Trypticon Medical Bay

Several operating tables are set in a row here, and long benches line the walls. On these benches are assorted tools and equipment used in repairing damaged Decepticons. The benches near the door are for patients waiting their turn for treatment. Scattered throughout the room are various repair droids, awaiting the arrival of more wounded to repair. The room gives you the perception of being immaculately clean, with not a single tool out of place. Your olfactory sensors pick up the faint odor of the cleansing solutions used to keep the room clean and sanitary.

Contents:

Sign

Gumby Medic

Obvious exits:

East <E> leads to Trypticon Laboratory.

West <W> leads to Trypticon Main Hallway.

Hook enters from the Main Hallway to the west.

Hook has arrived.

Mixmaster is lying on one of the ward beds. Face down. He isn't moving and doesn't look like he was placed there with any care.

Long Haul is laying on his back on one of the medtables. One of the major advantages of NOT having a huge mixing drum or shovel or any of that other crap that most of the others have is that he can do this. He, also, is draped over rather carelessly, but there's something of an impression that he put himself there. Or threw himself there. Something like that.

Hook stumbles into Medbay from Primus knows where, one hand clutching his head, the other waving in front of him for balance. Inexplicably, he seems to have a traffic-cone glued to his head on a jaunty angle, and half of him is painted pink. Very BADLY painted. "Uhhr.." he mumbles. "I seem to have a small headache.. in my left optic..."

Mixmaster WOULD comment about how it wouldn't be a headache, it would more specifically be an opticache. But as we have established, he's a little.. not concious. What a shame. Half-pink Hook would be amusing.

Long Haul groans, rolls over and...

*Clang!*

Right off the table. This, at least, serves to wake him up further. He shakes his head, mutters a few choice Cybertonian obsenities, and works on getting himself upright somehow.

"What? Guh?" Hook says, accidently repeating the BEST conversation EVAR. "Mixmaster? Long Haul?" He peers at the green figures. "I think we've been attacked, or poisoned or something."

"Nah. I jus' got drunk," mutters Long Haul as he slowly pulls himself into an upright position. "Dunno what the scrap /you've/ been-" finally the dump-truck-former uses the table he had been laying on to pull himself up enough to actually spot Hook. "Just what the SCRAP have YOU been doin'?!" he shouts, then immediately regrets it as his own volume causes himself to flinch.

Mixmaster would be surprised if not only did Hook not know /exactly/ how they were being poisoned, but also that he isn't playing up MIxmaster's involvement! MIXY poisoned them! But at least for Scrapper and Long Haul it was willingly.

Hook blinks. Slooowly. "What..ow.. what are you talking about Long Haul? I've been drinking! But I have an EXCELLENT overener..er..erization tollerance. So it must have been... poisoned. Or something." Hook seems completely unaware that he has a roadcone on his head, or that he's colored pink.

Long Haul mutters, "Right," even as he thinks, 'wuss,' and succeeds in hauling himself back onto the table to sit down and... rest for a moment. He looks over at Mixmaster and idly considers going over and waking him up, making sure he's not dead, and forcing his player to make real poses where he actually has to do stuff.

Mixmaster's player is in a romantic mood...

Sorry. Scratch that. He'd love to make an actual pose, but since he's, you know, not quite with it.. he's gonna have to wait.

Hook staggers over to a storage unit, taking out a small energon cube. Hair of the dog, right? Well in this case, yes. Since overenergization stimulates a transformer's frame and burns out almost ALL of their energon, also putting stress on their processor and core, leaving them feeling tired and just plain horrible when they reactivate. "Ugh. I feel like an organic crawled into my mouth and died."

Statements like /that/ make Long Haul glad he doesn't have a mouth! He shudders visibly, and then pushes himself back off the medtable and stumbles in the direction of the engineer of all this. Yeah, he's not going to lie there blissfully off-line while the other two are suffering! The transporter reaches out a hand and shakes the chemist roughly, saying as loud as himself dares, "Hey, Mixmaster, wake up!"

