Party Invitations

What is Hot Rod doing in the Hall of Records. It's a mystery whose answer is lost to the ages, but it's a quiet place for him to call Chromia: << I talked to Nautica. Want an update? I'm in the Hall of Records in Iacon. >> And with that tempting offer, he waits.
It doesn't take her long at all to respond. << Yes. >> 
Tone is so difficult to determine via a single word, dropped staccato across the radio frequency. Luckily, short and sharp and mostly uninfomrative as her reply is, Chromia is apparently not physically all that far away from the Hall of Records, because he doesn't have too long to test his attention span in all that storied history before she clanks in through the front door. 
The eye might interpret whatever she was interrupted doing, because as she enters, she is still carrying a long stick of the kind used to practice with staff or spear fighting, the kind of low tech hand to hand that translates very well to /when you just want to hit something/. She strides in with fierce purpose and moves on hard clanking steps to find Hot Rod, who is not, generally speaking, hard to pick out by eye.
Hot Rod is, in fact, deep in storied history -- emphasis on history. But he doesn't seem to be able to find whatever it is he is looking for, so he moves from thing to thing. Chromia's arrival must be a welcome distraction, because he certainly abandons his search to turn to her quite quickly: "Chromia!" he greets with all the affection of an old friend. "Great. Here, there are some study rooms back this way we can talk." He gives the stick a long look, but since she hasn't beaten him with it yet, he might be safe. They move deeper.
Chromia does not hold her stick with an air of threat, in so far as it is possible to hold a big stick without an air of threat. She nods when he greets her, the faint frown lingering on her features having little to do with the warmth of his greeting as the part where she's actually not 100% sure she has his name right -- the others were calling him Rod, for sure, and it's now kind of too late in their acquaintance to ask if any reference to temperature was meant to be a separate and distinct comment on his /person/, or else actually part of his name. SO instead of actually answering him in kind, she goes, "Good thinking," and matches her stride to his as they clank back to the comparative seclusion deeper in the hall. "I haven't been in here before," she observes as she goes, more for something to say before they are private than because this is information he needs. "Windblade would probably like it."
"Alpha Trion actually suggested it as a meeting place, or I wouldn't have ever come here," Hot Rod, who is both Hot and a Rod, says as they walk. "It's a lot more useful than I would've expected. Mostly people look at me like they expect me to knock things over, so I don't spend a lot of time here." It's so hard to imagine why they might be skeptical of his interest in intellectual pursuits. He's only a low caste laborer with a scratched up paint job that compensates for everything he could possibly be lacking.
Pushing open doors with more force than necessary in the name of a grand entrance, Hot Rod bangs into a quiet room and takes a seat on the desk. There are chairs. He is not sitting on them. He turns to face Chromia. "Who's Windblade?" He doesn't wait for an answer. "Anyway, Nautica: she's okay, but she's being watched, or something. But she's making plans to break out. I told her I'd get in touch with her about arranging a party so that we can coordinate."
"/Do/ you knock things--" Chromia begins to ask, but then as he's flung the doors wide, she doesn't actually finish the question. She plants her stick against the floor in an attitude at rest, her fingers closed high on its haft as she closes her mouth over the rest of it, and stares at him for a moment. She makes no move to claim a chair. For a moment, the grip of her hand suggests the chairs might actually be in danger of collateral damage. 
Rather than take the time to explain Windblade, since it is apparent that Hot Rod is not asking because he actually wants an answer, Chromia says, "You know that we can't simply ... take her from there. We need someone who could know what to do about whatever it was they put in her head, and the only person I know who I could ask something like that is /her/."
"Ratchet," Hot Rod names instantly. "He's got a free clinic in the Dead End, so he's got a good spark, but he's pretty dumb about thinking he can avoid politics, so it might take some convincing. Also he's kind of moo--." Breaking off, Hot Rod considers Chromia from the tips of her winged helm to the plant of her booted feet. "No, you guys will probably get along great," he decides.
