| abstract | - Sat Nov 17, 2033 Just inside the finely polished silver doors lies the Office of the Autobot City Commander, as it's stated in a plaque stamped on the door. Since the construction of the city, this office has belonged to none other than Ultra Magnus. A large curved window dominates the south and east sides of the spactious office, and from there you can see Lookout Mountain. The view is stunning, regardless of the weather outside. Next to the window hangs one of the few decorations in the office, a framed picture of Ultra Magnus shaking hands with Optimus Prime; from before the Great War. A bookshelf along the far wall carries a multitude of leather bound books, all filed neatly and freshly dusted. The eastern wall is covered in maps, up to date intel on Decepticon activities pointed out by way of pins. Next to them are a myriad of star charts. At the far end of the office rests Magnus' sturdy desk, a small computer terminal is behind it alongside his ener-java brewer. The desktop is likely littered with whatever important matter requires his attention today. Two large Transformer-Sized chairs are available, as well as a smaller one for humans; in front of the desk. The flooring is white marble, with a red Autobot insignia in the middle of the floor. Framed Picture Obvious exits: Door leads to Offices - Second Floor. Repugnus has arrived. Air Raid has arrived. Ultra Magnus has arrived. Blades has a strong sense of duty to the Autobot cause, even if he finds a lot of it boring and stupid. His fellow Autobot, Air Raid, has displayed a shocking gap of knowledge in his art eduction, and so Blades is out to rectify that gap! By getting stabbed by Repugnus. Blades pulls the blades off his back, and he checks the sharpness on them with his thumb. After a moment, he comments, "Hmm, okay, this one's a bit duller. I probably ought to sharpen it. However, I think the dull one's gonna make a more interesting pattern. You always have to thrust harder to get a dull blade in, so the spray will probably be more ragged. Less of a clean profile." He holds the dull blade out to Repugnus, hilt first. Air Raid doesn't look terribly pleased to be here. "Okay, how about we not do this so I don't fraggin' get in trouble, yeah?" He tries to intercept the handing off of blades by stepping between the two. "And for the last time, I know how to paint energon spatters!" Bottlethrottle sits quietly in a corner, watching. He hasn't said anything since letting the art class in. Repugnus is, of course, quite happy to meet with Blades so that he could stab him with one of his... blades, and so eagerly reaches to take the sword from him. "Hm, long blades. Never really went with the long blades. I like the short ones, so you can see their fear--hey!" Repugnus glares murderously at Air Raid, who wedged himself in between him. "Buddy, I'm not going to stab him *fatally,* just a nice deep stab wound that'll hurt and bleed a lot. Geeze. What a wimp. You act like we're in Magnus's office or something." They're in Magnus's office. There's Magnus's desk, with Magnus's name on it. There's a picture of Magnus shaking hands with Prime. Yep, Magnus's office. Blades shrugs ambivalently, hands up, and points out, "I was built with long blades. You use what the factory gives you, and sometimes, your enemy's entrails. There's just something really satisfying about strangling a 'con with his own fuel lines, you know?" he also glares at Air Raid, and he demands, "Oh come on, you so can't draw splatter patterns! If I was stabbed with a spear from the front, the spray would be all up behind my shoulders, not puddled under my legs! I think you're just mechachicken. Repugnus is an /officer/, anyway. He wouldn't go along with anything bad." That is a lie and Blades knows it. Air Raid responds to that murderous look with an expansive optic 'roll' and Blade's glare with a snort. "Look, I'd be all for this if I knew you chumps weren't going to blame this on me! And everyone wants to blame slag on me, so let's not and say we did, all right?" The Aerialbot doesn't budge. Until he's lectured, then called a mechachicken. "I KNOW HOW TO PAINT ENERGON YOU STUPID AIR TURKEY," he abruptly shouts, and attempts to wrest one of the