Carbombya

The grassy hills and savannas in the east, bordered by ancient volcanos and sprawling lava fields, are the only part of Carbombya not made up of barren desert. Until recently, the country depended on meager livestock herding and subsistence agriculture, but upon the discovery of a huge reserve of very high-grade oil beneath the shifting desert sands, things changed radically. The struggling democracy weathered multiple coup attempts by greedy neighbors and other interested foreigners before finally succumbing to the tender mercies of a home-grown dictator. There are no refugees from war torn Ethiopia being taken in as slave labor, not here under the enlightened rule of President-for-Life Abdul Fakkaddi!

Contents:

Trypticon <T>

Carbombyan Palace

Obvious exits:

East <E> leads to Red Sea.

West <W> leads to Nile River.

Fly <Up>

Verdant emerges from the city that is Trypticon.

Verdant has arrived.

Payloader (Scrapper) soars down into view from the skies above.

Payloader (Scrapper) has arrived.

Long Haul folds in on himself and transforms into a dump truck.

"Day in, day out, day in, day out. Same old scrap. Long Haul, carry this sheet metal around so we can build a giant space ship! Long Haul, tote these supplies around for we can construct a defense system! Wouldn't even be so bad, except that whatever we build keeps getting BLOWN UP!" Long Haul trundles across the sand, grumbling to himself in an endless stream as he goes. He pulls up near where Verdant works and shouts, "Hey, you! Botnist! You got the next batch ready?"

Verdant cringes at Long Haul's booming voice, but is getting better at hiding it. A mental count to ten allows him and general lack of spine allows him to let his rage peter out before he looks from from the metals he'd been putting together for the Constructicons. "Almost," he says. "It just seems a moment more to finish cooling."

Payloader (Scrapper) is bustling around in payloader mode, because hey, that's the mode that he has 'construction' in, despite his lack of hands. Yes, most of his work just gets blown up, but that's no reason not to enjoy the actual construction itself.

Dump Truck <Long Haul> grumbles quietly to himself for a moment, then replies, "All right, all right. About how long will it be?" Interactions with his brothers aside, a being who's spent millions of years (or 40, depending on which origin you went with) doing a job they hate, especially a job that involves moving freight and dealing with the supply system of an organization such as the Empire, is practically made of patience. Well, patience, and a lot of metals. Plus a few synthetic materials, insulators of various kinds, the occasional bits of crystal. But mostly patience. He transforms, taking the moment to return to his more 'natural' form, since he has to wait anyway, and surveys his surroundings for a moment.

The dump truck stretches out and unfolds into Long Haul.

"Finished...now," Verdant says. He's actually amazing himself, given how well he manages to disguise his significant dislike for Long Haul. Respect is a two way street, at least to him, and it's been clear from day one that Long Haul certainly did not respect him. Of course, when he was told to go make metals for the Constructicons, he didn't argue, he just did. It was easier than way and he didn't end up with any holes in him.

Oh, great! Just when he thought he had a chance for a break! Long Haul, for his part, has long gotten over his irritation with Verdant for being a botanist after he was a warrior (name calling aside), and is now just his usual, generally surly self (after all, MSE was /filled/ with seekers that shoulda/coulda been warriors, while Long Haul continues to be stuck as a supply officer). He transforms BACK into a dump truck. "Yer gonna have to load it up, obviously. Or grab help again. Whatever." See, nothing personal! Long Haul talks

Long Haul folds in on himself and transforms into a dump truck.

"Very well," Verdant says as he picks up what he can of the metal. Not having much physical strength, it's not much, but he does what he can. Making metal isn't exactly what he signed on for, but it hasn't prevented him from doing the best that he can. Of course, he'd rather be out exploring and finding out just how plants survive in such a dry and arid place, but one of the surly Constructicons would probably run him over or shoot him if he tried that.

Payloader (Scrapper) could note that this would go a lot quicker if Long Haul had a pair of gumby Seeker to help him out, but his filters are carefully set up to keep such thoughts out! Instead, this slowness has got to be Long Haul's fault. So Scrapper whines, "What's the hold up here?"

"Nothing! There's nothing holding things up, which is why we ain' gettin' things done!" Long Haul snaps at his brother. "If you didn't just let Hook run about doin' whatever the blazes he wanted, 'managing' or whatever, and got him out here to do some actual, I don't know, LIFTING, maybe we wouldn't have these problems!"

Payloader (Scrapper) would cross his arms, if he had them at the moment, but settles on waggling his shovel up and down. "Well, we could set up a temporary scaffolding. It's not as if Hook is the sole one capable of holding things up around here, after all."