"/Politics/," Chromia repeats incredulously. Her training stick lifts in her hand, a little as though held in threat against the prospect of somebody refusing to help Nautica for such a self-serving reason (!!!). "Only on Cybertron would someone think that an invasion of my friend's bodily integrity could come down to politics." Her jaw a hard line, she huffs air in a low hiss, and she shakes her head. "I don't care how he gets along with anybody if he can do the job," she states, determination starkly grim in her features as she levels her gaze on Hot Rod. "He'd best be convinced before we move, though, because I /won't/ risk Nautica on some flimsy filly-fallying--"
Hot Rod holds up his hands. Don't hit him! He hates politics!! "I'll talk to him. I was thinking about pulling him for other reasons. We definitely need a doctor with the struts to deal with that kind of thing on hand. Last time we pulled something like this -- well, there was a lot of collateral damage. A lot of victims who never really got free because they were too busy getting in each other's way. We're not doing that this time."
"I don't /care/ about--" Chromia starts to snap in a fresh surge of protective temper, but she has the good sense to catch up with herself and realize that perhaps she should not say that she doesn't care about the collateral damage. There's a moment of setting herself as she lowers the stick again, breath huffing past her closed mouth as she gives Hot Rod a tight nod. "No," she says. "This needs preparation." Her head lifts, just slightly. "Are there authorities that we could even go to? Anyone on this blasted-- anyone who would put a stop to this? I've been working with the Autobots since practically we got here, but Nautica said..."
Hot Rod laughs. He laughs right over the last of Chromia's words, and just laughs right from 'stop to this' to the end. "No, wait," he says once he's gotten control of himself. "I missed that last part. What was it?"
Chromia's fingers seize on her stick as she glowers at him, and says, "It was about to be me breaking your face." Her weight shifts on the breadth of her planted feet on the floor, her growl like the grumble of an idling bike as she doesn't make any move to do any such thing. "Nautica said we were not to go to any authorities, and that she was working with the Autobots," she says. "And we promised her secrecy, I only talked to /you/ since you clearly already knew everything she told me."
Hot Rod leans forward with his elbows tucked up behind the plates at the hinge of his knees. He regards Chromia with a smile. "Do you know what Prowl said -- Prowl, second only to Sentinel himself? I asked. He said it was lawful. He said it was necessary. Order." He shakes his head with a thick noise of disgust.
Quieter, serious, Hot Rod looks up at her. "The only mech I'd trust is Orion Pax, and anyone he vouches for. He knows how awful it is -- and he /also/ agrees that it's awful. The authorities are corrupt. The Senate is a mess." He has become remarkably free about his opinions. Foolishly free.
Chromia's inhalation is long and holds for a beat. She stares at Hot Rod and his serious face and his rash fierceness. The conclusion she reaches is one she has reached before: "We should never have come here." She thrusts the training stick away, letting it fall to the floor with a clatter as she steps aside to claim one of the chairs, on which she sits, backwards. 
"Orion Pax is my chain of command in the heavy assault division," she says. "I've been working to help train his Autobot recruits. When we first were trapped here, we thought it would be best if we did what we could, locally, especially as things were so chaotic here. I believe in order, you know." She smiles a little at Hot Rod, because he is so plain about not. "But at what /cost/? When Nautica said she was working for the Autobots, I thought that meant she'd have ... backup. Are you sure she's okay? Why would she be-- she's getting /implanted/ with stuff," she interrupts herself. "Why? How is that happening just on somebody who works there? Do they know what she's doing? What kind of danger is she /in/?"
"You dropped your stick." Hot Rod shifts in his perch on the desk, scooting to the edge. He straightens out of his lean and braces his hands behind him as he fishes around with his foot after it. Mostly he just kicks it up against the wall rather than doing anything useful like picking it up. His feet lack manual dexterity.
As he does this, Hot Rod says, "She was in one piece. She's okay for -- you know, for certain values of okay. But she's definitely being watched, or being followed. She didn't want to talk about it. It was hard to get any information from her. The danger is pretty serious, but it's more here--" He touches his hand to his chest above his spark. "--and here." He touches the side of his helm. "That doesn't make it any less dangerous, I know."