Mixmaster is an ALchemist, not some garden-variety chemist! He's also currently getting shaken up by his brother dear. The contents of his cauldron slosh around on his back as he is mechhandled. Finally, after a few astroseconds of the aggressive wakeup procedure, Mixy manages to regain conciousness. "Huhhh... hey! Wh'zat?!"

Hook takes a sip from the cube, sighing happily. "Ahh.. That's better" he takes a longer drink as he watches Long Haul shaking Mixmaster. "It's no good Long Haul, he's still disorientated. Shake harder."

Long Haul, rather than arguing, just nods and does shake harder. Because it's fun. And because he wants Mixmaster awake enough to get a load of Hook right now. "C'mon, Mixmaster! Up an' at 'em!"

Mixmaster is now only vaguely aware of the others around him. "Heynow.. no need t' go an'AIAAAIAIAIAIAIAIAAAAIAIAI." He says, cutting himself off as Long Haul increases the shaking. "Okayokayokay!" Mixmaster manages to say as he struggles to break free from his much-stronger brother's efforts.

Hook snickers. And then winces, wishing he hadn't. "Could you /please/ keep it down? For some reason, my audials seem to be rather sensitive.."

Long Haul stops shaking Mixmaster. No, wait, one last shake. Okay, he's done. Then, without saying another word, roughly turns Mixmaster so that he's on his side and in a position to see Hook and then points Mixmaster's head in Hook's direction. Sometimes words are just insufficient for a given situation.

"Hey!" Mixmaster yells, incapable of lowering his volume for the sake of his brothers, or even himself. "I can turn myself you..." And suddenly, Mixy is lost for words. "I.. see....." he says, still too stunned to remember to smile and laugh. After a few moments though, he remembers. "Hee.. hee hee hee..... haaahahahahahaa!"

Hook frowns. "What? What are you laughing at? I assure you, you're a sorry sight yourself!" Of course, not as sorry, or as stupid looking as Hook. "Long Haul, did you perhaps shake him /too/ hard?"

Long Haul, for his part, is busy covering his audios (not that their location is readily apparent to anyone but himself) in response to that annoying loud laughter, and he's beginning to wonder if alerting the (al)chemist to their brother's condition was such a great idea, after all. "Gha, Mixy! Will you shut up already!"

Mixmaster will not! He keeps on laughing. "Oh, am I?" He says between snickers. "Long Haul, what a wonderful thing for you to wake me up to!"

"You are," Long Haul answers Mixmaster's question. "Yer just not as sorry lookin' as Hook." He looks over at his crane brother and, despite the pain, starts chuckling himself. "Someone had better have a picture of this!" he chortles.

It finally dawns on Hook that there might be something.. amiss. "Wait.. what?" he says, bringing down a mirror screen and doing an impressive double take as he spots his half-pink frame, complete with jaunty road-cone hat. "....." he says, words failing him. For once.

Mixmaster can only laugh furthermore at Hook's own silence, even though it hurts his sensitive audios so! "Don't worry Hook.. I think you're very.. pretty.." he says as he gets up off his bed.

Hook is silent! Yay! At least /some/ good has come out of this. Hands still clamped to the sides of his head, Long Haul nods. "Never looked better, brother!" he agrees.

Hook spins on the spot, like he'd been mounted to a swivel, levelling his finger at his two teamates like an angry god leaning through the clouds to do some smiting. "One of YOU is responsible for this! I just KNOW it!"

Long Haul flinches at Hook's fury... no, strike that. He's just flinching at the further elevation in noise level. He holds his hands up, palms up, in a gesture of innocence. "C'mon, Hook! When I ain' been workin', I've been passed out in here myself!"

"Oh sure, I'm just a right mastermind." Mixmaster says, in a rare moment admitting he's not good at something. "Especially while I'm unconcious on a bed for.." Mixy looks at what the time is. "DAYS?! What the..?"

