Ep 0.5 - Familiar Faces - Closed
Jul 15, 2012 20:34:29 GMT -5
Post by bulkhead on Jul 15, 2012 20:34:29 GMT -5
Bulkhead heard about it when he came back from patrol - new arrival, big, bigger than Optimus, even, a real giant and ancient to boot. There was something about a whole tussle with a 'Con and League playing the unlikely hero and of course, by the time Bulkhead rolled back in, it was all already done with and their newest arrival was swept off in Ratchet's clutches and all the excitement was over. There was a universal rule about that, somewhere - new arrivals either happened when you were on duty and had to deal with all the slag, or when you were on patrol and missed all the fun, never when you were off duty and just hanging around the base to gawk at the action.
So he missed the new arrival and had to hear about it all second hand from Miko, who was going on about how big the new mecha was, until Bulkhead had finally called her on her exaggerating tendencies - "Pics or it didn't slaggin' happen, Miko!" - and THAT was when she'd finally remembered to pull out her phone and share the actual photos.
Ok, so Bulkhead had to eat his words on that one, because Miko wasn't kidding around. New bot was big, and old. And wearing a lot of really archaic Earth kibble, which might be why it took a few beats of listening to Miko's continued blow by blow of the newcomer for his recognition protocols to kick in and dredge up some really old files as a match.
"Wait, wait, hold on... whaddya say the new guy's name was?"
"Duh," Miko drawled, leaning over the catwalk to rap her knuckles on Bulkhead's helm. "Weren't you listening? His name's Gasket, like those thing you pull out of car engines..."
She was off again, but Bulkhead wasn't listening. No way. No fragging way! No way in Pit were there TWO giant ancient mechs with the same designation, and if he squinted hard... yeah. He could see it under all the Earth altmode paraphernalia, and what in scrap did a mech that big turn into around humans anyways? But under all the scrap and kibble he could see the base of the old Titan class and hadn't he heard about THAT for orns after that one time because Knock Out, frame freak that he was, would NOT shut up about it. "Pistongasket?!"
That stopped Miko in her verbal tracks. "Whoa, what? You know this guy, Bulk?"
"Yeah! I mean... if it's the guy I think it is and it's gotta be, no way there's two of them... yeah!" Bulkhead was reeling, processor and spark spinning with disbelief and no little bit of awe. It had been unbelievable to see the Titan back in the day - for the big mech to still be around now, and on Earth, was the kind of astronomically impossible statistic that blew science type minds. "Primus, I met him way back in the day! He was a blockade runner, ran a weapon delivery to my old unit. We ended up extractin' him after he got shot down."
Miko was bouncing on her toe tips, up and down, pigtails bobbling. "Tell! Tell me! Tell me everything!"
Which lead to story-hour with Miko as Bulkhead spun out another tale of Wrecker fame for her eager ears. And if he always felt a little guilty for editing out certain names, well... Miko was still young, and some of the harder parts of their war, like the parts that turned friends into enemies, was more than young ears needed to hear. Bulkhead would have edited for Bumblebee too.
It was later when he got a chance to find out Gasket's status from Ratchet - summed up as 'old' and 'wear and tear' and 'out of fuel', mostly, all of which the three R's of rest-relax-refuel could take care of. Rather than try to explain Bulkhead passed it off as simple curiosity about their newest member and let Ratchet chase him back out with the admonition that the old mecha didn't need people stopping by to gawk at him while he was recovering. Fair enough.
So all told it wasn't until a week later, when base gossip said the newcomer was back on his feet and had been assigned quarters deep in the base - where the human built spaces were capable of being arranged for a mechanism that size - that Bulkhead managed to get things together and show up at the door of said quarters, several sizeable cubes of their homebrewed high grade in hand. It was only at the door that he realized he really didn't know what to say - "Hi, remember me?" or "Hey, great to see you up on your pedes" and just hope the mech did recall, and he hadn't really thought at all of what he would do if Gasket didn't remember him for scrap.