Chromia watches Hot Rod pursue the stick with an expression on her face like she is fighting making an observation on how silly he looks. "Kick it toward me, why don't you," she manages without laughing. She hooks her arm over the back of her chair, letting her frown seep back across her faceplate beneath the angled wings of her helm, and says, "I should have stopped her before she set foot in that blasted place. I tried to stop her, actually, but I should have-- manacled her to something..." She glares at the wall of the study room. Yes, stop Nautica from being taken captive. With manacles.
"Oh, sure." Hot Rod digs his toe between the wall and the stick to kick it back in Chromia's direction. "You said you train Autobot recruits, huh? With sticks? Autobots aren't the only ones who could use that kind of training. Especially if things get much worse." Once he's kicked the stick back to Chromia, he pulls himself back up and settles. "I don't think that would've worked. And look on the bright side--" He nearly stops himself. You can see it in his eyes, the recognition of the cliff he's about to throw himself over. "--we got a lot of information about that place that we wouldn't have otherwise because of her and her coworker."
Stopping the stick on the floor under her foot, Chromia stares down at it for a moment. When she looks up at Hot Rod, she says, "That's your bright side, huh." She says, "I've done combat training in personal defense; I used to do it on Caminus. Part of guarding is making sure your charge can take care of herself." Her eyes narrow, their glow a focused beam of intent. She hooks both her hands against the back of the chair and leans back into nothing, lifting her chin as she subjects him to the weight of a long stare. "Are there others in there that you care about?" she asks him, suddenly.
"Well. We can help more people," Hot Rod says a little sheepishly in the face of Chromia's evenness. "Yeah, it's a bright side." He glances away from her and then back again, admitting with a shrug, "No one particular. Not really. I just hate the whole thing. I've got a few friends who've ended up in that place, or places like it, had their processors fragged up, their memories wiped, their /sparks harvested/. Most of them are out, free of it. But not all. And there are a lot more in there who don't deserve it."
Chromia does not look as if she finds this accounting reassuring. Her jaw clenches, a breath huffing in a soft hiss like air escaping via a compressor. Her hands dig so tightly into the surface of the chair that it might need resurfacing by the time she's finished. She says, "So it's not anyone particular for you now. It's just ... abstract right and wrong, and a step too far." She shakes her head like she just doesn't get it, and looks aside, staring at nothing in particular now, instead. "I think that's why /she's/ doing it, too."
"I don't think it's all that abstract." Hot Rod doesn't look like the kind of guy who even really knows what abstract is. "I think it's pretty concretely wrong what they are doing. I'm sorry that Nautica's caught up in it, but I respect her for doing what she can."
Chromia makes a noise that bears some quiet kinship to a laugh, and sets the knuckles of two fingers for a hard brace between her eyes before she returns her glance to him with a faintly sardonic skew to her mouth. "I wish I did," she says. "Mostly I think you're both idiots." She drops her hand again, this time letting it fall across the angle of her thigh, and says, "But if you /can/ get her free, and get your doctor friend to help with the whatever it is, I will help you with your combat training. When I can." It's not like she needs /that/ much recharge time, right? It'll be a better use of her off-duty time than acting like a creepy stalker, anyways.
"Friend might be stretching it," Hot Rod admits. He smiles slow and easy. It's the kind of smile that invites Chromia to smile with him, unfamiliar though she might be with the expression. "But I think he'll want to help. Anyone who runs a free clinic in the Dead End is the right kind of idiot. I'd ask anyway, of course. But I'd like your help. Can't figure out what you're doing with that," he admits, glancing at the stick he's kicked around all baffled.
Standing from her chair, Chromia levers the stick from the floor with a kick, catches it in one hand, and flips it up to spin in her hands, bringing it about like a staff weapon to bear on an assailant, vis a vis, him. "Nothing fancy," she says. She smiles back at him, a grin a little toothier than would be reassuring, although she lacks for needle teeth. She turns the stick to bash lightly against the floor again.
