Bottom of the Yellow SeaBrawl was angry. Not too surprising given being angry was more or less baseline state for the Combaticon warrior. Nonetheless, the reason for his anger had decided to grace Onslaught with his presence and suggest yet another grand scheme of his. One that Brawl expected to backfire just like the one that had resulted in Swindle and the rest of the Combaticons walking separate ways. Brawl wasn't exactly sure whether Swindle leaving had been Onslaught's decision or the munitions expert's own decision but that particular time-out had probably saved Swindle's life. For it had not just been Brawl who had been ready to dismantle Swindle that day.
That of course was in the past and since then Onslaught had taken Swindle back to the fold which was something Brawl had to grudgingly accept. On the other hand, it did little to remove Brawl's mistrust of the smuggler.
"Back off Swindle! Boss doesn't need you ruining everything with your thrice cursed schemes!" Brawl butted in before Onslaught had a chance to reply to Swindle. "That's one half processed idea if I have ever heard one! And I am told I've been the source of plenty!"
This was of course Brawl's opinion on the matter and he was nowhere near being a deep thinker. He was seeing only the most obvious fault in Swindle's suggested plan, not any possible ways of countering the said problem. "Shockwave ain't ever going to believe the flesh sacks were able to spot, let alone drop one of our warships even if they had a weapon that could damage the Obliteration!"
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Base CavernsScrapper had found it easier to interact with Hook by seemingly taking similar approach towards the other Decepticons as the surgical engineer did. Acting like he was above the other Decepticons while reassuring Hook's own view of his superiority made Hook at least somewhat less likely to complain about everything. Not to mention it made the perfectionistic Decepticon far more focused on his work instead of searching for faults in the work of others. The other Constructicons knew this was an act from Scrapper's part and knew it was a signal for them to scatter before Hook went ballistic on them.
Usually they knew better but this time Scrapper had been forced to completely ignore Bonecrusher's uncharacteristic worry to avoid yet another unnecessary yelling competition that would be successful only at wasting their precious time. All their work was coded and catalogued for future reference needs. Devastator was no different from their other projects and by naming the project similarly to their other work made it just one project code among hundreds of thousands of similar references. Scrapper certainly didn't need Bonecrusher starting to give input on matters outside his very limited area of expertise. All concerns the bulldozer could think of were already being taken care of by him and Hook. About that Scrapper was adamant.
"Worry not about Mixmaster, Hook." Scrapper chuckled, "As eccentric he is, there is no denying of his sheer genius when it comes to what he does the best. He truly is an idiot savant if I have ever seen one."
>>
"No grand deed is achieved without sacrifice my friend and Devastator if anything is worth of such a minor inconvenience."<<
>>"Just thought you might wanna know, chief, the two trips are going bye bye bye!"<<
So, Astrotrain and Blitzwing had had enough? It wasn't all that surprising and hardly something Scrapper really cared about. As far as he was concerned, it was a problem for Starscream or Razorclaw to solve. Those two after all, were the ones who had claimed the leadership of the Decepticons for themselves. And truth to be told, there was little Scrapper could do about the triplechanger without a major patron packing him up. At least for not that was - Devastator was going to change a lot.
>>"
Acknowledged Mixmaster. Let them go. They are Onslaught's problem, not ours."<< Scrapper replied back to the chemical engineer and opened a direct comm-link to Onslaught. >>
"It appears our triplechanging comrades in arms have decided to take their leave. You might want to have a chat with them if you truly mean what you have said so far. I'd rather not see them fleeing to Shockwave's lap."<<