Ep 1.5 - Prepare For Trouble, Make It Double (open)

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((Timeline note - takes place during/after Fancy Meeting You Here, after the Solus girls on Earth split up.))

Hot Rod slumped against the wall in the unfamiliar base, utterly despondent. Not even the thought of seeing Optimus Prime again could cheer her up - after the strips the One had torn off her paint, she wasn't sure she wanted to see anything resembling an authority figure ever again. She mostly wanted to crawl in a hole and pull it in after her. She hated it when she screwed up; more so when it was Elita who had to dress her down for it.

Elita was nearby, talking to the Autobot officers; mercifully, none of them were paying attention to her, though she was sure they'd notice if she tried to sneak off to find someplace to sulk. Well, they wouldn't be allowed to stay for long, probably. Hot Rod let out a sigh and plopped down on the floor to rest her arms on her knees. All she could really do was wait, for now.

((OOC: This is for Roddi and Blue to make trouble; anyone else is invited to express their exasperation with all the chaos they're causing. ))

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So many new bots, and this time 'Lita was with them! Ou'd wanted to catch up with her but the One was obviously occupied with boring commanding officer related things and so ou decided to wait.

That was when the little sniper saw the flash of bright colours curled up against one of their drab walls and decided to investigate. Bluestreak made hir way over to were the brightly painted femme was curled up, sulking a little by the looks of it. Once close enough ou poked her with a foot.

"Hey, your're to brightly painted to sulk like that. What happened?"

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Hot Rod jumped, startled and then immediately embarrassed - how did this one sneak up on her? She was a highly-trained warrior! ...Well. A distracted warrior.

"Long story short, I messed up and now my commander's mad at me," she explained with a crooked grin. "You'd think I'd be used to that by now, but the One's really good at guilt trips."

She pulled herself to her feet, remembering her manners - this one seemed friendly, and about her size. "My name's Hot Rod. What's yours?"

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"Oh man, I know that feeling. Sometimes Optimus gives me this Disappointed In You" look and I swear the entire base can feel it."

The sniper grinned and held out hir hand. Happy to meet some new bots hir own size and it looked like roughly the same age too which was a bonus. Blue's EMF was warm friendly and welcoming never mind the gleam of mischief in hir optics.

"The names Bluestreak, I know not a spot of blue on me but trust me it'll make sense in time. So you're with the Order then? It must be cool to serve with Elita One."

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Hot Rod found herself smiling back, her field opening up in response to Bluestreak's friendliness. "It is when she's not mad at you."

She already liked the gray Autobot. Friendly and young and inclined to chatter, just like her - she could already tell they were going to be great friends.

"But you get to serve under Optimus Prime," she said, bright-opticked. "That must be amazing! I got to watch him spar with Elita-One once. It was so incredible. ...He cost me twelve shanix though."

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Ou laughed at that last comment. "Word of advice, don't bet on Optimus when it comes to sparing ESPECIALLY with Elita-one. He fights too fair and she fights too smart."

Which is to say she doesn't fight fair at all but said in a much nicer way.
Ou tugged playfully on her hands and grinned at her in a way that promised nothing but trouble.

"Don't worry too much i'm sure Elita will forgive you. In the mean time how about I give you a guided tour of our base? Casa de Autobots we have all the luxuries."

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Hot Rod lit up. "Sure! I've never been in an Autobot base before. Especially not one on another planet! I'd love to look around with you. Do you have any humans living here? Or any dinosaurs?"

Roddi was, perhaps, not quite up-to-date on Earth fauna.

She giggled as Bluestreak tugged her hands again, easily going along with her new friend's direction. Elita was being led away by Arcee; she only gave a distraction acknowledgement-ping to Roddi's "going to get a tour of the base, brb" comm. Roddi figured that counted as permission. She grinned at Blue, her own optics shining with eagerness and maybe a bit of mischief of her own.

"Okay, I've got official permission for a tour and it looks like the One's going to be distracted. Lead on!"

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"Lets hope everyone is distracted for a little while."

