sizable, it would be significantly easier to transport, prompting him to use his remaining primary hand to pull and maneuver the shelving unit again to a new angle, so he could start to bear down once more, a new stream of sparks flicking out.

There was a brief pause, before he backtracked to the previous subject.

::That was rather pointed ire I sensed regarding Prime::

Distaste for Optimus was a given among many of the Decepticons. While some opposed him simply for his ideals, choosing to align themselves with Megatron over the red and blue mech, Sparkplug's statement felt a lot more passionate with a potential tale lingering behind it. It was hard to say if it was passion birthed from her expressive nature in general however, or if it was truly kindled and fueled by past experiences that had gone sour. Whatever the case it poked at his curiosity, as it wasn’t just someone screaming about crushing the Prime or wanting power by clipping his life short, she wanted to spit on his corpse.

::Perhaps it is out of line to ask... but is there a story there?::

Red eyes flicked over in the direction of the energetic Femme when this was said, trying to pick up on any change in posture that may show when the question was prompted. Sometimes, the subconscious changes in the way an individual carries themselves, can share so much more than what the following words may depict. Would she be guarded trying to come up with a way to block the question? Or would she burst with loathing energy with the floodgates open and vomit it all out? He was interested to know if this was something that would actually clip down her vocal ways, or if it would bloom more.

[Sparkplug]

Sparkplug pulled a face, immediately recoiling from the notion of asking Starscream for vehicons. When put in those terms, as Flatline had, it seemed self-evident that she wasn’t going to get any further help with her work on the former storage room – the Air Commander had given her a task to see how she got on, and even provided Flatline to assist. If she went back and annoyed him with requests for even more mecha to work under her, he’d immediately classify her as a femme that was incapable of doing anything for herself. Definitely not the impression she wanted to give.

Of course, before Flatline had been assigned to help, she’d expected to clear out the whole place herself. Two were better than one, and that was more than enough. The company was at least as valuable as the help, in fact.

She was just about to voice her train of thought, when Flatline shunted it off the tracks entirely.

Optimus Prime.

Her expansive field, usually so expressive, contracted closer to her chassis. Seemingly focused on cutting through the shelf bracket in front of her, she didn’t turn towards him, her circular grinder spraying sparks in an unbroken arc through the air.

Then, after a pause, she replied in tones of flat calm.

::Not what you’d call a personal one. I’ve never met the mech, not in the saluting, shaking manipulators kind of way. I very much doubt he knows I exist. But as far as I’m concerned – yes. There’s something there::

Her grinder tore through the bracket support and out into empty air, momentarily quelling the fountain of sparks and screech of metal. Shifting her position, she moved onto the next one, her back still towards him.

::I began the war on his side. Shiny Autobot. Pacifist, actually. I was into chassis design. Strictly non-offensive work, to start with. But, y’know, as time went on, it got harder and harder to keep to that line. I’d build chassis, knowing they were going to be tooled up by my colleagues in the next bay over, to go out and fight. I’d see improvements I made applied to the weapons the others were building. We were pressed harder and harder, worked faster and faster. Seemed like the only one I was fooling with the whole ‘pacifist’ thing was myself. But I was trying. Then, well::

Her flexible lips tightened against her denta. A touch of strange, bleak mirth coloured her emissions, still broadcast wide enough for him to catch.

::He betrayed us. Not just the Autobots, but all of us. Decepticons, neutrals. Ancestors. Primus. All of it::

She let her grinder spin down, filling the air with a sudden quiet that, in its own way, was as loud as the noise had been before.

::He threw away the All-Spark. Deep space. Untrackable. Estimated search and recovery time longer than multiple times the age of the universe. He killed us, Flatline. Killed our people. From that point on, not a single new Cybertronian. All those unborn sparks, whirled away into the dark. From then on, as a species, we’ve been dead::

She shifted, looked over her shoulder at him. The shade of her green optics hadn’t changed, not one iota, but some trick of her expression gave them a distinctly different character. Where they so often danced with good-natured humour, now they glowed with a cold, distant luminescence.

::So. No new bodies to build. No point. No point in pacifism, either. That’s just stringing things out. Putting off the inevitable. So guns, and bombs, and lots of pretty, pretty weapons of all stripes. If we’re going, it might as well be fun, right? But, Flatline – I’ll see him ruined, for what he’s done. Everything he ever made, dust. Don’t think he’ll ever know why. Don’t think he’ll ever know who I am. I’ll spit in his spark casing, just the same::

Turning back to her work, she spun up her angle grinder again.

::So not a personal story. But yeah. Personal::

[Flatline]

There was no immediate response.

Fascinating.