Hook bahs! "Don't give me that! ...ow... There seem to be portions of my memory that have been deleted. But who ELSE would have done this? Eh?" Hook angrily tugs at the roadcone attached to his head, immediately wishing he hadn't. "ow ow ow.."

"About half of MSE?" Long Haul answers. Sure he probably /should/ keep that comment to himself, but why bother? With that the transporter leans forward to support himself on Mixmaster's recently abandoned meditable. "I mean, c'mon... you make yerself a target, and /someone's/ gonna take advantage of it!"

"I think he's just in denial." Mixmaster says, treating Hook like he's not even there. "Who else would bother enough to prank him if it wasn't us? And I know I didn't." He looks Long Haul in the optics.. err.. optic. "I just think he drank too much energon."

Long Haul looks blankly at Mixmaster for a moment. Well, okay, he doesn't have a face, so all his looks are pretty blank, but still. "Y'sayin' he did that to himself?" he answers, baffled.

Hook gahs! "No, I did /not/ do this to myself! One of YOU did! Or Possibly Scavenger or Scrapper or Bonecrusher. And since I'm covered in.. in PINK paint, and this cone appears to have been GLUED to my head... Mixmaster, I'm looking at /you/!"

Long Haul is off both the proverbial and the literal hook! Woo-hoo!

"Well, I was just talking about the overenergizing." Mixy replies. "But think about it this way.. if he didn't do that, he wouldn't have this thing to accuse both of us of doing?" Sure, it doesn't /really/ make sense, but then again that's Mixmaster for you. And then Hook accuses him /directly./ "ME?!" Mixmaster says. "Oh come now, I'm almost completely certain I had nothing to do with that." Besides, Mixmaster was planning on pranking Hook with some more strawberry jam.

Long Haul tries to follow Mixmaster's logic, which is a mistake in the best of times, nevermind when he's hung-over. He shakes his head, bringing a black hand up to support it, and mutters, "Mixmaster, that's either genius or gibberish, but I'll be damned if I can make out which."

"Gibberish" Hook replies huffily. "But you can make up for it by mixing me some solvent for this glue, and some more lime green paint!"

Mixmaster thinks about this 'order' that his brother /that he outranks/ is giving him. After accusing him of gibberish. "Mmmno. I don't know if you can trust me to not poison you again. YOu know, for your own wellbeing, brother dear."

"Well, what about my window?" asks Long Haul as he lowers himself, using the meditable more and more to support his weight. "Ain't proper for me to have a clear window! Without that, I doan' really have any purple!"

Hook should SO outrank Mixmaster. After all - he forms the HEAD! "I'm not going to /drink/ it" Hook replies. "But if you don't think you're /up/ to mixing up a simple solvent, I'll find a more /skilled/ chemist to do it for me." Oooooh. Them's fightin' words. "And Long Haul.. can't you just paint the inside of your clear window purple?"

But then the driver won't be able to see out! Wait, no. Long Haul glares at Hook for a moment. Well, tries to. The whole no-face thing complicates matters. Then he cocks his head in an almost quizzical manner. "Erm... Hook? Are /you/ suggestin' I cut corners on something?" He tries to push himself back up. Maybe something really is seriously wrong with his brother!

Fighting words indeed! "Oh yeah! Well just as well there is a manual for you to create an antisolvent /to the letter/ in the MSE archives or else you'd never be able to make any yourself!" Mixmaster snarls, his anger overriding his hangover-esque nature. He tries to look taller than his brother - an even trickier task than usual when a road cone is on Hook's head. "Now you gotta ask me nicely. Jackass."

"Paint it purple UNTIL the correct part is available" Hook sighs. "Otherwise, you just look like a.." but he's interrupted by Mixmaster's angry retort. "Well maybe instead I /will/ go look at the manual and mix my /own/. Since THEN at least, I know it'll be CORRECT, and not either pure acid or just water!"

