Vigor chuckled. “Anyways, whatever happens, we should be fine. It’s not like Bludgeon’s tracking us and is gonna attack us and retake the assassin right when we open him up, right?”
“Alright. Just make sure someone’s keeping an eye on him, we don’t want him to escape before or after the interrogation.” SideStep replied. He walked over to one of the tables and lay down.
“Not likely,” Topside agrees. “We’re still in transwarp; unless Bludgeon got his claws on a spare drive somewhere, he can’t touch us until we get where we’re going.”
The table was smooth, and felt cold against SideStep’s back. Shockwave steps over to Switblade’s stasis pod, and Shatterpoint activates his gauntlets, staring intently at the captive within.
“Yeah.” Thrust nodded in agreement, while Vigor grinned. “That ugly skull-face has no chance.”
SideStep shifted uncomfortably, but otherwise was ready for the procedure.
“Looks like Shockwave’s cracking open the pod,” Topside says, jerking his chin in the cyclops’s direction. He transforms his right forearm into a rifle.
“Best be ready in case Switchblade here puts up a fight.”
Shockwave taps the stasis pod’s controls, and with a hiss, its lid slides open. The Decepticon steps back and readies his cannon as Switchblade is brought to consciousness.
The three brothers transform into Split, who held the Devastator and his shotgun in each hand. “Ready.”
SideStep watched Switchblade carefully, his hand on the handle of his pistol.
@ValkyriePrimal @BlackBeltGamer98
Switchblade’s visor takes on its sinister red glow as the assassin shakes off stasis lock. Suddenly, he lurches forward with a gasp. He takes only a second to scan the room and take note of the bots surrounding him with their weapons raised, before he lunges at Shatterpoint first, unsheathing one of his blades with a hiss.
Zepar immediately moves to slam Switchblade down by the throat, “Stay down.” He growled as his arm cannon began to charge.
Split lunges forwards, grabbing at Switchblade before he could reach the captain.
While Thrift was gone, Starchaser sat back and watched as Fortress began another sculpture.
Brieg shouted in fear as he clumsily brought up his harpoon launcher, and fired it at the assassin.
Split and Zepar both succeed in grabbing hold of Switchblade, with the former gripping his right arm and the latter holding onto his throat.
Breig’s harpoon pierces Switchblade’s midsection, and the assassin howls in pain. Shockwave and Topside level their weapons at him while Shatterpoint balled his crackling fists.
“Get melted!” Switchblade hisses at Zepar, seething from the pain the harpoon in his side brought him.
Thrift’s wandering took him to, of all places, deck eleven’s armory. He slips into Salvo’s workstation, looking around first to make sure the walking weapons platform wasn’t present.
“There’s gotta be some paint in here, right?” he mutters. “Something to pretty up our instruments of destruction, yes?”
The merchant riffles through various parts and containers, tossing half-done guns and empty magazines behind him as he searched. After a moment, he found it: jars of blue, green, grey, and black paint resting at the bottom of a shelf. He reaches for them…
…Only for another hand to clamp tightly around the back of his neck and lift him off the floor.
“Can I help you?” Salvo growls dangerously, spinning Thrift around and setting him down in front of her.
“I- uh- Well, yes, I believe you can!” Thrift laughs nervously. “By the Allspark you are surprisingly stealthy for one of your size- anyway; a friend of mine needs some paint for another friend who is using our downtime to take up a hobby of artistic expression.”
“And you came to a gun shop to get it,” Salvo deadpans.
“Yes. Yes I did; and I see you have some, by chance.” Thrift points out.
“Well, yeah; some people like prettying up their hardware.” Salvo shrugs. “Don’t see the sense in it myself but-”
“Excellent!” Thrift exclaims, scampering around Salvo to grab at the canisters. “Junkions never forget generosity, ma’am; I’ll have to add this to the vast backlog of favors I owe- not to be confused with my many debts, which need not mentioning…”
“Uh, Thrift?” Salvo says. “Maybe you could pay off that favor by paying for that paint, huh?”