blades away from Blades to, well, stab him with it. Repugnus laughs. "Ha! Strangling them with their own guts, that's always a classic. Though one time I had to strangle a 'con with *my* own guts. Gotta say, I'm just glad he was the only 'con around I had to take out like that." As Blades uses PEER PRESSURE on Air Raid, Repugnus follows suit. "Yeah, this is IMPORTANT! Command authorization and all that. What? What? You turn into a mechachicken, boy? Do ya, boy? Ooh, ooh! He took the sword! He took it! Ooh, but I bet he ain't gonna do nuthin' with it! AIN'T GONNA DO NUTHIN'! He's gonna be all like, 'Bweh heh heh heh, seeing spilt mechfluid makes me cry!'" Air Raid thrusts his blade in the air and makes to bring it down on Blades' head, but Repugnus' obnoxious mocking draws ten kinds of ire and makes him pause. If there's one thing that likes him up like nothing else, it's being thought of as cowardly. He twitches. "Gun bunny!?" His helm decorations are /clearly/ cat ears, not bunny ears. Riled up to no end, he aims to drive that blade into the monsterbot's chest. "SHUT UP!" Combat: Air Raid sets his defense level to Fearless. Combat: Air Raid strikes Repugnus with his STAB (Punch) attack! Blades throws his hands in the air and complains, "Matrix, Air Raid! You were supposed to stab /me/. No one cares about what Repugnus's insides look like!" However, that is also a lie, because Blades watches the oddly coloured fluid seep out and tries to rate it against some of the greats he has seen. He twitches and hnngs, "Needs more gush." Blades starts to rifle through Ultra Magnus's desk, looking for a letter-opener, because he just handed off all his blades. Air Raid is left gawking at Repugnus' disturbing show of self mutilation and cackling. "What're you crazy!? Ugh, gross!" He jumps back, away from the weird fluid oozing out. "What've you been stuffing down your pipe!" When Blades starts to rifle, Raid moves to try and stop him. "Yeah okay, no more stabbings. Look, I see the pattern!" He points to the bleedy bot. "It all makes sense, now let's get out of here!" Repugnus, now with a big-ass blade sticking out of his chest, just laughs, "Let's just say I'm a big fan of baseball, Air Raid!" Best not to ponder that. And, as Blades starts to rifle through drawers, Repugnus follows, grinning all the way, and giving Blades's blade an experimental swing now and then, the razor-sharp blade going WHISSHHH through the air, often perilously close to Air Raid. Blades is bent over the desk as he rifles around looking for a letter opener, so his back is a perfectly tempting target should anyone happen to want to see what a backstab looks like. Now, it doesn't even make all that much sense that Ultra Magnus would have a letter opener. They are robots in the future. They really ought to have a paperless office. Even humans in the future should have a paperless office. However, Blades manages to find a letter-opener, anyway, because he has a natural affinity for sharp objects. Blades eggs Air Raid, "That's just one pattern. We can't stop there. What if you have to draw a laceration FOR THE FATE OF THE AUTOBOTS?" Repugnus should find the blade exquisitely balanced and quite light and flexible. Air Raid leans the hell away from Repugnus' swishing. Baseball!? "Y'know this is pretty lame havin' to be the damn buzzkiller here! I can't be messin' up, they'll ground me again!" It seems he refuses to acknowledge Repugnus as any sort of officer. "Screw my stupid art!" he snaps at Blades, and turns to try and push Repugnus towards the door, stepping in that horrible fluid. Repugnus realizes that all of Magnus's desk drawers are open right now. Boy, that would be a hell of a mess to clean up if several dozen gallons of mechfluid just sprayed all into them, wouldn't it? And then—ah, nuts, Air Raid is trying to ruin their fun again. "Hey, stop being a square!" Repugnus says. "And besides, you stepped in something." If Repugnus's clever trick works and Air Raid suddenly jerks away in disgust, Repugnus will thrust the blade right into the Protectobot's back just as he's standing up straight again! Combat: Repugnus compares his Intelligence to Air Raid's Intelligence: Success! STAB Combat: Repugnus strikes Blades with