"He may talk in some ancient language but you. You sound ridiculous." Hot Shot laughed. "Now that's was offensive!" Flame slapped the young Autobot behind the neck. "Watch it you damn maniac!" He replied while stroking his neck.
"Yes, commander," Bulkhead said, tinkering a metallic device which had previously exploded earlier. By now, he had anticipated that any prior difficulties that had occurred with the device wouldn't be a problem any longer. He stood up, placing his tools to a table on one side. "The device's operational," he said, wiping the sweat from his helm. He then ran a quick test, pressing a small red button on the control panel. He cringed, hoping that it wouldn't backfire again and cause him to have to repair it for cycles again. A greenish vortex appeared in the centre of the device and hovered perfectly. Bulkhead then pressed the same red button again, and the vortex disappeared. With a sigh of relief, he sat on a nearby chair and looked silently at his surroundings.
"Thank you monsieur with ze tres fabulous paint scheme" Smokejumper thanks Flame. "Eet nearly puts moi to shame! Nearly!" Smokejumpers raises his hands and screeches. "Zat iz my entire point! Vous have a tres annoying dialect. Why can't vous speak normally?"
"Ey, I would like to lose ze accent, but I am stuck with eet" yelled Smokejumper, waving his hands radically. "If I could I would!" Bluestreak, giving up, would simply stand in between Ratchet and Smokejumper. "Stop having a contest of accents versus language. It's more irritating that either of them." Smokejumper sighed, walking away.
Crossfade gritted his teeth in annoyance. Idle bickering was high on his list of pet peeves, nearly exceeding country western music. "Can you two get a room? Primus almighty," he cursed in exasperation. He turned to his commander, Elita-1. "When do we hit the road, boss?"
"That's a nice question. So when and where?" Hot Shot asked. "Are we going to Detroit?" Flame asked while looking at one of the monitors in the base. Something about them wasn't right. He checked them only to find that they were just that, coordinates - latitude and longitude. He scratched his chin and turned around looking at their commander.
"We hit the road right at the same time y'all shut up or I start bashing heads. Which, coincidentally, is right now." Elita one strode into the midst of the other Autobots. It was move or get mowed under. Each one of her legs was significantly taller than a car-bot. "I shouldn't have to tell any of you that this is a covert operation, but given who I'm dealing with, I'll tell you anyway. You are to maintain vehicle mode at all times around the natives. Break cover only if your life is in danger, you have a clear shot on a target, or if you are in an area where no humans are present. If you can't return to vehicle mode inconspicuously upon the approach of a hairless monkey, do your best to find a hiding place." She moved to a lift that would raise the party to the surface. "And for the love of Primus, cut the fuckin' French when we're topside, Smokejumper. This is north america. Most of the squishies here speak English." ..................................................... Delphi did not intend on taking some soggy pod to the surface. She did not intend to begin a reconaissance mission wet, bruised, and nauseous. So, here she was, climbing through the interior of the ship like some Sparkeater in a beta-grade cinema. Squeezing through gaps and hauling her way up sheer ascents aside, it was still better than the alternative as far as she was concerned. Her map told her she was 2/3rds of the way there-- And soon the climb would level out. Which meant she'd be crawling instead of scaling.
"That's a slow lift." Flame noted trying to break the uncomfortable silence "So... Detroit, huh. Has any of you been there before?" He scratched his head awaiting a response.
"Please, mademoiselle, if I could get rid of zee accent I would" explains Smokejumper as he gets out of her way. 3I am as stuck weeth eet as vous." Smokejumper and Bluestreak would transform into their respective alt modes, Smokejumper naturally did with a spin. "Zat eez how you transform with le style!" Bluestreak simply laughs, before she and Smokejumper followed Elita to the lift.
"I'll stay here and try to patch the base as best I can," Ratchet suggested, "make it more tolerable."
