The Energon Pub

Autobase Tau - The Brig

As Ultra Magnus left, Mirage turned back to Stormfire. "Well, I suppose we may as well begin."

He stepped out of the cell in which both of them had been standing, and moved to the lock control keypad at the entrance of the Brig. Poorly designed prison. The keypad should not be so accessible should a prisoner escape his cell. Still, it will do for this little experiment.

"I hope you won't take it too personally, but I'm going to lock you in that cell for the duration of my conversation with 'it,'" Mirage explained, punching in the code to secure Stormfire's cell. "As much for your safety as mine. If I were forced to restrain or neutralize 'it' I would not wish to hurt you."

The cell's force bars came alive with a soft hum. Mirage walked back to stand in front of Stormfire, on the other side of the bars.

"Shall you call him, or whatever it is you do?"

Autobase Tau - The Brig

As Mirage moved to the other side of the cell Stormfire took a moment to prepare himself then he addressed the thing living in his mind.








To the outsider Stormfire’s posture changed, he stood tall almost proud, no worry or tension in even a bolt on his frame. Most noticeable was the eye color shift the blood red hue emerging as Stormfire released control.
‘Hello Mirage’

Autobase Tau - The Brig

Mirage watched as the change overcame Stormfire. Red optics. Much like a Decepticon. He had started the vid-feed from the Brig control panel a moment ago, to capture every moment of the conversation for posterity. Mirage's keen optics noticed the slight straightening of Stormfire's posture. Perhaps this personality is more confident than Stormfire's normal personality.

"Hello. Do you have a name? Or shall I simply call you Stormfire?"

Mirage was curious to see if this alternate persona considered itself a distinct entity, a part of Stormfire, or perhaps even the 'real' Stormfire.

Autobase Tau: Medbay

"Actuilly..."

Arcee paused for a moment as Remington expressed her amusement at the potential of seeing Beretta's face following Arcee's own suggestion. The response of the Stasis Locked Fembot was pretty predictable, she wouldn't like it, she'd refuse, she might even stamp her foot, but none the less, it would most certainly catch her attention. Maybe suggestions just weren't going to cut it anymore, they hadn't done so in the past, perhaps something more...dramatic was needed.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

"...so would I".

Arcee made the smallest of mischievous smiles as she snatched the dormant Fembots Dataslate from her CR Chamber. It was pretty basic stuff, recommendations for what Beretta should do in order to fully recover, some rest time was booked, some light maintenance, nothing earth shattering, nothing that even she could find reason to rebel against...

Well, not yet anyway.

Arcee made a few quick keystrokes, inserted a new paragraph there, and vola, a new mandate was added, signed and dated by herself. By her recommendation the Fembot known as Beretta was to be refitted with additional body armor suitable for heavy duty combat, it would make her slower, but being quick never seemed to help her much anyway. Perhaps having a literal thick head would be more useful than a figurative one.

There.

Arcee had no real intention of actually following through in it...but Primus knew it would catch Beretta's attention...

Autobase Tau - Medbay

(OOC:I'm pretty sure I was supposed to be handling Strafe for his player by now, here goes.)

Strafe sat by quietly as the treatment progressed on Afterburner, content to watch as his team mate got his just desserts at the hands of Remington's vacuum o pain, punishment, and family fun.

"I could have warned you but then you wouldn't have learned anything" remarked Strafe with just a idle crook of mirth to his lips. This earned him a cross look from Afterburner and a course, "You say something, Fly-bot?" from his team mate, "Nothing.. nothing at all." he remarked content to let Afterburner wind his way into trouble, any concern was more directed at his partner, not the Femmes, 'Burner was a jerk, not a bully.

Autobase Tau - Brig

‘I don’t think anybody ever lived long enough to give me one, I suppose I’m partly Stormfire, but as I’m sure you’ve noticed we behave very differently. ‘It’ is a bit blunt but I’m no poet either, so I suppose you can call me what ever you want.

It watched Mirage like a predator, waiting for any sign of weakness before he pressed his attack.

‘So Mirage, what is our little psycho analysis session going to be about?’

Autobase Tau - Brig

Emphasis on 'psycho,' Mirage smiled inwardly as Stormfire's alter ego spoke. He withdrew a PADD from subspace and made a few notes on it, presenting as nonchalant a demeanor as possible. If he viewed Stormfire as a threat, or believed he could cause him harm, Mirage did not show it.

"I wish to know of your history," the spymaster began. "Who created you, and to what end? What battles have you fought in, and who have you fought?"