his I Got Your Blades Right Here attack! Combat: Repugnus (Repugnus) used "Dirty Fighting": A Level 4 MELEE attack. Combat: You took 16 damage. Blades gets skewered clean all the way through a pretty major fuel line with a loud >SHLCT< noise. He doesn't even see it coming, and that makes the sudden pain all the more intense. He looks down dumbly at the blade tip emerging from the front of his chest and at the transcendentally beautiful gush of energon that has now sprayed all down Ultra Magnus's open drawers. Blades cusses, "Slagging, ow! Seriously, fragging clinker-smelt! ...now kinda twist it as you pull it out?" His vision has gone kind of sparkly, and his hands, which are still clutching that letter-opener feverishly, are shaking. Air Raid is, in fact, distracted for that split second, and fails to prevent Blades from getting backstabbed. Too flustered for words, he just stands there and flails uselessly as Blades spills his fluid all over poor Magnus' desk. "Arrghh!" Grimlock is tromping through the halls of Autobot city for...well, some reason. If nothing else, maybe he's just looking for a chance to stomp around and look important and stuff. The fact that Ultra Magnus has an office (and Grimlock doesn't) has always been kind of an affront to the dinobot commander. Not that Grimlock would ever USE an office, had he one...but still. And so, it just so happens that Grimlock passes by the doorway- and, hearing a commotion inside, he opens up the door and peers into the room- only to see Blades flailing around with a knife in him. "What." Repugnus is grinning happily at the geyser of energon spraying everywhere, getting all over the desk, the picture of Magnus and Prime, and himself. "Twist it? Okay!" He is all too eager to comply, and, with millenia of experience is causing debillitating wounds, he pulls it out very slowly, twisting the hilt now and then, sometimes lightly, othertimes with a sudden jerk. As it's almost out Repugnus kinda wiggles the blade around in Blades's guts before finally plucking it free. And then Grimlock. There's an "O" on Repugnus's face. "He, uh, fell on his sword. So I got it out for him." Repugnus has Blades's other sword stuck into his chest. "Uh... I fell on his other sword, so he's gonna pull it out next." Blades leaks out a whole lot more, dripping all over the desk and drawers, courtesy of Repugnus's twisting pull-out. He swears lowly, "Wire-wicking motherboard-fragged spawn of a Cessna..." but his expression is incongrously happy. He nods woozily at Repugnus's cover story, and he reaches over to try to yank the blade out of Repugnus, though it is entirely possible that he tries to push it in deeper a few times in a sawing motion before he actually pulls it out. Feeling lightheaded, he adds, "Yeah. And we were going to open some... letters? Yeah. Air Raid got accepted to art school. We need to open all his acceptance letters. Yeah." "I had no part in this! I do not know these mechs! I had a meeting with Magnus and these two idiots wanted to bleed all over each other, Grimlock SIR!" Raid blurts, then sloooowly turns to stare at Blades' explanation. "I-did-not-get-accepted-into-/art-school/," he grates through dental plates. Grimlock by either reflex or tactical habit, steps into the doorway, neatly filling it up. He crosses his arms across his broad chest, and impassively looks over the three Autobots with a look of subtle 'I could beat all of you senseless' menace. He stands like this for a few long, long moments. Silent. "Hnn. Too bad you Air Raid no get into art school." he rumbles. "Maybe need practice more on arting. Only don't do that 'cause there am war happening and you should no be arting, should be fighting septi-cons instead." This sage wisdom shared, Grimlock looks over at Repugnus and Blades again. "...me Grimlock still not know what you guys am doing." Repugnus's lips tremble, but as the blade is slowly pulled out of him in that see-sawing motion, he can't hold it in anymore, and just busts out laughing and cackling. "Hahaha--hey, your art's not that bad, hahahahaha! I'm sure DeVry or somebody would take you AHAHAHAHAHA!" He drops down to his knees, pounding Magnus's desk with a fist and laughing like he just heard the funniest