Cross-Fade scoffed as he clambered onto the lift. "Suit yourself, old-timer." He grunted with frustration as Crossblades pushed him aside to fit on the lift. "Um, excuse me?" Cross-Fade snapped. "You are excused," Crossblades replied. "Oh, for fuck's sake," the hacker sighed. "Never have," Cross-Fade replied. "I've spent most of my assignment on the west coast... This northern stuff is new to me. It's too cold." *** Whisper, who had been silently trailing Delphi, spoke up as she climbed. "S-so... you're familiar with reconnaissance?"
Delphi turned her pale lavender helm in the dark, eyes glowing purpley. "Given that it is a great part of my job description, I should certainly hope so." With a small noise of effort, she crammed herself through a particularly tight shoot, wriggling her butt to fit, and emerged in a small, dimly lit, canted corridor leading up into an airlock. "There we are," She huffed, catching her breath, and brushing herself off. She cranked the heavy lever on the outer airlock seal, and the armored door opened with a cantankerous warning-klaxon and a groan of poorly-oiled metal. "Please keep up," She beseeched Whisper, glancing back again, and shutting the door as soon as the other femme was through. She then cranked a second, identical lock within the airlock itself once the door was closed, and the outer door swung open, letting in daylight and a fine, cold, misty rain.
"T-that's good," said Whisper. "I'm not... used to it. It will be good having an expert like you with me." As Delphi opened the hatch, Whisper clambered through into the Michigan air. "I've got a strong air-to-air radar," she explained. "I'll... I'll take point." Whisper fired up her engines and leaped into the air, transforming into her sizable Chengdu J-20 stealth fighter altmode, which blasted up into the sky at full reheat. *** Stinger skidded to a halt in front of the designated large scale escape pod, far ahead of the rest of her Decepticon compatriots. Slowpokes, she giggled internally, until she realized that she had arrived at the wrong escape pod. She corrected her error and arrived at pod B-3, where Stockade was already waiting. "Um... at least I beat Killbison."
Delphi didn't get a chance to remark that she was specially fitted with enhanced sensory equipment. As soon as she opened her mouth, the other femme took off, and words were substituted with a slightly exasperated sigh. Delphi took a step back, got a jogging start, and transformed to vehicle mod, blasting after Whisper in her MQ-1 Predator altform.
Killbison scavenged the ship for weapons, he took as much as he can carry. When he looked around nobody was there, everyone has left for the mission. He sighted, transformed into his KMW Gepard tank mode and rolled out.
French Road White Castle, Detroit, MI The man who entered the store looked like he was ready to shoot the place to pieces, with his long black duster and black jackboots. His gray eyes followed the cashier's arm as it moved towards the emergency call button beneath the counter. "I'm here to pick up an order," he announced. The cashier's arm moved no further towards the button, but did not retreat from it either. "Do you have a name for that?" she asked. "Schraeder," he said, advancing to the counter. "I ordered online." The cashier looked down at her screen, cold sweat pooling on her forehead. "Two Crave Cases and a large Sprite?" "That's it," said the man with a grimace. Another employee swung the two cardboard totes out from under the warming light and set them on the counter. "Enjoy your order, s-sir," the cashier stuttered. The man hooked a black glove underneath the carry handles of the two Crave Cases and used another gloved hand to grab his Sprite, before he stormed out of the restaurant. As he left, the entire White Castle crew sighed in relief. The man walked to a black Audi RS2 in the parking lot and gently set his sixty hamburgers on the passenger seat. The station wagon rolled out of the White Castle's lot and hooked a left onto a back road. It crossed the railroad tracks that ran parallel to French at the spot and rumbled into the abandoned Cadillac Stamping plant. After a short delay, the man exited the car and set his Crave Cases and Sprite on the dusty ground. He then dissolved into a fine black mist, which returned to its octahedral storage vessel, as the Audi split and twisted into its robot mode. Longroof lifted one of the Crave Cases to his face and pulled off his breathing mask to take in the smell. "Damn, that's good," he coughed.
"Slowly coming. Ain't you gonna help me with this stuff? We may need it." Killbison replied having fallen behind because of the equipment he took. "Am I overkilling it a bit?" He asked as he netered the escape pod.
