Ep 1-Seeking Work Force-Closed

[acidstorm]

((For Cid and Jets...and the Eradacons of course. Takes place sometime after Starscream taking over.))


With a sigh the Seeker paused in his work to look over the damage, his lab had certainly seen worse days, back when it got bombed. But that Autobot sure did a number on it as well, Acid Storm had at least cleaned up enough that a bot could set foot within his lab without it melting off. Acid Storm would now need to pull the remaining bits of slag together, hammer it all out and reuse it to fix up his lap. Primus knows Starscream was certainly not going to give him the metal needed to really repair anything. Though he did consider reporting that he needed new tables to do his work on, maybe that would be important enough to get some much needed attention to his poor abused lab.

The mech then got an idea.

With a slight huff he turned to the door to his lab and quickly scooted out and into the halls. The Seeker made a beeline for the Eradicon bunks. Acid Storm may not have visited the drones often, but he at least knew where it was and right now they were what he needed.

Cheap labor.

[Deleted]

Jetfire was only now realizing the final slight Ratbat had given him.

The barracks were a crowded, noisy, uncomfortable place. The assorted Eradicons and Vehicons were a teeming mess of gossip and occasional groans of pain as they recovered from the Autobot assault… and the change of command.

All he needed was a brief shutdown sequence. It had been a long… well… breem. He was used to lacking his own quarters when large transports were concerned- he was often too busy scouting to warrant one, spending time to recuperate outside. But now he was a mech without duties or responsibilities, so he was trapped with the rest of the peons on the broken hulk that was the Nemesis.

He was acutely aware that he was being a waste of space, so he spent his time Googling potential human-created altmodes for himself- he still wore his vehicle mode from Cybertron. He was consoled by the fact that he could make an effort at Seeking without actually leaving the comfort of a good seat- the natives had practically put their entire existence in the airwaves they called the ‘World Wide Web’, even if it was riddled with errors in most places tht he had to do more searching to iron out. Not to mention they used rather primitive forms of code that made him wince to load up in his optic HUD at times.

But at the moment he only held the browser in the corner of his optic, observing the Vehicons in front of him with a detached interest. He desperately wanted a moment of quiet to just shutdown comfortably and sink into the oblivion of sleep-mode, but even that was too much to ask, it seemed.

“Dude! That’s not cool!”

“Finders Keepers, mech. Who’s to say it was yours in the first place, anyway?”

“You didn’t find it, did you? You stole it right out of my-“

Four Eradicons seemed to be fighting over a piece of molded plastic. Jetfire had not yet deeply investigated the sections of the internet devoted to Pokemon, so the argument went totally over his head. He dismissed his Internet browser, staring at them dolefully. They were used to him staring into space now. He’d been distracting himself with Wikipedia and had no regard for how he looked while doing it- namely sitting and staring quite vacantly at the wall. It made them uncomfortable and at the moment, he wanted no part of them, so it suited the Seeker well enough.

Which is why they all nearly jumped out of their chassis when he spoke. “Get over it and argue over the piece of polymer somewhere else. Can’t imagine what that thing is actually worth to you anyway. Does that thing have any value at all?” Jetfire did observe (after a quick scan- easy from this distance) that the materials that had been invested in making it were highly refined- something that took that much work to construct must have some sort of value, but honestly, all he could grasp was a lump of polymer shaped into a sort of caricatured lizard creature, with a fine layer of pigment sprayed on top of it. Definitely human made- they created a whole slew of useless objects, didn’t they?

Jetfire glared at them, hoping they wouldn’t be like every other cheeky Eradicon on the ship and start another argument with him. He was somewhat interested in the value of the toy- namely why- but he was also incredibly interested in being able to get even a few kliks of sleepmode this cycle, for Primus’ sake.

[acidstorm]

The doors to the barracks slid open, though a slight green glow seemed to precede the bot who stepped in. Almost right away the Eradicons retreated to a safe distance away, like the bot had some sort of space-plague seeping out of his joints. Though to be fair, with all the crud Acid Storm was stuck cleaning up for the last few days this might not be undue caution.

"I need...some assistance in putting my lab back together." The Seeker stated outright, more or less ignoring the massive Decepticon flier who seemed to be bunked with the Eradicons. However his words fell on deaf audios, with many mutters of "I got sentry duty." and "Far too busy, sorry Cid." and other little things that irked Acid Storm. He almost considered shooting the bot who had used that appalling nickname, but the Seeker was both far too lazy to pull that sort of thing and knew it wouldn't get him much of anywhere. There was no reason for them to follow his orders, without the weight of the commander behind them the drones could just as easily ignore him and Leave Acid Storm on his own.