If Hot Rod had any sense or self-preservation, he would at least flinch when she brings the stick to bear on him. He blinks. That's all she gets. So great is his trust. (Or so used is he to his friends punching him -- SERIOUSLY WHAT IS IT WITH PEOPLE.) "Doesn't have to be fancy as long as it's effective." Laughable words from a mech with his paint job. "So Windblade -- she's another one of you?"
Nod slight, Chromia braces a little with her grip on the training stick. Her humor lingers briefly, around her mouth and in the steadiness of her gaze as she watches him. /So trusting/. "Yes," she says. "She came with us from Caminus. Hasn't gotten herself into near as much trouble yet, though." /Yet/.
Speaking of Hot Rod's friends, he might spot one of them walking around in the archives near the study room they've chosen. Particularly, Blurr. Odd, finding him here. He doesn't seem like the type to peruse reading material.
"So is she into the science thing? The hitting thing?" Hot Rod asks. He glances past Chromia and out the door where Blurr fairly quickly catches his gaze. It's not subtle, the way he kicks upright and straightens. "Oh. Hey, good." But he doesn't lift his hand and flag Blurr down, and he doesn't throw himself from the desk to run over. He does, however, watch him. He leans forward, spoiler very nearly a flag: over here!
Who could ever miss that bright yellow spoiler? Answer: No one. /No/ one. Blurr catches sight of it and immediately zips over. Suddenly he's standing there. "Oh, Hot Rod." he grins. "I was hoping to talk to you."
"Ah, no. She's a diplomatist, and--" Chromia pauses in the midst of this explanation, watching Hot Rod with a startle reflected in her expression. She takes a step back as Blurr enters the room, holding a stick. She /almost/ has the name thing sorted out by the time Blurr speaks. She cuts her eyes toward him, and then back at Hot Rod again.
"Hey, Blurr." Meeting the grin with an easy greeting, Hot Rod relaxes somewhat. His expression, which had been watchful, settles in welcome. He does not seem perfectly relaxed, and he remains a little rough looking from their Kaon adventures. He's not subtle about looking past Blurr for sign of any others who might be with him, then looking back again. "This is Chromia." He doesn't introduce Blurr. /He's Blurr/. "You doing ... okay?"
Hot Rod won't find any IAA thugs this time. Blurr nods, still smiling. "I'm doing fine, thanks. You should be more worried about yourself. You took quite the beating at Kaon..." he nods at Chromia. "Nice to meet you. Anyway, sorry about all that. Some of the mercenaries they get can be kind of...foul-tempered. But at least you're back on your feet."
Chromia is probably one of the only people on Cybertron who doesn't know who Blurr is at a glance. Because. She's not from around here, yo. They haven't even been having races for a little while, even if she were to pay attention to races, which let's face it, she probably doesn't, because they don't involve hitting stuff. She probably only pays attention to news because Windblade pays attention to news, so it's probably all SERIOUS BUSINESS news. "Hello," she says. She grips her stick, balanced against the floor, and sideglances Hot Rod, who at least looks marginally less beat up than he did the last time she met him. "What?"
Just because he doesn't see them doesn't mean they aren't there!! Hot Rod keeps an eye out, checking every so often, even as he otherwise turns his attention back to the blue two. "Uh. Kind of a long story," he says to Chromia's 'what'. "A misunderstanding in Kaon. Short tempers. Short tempered mechs with guns. You know." He rubs his hand across patched plating over his midsection. "I'm back on my feet, though, yeah. So you're ... working with the IAA, then. And everything's okay. How's Feint?"
"Feint's doing great." Blurr says happily. "Look Hot Rod, I wanted to tell you...you were right before. I always tried to shut those things out of my mind, so I wouldn't have to think about them, but I can't just keep ignoring reality forever. I want to help you change the world for the better. -We- want to help you. Feint and I."
It is with great skepticism that Chromia greets this cheerful pronouncement. Gaze narrowed at the newcomer, she says, "And just how would you propose to do that?"