“Yes, I suppose I could, if I had a scrap of shanix to my name,” Thrift sighs.
“How could you be broke?” Salvo scoffs. “I’ve seen you duping the crew into buying your trash for the past month.”
“I did mention certain debts just now, didn’t I?”
. . .
Some time later, Thrift re-enters hangar twelve, with Salvo following him in her vehicle mode. The paint buckets were stowed beneath her massive cannon.
Zepar’s eyes turned violet, “As much as I want to do that to you but we need something from you first.” He growled, “Let’s get him on the slab.” He said, keeping his grip on the assassin’s throat.
Switchblade struggles against his captors, painfully grunting as energon trickled freely from his wound. Commands start to run down his visor: access keys and overrides to equipment in the science wing.
“Oh, Pit,” Topside swears. “This is gonna be harder than it should be…”
“Back off! I’ll shoot again! Don’t think I won’t!”
Brieg said, absolutely trembling. He struggled to load another harpoon into his gun.
“Great! The big guy is gonna love these.”
Starchaser said excitedly.
Fortress looked down at the two. Salvo might take particular note of the giant, as he had a built in weapons system that easily rivaled her own. He eyed the paint. Making that tree was nice. Maybe there was something behind what this little decepticon was saying.
Zepar brings out Shadowraker, who immediately begins peppering Switchblade with blasts from her Cryo weapons.
In such close quarters, the freezing gas expelled from Shadowraker’s weapons were just as likely to harm her allies and Shockwave’s machines as they were to incapacitate Switchblade (@meepinater). Switchblade struggles to free himself from his captors, but the harpoon in his gut prevented him from transforming. With his free, blade-tipped arm, he slashes wildly at Zepar and Split.
Salvo transforms to robot mode, instantly taking sight of the metal tree now taking up space in the hangar.
“Interior decoration, huh?” she says. “Nice.”
“Nice indeed!” Thrift agrees. “And it can be yours for just thirty thousand shanix, or the equivalent.”
Salvo looks down at the merchant, obviously uninterested. If there was a face behind that red visor, it was glaring daggers at him.
“Is it hard-wired into your brain module to try and pawn off everything not welded to the floor?”
“It’s a primary directive, yes,” Thrift quips back.
Split leaps back, letting go of Switchblade for a moment before lunging forwards and throwing all of his force behind a punch at Switchblade’s face.
SideStep scrambled upright and gripped his pistol, aiming it at Switchblade.
Brieg fired off his harpoon gun again. Though with his terrified trembling, he wasn’t likely to be as accurate as the last shot.
Starchaser begins unloading the paint off of Salvo’s platform.
Fortress stood to his full height and took two steps towards the others. Two steps was all he needed. He bent over and picked up one of the cans. It was tiny in his fingers, but it would do. Making the sculpture was fun, and fun was something he rarely felt. So he was excited to try this.
The punch from the combiner shatters Switchblade’s visor and throws the killer into a console. He is knocked unconscious, and Breig’s first harpoon twists and does further damage to his innards. Whatever Switchblade was trying to activate with his mods remains still, awaiting directives that wouldn’t be sent… at least for a while.
Breig’s second harpoon misses almost entirely, due to Switchblade being punched across the room. With cat-like reflexes, Shatterpoint catches it in his hand, and forks of electricity from his gauntlet travel down its length.
“…Or, it could be startlingly easy,” Topside says, amending his previous statement.
“Anything else you guys need?” Salvo asks. “Business is running slow for me; after a month out, I guess everybody’s got all the guns they need now.”
“This is sufficient.”
Fortress replied.
“You know between you and the big guy, I think you got more guns than the whole ship.”
Starchaser joked.
“So, what now?”
Brieg asked nervously.
Zepar, with a nasty gash across his midsection, unceremoniously puts the unconscious Switchblade on the empty slab.