"I'll look like a /what/?" challenges Long Haul, pushing himself back up into a standing position. "Y'know, Hook, I doan' think yer in /any/ position to comment on what /I/ look like right now!"

Mixmaster is unaware of how close he came to out-embarrasing Hook. "And by correct you mean, completely soulless without /any/ heart." he retorts. The heart is the most important ingrediant, Hook! "

"Like.. a.. something" Hook replies to Long Haul. Hey, what do you want? He's hung over. And then Mixmaster pipes up. "Heart. Heart is the most important ingrediant. In industrial solvent." Hook stares at Mixmaster for a while. "I...see."

Long Haul is also pretty confused by this. He doesn't know much about chemistry, or ALCHEMY, but this still sounds pretty strange. Finally he gives up. There are some concepts which just remain completely beyond his grasp, and he's used to that by now. "Well, that's one way to get rid of a few fleshies, I s'pose."

"Your /metaphorical/ heart, Hook..." Mixmaster says wearliy.

Hook throws up his hands in disgust. "Fine! I'll be sure to think metaphorical heart thoughts when I mix the solvent! Are you happy now?"

"No. You're still talking." Mixmaster dryly responds. After a moment, a moment of clarity comes over him. With a grin on his face, he turns to Long Haul, hoping his brother will play along. "Say Long Haul, I don't think Hook has noticed what is on his /back/ yet, does he?"

Metaphorical... heart... thoughts. Okay. This conversation has moved far past Long Haul's ability to understand. And then Mixmaster asks him a question, and that doesn't make much sense to him either. His back? That would be his lifting arm, right? "Wha-?" And then it dawns on him. "Oh! Erm. No, Mixmaster, I don't think he has!" Unfortunately, Long Haul is a /horrible/ actor, although he is helped somewhat by the fact that his expression CANNOT give him away.

Hook huhs? "What? What thing on my back?" Hook twists aroundm, trying to look at his own back, unsurprisingly with no success. What IS surprising is that there IS something painted on his back. 'Scrap Me'

Long Haul just STARES at Hook's back for a moment. He thought he was joking! Then he bursts out laughing. This causes him to flinch and groan, muttering, "Oooo, my head..." but still. This is just too good. He starts laughing again.

Mixmaster isn't sure what is more funny - not telling Hook that he was tricking, or telling him that despite his lies there actually IS something on his back. Mixy decides to leave it be for now, though he /does/ shoot Long Haul a 'Hey, who'd-a thunk it?' look.

Hook spins around on the spot for a few moments, then just gives up. "Fine! Laugh! I'm going to get all this mess cleared off!" And with that, he storms from the room.

Long Haul stops laughing long enough to watch Hook storm off, then bursts out laughing again despite the pain it causes. When he finally recovers from both the laughter and the pain, he looks to Mixmaster. "Sill, I s'pose we oughta go figger out who did that to 'im, and let 'em know that they /can't/ do scrap like that to Constructicons. 'Less it was onna the other three. That's okay, then."

And meanwhile, somewhere in Trypticon, a green, blue and red Seeker is in an area that was cordoned off for maintenance. But because there were insufficient cones blocking access, the Seeker decides to take a closer look. It would be properly closed off if they didn't want him getting close, after all. So this red, blue and green Seeker steps past the boundary, where a large machinery component falls on him, crushing poor poor Noobietron to death, before he could even finish saying one last final "WTF?!"

Hook has disconnected.

Mixmaster hmmmms, as his brother storms off in a huff. "Oh sure. But I think we can scratch them out." He checks them off on his fingers. "Bonecrusher's 'pranks' usually consist of punching someone in the faceplate... Scavenger /could/ have supplied the cone if he dug it up but it seems unlike him to want to piss off one of the people he's trying to prove himself to, and Scrapper..." Mixmaster thinks about this for a second, before meeting Long Haul in the optic. "Actually, why wouldn't it have been Scrapper?"