These were large questions, but Mirage was in no hurry. If Stormfire were to continue to be useful to the Autobot Cause, Mirage needed to know his limitations and background. And if this alter ego of yours is to be of use to me...I need to know it well.

Autobase Tau - Brig

‘So Mirage, what is our little psycho analysis session going to be about?’

‘It’ smiled quite openly at Mirage, showing sharp metal teeth with elongated canines, they didn’t really have many practical uses, they were just there for display, not useful in battle due to his normal sized mouth, ill suited to biting but still it got the point across; he wasn’t Stormfire.

‘What if I don’t feel like sharing?’

‘It’ quickly moved to imitate Mirages nonchalant manner. Whilst Mirage was trying to find out about ‘It’, he was going to analyze Mirage, finding out how he reacted, or didn’t, to certain actions, movements even words. It made the whole process more interesting.

‘I’d like to know what you think Mirage, more to the point I want to see if your clearance lets you get far enough to work it out.’

Autobase Tau - Brig

"If you do not feel like sharing," Mirage began his response, "I'm sure my superiors would have little problem authorizing Stormfire's deactivation. And confident as you seem to be, without him you do not exist, I'm afraid. If you cannot contain your behavior enough to ensure Stormfire's continued activation and freedom, you'll never see the outside of a maximum-security stasis prison."

A slight smile, very slight, appeared on Mirage's faceplate. "It is simply in your best interest to cooperate fully with me. If you seek opportunities to maim and destroy Transformers, I can certainly provide that for you, should I feel inclined. We are in a millennia-long civil war. It would not be difficult to find proper occupation for someone such as you, provided you aren't picky about what sigil your victims wear."

He crossed his arms. "As for my security clearance...suffice it to say there are things I know about Optimus Prime that he likely doesn't know about himself. Do not worry about going beyond my clearance."

Tagan Heights ~ Heading South

"Ah, I see.." Roadbuster replied to Searchlight, before he changed his attention to the aforementioned Chase and opened a commlink to the speedy Throttlebot "Hey Chase, your radar picked anything up yet? We're getting close to where the sighting of Skyjack was reported from"

While waiting for a reply, the Wrecker turned his attention to the 3rd member of his Throttlebot team, and his recent comments "Yeah, just 3 'Cons that noone has ever seen before, including one that reportedly had more than 3 transformations.." Roadbuster replied to Freeway "..As for the defences, I'm with you. What we have now only just held them off, if the 'Cons get any more adventurous, we're gonna be up to our optics in slag in no time. With any luck, Magnus will look into that while we're out catching our little friend"

Autobase Tau - Brig

He couldn’t help it, Mirage’s threat was so… ludicrous! And the poor fool thought that it was serious. ‘It’ made a negative grunt, then proceeded to walk to the back to the cell, from here ‘It’ flipped itself upside down and standing on his hands, proceeded to laugh out loud at Mirage. Quite suddenly he stopped, looking at Mirage in all seriousness.

‘Don’t you think that this threat has been used to make me behave before? I’m afraid that I don’t work like Stormfire, I don’t go offline when he is shut down, although, when I go offline he wakes up, curious really. Now that I think about it, that’s how I woke up in Stormfire in the first place, he was in a dreadful state bless him, all those wounds, but still it was a reasonable body, after I’d altered to suit my tastes slightly, did you know he can’t tell you where he got his lightning guns, or even how thy work?’

‘The problem is Mirage that you seem to have made a mistake like all the others, bonus points if you can work it out, if you do we’ll talk business.’

Autobase Tau – Med Bay

It seemed like a vorn since he had seen her. If no one new it by now Hot Rod had missed seeing Arcee, now all he had to do was find her in order to elevate the terrible feeing of loss he had been suffering of.

His wanderings had taken him to nearly the entire base; the entire base except the med bay. That was the last place he had to check, and wouldn’t you know it, there she was….it always seemed to work out that way, the last place you had to look, go figure.

A broad smile spread across the young mech’s faceplate as he spotted the object of his interest. She was with someone else, but that didn‘t matter.

“Arcee? Man, am I glad to see you.”

Moving slightly quicker than usual to her side Hot Rod smiled at Remington as the two femmes worked on a stasis pod.

“Hiya. I don’t think we’ve met. The names; Hot Rod, and you are?”

Autobase Tau - Medbay

Remington heard Arcee walking around Beretta's stasis pod and manipulating some of the controls. Maybe it was the dataslate, the technician couldn't say for sure, and she had no intentions to look. She had a hunch she would just laugh again, and would never finish the repair work on Afterburner.