Ou gladly lead Hot Rod towards the more interesting parts of the base and AWAY from the distracted Authority figures.

"Not the fanciest digs here and with all the new bots coming in we're getting a little crowded but that's okay I like having all the bots around. Maybe you'll meet some of them. Oh watch out for the cat walks and stuff they're for when we have out human friends over."

I wasn't long till they reached the entertainment room. Over sized screens all hooked up to a plethora of gadgets and some cybertonian 'furniture' haphazardly set up.

"This is were all the video games are, Don't play with Bee he cheats. Do you have any questions?"

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It may have not been the fanciest of digs, but Hot Rod was delighted by them. She kept turning to look at the catwalks, the console setups, the controlled chaos of the entertainment room - everything. It was all so interesting! And this was where the Autobots lived and worked. Where the magic happened.

Did she have questions? Hell yes she had questions.

"Are there humans here now? Can I meet them? Are those human video games or Cybertronian? Is it cool working with humans? Have you seen snow yet? Or gone off-roading? I really wanna go off-roading. In the snow." Hot Rod bounced in place a little, almost quivering with excitement. "This planet is so cool."

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"I don't think there's any humans on base right now but we can look if you want. We're not supposed to play favourites but I like June the best. Not that I don't like the others, I do they're all pretty cool. We don't have any snow in Nevada here but I wouldn't mind going off roading with you, and there's always the ground bridge. "

The little sniper stretched before digging into the vast pile of games. "We've got both kinds. More from earth than Cybertron. Oh! But Steeljaw's been making some and they're pretty fun."

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"You've got someone making video games, too? Wicked!" Hot Rod draped herself over the back of the couch and watched as Blue rummaged through the super-awesome Autobot video game collection. Awesome compared to her own video game collection, which topped out at precisely zero. "The Order should totally get into that business. Maybe as a subset of the blade-class. We could call them training simulations. Tactics and combat and even medical sims, right? I'm in training as a field medic," she added with a sheepish grin at Blue. "So if you're in battle and you get hurt, I can help. As long as it's not too serious."

She peered over Bluestreak's shoulder, all but climbing on the sofa to accomplish this. "What games do you have? Show me show me! Is there anything good?" Her pedes lifted off the ground, wiggling eagerly.

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"Steeljaw's pretty cool but don't let him hear I said that."

The sniper happily dug through their vast collection and pulling out hir favourites. Between hir and Bee the pile was getting near on unmanageable.

"That's a great idea, you should totally pitch them to Elita One like that. I'll totally help between two of us no one can stand in our way!"

Ou laid out hir selection for Hot Rod, a little bit of everything in the pile..Well everything but First Person Shooters it seems.

"Being a medic even if just in training must be cool, you can fix people instead of hurting them. I'm a sniper, one of the best."

Bluestreak, brag to the cute femme? Never!

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Hot Rod lit up, even as she eagerly poked through the pile of games. "Really? I'd love to shoot with you sometime. I'm not a sniper exactly, but I shoot. Energy bow, not a rifle." She shrugged self-deprecatingly. "It's a cool weapon, but the range isn't as good."

She picked up a likely-looking game, peering at the colorful cover art. "Just to warn you, if we pitch it to Elita One, she'll make us write an official proposal with research and interviews and everything. She says it's to teach us how to develop our ideas and present them convincingly, but sometimes all the extra work isn't worth it." She jiggled the box in her hand. "What's this? It's got a human with a sword on it. I didn't know humans had swords - I mean, it looks a little funny, but I guess that's what Earth swords look like?"

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"Oh i'd love to shoot with you Hot Rod! We even have a practice range here." If you can call it that... "Tell you what, if you let me try your bow i'll let you try my rifle."

Bluestreak took a look at the cover of the game. Not surprised she picked that one and a little relieved she hadn't picked one of Bee's FPS...It was embarrassing for the sniper to suck so bad at those.

"That's Skyrim. It's a human sword but they don't use them any more now. The games a fantasy world though so you can do what you want for the most part. I suppose if we're going to fill in the request we best get to 'researching' then huh?"