"Dunno," mused the transporter. "I mean, he din't drink as much as we did..." although the stuff didn't really hit Long Haul /near/ as bad as Mixmaster, considering he's had time to be up and about. "An' if he was still drunk when he woke up... I dunno. Not sure if that would count as /artistic/, exactly..."

Mixmaster hmms, and stifles the urge to ask Long Haul what /he/ would know of art. A reason dawns on him. "Actually, I think Scrapper would be avoiding the pink paint thing, he wasn't thrilled when that happened to him on Monacus. It's sorta like you with glue, or Scrapper, Sixshot and I with Fire Retar..." Mixmaster realises he has spoken too much about something he gave his word to NEVER EVER SPEAK OF AGAIN.

Long Haul glares (or tries to) at the mention of 'glue', but then cocks his head at the next part. "The huh? Fire whatsit?" After all, even if his player /has/ read the log, he wasn't there and therefore has no reason to know that the event was NEVER TO BE SPOKEN OF AGAIN.

"You know what?" Mixmaster chuckles, unconvincinly. "I think I must have completely made something up. I have no idea why I'd do that."

Long Haul eyes Mixmaster warily. Well, except that he has no eyes, but the tilt of his head manages to give that impression (Long Haul often uses body language to make up for his inability to show facial expressions). Mixy was generally a pretty unreliable source of information, and he /does/ make things up, but he generally doesn't bother to verbally question why. THAT was the strange part. "Uhm. Riiiiiiiight," answers the dump truck.

Mixmaster decides to change the subject, while the changin's good. "Gaaaah. Still got a headache." He murmers. "Noone's done anything to my hole while I've been unconcious, have they?" He asks. No, that's not an out of context hole.

"Scavenger made it larger," answers Long Haul, once more supporting himself against the meditable. "You tell him to build that thing?" He pauses. "Why?"

Scrapper enters from the Main Hallway to the west.

Scrapper has arrived.

Mixmaster shrugs. Larger is good. "Yeah, it shut him up for a few moments. Plus, I got a hole out of it!" Mixy and Long Haul are treading carefully as they nurse their own energon hangovers - Mixy from the time they all got smashed, but Long Haul has gotten all overenergized again. And Hook appeared to have been drinking too. Weird!

Long Haul is leaning against a medical table, and yes, nursing a hangover because yes, he got overenergized since that day, a consequence of having too much energon available (especially given his extra ration, which no one's bothered to mention. Yay, him!) and not enough that's really interesting to do. "Well, yeah, great, but now he's got me haulin' off the dirt! Can you let him know it's big enough?"

Mixmaster shrugs. "I thought /he/ was doing the hauling?"

"Yeah, well, I'm better, so he stopped. Now I'm doin' it!" grumbles Long Haul.

"Look, I don't /like/ the job, but I'm built for it. He's not." The transporter shrugs and his voice takes on a somewhat melancholy tone. "So I'm stuck with it."

First, there was that accident with the anaesthetics. Then, there was the business in hole with the... what was that? All in all, Scrapper's not been very good about staying conscious recently. Now, given that he's High Command and has an appetite for turning people into chairs, the gumbies that dragged him off from the entranceway didn't repaint him or do any 'customising'. They did, however, stick him neatly under his desk, out of sight. So it is that when he wakes, he whacks his head on the desk's underside with a loud clang. Ergh, this is seeming a bit more painful than it should be.

Mixmaster oh wells. At least he's got a job he likes. He's still got his headache though, so when a loud thud can be heard from the end of the room, he clutches his head in pain once more. "For slag's sake this is supposed to be a medical ward!" He says, getting frustrated. "Can't we get some PEACE AN QUIET! OW!!" No, that 'ow' wasn't part of his rant, it was him recoiling in pain once more at the raised level of his own voice.

First the annoyingly loud clang, then Mixmaster shouting! Poor Long Haul's processor is not doing well at all! He clutches his head and glares at his (al)chemist brother. "Will you QUIT it!" Then he cringes again, this time at his /own/ voice. Yes, he's that thick, but then, he /is/ a Constructicon.