Flatline watched intently as the femme seemed to remain focused to task, not faltering or seeming to change posture in the slightest when the question had been asked. In a way, he was confused if the communication had been sent properly, and if Sparkplug even heard him to begin with. A mistake, a hiccup in connections... his question lost to some great void that lingered in-between... but this thought was removed and proven as false when her field creped and wilted away, no longer able to be immediately sensed in his restrictive aura.

The pause in the grand scheme of things did not encapsulate a great deal of time. It was small, momentary, but it was there enough to capture his attention and make note of. What was to come next could either be very enlightening due to a story to pair along with it, or it could be enlightening due to the lack of a story, closing down and not answering. So much could be found when reading into things, but thankfully, he needn't worry about trying to theorize a source for the ire, as a moment later Sparkplug began to explain the situation.

Ah... she had been an Autobot.

Individuals making a shift, it was so difficult to do a lot of the time. Many deemed whatever you chose initially was your true 'spirit' regarding the situation, and a change could only be a manipulative means to learn dirt on the other side, and collapse the team from the inside out. Trust, was hard to gift, and faith in an individual truly being what they now pledged to be? It was nearly nonexistent. That is, unless it was done early enough in the war. The few thousand years of shuffling, the scatter of sides and blurring of lines... propaganda looping ones into line, while others learn new facts and back off their current path... But even then it was odd this femme so blatantly divulged her past allegiance, it having the potential to paint her as a not as trustworthy individual to some, even if her ire towards that other team was very much venomous and very much real.

Brushing this aside, Flatline looked back down as his saw ripped through the beam he had been working on, moving it to line up with the other chunk, before he started to work on a following cut.

Ah... the All-Spark...

Flatline had been hit hard by this news as well. For one who partook in a similar job as Sparkplug of frame design and manufacturing, it effectively crippled his functionality, and forced him to adapt to changing times, or be left in the dust. Being who he was, he took it as a challenge, instantly diving head first into the field of medicine, and working on frames that were currently functioning, and not just working on bodies that had yet to feel life. He blotted the grim details of the situation aside, to simply focus on his own survival over the long term survival of their species as a whole. But while he did not let the news affect him as blatantly as it did the other Cybertronian, it didn’t mean it wasn’t a bitter pill to swallow.

Experimentation.

New Opportunities.

While it fundamentally seemed flawed, Flatline had theories and he had things he wanted to do to try to break this stalemate made by the All-Spark's disappearance. He wanted to try to fissure sparks in half, to fuel more than one body from a single source, or other artificial means to create life for their kind... It was something he tinkered with on and off between his other tasks on the Nemesis, turning it into an obsession in a way. He was determined to create artificial life if it was at all possible, to force new creations despite the dilemma dished out to them.

But it would be nice to have that source returned.

Sawing through the other beam, Flatline let his saw rev down gradually, the blade heated by friction and searing hot. While he let it rest a moment, he thought over his next words, jaw twisting forward a bit as half lidded eyes peered across the remainder of the room and the work ahead of them.

"I do not believe Optimus Prime would launch the All-Spark blindly away. He must know its location."

A disgusting fact, the Prime knowingly stalling their progression.

"While killing him is viable if we have a Mnemosurgeon in the ranks to try to root that information out of his dead processor, Shockwave... he has a fully functional Psychic Patch. I have seen it."

Did they have such an individual around? Flatline honestly did not know off hand. He read many files on others on the Nemesis, but nothing came up from what he recalled. If they didn't, than it would be very unreliable for Sparkplug and himself to try to hack and prey the information out from the core just from their knowledge on building components. One misstep, one false move, and the data could be wiped away. Shockwave could probably have a good shot of prying the data out, given how insanely skilled he was on all fields of science, but if Optimus was still alive... it would be substantially easier with less risk.

"I believe we can forcibly get the information we need, as long as we can get hold of his head. So I do not look at our kind as a lost cause, just... temporarily ransomed..."

[Sparkplug]

Sparkplug snorted, shaking her helm. Her angle grinder humming, she reached out towards another rotten shelving bracket, but half-way to it, she stopped. Letting the tool spool down again, she chose to answer Flatline aloud, the way he'd spoken to her.

"There's an assumption that you're making, one that's so basic it pretty much goes without saying, and I reckon it's a false one."

She leant against the rust-laden shelving, her faceplate visible in profile. The uncharacteristically level tone of her voice gave away traces of her internal tension, but it was so much clearer in the expression she wore, lips tight, denta near-gritted together. Her shoulders hunched tensely under the guards.