"Oh, /right/. Can't control the folks who're s'posed to be workin' for you, so instead you just work around him not bein' around! I see how it is!" The dump truck transforms, dumping Verdant and any metal he had been loading onto the ground. He does cross his arms. "So what happens if I jus' stop haulin' huh? You gonna build a trolly?"

Verdant falls on his aft, metal spilling from his arms and clattering to the ground noisly. At the moment, he actually decides it's not worth the trouble to get up and he might as well enjoy the show. How can beings like these merge, let alone work together, if all they ever seem to do is argue? Wouldn't that run contrary to the combiner process...?

The dump truck stretches out and unfolds into Long Haul.

Payloader (Scrapper) isn't a leader! He just happens to be in charge, and unlike many Decepticons who also just happen to be in charge, he can't even bully his minions into doing what he wants. This is largely because many of said minions can hand Scrapper his shovel. Eh, well, he could dock their energon, but if he kept doing that that, they'd all starve to death or riot. Still, he protests, "What do you expect me to do, bodily haul Hook out here?"

Long Haul, who was expecting to get yelled out for transforming and stopping work himself, is taking off-guard by Scrapper's response. His optic band flickers slightly in surprise and then he takes a moment to contemplate what Scrapper just said (after all, he has to shift gears to do so). His response is oddly cheerful. "Well, sure! It'll be nice to see someone /else/ hauling something around for a change!"

Slightly unnerved by all the arguing, Verdant finally works up the nerve to speak. Sure, it's sticking his head into the Monsterbot den, but it beats the possibility of these two taking each other apart and having to be the one to inform the medics. "Er...surely, gentlebeings, there's a way to resolve this peacefully...? Without all the yelling?"

Verdant hasn't been awake long, has he? Because he seems to be begging the Constructicons to turn around and yell at him instead. Scrapper turns slightly more towards Long Haul and says, quite reasonably, "Oh, we're being very peaceable about this, aren't we? I mean, no one's got out any scalpels or glue or jam or anything yet... perhaps you ought to go play with your little fungi and mind your own business."

Verdant considers mentioning that fungi technically aren't plants, but decides against it. In fact, he decides not to say anything at all. Yep, the cactus over there is reeeeeally interesting looking. Maybe he should go see if he can get water out of it. Getting up and dusting himself off, and backing away slowly, he decides that's the best idea he's had today.

Long Haul visibly /shudders/ at the mention of the word 'glue'. Why, or why, did Scrapper have to mention the glue? But Verdant is safe from physical attack, as the consequences for physical in-fighting in the Decepticons can be quite dire (Long Haul, for his part, tends to discount Constructicon scuffling as 'in-fighting'. That's just normal and natural Constructicon interaction!). Shouting? No, he's not safe from that. He turns to Verdant first. "Yeah, we're bein' peaceful!" he booms. "I ain' swung my fists or pulled a weapon or /anything/, even if he does deserve it!" Then he turns back on his brother. "And YOU I doan' need runnin' off the only one I got helpin' to get me loaded!" Oh, dear, but the potential for a smart response to /that/ comment!

"What do you mean, I deserve it?" Scrapper squawks. "I was just checking up on how things were going!" Still, he does make a token effort, "And yeah, get back here, you!" Happy now, Long Haul?

Verdant freezes in place, with a petro-rabbit in the headlights look upon his face. Go away, come here. Go away, come here. That's all people ever want out of him. He opens his mouth, it's go away. They need him for something, it's come here. Otherwise, get away from me you silly plant-lover who's not fit to polish my wings. Oh, but other people are such a joy to be around. Why, exactly, did he want them to like him again?

What sort of silly question is that, Scrapper? Of /course/ Long Haul's not happy! Long Haul's /never/ happy! (Well, he was pretty happy after he fought Grimlock and Scourge made that report commending his actions... that was about as happy as Long Haul gets) "Yeah, you deserve it! But I ain't kicking the green off ya, 'cause we're solving things /peaceful/ like!" The lime green robot transforms yet /again/ into dump truck mode and waits for the loading process to begin once more. "And things would be goin' a lot better if maybe I had some more help here! I can't load myself, y'know!"

Long Haul folds in on himself and transforms into a dump truck.

Verdant approaches the two Constructicons and starts picking up the steel he dropped. To keep his mind off the fact that the two of them make him all twitchy, he turns his thoughts to nice, safe, understandable botany things. Like those interesting carniverous plants he picked up on his expedition with Fleet and Catechism. He'd seen the behavior in morphobots and larger specimens, but never on quite so small a scale. And then there was the odd fact that the plants he gathered from that island all seemed to have slightly different chemistry and bacteria than the plants he'd gathered from elsewhere, almost more primitive in nature...

