Hook arrives from the IHQ Central Chamber to the west.

Hook has arrived.

Scrapper is fixing a terminal. The cathode ray tube is out of alignment, and the Constructicon is tweaking at it to get it so it doesn't show a titled picture. The recording device is also off kilter, and the keyboard looks like someone smacked it. Hard. Scrapper himself looks about as thrilled as the terminal.

Long Haul plods in carrying a couple boxes, but this is nowhere near a full load. There's still a lot of inventorying and similar paperwork to be done before he has to knuckle down and get to the serious redistribution of supplies, but since he was going this way, he figured he'd take some stuff with him. He heads to the room's storage cabinets and looks around. Darn it! His favorite terminal is br- oh, wait! Heh. That musta been the one Scrapper used to make his report.

Hook follows Long Haul into medbay. "Careful!" he snaps as he almost runs into the back of his brother as he stops to look around, obviously irritated - or at least more so that usual. The prissy engineer slumps into a chair, which completely fails to swivel. "Damnit! I thought I ordered a swiveller!" he complains.

Scrapper looks away from his work, just stares at his brothers for a moment, and resumes tweaking the ridiculously antiquated cathode ray tube that shouldn't be a part of a highly advanced alien terminal. Broken terminal. Broken city. Broken Scrapper.

"Shuddup, Hook," Long Haul says automatically as Hook almost runs into him, but the response, surprisingly, lacks any kind of vehemence. Long Haul's normally king of depression among the Constructicons, but in a way, that helps him to deal with a bit better. Hook is angry. That's fine. Angry's okay. It's his more artistic brother he's worried about. The transporter begins sorting the parts into their appropriate spaces in the cabinet, but he's being a bit haphazard in an attempt to get done quickly. The sooner to go over and see if he can't make Scrapper angry, too.

Scrapper has lost weapons du jour, buildings, and vehicles before. He has even lost a city, but that affair was on his own terms. This wasn't. So he continues repairing the terminal, because it keeps his mind off what cannot be repaired. There, tighten that last bolt into place, and the screen is as good as new. Now for the recording device.

Hook gets up, making an ancient Cybertronian finger gesture at Long Haul. Kicking the chair, he reaches for a sonic screwdriver. "Guess I'll just have to do it MYSELF!" he says. Pausing to look at the chair, he puts the screwdriver back down, selecting instead a laser-scalpel. He thinks about that for a while, then puts it down, picking up a crowbar. Swinging it thoughtfully, he then puts that down and picks up a high-powered cutting torch, igniting it with a FWOOSH.

Long Haul finishes tossing the parts into the cabinet and then turns to watch Hook for a while, a bit at a loss. Okay, angry might be good, but this level? Still, might as well try to keep up some semblance of normalcy. "'Bout time you got back to figgerin' out how to do things for yerself," are the words he tosses in Hook's direction before plodding over to Scrapper to hover far too close over his shoulder for a moment.

Scrapper takes a tick to notice that Long Haul's there. Usually, he'd notice immediately and be shooing his brother away by now. It's like Scrapper has an annoying brother alert. As it is, he looks over his shoulder and back at Long Haul. Flatly, Scrapper asks, "What?"

"Dunno," replies the transporter rather lamely, not budging an inch from the spot where he continues to look down at Scrapper. "Why doancha tell me?"

"About time you shut that wall you call a face" Hook snaps back at Long Haul, increasing the power of the cutting torch for emphasis. "Honestly... you could have requested some DECENT facial features by now, surely?" Hook angrily starts cutting the stem of the chair, with slightly less accuracy than is usual. In fact, he didn't even bother to draw a line or measure first.

Scrapper tilts his head slightly skyward. Nothing up there but dead chaos gods and fading stars anymore. He makes a hissing noise and says tiredly, trying again, "What do you want? I'm busy." Scrapper gestures to the broken terminal. Then he looks over at Hook. Guess Scrapper shouldn't have refused those change-of-face requisitions forms he kept getting. Oops.

Long Haul finally does turn his torso and his head to look at Hook, although he still remains just as annoying close to Scrapper as he had been. "What? An' trust it to onna you guys? Even if it came out how you wanted it to, you'd prolly come up with some sorta gag face for me or somethin'. I'll stick with what I got."

"I'm busy," Scrapper says again. "Do you need something?" And given his current mood, he is inclined to say that any new face of Long Haul's would only be destroyed.

<O-Decepticon> Dirge on Zoloft, Catechism is a curious newbie. "What happened?"