"IT WASN'T ME-AAAAAH!!" Masochistmaster yells.

Scrapper is thinking, insofar as he is capable of such a taxing activity at the moment, that maybe unconsciousness would be a better bet. His head, really, really hurts, and there's shouting. He can't make out what anyone's saying, over the ringing in his audios, but there's a spike of pain with each stressed syllable. Scrapper tries to uncurl from being under the desk, but he just thumps his head into one of the desk's legs. Oooh, pretty stars! Why, is that a quasar?

Long Haul raises an arm to smack Mixmaster one for this last shout, but the act unbalances him and he's stumbles against the meditable instead. "Ow! Er... I was talking about the SHOUT- ack!" He shakes his head, which probably only serves to further loosen a few essential CCAs, and then.. Scrapper's chair moves by itself! He looks over. "Hey, uhm... someone's over there, I think." Thank you, Captain Obvious.

Masochistmaster and Captain Obvious! Woohoo! Finally, Mixy calms down, and so does his voice. "..I think I'm gonna find a quieter brother. Bonecrusher, perhaps." And with that, Mixy clutches his head and carefully walks out.

Well, when I say carefully, he /is/ still Mixmaster, so he still manages to knock over a tray full of delicate tools, which crash and clatter on the ground.

Mixmaster has disconnected.

And then Mixmaster makes MORE noise as he's leaving. Dammit! Long Haul cringes again, and then pushes himself up and away from the medical table to go see what's moving Scrapper's chair. He peaks around the payloader's desk and, "Oh. Scrapper." Then he pauses. "Guess you didn't do it, then."

Scrapper rolls out from under his desk, completely knocking over his chair and inadvertently tangling himself with the chair. He almost looks like one of his own works of art, and he feels about as well as one. His unfocused optic band settles upon a greenish constellation that wasn't there prior. Scrapper groans incoherently and thrashes a bit, the chair creaking sympathetically.

Long Haul winces at the noise. "Do you MIND?" Then he winces again at his own voice. You'd /think/ he'd have learned his lesson by now, but... no. No, not really. Then he stumbles over to clumsily wrench the chair and Scrapper apart. "Y'look pretty ridiculous, brother, but Hook's got you beat for that right now."

Mind is something Scrapper does not possess currently, just a twitching mass of hangover and self-inflicted concussion agony. Long Haul prying him away from the overly friendly chair isn't helping. It's almost enough to make Scrapper give up and conk out again. Third time's the charm, right? But then, a thread of sound is processed by some dimly functioning part of his neural net, and Scrapper perks up. He slurs, static interspersing his words, "'Course *bzt* Hook looks ridi... ridi...*zerk* more silly than me."

Long Haul continues trying to manhandle the chair for a bit longer, focused, as he is, on his task, but finally Scrapper's slurred words sink in. He pauses and tilts his head curiously, looking down at his brother. "Whaddaya mean? So ya did do it?" he asks.

Scrapper wonders why the world is full of hard edges and, moreover, why so many of those hard edges have to be jabbing into him at the moment. Then there's the dull pounding in his head; something's probably been jostled loose. Finally, there's that static screech that accompanies most sound. Hnn, why don't torturers just get their victims leakin' drunk and wait for the hangovers? It'd save so much trouble. Scrapper mumbles in reply to Long Haul, "Huh? Did what?"

"Hook!" answers Long Haul, as though that explains it all. He stops trying to remove the chair from Scrapper and instead just uses it for support. Had he a human's sensibilities, he might have worried about the choice of wording being used, but he doesn't.

Scrapper doesn't think he's done Hook, er, done whatever it was that was done to Hook. Just trying to think about whatever it was he was doing prior to being under that desk takes rather more effort that Scrapper can afford, though. He lays back on the floor as well he can, trying to ignore the chair imposing in on his personal space. Slowly, coherent pictures are starting the replace the starscape in front him. "Dun he look like that *zix* nor... norma... all the time?"