Of course it didn't help that the bots were afraid of the Seeker, it seemed being prone to breaking and bleeding acid were two things that really scared the 'hired-help'. Who knew? In any case Acid Storm did not intend to leave without some workers. "Come on now." He growled "The lab is spotless, I ran a hundred scans over that slag-heap and if you do catch something I'll just cure it. Now I need some work and it won't take but an hour or two if you big sparklings were to get your afts in gear."

[Deleted]

Jetfire took a moment to observe the proceedings before deciding to become incredibly insulted and venting loudly. “Well?” he barked, a twinge of feedback sounding off his broken vocabulator sending a twinge down all their spinal struts. “If you have time to argue over a piece of polymer- you can help a comrade with… ahmm… janitorial duties,” he said in a voice that implied that janitorial duties were slightly above the level of arguing over plastic lumps.

The old Seeker pulled himself to his feet, his bad knee screeching softly as he moved. He was fairly sure- by the build- that this new one was another Seeker. He was hesitant to make any assumptions- all the new builds for frames were confusing…. But it still had that air to it…

With the gait of someone injured enough to be excused from anything strenuous and someone old enough to be able to tell everyone else what they should be doing, he hobbled over to the three and loomed. He was about twice his size, so it was satisfyingly effective. Instead of speaking directly to them he craned his head to look at the bright green mech. “What sort of assistance?” he called cheekily, EMF pulsing with pushy, ornery vibes against the Eradicons he was looming over.

Perhaps the old mech was too bored- he wasn’t sued to being cooped up anywhere for more than a breem, and the cabin fever was getting to him. Still- he strongly believed in respecting elders and if he wasn’t going to be out Seekeng, he’d be teaching the sparklings a lesson, he would.

[acidstorm]

Much like the scientist expected, not a single one of the drones wanted to help him, at most they hid their optics from the Seeker's toxic stare. What happened next would cause those same optics to widen in shock, Acid Storm could only watch as a massive old bot lumbered over and laid down a verbal attack against the drones before turning to the Seeker. Acid Storm had to crane his neck-joint to take all of the giant in, before now he thought that only combiners got that huge, but it seemed he was wrong.

"It's good to see someone isn't afraid of a little labor." The scientist said in his normal droll tone, though in the back of his mind he had to wonder where this giant rust heap came from. Not a soul told him that a bot joined their cause, heck it had taken a month or two before he even knew there was another scientist on-board the ship and that was after she blew up part of it.

Nobody ever tells him anything...

[Deleted]

Jetfire nodded knowingly, leaning to enhance the loom. The eradicons below him cringed, though their waves were more of discomfort than of fear. For good measure, he took half a step forward, zooming in on the piece of polymer and scanning it with the noisiest equipment he could activate. The whirring noises emanating from his helm as the goggles snapped into place made those uncomfortable waves of awkward creep into their EMFs. “Interesting,” Jetfire said with a mixed tone of curiosity and condescension.

He looked back up at the bight green seeker, with the absurd goggles still on. They magnified his optics, giving him a somewhat goofy appearance, but they gave him a hint of menace as well. “My designation is Jetfire,” he said amiably, his cone conflicting with… well… everything else.

OOC: Short one… had trouble thinking of things to do with the raddies before Cid says more.

[acidstorm]

((OOC: That's fine, I can take over them for a bit.))

Noticing the larger Seeker's interest in one of those 'cards' the Eradicons were always clucking over, Acid Storm slowly bent down and picked up the small square between two claw like fingertips. "My name is Acid Storm." He stated as he slowly stood back up to his full height. He then activated the small acid pours in his claws and held the card up for the Eradicons to see as it's holographic frame began to slowly bend and melt under the scientists grip. There were several muttered gasped and even a clanking sound from one of the Eradicons locking up into stasis or 'fainting' as humans called it.

The mech then wiped the mush from his claws to let it fall to the floor, the acid was largely absorbed into the mush at this point and barely a threat to any bot, unless they stuck it in their intake or something equally as Darwinian. Turning his optics back to Jetfire and lowering his arm, Acid Storm locked his nuclear green eyes on the towering Seeker, the bot was one of the first fliers the mech had met in vorns that didn't make him want to rip out his processor and pitch it into the nearest star. "I am grateful for your help..." He paused before turning his optics back to the drones who watched on in a mix of horror and stunned silence "now if only they would follow your example, there would be far less 'accidents' that may befall similar tiny squares within my sight." His tone was still low and droning, even as he handed out the not so veiled threat, it almost seemed like the scientist was reading off of a script and not a very interesting one from the sound of it.

However the Eradicons got the message loud and clear, glancing between each other as they tried to consider some alternative that let them keep their cards un-melted and themselves safely away from the walking acid bath that could break and burn them all at the slightest hit.