Backbreaker nods.
“Good,” he says.
“We’re gonna need people. A loooootta people. It’s not worth planning anything yet until we have enough bots to make it work.”
“I guess you could look at it like that, but at least back on Cybertron you can go wherever you want.”
Hotshot smiled. Getting real enthusiastic about this now.
“Well now you’re speaking my language. But the question here is how?”
Backbreaker shrugs.
“Word of mouth,” he suggests. How else? “Shouldn’t be too hard, right? Talk a couple more people into this, start spreading word on the down-low that someone’s planning another break-out… how’d you do it when you tried?”
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“Well I’d always yell about it until eventually no one listened to me. Upon reflection I think I get why my attempts usually didn’t work.”
Backbreaker nods again.
“Yeah, probably,” he confirms.
“If we really want to get this going though, I think bringing in some of the higher ups. If we can plant these seeds in tier 2, it’ll probably give us way better changes.”
“Good idea,” says Backbreaker. “But the tiers don’t intermingle too much; getting word to them’ll be tough…”
The gladiator stops as he looks down at the floor, using his head for something other a cudgel for the first time in a while.
“Unless…” he mutters…
“Unless what?”
Hotshot asked. His curiosity peaked.
Backbreaker looks up at Hotshot, a gleam in his eyes.
“Alright,” he says, "here’s what I got:
“We start local, alright? Get a couple more of us tier threes involved, start making preparations and whatever. Then, heheheheh… THEN we turn Iota’s game against him. We make one of our guys look good in the arena- so good, that gasbag’ll have no choice but to send 'em up to the twos!”
“Definitely not a bad idea, but it sounds like a real long game plan. Something that’ll take a lot of time to see through.”
“Time’s something we’ve got plenty of, if you haven’t noticed,” Backbreaker replies.
“Besides, maybe not going for the slow burn is why all your other attempts f-… didn’t work out.”
“True. Either way it’s better than nothing.”
Machbreaker opens the door for Tie-Grabber, assuming he can find a way to do so. Railgun looks as though he was going to reply with something, but with Tie-Grabber here it was high time they get back on schedule. However, as he and Machbreaker go to leave Tie-Grabber stops him. It seems the crane had a few words of his own and briefly indicated to Railgun that he would be back with them shortly. While finding it odd, Railgun permitted it, given all Tie-Grabber had done today. He can have his chat while the rest of them make up for their slacking.
Once Machbreaker and Railgun are gone and off to finish up final tasks, Tie-Grabber has the tablet speaks his own thoughts.
“You don’t understand. We like work, regardless if it was forced or not, but what we had was more than enslavement.” The tablet pauses as Tie-Grabber thinks for a moment.
He then continues, “The brothers with me where not my first. Machbreaker was one of the loners, he never had a team. Trapped forever testing on a single track, he knew nothing else. Railgun had a different team, but we were stretched thin and they were split apart. Last heard, one was still kicking and the other was missing. But me? My first team was sacrificed for that blasted war. I barely made it out and should have never came back. And what they did to us afterwards, when we got reassigned…” Another brief pause.
"When they wanted they wiped our minds, changed our thoughts, reconfigured our forms–they did whatever they wanted with us. Teams were broken, our wills and sparks were stolen. If we were just mere slaves, perhaps our sparks would have been acknowledged. But no, we were mindless tools and weapons. And for the most unlucky of us, Powerlinx to one of you. Nothing more than a battery pack, forever chained.
Until here, we didn’t have the concept of choice. We just did what we were reconfigured to do. None of us want to go back to that. It’s madness that Nebula of all Minicons is willing to go into it, but she wants that better future. And if the future out there on Cybertron is to be like here, then we have no future. It will be as the days before the war, just tools to wind up and set on their tracks. Otherwise ignored until wanted again."
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Maximus was silent. Horrified by what was described. Until a thought formed in his mind.
“Well… You could always stick with me. I know a whole crew of bots that would appreciate the help, but respect you enough to let you do what you want. If Cybertron just isn’t the place for you anymore, maybe a pirate ship is?”
Maximus offered hopefully. Though honestly he wasn’t exactly sure if it was a good idea or not. After all they had apparently been through, he had no idea what might be best for them.
Tie-Grabber gives a small smile and chuckles a bit at the thought. It was especially hilarious for him since he already had the hook, he was half way to a pirate already.
“Maybe. The universe is large, we have much to learn where we could go. Though if they’re still alive, we have brothers and friends to find…and old masters to kill.” While the tablet couldn’t give the emphasis, it should be obvious how he meant it to be said. “But escape first, that is more important.”
He takes a quick look at where Nebula is being worked on. “Be careful with her, Nebula has her own team to worry about. One here and one hopefully still out there among the stars.”
Maximus smiled.
“Thanks. I didn’t realize just how big a deal Powerlinxing is to you little guys. The fact that Nebula is willing to do it to help her friends get out…”
The predacon looked at the unconscious minicon while Railfire oppersted on her.
“… It means a lot. And I’ll do my best to help her reach her goals, and treat her as best I can.”
Juliana, who had been wandering the halls, saw Oddball being held by Spirit, and walked up to them.
“Um… What are you doing with Oddball?” She asked Spirit.
Spirit looks up nervously at her, “Uh, well…I just like minicons is all,” She laughed and took a step back, “I just like to pick em up is all.”
“Okay, but he’s not a minicon.” She said kindly.
Backbreaker nods.
Oddball takes a step back to let the two women talk.