Fearstorm's Channel

-Ripclaw makes a conflicted whine, until narrowing her optics and producing a huff.-

He crouches forward and unfurls his wings, producing a loud buzzing sound as he flapped them faster and faster. Quickly, Hardshell lifted off of the sand, swaying back and forth in the air. The Insecticon continued to chuckle as he attempted to steady himself and slowly inched forward, as if testing out how well he could fly. 

/It wasn’t hard to take the lead in this race, so on purpose he slows down a bit to not lose the others out of his sight. He could see Fearstorm slowly trudging through the sand and his partner was somewhere completely in the back./

-Knock Out shouts at his wheels, rotating them at full horsepower. For all his effort he barely moves forward a considerable distance - if anything he’s making backward progress, insttead. Noticing this, he tries going in reverse - a little better, but again - the displacement is negligible.

Oh for fu-?

-Oh? Oh! Just as he was about to give up, slowing down gives him the traction necessary to roll forward an impressive yard forward.

That’s more like it!

He doesn't stay startled for long, though, giving his engine a bass-deep thrum of enthusiasm. "Right on, Insecticon!" 

Knock Out, by that point, has worked out how to handle this sandy, shifting terrain, and pulls well ahead of Fearstorm, who doesn't seem to mind bringing up the rear. He soon adapts his driving when he sees how Knock Out generates traction, though he doesn't snake back and forth quite as gracefully as the smaller, lighter vehicle. 

How original.

Yes. This is it. And you are in luck. This was originally meant to be for one of my earlier Insecticon specimens when I first discovered their kind, but they adapted with such powerful limbs. The weapon was an unnecessary addition to them. 

-He then moved towards Fearstorm, more or less keeping the arm against his side. Shockwave placed the arm down and motioned for Fearstorm to lay flat on his back immediately after.-

"Understood, sir. I'll do my bets to be helpful." It shouldn't be too hard to follow directions and let Shockwave know if anything isn't fitting in properly, but at the same time, Fearstorm is acutely aware of his own limited understanding of anatomy. 

Very well. Sit down and we shall begin. 

-He stands still as Bido climbs up his frame and watches as the Micron tucks himself under the plate of his chestplate again. Shockwave then turns away from the berth and goes to sort through his supplies. In a large crate positioned aligned in the corner of the lab, Shockwave reaches in and pulls out what looks a processor. He silently shakes his head and places it back into the crate.-

Internal parts. 

-He moves onto the next crate and pulls out a large metal plate. He turns it over a few times.-

Armor plating. I will need to repair the burns on these samples when I have the chance…

-Shockwave moves onto the third crate and reaches in, pulling out a tiny limb as well as a leg. Oddly enough, the colors are mismatched.-

Previous experiments. 

-Shockwave then looks around the lab and moves back beside the berth.-

An ordinary Cybertronian, one who might still cling to some shred of civilization after the countless eons of war out of a memory of a time before it, might be somewhat rattled by the sight of boxes full of various body parts being rifled through as casually as if they were no more than spare nuts and bolts.

Fearstorm has a much simpler and more pragmatic view of the world around him. After all, he was constructed in a factory, a place overflowing with spare parts, and furthermore, as a drone, he's seen his fair share of carnage and dismemberment. War is like that. If he were normal-sized, and he were to die, he'd expect some of his components to be re-used to repair other drones or maybe even make new ones. Their resources were finite, especially now, in these hard times.

This mindset, combined with an innate sense of trust that is very simply programmed in (a trust that won't go away unless it has reason to) result in a very seriously un-creeped-out drone. Or, well, the body parts and mumbles don't bother him, but the micron... that's another story. 

Like Fearstorm, Skyquake can sometimes tend towards blind loyalty. Quite frankly, he doesn’t want to imagine Megatron allowing someone like Starscream back into the ranks.  To Skyquake, Starscream is a living personification of everything he detests - a mech who is more content to go through war based on lies and underhandedness, than honor on a battlefield.  Someonw who is every bit as like to betray his own kind as he is the enemy.  Someone who will sell information if it means his miserable existence.