joke in the world. "Ahahahaha we're trying... we're trying not to fall over ahahahhhhkk--" His vocalizer actually seems to seize up on him. Wow. Also, what's that horrible smell? Oh, that's that green stuff seeping out of Repugnus's wound. Of course. Blades needles, "You probably didn't get accepted into art school because you can't draw energon spray for slag! We'll open your rejection letters then." He tries to elbow Air Raid. Grimlock's intimidating aura just makes Blades look more chipper, if anything, and the Protectobot looks pretty pleased with himself. He's covered in energon. It's a good day. The fact that the room is spinning is okay by him. He tries to help Repugnus keep from falling over face-first into the puddle of energon on Ultra Magnus's desk but maybe just ends up pushing Repugnus into the puddle instead. They're like a pair of drunks! Only Blades, at least, is completely sober. He can't speak for Repugnus. Air Raid is /trying/ to slip out, but there's a dinobot taking up the entrance. While he gets wedged between the bot and the doorframe, Repugnus' laughter drawing his attention. "There are no letters! I don't care about art!" he straightens and stomps his energon-spattered foot, splashing Grimlock. "You no get into art school by no caring 'bout art." Grimlock replies to Air Raid. "So, uh. Good? Stop caring like them two." He nods, and then stares at the two stab-happy hooligans. "Hnn. Me Grimlock still no know why you am all bleedy. Me Grimlock hope you no start stabbing actually IMPORTANT Autobots." he rumbles, and takes a moment to crack his economy-car sized knuckles. "That prolly be bad." Repugnus is indeed pushed into the puddle of energon on Magnus's desk, getting his face covered in the stuff. Then he almost immediately slides off the table and onto his face on the floor. "Ah-ha..." His rational half is constantly bugging him, saying, 'Idiot, tell Grimlock something he wants to hear before this gets pinned on you!' And so Repugnus pushes himself up to his knees, stifling his giggles, and says, "Okay, okay, you wanna know what we're REALLY doing here? Air Raid, well..." He sighs, looking disappointed. "We found out that he's... kinda squeamish. I mean, we all thought, you know, he doesn't mind scenes of carnage because he drew one such scene, right? But then he saw the real thing and he started wussing out. We were just, you know, trying to get him not to react like such a femmebot whenever he saw spilt mechfluid." Blades falls down onto the floor with a wet >THUMP<, sending more energon splashing around the office. There is a relatively large amount on the ceiling. He stares up at it for a spacey moment, admiring the patterns and how it drips down off the ceiling and all over him. Blades echoes faintly, "Yeah, Air Raid's a total gun pussy." See? Not a gun bunny. Is Air Raid happy now? Air Raid is far from happy. The continued mockery makes his fuel lines burn, and he whirls to thrust a finger at both of them. "Shut up shut up SHUT UP! I'm not fraggin' squeamish! I LOVE carnage! You wanna' bleed? THEN BLEED!" He whips out his pistol and shoots wildly, totally destroying Magnus' desk as he sends laser fire everywhere. Combat: Air Raid sets his defense level to Fearless. Combat: Air Raid strikes Grimlock with his Full-Auto Area attack! Combat: Air Raid strikes Repugnus with his Full-Auto Area attack! Combat: Air Raid strikes Blades with his Full-Auto Area attack! Combat: Air Raid (Air Raid) used "Full-Auto": A Level 2 AREA-RANGED attack. Combat: You took 8 damage. Combat: Air Raid's attack has damaged your Velocity! "What." Grimlock, being a dinobot- and, in fact, a COMMANDER of Dinobots...he's used to random bouts of violence. Even still, in such a case, well...dinobot violence usually makes SENSE, in a way. But this? Gears turn in Grimlock's head as he mulls it over, trying to figure out how much of this is Repugnus' doing... And right before Grimlock unlocks this puzzle, Air Raid starts shooting everybody. "Okay. That mistake." Grimlock rumbles- and with a quickness that something so big has no right in having, Grimlock snaps into action! He first grabs at Air Raid's gun-hand- and, should he get ahold of it, he'll *FLING!