"Heh. Heh heh. Heheheh..." Long Haul begins chuckling. It's not the high-pitched manic giggling that Mixmaster's known for... just an amused chuckle, and then... "Ow! Erm." Black hand moves to cradle silver forehead and he shakes his head. "Scrapper, someone painted him half pink, stuck a traffic cone to his head, an' painted 'Scrap me' on his back."

Scrapper automatically tries to clamp his hands over his audios to protect them from his brother's laughter. That would usually work, but he misjudges the needed acceleration and ends up cuffing himself on the head. Yeah, this is definitely one of those times when it just wasn't worthwhile to wake up. Long Haul's more reasonable in volume follow-up comment drifts through Scrapper's clutching fingers, and the Constructicon foreman laughs himself, a harsh sound like a file scraping against metal. Ow! His fingers convulsively clutch, as his own noise hits him.

Long Haul continues to lean against the chair as he watches his brother. After all, no point, really, in removing him from the chair. It's not like Scrapper will be able to stand once the chair is gone, anyway. "Yuh. I'm gonna make sure the medbay security cameras got that, too, but anyway, the thing is... it may be funny, but we're gonna have ta figure out who did it. I mean, he may be an annoying twit, but he's /our/ annoying twit. We can't jus' have folks goin' 'round thinkin' they can do that to Constructicons an' get away with it!"

Scrapper nods enthusiastically... sigh ... knocking his head against the floor. That's it. He drops his hands to his sides and vows no more movement until he's sure he's up to it. "Good'ya got the pictures, but you're right on that." Only Constructicons can mess with Constructicons! Something nags at the edges of consciousness, but Scrapper can't grasp it. Perhaps it'll come to him in time.

Long Haul finally gives up on standing and sits on the chair, thus /ensuring/ that Scrapper /won't/ be moving anytime soon. He's silent for a few moments, then mutters, "I needa drink." So he did NOT learn his lesson? Well, no... it's just that the after affects of overenergizing often include being slightly underenergized. It's annoying that way.

Scrapper thinks about breaking his vow of not moving as Long Haul sits down. He doesn't want to get stepped on; that happens enough as it is! However, he decides it's not worth the effort. Scrapper snorts and gives some bad advice, "So get one."

What a good idea! Long Haul pushes himself back up and stumbles towards the same storage unit from which Hook previously retrieved a cube. We shall leave it up to Scrapper's player whether or not he gets stumbled on, but Long Haul makes no special attempt to avoid his brother. He grabs a cube and drops it, at which point he stands there and looks mournfully (well, one presumes he's mournful. It's hard to tell) down at the thing, grumbling, "Dammit."

Scrapper gets stepped on! He grunts and growls in Long Haul's vague direction. Instead of the earlier good idea nagging at the edges of his consciousness, Scrapper is instead stuck by a rather bad idea. Maybe Long Haul did it! The loathed Soundwave was giving Long Haul extra rations, wasn't he? He muses aloud, "How'd we know you din' do it?" After all, Long Haul just stepped on Scrapper. If that isn't proof...

Long Haul stares at Scrapper for several LONG moments. "Scrapper. He had a traffic cone /glued/ to his head," is all he says by way of explanation before bending over to retrieve the cube and... falling over.

Scrapper continues to lie back on the floor, still somewhat tangled up with the chair. Oh, glue. That is to Long Haul what... what shall not be named is to Scrapper. Yeah, that makes sense. What was that other idea, the one that made so much sense? Can't remember it. So he just replies dumbly. "Oh. Righ'."

Long Haul groans from his heap on the ground before pushing himself onto his side and reaching for his cube. Then he pushes himself to his back. Because he /can/ lie on his back, unlike /some/ Constructicons. He brings the cube up to his faceplate and sips. One might wonder how he manages to sip while lying down, but surly that is a lesser mystery compared with how he sips without a mouth. "Right," is all he says in reply.