Well... he might not remember Bulkhead, sure, but if Bulkhead mentioned the dreaded KO name he was willing to bet the oldtimer would remember THAT.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Venting, Bulkhead tapped his pede against the door, his hands being occupied with cubes. "Pistongasket? Hey, um... hi."
So he missed the new arrival and had to hear about it all second hand from Miko, who was going on about how big the new mecha was, until Bulkhead had finally called her on her exaggerating tendencies - "Pics or it didn't slaggin' happen, Miko!" - and THAT was when she'd finally remembered to pull out her phone and share the actual photos.
Ok, so Bulkhead had to eat his words on that one, because Miko wasn't kidding around. New bot was big, and old. And wearing a lot of really archaic Earth kibble, which might be why it took a few beats of listening to Miko's continued blow by blow of the newcomer for his recognition protocols to kick in and dredge up some really old files as a match.
"Wait, wait, hold on... whaddya say the new guy's name was?"
"Duh," Miko drawled, leaning over the catwalk to rap her knuckles on Bulkhead's helm. "Weren't you listening? His name's Gasket, like those thing you pull out of car engines..."
She was off again, but Bulkhead wasn't listening. No way. No fragging way! No way in Pit were there TWO giant ancient mechs with the same designation, and if he squinted hard... yeah. He could see it under all the Earth altmode paraphernalia, and what in scrap did a mech that big turn into around humans anyways? But under all the scrap and kibble he could see the base of the old Titan class and hadn't he heard about THAT for orns after that one time because Knock Out, frame freak that he was, would NOT shut up about it. "Pistongasket?!"
That stopped Miko in her verbal tracks. "Whoa, what? You know this guy, Bulk?"
"Yeah! I mean... if it's the guy I think it is and it's gotta be, no way there's two of them... yeah!" Bulkhead was reeling, processor and spark spinning with disbelief and no little bit of awe. It had been unbelievable to see the Titan back in the day - for the big mech to still be around now, and on Earth, was the kind of astronomically impossible statistic that blew science type minds. "Primus, I met him way back in the day! He was a blockade runner, ran a weapon delivery to my old unit. We ended up extractin' him after he got shot down."
Miko was bouncing on her toe tips, up and down, pigtails bobbling. "Tell! Tell me! Tell me everything!"
Which lead to story-hour with Miko as Bulkhead spun out another tale of Wrecker fame for her eager ears. And if he always felt a little guilty for editing out certain names, well... Miko was still young, and some of the harder parts of their war, like the parts that turned friends into enemies, was more than young ears needed to hear. Bulkhead would have edited for Bumblebee too.
It was later when he got a chance to find out Gasket's status from Ratchet - summed up as 'old' and 'wear and tear' and 'out of fuel', mostly, all of which the three R's of rest-relax-refuel could take care of. Rather than try to explain Bulkhead passed it off as simple curiosity about their newest member and let Ratchet chase him back out with the admonition that the old mecha didn't need people stopping by to gawk at him while he was recovering. Fair enough.
So all told it wasn't until a week later, when base gossip said the newcomer was back on his feet and had been assigned quarters deep in the base - where the human built spaces were capable of being arranged for a mechanism that size - that Bulkhead managed to get things together and show up at the door of said quarters, several sizeable cubes of their homebrewed high grade in hand. It was only at the door that he realized he really didn't know what to say - "Hi, remember me?" or "Hey, great to see you up on your pedes" and just hope the mech did recall, and he hadn't really thought at all of what he would do if Gasket didn't remember him for scrap.
Well... he might not remember Bulkhead, sure, but if Bulkhead mentioned the dreaded KO name he was willing to bet the oldtimer would remember THAT.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Venting, Bulkhead tapped his pede against the door, his hands being occupied with cubes. "Pistongasket? Hey, um... hi."