The loudmouthed, orange-white mech seemed to got his fair share of a brawl and crossfire. As Remington's tools proceeded from injury to injury, she came upon various kinds of physical harm. Burns, dents, cracks, some holes shot, but lucky for Afterburner, none of them were grave enough to endanger his internal systems, or cripple him for any extended period of time.

Calmly and precisely, Remington managed to clear all of the wounds, reattach loose parts and weld cracks on the platings back together, doing most of the repair job by hand.

"Whew. I think you're done," She then finally said as she finished and took away her tools, setting her zooming system back to normal magnification, and looking up at Afterburner, giving him a smile. "But some time in a CR chamber should be booked for you too."

With that, she patted Afterburner on the shoulder and stood up, walking over to the stasis pod Arcee was tinkering with. She gave a long stare to Beretta's dormant form. It was so quiet, so peaceful. Remington wished she had seen Beretta like that outside a CR chamber.

But she knew that beating Shockwave in mecha-chess, or Defensor in arm-wrestling was a much more likely possibility. At least, for now.

"So what's up? Have you prescribed that ten inches of armor?" She then chuckled to the other femme as she looked at the dataslate.

That was when some sudden interruption came, in the form of another hot-headed mechanoid, recognized from far, far away, by reputation alone. His red and yellow color scheme seemed to reflect his personality very well, exactly as he used to be described by other Autobots.

"I'm Remington," The technician answered simply to Hot Rod, and kept herself from making a frown. He is handsome...but if only half of the rumors about him are true, 'Retta is an obedient little protoform learning to walk, compared to him.

Autobase Tau

Roadbuster had yet to acknowledge his message, and Ultra Magnus was beginning to get worried. It wasn't like Roadbuster to ignore a message from a superior officer, even if he was known for shooting first and asking questions later.

"Chase, Freeway, Searchlight, please come in."

Tagan Heights ~ Heading South

"Well if radar is pretty much only good if he is are in the air," radioed Chase to Roadbuster, "If he's in the air then we wouldn't stand much chance of catching him anyway. No sign of him,"
Freeway picked up the message from Ultra Magnus, "This is Freeway on the great Decepticon hunt. How may I direct your call?" he replied.

Autobase Tau

"Can the sarcasm, Chase," Magnus responded, clearly not amused by the Throttlebot's antics. He transformed and started off in the direction Roadbuster and the others had gone down earlier. "I'm coming up to meet you, and I want to know if you've caught our little escapee yet."

Tagan Heights ~ Heading South

It wasn't that Roadbuster was ignoring Ultra Magnus, well not deliberately at least, it was just the Wrecker didn't feel the need to report in that there was nothing to report in, at least not yet anyway. Regardless, it seemed now that replying was a necessity as the City Commander radioed through that he was on his way to meet up with Roadbuster and his team, bringing a sigh of frustration from the Wrecker before he opened up a return commlink.

>>Hey, hold up there a moment Magnus, I know catching this 'Con is important, but I doubt it needs the attentions of both of us. Far be it from me to question your decisions, but surely one of us at least should remain at the base to oversee the repair and rebuilding of both the base and the Energon Refineries and storage facilities...>...If you want, I'll head back to the base and watch over things while you take over here and hunt down Skyjack, it's that or we leave Hot Rod in charge of the base, which I don't think is something that any of us would like<<

Tagan Heights ~ Heading South

Magnus stopped and transformed back to robot mode. Like Roadbuster said, capturing Skyjack was an obsession for him, and why shouldn't it be? He had, after all, managed to sneak into a heavily defended Autobot base and thrash it so badly, doing so especially on his watch.

And as capable as he knew Roadbuster was, the fact of the matter was that when it came to handling delicate situations like this, he was more known for spending ammo than spending time thinking about how to handle the situation lightly. But that was why he had sent the Throttlebots with him, because he had thought that perhaps, just perhaps, they can keep him under control.

"No, Roadbuster," Magnus replied. "It's OK. I'll head back and take charge of the restoration of Tau. If it makes you feel better, I know how you feel about this. Just do me a favor and try to bring him back alive if you can. I want to find out what he's up to and why he did what he did."

Heading back to the base, he keyed his comlink to two different frequencies, first sending a message to Optimus Prime.

"Prime, it's Magnus. We've had a bit of a...situation here at the Heights. Do you think you can spare anyone to get the base back up to full operational status."