Scrapper can lie on his back. His shovel even acts as a built in 'pillow'. However, he's currently sprawled out in a rather contorted pose, not all helped by the chair. It's not comfortable, but he's firmly convinced that moving will only hurt more, so he's relatively happy now. Scrapper announces, as if announcing a total eclipse of the sun or other rare event, "Umph, had a thought..."

"Yuh?" asks Long Haul.

Scrapper stares up at the ceiling, wondering if someone actually put little glowy stars up there or if his vision's still on the fritz. He seems a little startled by Long Haul. "Oh, huh? Can't remember. You dun 'member it, do you?"

Long Haul takes another sip of his energon, but otherwise doesn't move. The fuel really does help him to feel better, though, and he'll probably be moving again soon. "You want me to remember YOUR thought? Sounds like you got a few cards that need reseatin', Scrapper."

In all likelihood, Scrapper probably does, given his recent concussion. He's not about to admit that, though. "Files get shuffled around and..." Oh, Scrapper's on the edge of it. Something Long Haul said about cameras?

But Long Haul doesn't know what Scrapper's thinking about! It's not like they share minds or anything! Well, at least not most of the time. "Well, either un-shuffle 'em or quit yappin' about it!" grumbles Long Haul. He takes a few more sips, then starts to work on getting upright again. Scrapper could probably use a cube, too.

Scrapper could use a working noggin! This one feels likes someone tore out all the connections and dumped silt into the workings, although it's clearing up, slowly. If he felt surer about his locomotive abilities, he might consider a wake-me-up drink, but he's taking this slowly. Scrapper replies, scowling despite his mostly featureless face, "I've almost got it... somethin' about cam'ras..."

Long Haul stands up again, a little steadier this time, and reaches into the cabinet to grab another small cube. "Cameras? What about 'em?" he asks.

"They take pictures. Of Hook. And..." This was the important part. Scrapper's optic band scrunches up with strained thought. "...take pictures of stuff being done to Hook.'

Long Haul tilts his head quizzically. Damn brothers, always going on about things he can't understand and stuff, and... no, wait. That made sense. "Ah. Well, okay. Only problem is, if we're gonna do too much tryin' to look at the recordin's an' stuff... well, then we'd have to ask DCI to help." The transporter didn't think he had to go into detail on why they didn't want to do /that/.

"Argh," Scrapper nearly sounds physically pained. He'd rather go build a super weapon by a banging a rock on a piece of metal than work with DCI. He's got another idea, though, and this one's a little easier for him to grasp.

Scrapper's recovering, albeit slowly. "But we do maintenance, so we can get in most places, and well, those tapes have got to be somewhere, right?"

"Uhm... one would think, yuh," Long Haul answers uncertainly before heading over and crouching down to hand his brother a cube.

Scrapper hesitates before taking the cube carefully. Slow, cautious movements seem to be okay. He vaguely ponders asking Long Haul to put a bit of painkiller in the cube but a) he's had some trouble with anesthetics lately and b) it's Long Haul. Scrapper sips at it slowly, but still to quickly for any gumbies who might be watching to understand how he does it, burnt out on ideas for the moment. As an afterthought, he nods in thanks.

Long Haul sits back Scrapper's chair. Gee, High Command gets comfy chairs... He'll move when Scrapper's actually able to stand up. He DOES take slow sips, and as for how? Well, it just happens. Like playing the trumpet.

Scrapper should probably be annoyed that Long Haul's sitting in his chair. What if he dents it or something? He's really more annoyed with the chair itself. How did he get himself wedged into the chair like that? It doesn't seem physically possible. Scrapper boggles quietly and continues to nurse the cube, feeling a bit better now. He notes dourly, "Quite a few with a motive..."

"'Bout all of MSE, and a lotta folks outside of it," answers Long Haul. "I mentioned that earlier when Hook was accusin' Mixmaster and whinin' about how no one outta us woulda done it."

And with that the transporter falls silent as each go back to nursing their own hangovers.