Wildrider soars down into view from the skies above.

Wildrider has arrived.

And Long Haul's a fine example of a minion who can hand Scrapper his shovel, sigh. Still, he looks cross and thumps his shovel down on the ground emphatically. "Oh, you're just being difficult! I've done nothing to deserve a beating!" Okay, a decent mechanism might figure that Scrapper needs a beating, given how sick some of Scrapper's art is, but since when are the Decepticons decent? So Long Haul can't be on about that.

Wildrider spins around and lands on the ground to form into a black sports car.

Picture if you will, a peaceful grassy hills off in the distance. Suddenly, and without warning, a black Ferrari 308GTB barrels into view from. Strapped to his hood is a poor human who happened to get in the stunticon's way. Poor guy. He's lashed down to the hood, complaments of Dead End, who screams for his very life. Wildrider cackles, "Common squishy! This is fun, you've got to let it all hang out! Hahahahahaha!" The ferrari bolts over another smaller hill causing the man to nearly fly apart from the sudden jolt. Wildrider however, can't take satisfaction from what's going on with the human male if he's passed out on the hood, which he has from that last jolt. Don't worry folks, he's not dead. The censors wouldn't allow that for a US cartoon afterall. Wildrider transforms and grabs the rope around his torso and pulls it apart letting the human free to land face first in the sand with a thud. Wildrider snorts as several nearby humans come and pick him up and carry him away. "Stupid fleshlings can't stand a good jolt now and then." he says while his optics come to pan on the seekers and constructicons working. His face goes from a frown to snapping up to a smile in an instant before he strides over saying, "What's up yea'll? Hahahahah!"

The ferrari 308GTB lifts up and spins around shifting his parts till he forms the stunticon terrorist Wildrider!

The Constructicons are... building stuff! Big shock! Long Haul rolls backwards and forwards a bit to turn his truck 'face' towards Wildrider, completely uncaring of how that might make things difficult for the green seeker currently working to get him loaded. "What's up? I'm /hauling/ as usual." Actually, at this exact moment he's /not/ hauling anything, because what with the arguing and the transforming back and forth while his truck bed was half-full, he's now managed to delay hauling the next load of scrap metal by a good while now, but in theory, that's what will be going on shortly.

Verdant is rendered speachless. First, the idea that the thing that had just been a car is a Decepticon (based on the fact that neither Long Haul or Scrapper has shot him) is boggling, but the new being is loudy and insane seeming. Once more, the quite order to the way Verdant views the universe is shattered.

Wildrider gives a high pitched cackle at Long Haul, "Hey now, isn't that what you are the best at?" He waves his hand towards the truck, "Yer as bad as Dead End. Whine whine we're all gonna die, life's a pile of slag. If I hear one more complaint comming out of any one's vocalizer, I'll rip it out! I swear to primus!" He glances towards Verdant and walks over towards him. He's about to shatter his universe a bit more and slaps the seeker on the back. "Hey there buddy, I haven't seen you around before. You just one of those seeker clones or something, or do you have a mind in that shell?" he jokes with a touch of insanity wrapped around it. He is a stunticon, what did you expect?

Eh, that's nothing, Verdant. Scrapper was there when the universe ended! It was, of course, Mixmaster's fault. In any case, the Constructicons have to show solidarity in front of the other gestalt teams, so Scrapper transforms and - gasp! - picks up some of the stuff that Long Haul dropped.

The payloader unfolds into robotic form. His lower legs rotate away, revealing his upper legs. His arms come out from his side. His shovel flips onto his back. Finally, his head emerges from his torso, completing the transformation.

Verdant nearly falls forward from the slap on the back and manages to drop the steel anyway. "My...my name is Verdant," he says shakily. Great. The loud scary not-Autobot-car-person is touching him. Just great. If only plants could give rashes to robots, he'd find all sorts of "nice" ones to introduce this guy to. As the situation stands, it makes for an entertaining fantasy.

Dump Truck <Long Haul> transforms. We'll leave it up to Verdant whether he was standing next to Long Haul while loading the metal, or in his truck bed, but anything that was in that truck bed is now on the ground. "Oh, will ya, huh?" he asks Wildrider's threat. "Y'wanna try that with me? I'm ready!" He clenches his fists to emphasize his word. Fighting with Wildrider, even if it /is/ infighting (and therefore highly punishable) is /way/ better than hauling metal, after all!

The dump truck stretches out and unfolds into Long Haul.