The cutting torch tears through the stem of the chair with a hissing noise, occassionally increasing to an irritating screech as it encounters a different type of material. "Is it some sort of "Minimalist" artistic slag?" he asks, seeming to be enjoying the damage he's doing to the chair. "If so, it's really... stupid." Hook says.

Long Haul turns his attention back to Scrapper, tilting a face that shall remain featureless back down towards him. "Eh?" he asks, as though he had forgotten why he was here to begin with. "Eh. No, doan' need anything right now." And still he does not move from his spot, instead looking at Hook for a moment. If he had a proper face, it might be expressing bafflement at this point. That's probably the first time anyone's ever really compared /him/ with a piece of artwork, stupid or otherwise. "How should I know what it was s'posed to be? I didn't design it!"

Scrapper doesn't think that Long Haul's a very good piece of art. He doesn't have enough random junk welded to him, for one thing. Scrapper pokes Long Haul. "Then why are you over here?"

Of course, the real answer to this would be, 'To annoy you,' but Long Haul doesn't really want to admit that at just this moment. So he stands there for a moment as he tries to come up with some sort of convincing lie. Of course, Long Haul doesn't lie very convincingly, so we all know he's going to fail, but if he had a lenient instructor they might be inclined to award him some extra credit for effort. "Uhm..." he starts, using meaningless vocalizations in an attempt to buy time, "Uhm... s-" wait! That one doesn't work anymore! "Engineering?" he finishes lamely.

Finally, the chair falls to the floor with a satisfying metallic clatter. "Well.. then... fine!" Hook replies. "Engineering?" he snorts. "Hah!" He kicks the downed chair. "Hah!"

Scrapper gives Long Haul a very blank look. His shovel skews at an odd angle, indicating confusion. Slowly, he tries, "You want to do engineering... or learn engineering or... engineering what?"

Woah! Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! This was an unexpected outcome! Long Haul had just been trying to get some kind of reaction out of Scrapper, but now he's beginning to feel like a man caught in a sealed room with a fast rising water level. Still, he did get SOME kind of reaction, so as the Constructicon metaphorically flails in the water, he makes a grasp for an answer he hopes will further Scrapper's responsiveness. "Uhm... yes?" Thank Primus for non-expressive faces!

:starts going through the storage units looking for a rotator unit. "Hah!" he repeats for emphasis. "You do know that requires precision and attention to detail, Long Haul? And not just moving things from one place to another?"

HOOK. Hook starts.

It ONLY Hook!

Scrapper continues to give Long Haul that same blank look for a while. Then he puts down the recording device with which he was toying. Eh, heck, let Long Haul do engineering. Scavenger got to design the Despoiler and, didn't he? It'll just be more stuff that can get wrecked if Long Haul does. Yay. Scrapper says, hoping it will make Long Haul go away, "I've got a manual and some texts if you want to read them. Might even be able to find some with lots of pictures."

Long Haul clenches his fists and now finally does back away from Scrapper, if only to turn and glare at Hook. As best he can glare without a face, anyway. "I /know/ that!" he shouts back, and unbelievably, he actually did, since this is one subject his brother enjoys harping on so often. "I'm not stupid, y'know!" he declares, in defience of all evidence to the contrary.

Hook has partially disconnected.

Hook pokes his head around the side of the storage unit's door. "Riiiight" he drawls. "Look.. can't you make yourself useful and find me a rotator?"

Scrapper picks up the recording device again. Maybe he'll finally get this fixed. Scrapper likes engineering, but did Long Haul have to take an interest in right this moment?

Well, he had just declared that he wasn't stupid, so he can't exactly back down just now. "Uhm, sure," he answers, heading over to one of the cabinets, although he still has no idea what he's actually looking for. After picking up one part after another and studying each for a moment he finally stops to look towards the imperfect perfectionist. "Erm... I... I doan' s'spose you have a part number?"

"A ROTATOR, Long Haul!" Hook shouts, shutting the storage unit loudly. "For the chair! A chair sized rotator! A spare, chair sized rotator! Bring lots! I'll choose one!" Even for Hook, this is over the top. Usually he's set to 'smugly superior' rather than 'shouty'

Scrapper settles back into fixing the terminal, now that Hook has so cleverly distracted Long Haul. The recording device has a cracked lense, which will need to be replaced. Ah, that's brainless enough to do. Hrm. Brainless.