Hot Rod looks delighted! Then he looks dismayed. Then he looks delighted! Rather than waver back and forth a few more times, he settles in a cautious sort of optimism. "That's the thing about reality: it just keeps butting into things. You two both have a lot to give." He nods at Chromia and echoes her a little more ... upbeat: "Did you guys talk at all about where you want to start?"
Blurr shrugs. "I don't know, I'm not even sure what all you're doing right now. We'll help wherever it's needed, you know? I mean you know what I can do, and what she can do, right?"
"Sorry, who is this person and why do I trust him?" Chromia asks Hot Rod. She's not very subtle. The real question is why she is asking /Hot Rod/.
"Yeah, I--." Hot Rod breaks off into silence. He stares at Chromia. He squints at her. He looks from Chromia to Blurr and back again. "It's ... Blurr?" Water is wet? Fire is hot? These are all perfectly self-evident and entirely obvious facts. /Blurr/. "He's a good guy. He helped pull Feint from -- well, the kind of place where Nautica is now, actually."
Blurr nods at Hot Rod's assertions. "Yeah. I helped rescue her a while back." He looks very eager, like a kid going to a toy store. "So where do you want us to get started?"
Chromia does not even /begin/ to look grudgingly satisfied until Hot Rod gets to the part where Blurr has helped with rescue operations before, and she still does not look entirely sanguine. Her frown lingers, a dubious shade around the planes and angles of her face, beneath the hawkish sweep of her winged helm. She says, "I see," and turns the glow of her optics on Blurr. "Apparently you are Blurr and that is good enough for him," she tells him mildly. "We are beginning by making preparations." (The boring part.)
Any lingering caution Hot Rod might have is washed away in the face of Blurr's eagerness. "I've got some ideas, actually. There are a couple of locations we need to know more -- get an idea of what it's like around them. What's beneath them. Alpha Trion said there were a bunch of tunnels, and I figure that's the kind of place that Feint would be /perfect/ at scouting, and you can get around down there really fast. --do you /really/ not know who Blurr is?" he asks Chromia in belated flabbergast. What a good word.
Blurr nods eagerly. "Yeah! Feint could see down there fairly easily, and I could get her there quick. They'd never see me coming." He glances at Chromia with a look of incredulity and the same question that Hot Rod asked. "Wow, you really don't know who I am?" he chuckles. "Guess you don't pay too much attention to public broadcasts."
"No," Chromia says. She scowls. "I don't even /live/ here," she points out, despite the fact that really she's been here quite some time at this point. She doesn't quite brandish her stick, but she is holding onto it rather tightly. She asks Blurr, "Are you important?" (Chromia! You can't just ask people if they're important!)
Hot Rod gives Chromia a look of deep betrayal. omg new friend you are embarrassing him. "Don't you even know anything about the races?"
The trio will sudden find themselves overcast by a very large shadow. And then, wind, along with the large, slow sound of beating wings. Behind them, a tall and mysterious figure lands and approaches the three of them. "Did someone say tunnels?" A deep voice resonates from behind them. The individual speaking is still standing in insufficient lighting, obscuring him efficiently. "By the way, are you Hot Rod?" the stranger asks.
"Yeah, but you've been here a while, haven't you?" Blurr chuckles and shakes his head though, dismissing the conversation point. "Am I -important-?" he laughs. "Well I would think I am, given my status in this world, and my abilities. Okay why don't you just ask Hot Rod that question?" he laughs again.
"No, I didn't mean to /offend/ you or something, just--" Chromia starts to say, but then her momentum is arrested by the approach of a new stranger. Her training stick comes up in a defensive posture; by some inculcated reflex, she puts herself ahead of both Blurr and Hot Rod, because apparently all of my characters do this when challenged, or else it's because she's the one who is visibly armed, even if it is just with a stick. /Definitely/ has the name thing sorted out now. His name really does start with Hot. Okay.