He then sent a message to Hot Rod.

"Hot Rod, I'm returning to the base. Meet me in the command center."

Tagan Heights ~ Heading South

Roadbuster said nothing as he listened to Ultra Magnus' response to his offer, but he was greatly relieved that the City Commander hadn't taken him up on it. Opening a secure commlink to his Commander, the Wrecker smiled internally before replying.

>>Thank you Magnus Sir, I won't let you down. I will do everything in my power to stop Skyjack and take him into custody for questioning still functioning, you have my word as a Wrecker. If anything comes up, I'll contact you immediately, Roadbuster out<<

With his message sent, Roadbuster returned his attention to his 3 'Bot team, and firstly Chase, who's commlink message reply earlier had been lost slightly between Roadbuster's conversation with Ultra Magnus. "Understood Chase, keep up the scanning, he's out there somewhere" Roadbuster replied, before turning his attention to Freeway "I don't suppose you've picked up anything in the way of radio traffic have you Freeway?" The Wrecker asked, as he and the 3 Throttlebots rolled through the area Skyjack was spotted in.

Autobase Tau - Brig

This is rapidly becoming a bad scene from a cheap horror trideo, Mirage lamented as Stormfire cut loose with more of his antics. If this 'it' really is as insane as he seems to be, I pity Stormfire even more. Even still...the entity is a dangerous one. I cannot deny that.

Doing his best to appear flustered, Mirage continued. "Well, I can see you've considered all the angles. Simply deactivating Stormfire hasn't removed you from the picture in the past, has it?"

He rubbed his chinplate thoughtfully. "I suppose the only question of relevance is...what do you want?"

Autobase Tau - Brig

‘What do I want?’ ‘It’ repeated. No one had ever asked it that before. It had to make sure that Mirage meant what he said.
‘Me personally? Not the others?’ ‘Not Stormfire, but what I want?’ it couldn’t take it in, but then Mirage mustn’t have seen or read all the files. He righted himself and then walked right up to the bars, as close to Mirage as he could get.
Do you know what I am Mirage?
It’s mind was racing, sure it wanted to get out of here and rip Mirage apart, his experimental antics had shown him how Mirage would react to an assault, and breaking out of this cage would be simplicity, but what was the point, was that what he wanted or what he had been programmed to do, he was never meant to be in the first place, well not be in a sentient sense anyway.

Autobase Tau - Brig

"I do not know what you are."

At least he's no longer doing handstands. Mirage watched as 'it' seemed to degenerate into even greater mania, its red optics appearing to flare with the thoughts of a broken mind. He keeps referring to others...perhaps there are other personalities within Stormfire's laser core? Or perhaps he refers to whomever created him.

As he attempted to unravel this mystery, Mirage wished the data in the computer archives had been a little less thin. So many deleted files...without user stamps to tell me who deleted them or why. If he was going to get to the source of all this, the path led through Stormfire and 'it' that inhabited him.

"Enlighten me."

Tagan Heights - En Route to Autobase Tau

Ultra Magnus had driven for awhile as he neared the base. Though normally thankful for a calm moment, he grew concerned hearing nothing but his engines. The more time that passed, the less likely it was that Skyjack, or any of the other infiltrators, would be found.

I can't stand this

>> Any luck yet, Roadbuster? >>

Magnus finally stopped as he reached the doors of the base. Transforming, he began walking forward to enter. But for a moment he paused and looked around. He sighed.

This really is a mess.

Tagan Heights ~ Heading South

Freeway was annoyed by Ultra Magnus calling him "Chase" so when the second radio signal came through from the commander it was the Throttlebot who responded ahead of Roadbuster,

he radioed incredulously at Ultra Magnus,

Freeway broke off radio contact, "That felt good," he said to Searchlight and Roadbuster, "I haven't picked up any radio traffic except for Ultra Magnus. Skyjack would want to maintain radio silence so his position isn't given away,"

[Autobase Tau - Medbay]

Afterburner gaver a nod, waiting a moment to test himself, bending joints, testing hinges, aches and pains but nothing minor. He was in one of those positions,something that required a 'Thank you'.

He wrestled with his attitudde, manners were manners, he could be a jark and still have a few. Luckily Remington soon moved away, taking the need for a choice away.

Afterburner wore a idle smirk as he rose, a wave sent to Strafe, "You get slagged while I'm in this thing and I'm gonna dent your skid in." warned Afterburner as he made his way to a available unit and stepped inside.

No sigs in RPG forums please -Devastron