Wildrider lowers his head a bit so he shifts his optics up towards Long Haul. He snears at the constructicon saying, "Hey there 'bub', you play with a stunticon, and you play with us all. You wouldn't want Motormaster to come and stop you flat, would you?" He wiggles a finger at Long Haul, "Infighting is a no no...threatening you till ya snap is just fine and dandy though." He gives a cackle and waves a hand towards Long Haul while saying to Verdant, "See...this is how you're supposed to handle these MSE types. Give them enough wires to hang themselves with, and they'll do the rest."

Scrapper looks like he'd like to strangle Long Haul right about now and drops the pieces he's been picking up. He waves his arms frantically and says quickly, "Long Haul! Don't let that Stunticon bait you!" Oh Primus, oh Primus, oh Primus, PLEASE don't let Long Haul get them into a fight with Motormaster. Whimper.

Verdant makes a noise that might have been a whimper. The last thing he needs right now is to get involved in some sort of conflict between sub-groups. Sub-groups, especially combiner sub-groups, are tempermental enough on their own, but when you get two of them going at each other, it's just unpleasant. Of course, opening his mouth's probbaly not a good idea either...

At times like this Long Haul wishes he had a mouth. So he could properly smirk. Instead he crosses his arms and kind of leans away from the Stunticon. "Oh, Verdant knows /just/ how to deal with MSE types... 'cause he's IN MSE, ya moron!" The Constructicon pats Verdant companionably on the back, his earlier ill-will towards the former warrior apparently brushed aside. "He's our newly assigned botanist!"

Verdant is somewhat puzzled by this, but decides to take it in stride. Long Haul, sticking up for him? Maybe the surly fellow isn't quite as bad as he'd initially figured. At least surly is easier to understand than crazy, like the loud Stunticon clearly is.

Verdant actually manages to work up some measure of will-power, because, well, even timid botanists have their limits and this Wildrider is clearly pushing them. "Yes, I am a botanist. Do you need that defined for you, or or words of more than two sylibols beyond you?" Yes, it's quite stupid to insult the Stunticon, but even the meek scientist has his limits, and this loud being has already pushed past them when he started touching him.

Wildrider looks...dumbfounded? Yeah, that could be the expression to give him. He says, "The...seeker is a scientist?" He laughs and says, "Oh you're pulling my gear box!" He looks over at the green seeker and says, "You're a seeker! A...bot...bot-oh-nist? What's that? Someone who studies pipe smokin, waste chewing autobots?" Yeah, you can tell he hasn't had much schooling. Just enough to learn how to make bombs and terrorize people, which he does quite well.

"It means I study plants and their practical applications," Verdant says, using the special tone he'd developed for speaking to the truly clueless. "You know, those mostly green things that grow out of the ground?" Danger, it seems, causes the poor botanist to loose his mind. Either that or he's braver under fire than he gives himself credit for.

MSE, as a whole, seems rather enamored with the color green, so it was probably only a matter of time before they actually got someone who specialized in studying green things. Long Haul nods his featureless visage, crossing his arms to glower as best he can without a face at the Stunticon. "Right! Plants!" The supply officer actually /did/ know that. He may be neither scientist nor engineer, but he's /still/ MSE, after all. "An' this bein' a pretty planty planet, someone decided they oughta go an' wake this guy up!"

Scrapper thinks that it was probably a clerical error that got Verdant woke up or the desire to have yet another Seeker running around, but he stays quiet about that. He leans over to Long Haul and hisses, "No getting into fights with Stunticons while I'm gone! Or while I'm here. I'm going to go look for Hook."

Long Haul turns his optic band towards Scrapper. "Right! You get 'im out here to help!" Nevermind that, by responding that way, he's /technically/ ordering around a member of High Command, this was internal Constructicon business. "An' I wasn't gonna throw the first punch!" he protests. "I was jus' hopin' he would, since he threatened an' all!"

Scrapper has disconnected.

Wildrider has disconnected.

As Wildrider wanders off to torment someone else, or whatever, Long Haul sighs. Damn. He was really hoping for an interesting distraction this time (being not quite as terrified of Motormaster as Scrapper is. After all, this guy was stupi- er, brave enough to go toe-to-toe against Grimlock not too long ago!) and he looks to Verdant. "Well," he grumbles, "guess it's back to work, then."

Long Haul folds in on himself and transforms into a dump truck.

"I suppose it is," Verdant says. "A shame. Watching information slowly works it's way to his central processor promised to be most entertaining." As he talks, he works, loading the steel back into Long Haul...again. For someone who's job is hauling, he seems to drop things an awful lot.