Oh, good. A distraction of Chromia's embarrassing failure of pop culture. Hot Rod leeeans back at the loom of the shadow overhead to get -- try to get -- a good look at the mystery figure. Standing in insufficient lighting, what is that. It offends every part of him. Shadows, pfft: SPOTLIGHTS. That's where it's at. With zero caution or hesitation he steps forward and says, "Yeah. Who wants to know?"
The stranger finally steps out into the light, revealing his massive countenance. He's tall, and he has wings--obviously a flier, but not the typical sort. The wings attached to his back resemble obsidian bird wings, and are about as wide as he is tall. His armor is tarnished and scorched in some places and his shoulders are Magnus sized. His hands are double that, probably large enough to even sit on if he holds his palms up. His strides are very slow and deliberate. Blurr might go crossed opticked watching this guy, he moves so torpidly. 
The dark colored wings whoosh loudly as the stranger draws them in. "I do. You know Drift? He said you were starting a political resistance movement. I've been looking for you," the other mech says deliberately. Slag, he even talks pretty slowly. He gives Hot Rod a look over. "Hm..." he rumbles, putting a hand on his chin.
Blurr laughs, waving dissmissively at Chromia. "I'm not offended, don't worry. It was just...funny, that's all. Well at least you know now." He glances up the very large newcomer. Good Primus, he moves even slower than everyone else does. "Uh, Hot Rod just asked you a question. Don't you have a name?" he points out.
"A political resistance movement," Chromia mutters, her stick still weighted and ready in her hands. She nods at Blurr, allbeit a little warily, and slants a look between Hot Rod and the big slow guy.
Hot Rod studies the tarnish and scorch as though he could read a story from the marks. He's obviously, openly curious, and he hasn't even the good sense to look taken aback by the openness of his address. "I know Drift," he confirms with a grin. "And he might like to call it that. I call it /helping people/, which is apparently a pretty radical idea around here."
"... Yeah, he said I should talk to you." The newcomer grins, looking amused. "I guess you could say they're somewhat synonymous, but a political movement not only helps people but expands, gaining influence and power as it thrives. Thus, the assistance that you lend starts to expand exponentially," he says. 
He glances over at Blurr. "I'm not a in rush to find out names, there are more important things to discuss than just names. But you can call me Exodus." He doesn't extend a hand to Hot Rod. Shaking hands? Are you kidding me, with hands that size?? 
"I must say, you are very different than I imagined. But you will prove my assumptions wrong, correct?" he says, nodding at Hot Rod. "Anyhow, the mines call. I must go. It was a pleasure meeting you." And with that, his giant obsidian wings extend, beat down and he lifts off, up and away towards the mines of Kaon.
Blurr watches Exodus leave. "Primus, can anyone move -any slower-?" He comments incredulously. "I'm surprised he can even fly."
"Just so long as you keep your /priorities straight/ and /help people/," Chromia says. Particularly the people she wants him to help. Like, top priority. /Right now/. She flips the training stick in her hands, thrusting it up and at an angle into Hot Rod's face: a warning that falls short of actually hitting him, but still a warning. This is kind of phallic warning to give to a guy named Hot Rod, isn't it. She flips it out and down, cracking lightly against the floor again as she turns to start striding off on heavy clanks of her feet. Over her shoulder, she says, "I have to get back to work. But I want to know /everything/. Hear me?"
"Expanding and helping more in the end, huh?" Hot Rod looks a little charmed by the idea, it must be admitted. "Look me up in Nyon," he calls after Exodus as he wings off. "We'll see about your assumptions there."
His voice settles to a quieter note of humor as he glances at Blurr. "You know, I'm almost tempted to try moving slower, but I think I'd get /really bored/." The thrust of Chromia's warning breaks his humor, and Hot Rod turns after her with startled confusion. What. What! "I'll let you know," he promises, then exchanges a glance with Blurr. "I guess I better get back to it, before she tracks me down and hits me with that. I'll keep you and Feint in the loop. Good luck with everything." He peels off after, leaving quiet in his wake.
Category:NC Institute