"He seems to be a mech of many lives," Skyquake says, before adding, “Unfortunately.  It is also unfortunate our master is missing.  I cannot confirm whether he intended for Starscream to be with us or not.  If he did, I will honor his wishes.  If he didn’t, I’d be delighted to end Starscream’s life myself.”

"Hm. Maybe.." Fearstorm hadn't investigated earth technology very much. He'd made a few brief forays into the "internet," and while it was definitely very appealing with its midis and its neat animated pictures of fire and skulls, he hadn't felt the need to spend a lot of on it. Maybe he should try again. "Either way, I hope he comes back soon. It just feels... wrong without him."

He goes on, "See, right before I died, I had the chance to kill him. Lord Megatron was willing to throw Starscream's life away. It's hard to imagine he'd let him stay after all that." After a pause, the drone adds, "But it's not my place to question him, and if Starscream is telling the truth, then I gotta trust Lord Megatron had a good reason for keeping him around."

-Shockwave turned away from Fearstorm and watched as Bido finished downloading the schematics and scurried back down the lab’s terminal. He crawled to the floor and scampered over to Shockwave, seeming to wish to avoid the large drone.-

Fearstorm gives a startled little side-step when Bido scuttles past, clearly as unnerved by the micron as it is of him. He's going to have to learn to get used to them, he supposes--there's one waiting back in his room for him, after all, and sooner or later he's going to need to... to bond with it, or something. 

Bido, begin downloading the schematics from the terminal.

-Without another word, Shockwave walked over to the operating table and waited for Fearstorm to follow. As he did so, Bido quietly crawled out from his hiding spot and advanced towards the large information terminal. The Micron obediently began to download information and watched Fearstorm as he did so.-

"You got it. I've used blasters before, but that's it." He gives a lopsided shrug. "In a fight I usually just punch people. Or claw at 'em. Or do both." He tilts his head thoughtfully. His tone is not that of a braggart: he's genuinely trying to be helpful. "Or tear pieces off of them. Or stomp 'em if they're small enough..."

Greetings. 

-Shockwave stares up at Fearstorm. The antenna on his helm give off a short flick of surprise at his height, but he otherwise makes no other reaction. Shockwave then glances down to Fearstorm’s arm stump and studies it.-

If you are given a weapon instead of a replacement arm, your weight will have to be adjusted to keep balance. 

Skyquake shifts slightly in the air when a current changes, listening to Fearstorm on the other end of the comm.  “More than likely he will want to build yes.  The structures on this world are too… primitive for his standards, but I don’t know what will happen with it all.  That will probably be the first thing we do once the war ends.”

"I know at least one Seeker who fits that bill." A pause. "The hypocrite and liar bit, not the whole 'fragging grounders' thing." 

"Most flyers like me preferred living high above the actual ground of Cybertron.  I guess they thought it made them closer to the sky, or space, which is strange since a lot of them rarely even flew.  They’d rather mingle with one another, hatch political schemes.  The miners and the gladiator pits were far below, closer to the planets surface."

He almost began to wonder what he would have been like if he'd lived on Cybertron before the war, but he knew he would not have. Not as himself, anyway. "Sounds complicated. I guess when Lord Megatron finally conquers, we'll probably start building all of that again, won't we? Only better, of course." Lord Megatron was a flier, but not inclined to preen and strut, so he doubted that he would tolerate any of that in his empire.

Once Fearstorm pings him letting him know it’s okay to descend, he does so, slowing his speed and coming in not far above Fearstorm.  the city is behind them, and it all looks quiet ahead. 

He couldn't imagine it. He just couldn't.

[He almost smirked under his mask. Just like any other mech he had a hobby or two to keep him occupied. Unfortunately he lost the interest in most of them after he got captured by Shockwave…]

[Grimlock narrows his visor looking at the Con’s insignia. It was pretty visible from the start, just like his own, so he wondered where did Fearstorm’s disappointment come from.]

Skywarp clasps his servos together. ‘You’re welcome bud. If you ever need assistance or whatever with Noji, I can drop by. Wouldn’t be a problem, I’m never really that busy. Heh.” Some Decepticons didn’t trust Skywarp doing mind controlling work for reasons of his reputation.