* the poor Airalbot into the wall! This done, Grimlock tromps towards Repugnus and Blades- and he 'gently' starts kicking them into wakefulness. "OKAY ALL YOU STOP BEING IDIOT NOW!" The dinobot grunts again at this...and then leans over to push some crystalline paperweight of Ultra Magnus' off of the desk, allowing it to shatter on the floor. "Heh. Oops." Combat: Grimlock strikes Air Raid with his LISTEN TO GRIMLOCK (Ruckus) Area attack! Combat: Grimlock strikes Blades with his LISTEN TO GRIMLOCK (Ruckus) Area attack! Combat: Grimlock (Grimlock) used "Ruckus": A Level 2 AREA-MELEE attack. Combat: You took 14 damage. Combat: Grimlock's attack has damaged your Velocity! Combat: Grimlock strikes Repugnus with his LISTEN TO GRIMLOCK (Ruckus) Area attack! Repugnus is curb-stomped right into the floor—well, not literally, but figuratively, and he holds his hands up over his head to protect himself, though he's still horrendously battered in the process. "Ow, ow, okay, okay, not an idiot anymore! Not an idiot anymore!" Then he hears a crash. He glances over at the remains of the paperweight. Slowly stands up. Looks at the paperweight again. Then at Grimlock. "Grimlock. What did you just *do?*" Blades gets shot right in one of the wheels on his landing skids in what is a clear, clear case of cowardly wheel-envy. It is tragic. Then Grimlock kicks Blades to try to get the woozy Protectobot off the floor, and he just about breaks Blades's leg - which just makes Blades laugh and laugh and laugh. "Hah hah hah, slag, frak!" He rolls over and gets to his feet, clearly unstable, and he leans heavily against the wall, getting energon hand-prints all over the wall. Blades wipes some energon off his face, and he admits, "This is the best day I've had in a long, long time." Repugnus was also shot. However, he didn't have any skids shot off so he doesn't care. Air Raid's short temper gets the better of him, as he doesn't notice Grimlock reaching for his shooty arm before it's too late. He's flung smack into the wall, his stupid jet backpack doing little to soften the blow save for breaking his canopy and bending his fins. "AGH!" Then he splatters face first into the pools of energon and remains there. Grimlock takes a moment to look over the scene- and, well, once it's clear nobody's shooting or stabbing each other, well, that's a start. "Hn." Grimlock says, and looks over at Repugnus. Again, Grimlock doesn't have much of a face in this mode...but one could almost swear he's smiling. "Me? Me Grimlock do nothing. Not me Grimlock fault you guys come in and smash up him Ultra Magnus office and him stupid Ultra Magnus 'Best Commander 2016' shiny paperweight thing that him only get 'cuz him do Rodimus' homework for him every time and stuff." There's a pause, as Grimlock looks over the 'battlefield.' "Nnn. Now. All you guys go get fixed 'cuz me Grimlock think punching septi-cons am way better than punching you. And you Air Raid, no do arty things!" Grimlock rumbles again, and heads back to the door. "Oh! And no clean up him Ultra Magnus office, because it, uhhhhh. Evidence. Training evidence. Or something." Repugnus watches Grimlock stomp out, saying nothing, and not correcting him. Why bother? He gets the feeling that Grimlock won't raise a ruckus over this. But just to be sure... he accesses the security videos of Magnus's office, and the hallway outside of it, and replaces the video of Repugnus, Blades, Bottlethrottle, Air Raid, and Grimlock entering with an empty loop. He'll have to do it again when they leave. "Well. Yes, this was quite a... training excercise, guys, good job. And all that," he declares. Blades narrows his optics. Is Repugnus doing what Blades thinks he is? He pockets the letter-opener and clutches at his wounds. This is going to be a long, long walk to medical, but a long walk starts with the first staggering step. Blades heckles casually as he wobbles off, "Hey. There's always music, Air Raid." Air Raid staggers upright and rubs at his jet kibble irritably, glowering at everyone. Well, at least they don't have to clean this mess up. But now he can't do ART! "TCH! PFFFFFT," he makes angry noises at Repugnus and Blades and flips them a bird before stalking out.
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