Oh, well, that's just fine! Long Haul crosses his arms, legs set in an 'I ain't budgin'' pose. "What the hell, Hook? Mr. 'I'm So Fantastic' perfectionist can't be bothered to figger out 'zactly what part he needs? I ain' makin' extra trips to an' from the other storage units 'cause you're too Primas forsaken lazy to look up a simple slaggin' part number!"

Scrapper starts to open up the recording device, quite methodically and without any particular hurry. Eventually, he reaches the cracked lense. What does the model number on it say? Normally, he'd just yell at Long Haul to get him a new part, much like Hook is doing now, but Scrapper's just running on automatic here, so takes the extra step and gets out a magnifier to check what exactly this part is. "Long Haul, while you're at it, get out a 35mm SLR lense, too?"

Hook waves his hands. "Are you SERIOUSLY telling me that you can't carry more than one rotator at once? Are you, Long Haul? Because that'd imply that you can't even do the ONE thing you're supposed to be good for! That you're DESIGNED for!"

"No, I'm sayin' that if I carried a whole BUNCHA rotators in here, I'd have to carry alla the EXTRA ones back, Hook!" Long Haul shouts back, jabbing a finger in Hook's direction. "An' for your information, I'm DESIGNED for HEAVY transport! Rotator's AIN'T heavy!" Then, with a surprising abruptness, the hostility disappears to him as Scrapper makes a request with a /proper/ designation. "Oh, uhm, sure, Scrapper," he answers before tensing up again to face off against Hook. Here he as the advantage: he already doesn't have a face, and therefore has the least to lose!

"And did you have anything BETTER to do?" Hook retorts. "No? I didn't think so." He wanders back over to the chair and kicks it again, thinking about throwing it in Long Haul's direction."

Scrapper puts the recording device aside and looks to get the keyboard working. Being crunched broke a lot of its electrical connections, which he'll have to rectify. If he feels up to it, he'll even take the dents out. Eh. Scrapper probably doesn't. He'll see.

"What the hella you talking about, I doan' have anything BETTER to do, Hook?!" demands Long Haul. "We're still working through the mess th-" he stutters as he gets to something he doesn't want to touch just now and restarts, "figgerin' out what all got lost wh-" stutter, restart, "LOOK! All the supply types in the whole damn Empire are bein' tasked to submit up to date inventories of what we DO got left, and where it is, and what needs to be moved where, an' I'm onna those guys! But WHATEVER! I suppose I can put the rest of the EMPIRE on hold because HOOK wants his Primus forsakin' ROTATOR!"

"Oh, but you'll get a lens for Scrapper, right? Hah!" Hook kicks the chair again, hard enough to send it skidding across the floor. "Fine! Fine then! I'll leave the chair like that! Leave it broken like every thing ELSE around here!"

Scrapper suddenly looks up and over at Hook. Almost but not quite cross, he says, quite firmly, "You're going to fix that. Because you can."

Hook opens his mouth, about to reply to Long Haul, when Scrapper chimes in. "I'm TRYING TO!" he snaps. "But it wouldn't make much difference, would it? Hmmm? One slagging broken chair around here?"

When Scrapper speaks, Long Haul suddenly untenses and turns to look at him. He looks down at his brother and falls silent for the moment. Even when Hook speaks, the transporter keeps his focus on the payloader, his body language, for once, working just as well as his lack of face to keep whatever he's thinking to himself. He just stands there and waits to hear what Scrapper's going to say next.

Scrapper looks from the chair to Hook, looking tired and glaring as if Hook is completely missing the point. "What's one chair? Well, what's one city? Fix it." The chair or the city? Can't really tell.

Hook sighs, deflating. "Fine, fine. Long Haul, get me... oh.. a T-34 alpha rotator. Pre-used." He wanders over the fallen chair and picks it up, staring at it for a long moment, as if looking for something.

Apparently, whatever Long Haul was waiting for, he got, or something close enough to it. "Allright. Yeah," he replies to Hook, his voice uncharacteristically quiet, almost passive. He nods his head just once, slowly, an then heads for the door. "I'll jus' go get those parts, then."

Scrapper leans back against the terminal and watches Hook. New Crystal City is gone, with it, Scrapper's art, although arguably New Crystal City was art in and of itself. The terminal and the chair are just broken, not gone. There's an important difference there. What can be fixed, should be. Or they'll have nothing.

Long Haul vanishes out of reality.

Long Haul has left.

Hook vanishes out of reality.

Hook has left.