"Here's what I think. We've all seen a lot of war over the mega-vorns. Especially the ones like you and I, who've been around since the start. Whole planets, laid to waste, especially our own. More than a few species have gotten caught up in the crossfire, or stepped in because they thought they'd profit by supporting one side or the other, and you know what happens to them."

She drew a finger across her throat. "These local sapients, the humans, they'll go the same way if they don't stop trying to interfere. But at least we don't consider ourselves personally responsible for starting it all. Him, though. I reckon he's decided, a long time ago, that we're too dangerous to live. As a species. We're too good at war, we live too long, we don't let things go. We destroy everything we touch, so we've got to go. That's what's going on there."

With a short gesture at the bulkheads, to indicate the wider world outside, she went on with barely contained anger, "If it came down to restoring Cybertron at the cost of a few human lives, he wouldn't do it. Not if it was a hundred, not if it was ten, not if it was one. Not if it was a sick one. That's where our species ranks. Flatline, he's not trapped on Cybertron anymore, facing a Decepticon land invasion. If he wanted to win, he'd have retrieved the All-Spark millennia ago, and started building new troops. Hasn't though. Because more than he wants to win, he wants the galaxy to be free of us."

Her hand gripping the edge of the shelf bracket tightly, she shook her helm again. "If he ever had a way of recovering it, he's gotten rid of it ages ago. Or if there was ever a chance we'd capture him, he'd wipe that knowledge straight out of his processor. You reckon it's still findable, I'm not gonna say you're wrong. But until I see it, 'til I see new sparks flowing into bodies, I won't believe it."

Flat certainty rang on her words. Deep down, it didn't matter to her what hopeful theories any mecha expounded; if the All-Spark was recoverable, it would have been by now. It was gone. Their race was doomed. Those concepts were immutable laws. Everything else was rationalisation.

Hope that the All-Spark could eventually be recovered was one of the most vital things that had kept Sparkplug from resigning from the Autobots in furious despair. Obviously, that was the first thing to have been removed from her mind.

[Flatline]

Ah, it had not been Flatline's intention to speak verbally rather than through the communication relay. That had been an oversight on his part. One thing it did do however, was show he was more considering to the words to a point he did not think of the extra step to send it over properly. Too focused on the conundrum, too focused on trying to think about the facet of the war he took as a challenge and a dare... But his obsession was more looking for a loophole, rather than trying to channel all of his energy into hate and ire like the other Cybertronian appeared to be doing.

This mistake on his part became more apparent when Sparkplug's words cut through verbally, and he seemed almost caught off guard she was responding to him in such a way, his helm twitching a bit more upright while he tuned into the audio. His first thought was 'why', which was swiftly followed by a realization he had made that mistake a few moments prior. Once this connection was made, he set the confusion aside, adjusting his position a bit to listen to what the femme had to say and to get a bit more comfortable, stretching the prongs on one of his peds with soft clicks.

"I don’t pretend to understand his logic, so I can't comment really on any of that without entering psychological theoretical debate on the Prime... which is as useful as spitting into the wind..."

Flatline honestly did not care to even try to rationalize or think through the Prime's train of thought, his words grumbling out with a grainy droll. No matter what he sourced from such an internal debate... there would be nothing there that would lead him to different choices he figured, and even if he sympathized, that would do nothing but distract him. He was a Decepticon, he was loyal to the Decepticons, he would follow Megatron as well as he was able to, and would serve them dutifully as long as he could work behind the shield wall of the Nemesis and do science rather than be stuck on a frontlines.

"But... I will say there is a possibility. Even if he doesn't know where it is exactly, we can perhaps get out what direction it was launched before he deletes that data. Which... would eliminate a good chunk of useless space we don't need to search."

Search 'that' large expanse of outer space in that general direction? Or search all of space in an endless battle looking for something that who knows what it even looked like at this point. One was mathematically sounder than the other, even if both were extremely unlikely to end well all things considered. They didn't even know what the All-Spark LOOKED like really at this point... the idea of containing such a thing was something Flatline didn't really comprehend well. Was it just like an industrial spark chamber? Was it the size of a shuttle? Or did it find itself trapped in something the size of a full ship? It would need to be an astounding piece of equipment to contain such a vast power...

But that was a debate for another time.

"I choose to assume it will be found eventually, or we will find other means to force sparks into existence. Until then however, you will aid in cutting down opposition with weaponry, and I will aid in keeping the soldiers fighting."

A soft shift in conversation, directing towards her new goals and her eventual aid to the cause. While he said this, a hooked talon on his free hand pointed in her general direction, punctuating the words a bit. He did not wish to sound like he was changing the subject at all, he would keep talking if he must, but he had no real insight to offer to bounce ideas against it or try to debate.