Hook enters from the Mountains - Central to the northwest.
Hook has arrived.
Long Haul paces excitedly around the... thing that doesn't carry water. Unlike Bonecrusher, he doesn't exactly have a love of destruction simply for destruction's sake, but what he does appreciate is destruction of Autobots for the sake of getting those bootlegs back for tearing down New Crystal City. And this thing that doesn't carry water seems to have the potential to do plenty of that. Yeah! So Long Haul tagged along for this unofficial test run, and why shouldn't he have? He hauled stuff for this thing, and he welded for this thing, and he suffered horrible crushing damage due to a freak hauling accident for this thing, so why shouldn't he get to help out in the first 'fun run' before they get this thing back to Cybertron for the REAL fun?
Well of /course/ you have to have an unofficial test run. It'd look pretty stupid if the Constructicons got everyone together for the official test run and it didn't work! Hook drops almost casually from the sky, tapping at a datapad as he decends, running over schematics and specifications. "Right then. Are we ready to test this thing?" he asks, looking up at Long Haul.
Scrapper doesn't have a datapad or any sort of recording device on hand. He's not logging this run. It anyone asks, there was a landslide out here. This is what happens when Constructicons get stir crazy on that wonderful vacation spot know as Charr. Scrapper checks over the thing that does not hold water, making sure that it's good and ready to not hold water. He voices, "It's ready."
It's ready! It's ready! Long Haul nigh scampers over to operational seat of the thing and climbs in, then looks down at the controls, stroking his silver chin and tilting his head slightly in an obvious 'I'm thinking!' pose. Then he looks up and over at Scrapper. "Hey, Scrapper? How'd'ya work this thing, anyway?"
Hook uhhhhs... "Scrapper... do you really think it's wise to allow Long Haul to test the device?" The engineer saunters over to his brother, giving the machine a critical look and making another note on his datapad.
Scrapper glances over at Hook's datapad critically and says, voice a bit leery, "You do realise that this is strictly off the record?" He pauses and narrows his optic band. "And I never said I was going to let Long Haul operate it. He just asked how it works. Hook, why don't you show him?" There, Scrapper has fobbed off the horrible task of explaining things on someone else. Victory!
Hook hmphs. "Well I /would/, Scrapper, but you never gave me the plans to the controls! Of course, I could extrapolate how it's controlled using trial and error, but given I don't even know who that section was allocated too.. well, half the buttons may not work, and the other half could just be wired to the "self destruct" function." He pauses. "We /did/ add a self destruct button, right?"
Well, of course, there is the fact that Long Haul is in the operational seat of the thing, and the others might have a difficult time getting him out of it, being as he doesn't seem particularly inclined to budge on his own. When Scrapper instructs Hook to tell him how to operate it, he turns his attention to Hook. But Hook doesn't know either! Woah! How strange! So then Long Haul looks back at Scrapper again, rubbing his hands eagerly as he keeps himself from bouncing happily like a kid in a car seat.
Scrapper shifts on his feet and glances from side to side. He insists, somewhat petulantly, "Well, you don't have clearance to see the whole thing. And it might be a switch rather than a button." Scrapper wiggles his fingers, climbs up the side of the thing, and leans in front of Long Haul and over the controls. "So, ah, here. First you input what planet you're on and the altitude..." The engineer manages to completely block any view of the controls with his body as he does so.
Hook cranes his head to get a better look, no pun intended. "Scrapper, you're blocking my view!" he says petulantly.
Long Haul moves back and forth in his seat, also trying to look around his brother, who definitely makes a much better door than a window. "Yeah, Scrapper! Get outta the way!"
Scrapper looks honestly baffled. What do they mean, he's not transparent? Scrapper sulks, "I need to get a good look at the controls. What do you want me to do, do it upsidedown?"
Hook rolls his optics. "I keep /telling/ you. You should prepare these kind of things beforehand. And provide a slideshow, with bullet points illustrating key features. And a handout with the more detailed schematics."
Because handouts are the BEST way to keep top secret things top secret! Maybe Scrapper could, like, require that everyone who receives one EAT it afterwards. "Or jus' move outta the way an' let us see!" And with that Long Haul reaches up to try to forcibly PUSH Scrapper aside.
"Hook! That's sensitive information. Everyone just throws out their handouts, anyway, and what if Autobot spies go through the trash?" Scrapper chides. After all, isn't the garbage the sensible place to find Autobots? Wait, no, that's Junkions. And then Scrapper gets pushed out of the mass launcher and impacts the ground with a thud and a cloud of dust.
Well, you can sometimes find Scavenger in the garbage, too. When he's not in, y'know, holes.
"Actually, I'm sure Mixmaster could make a plastic compound that either had a very short half-life, or could be embedded with a small charge that would cause it to melt or disintegrate or somesuch" Hook replies. "Furthermore, I.." But he's interrupted by Long Haul pushing Scrapper out of the way. Heh. Guess he's good for something after all. "So what does /this/ button do?" Hook asks, pointing at a random control with a smirk.
Long Haul, who also knows what /this/ button does, leans forward to get a good look at which button /this/ button is, and then turns to look down at the brother he recently dislodged. "Yeah, Scrapper. What does that button do?"
Scrapper is now covered in dust. He wipes off his visor and gets to his feet with a growl. Then, Scrapper tries to shake off the dust and protests, "I can't say what it does if I can't see it."
"And /we/ can't be told what it does if you're standing in the way" Hook says. "Don't you have a laser pointer or something?"
Scrapper raises a hand to his head and then spreads out and raises his arms. "Hook, the last time I had a laser pointer, someone replaced the components with stuff stripped from a weapon's grade laser, and I melted the screen! Those things are way too dangerous. Now a sharp pointy stick, that would be good." Preferably one he could crack over people's heads like some sadistic university professor.
"Well, wasn't me," Long Haul hurrmphs. Then he turns and looks down at Scrapper again. "Y'gonna get back up here, and NOT block the controls, so y'can show us how to work this, or am I gonna haveta jus' start pressin' buttons?"
"Assuming we're ALLOWED to know" Hook adds sarcastically.
"If we're not, I AM gonna jus' start pressin' buttons," grunts Long Haul.
Scrapper says, entirely too blase about the matter, "Oh, I can always just have those memories deleted, if need be." He climbs back up the side of the mass launcher and just kind of hangs out the side. Scrapper gestures and explains, this time leaving a much clearer view, "Okay, that joystick there allows you to move the crosshairs around..." ...and blag de slaggin' blah.
Hook watches, taking notes occasionally. "Seems simple enough. Well it would have to be, wouldn't it."
Long Haul also watches very intently, but he takes no notes. And most of that variable entry stuff he doesn't pay much attention to, either. The transporter's really just interested in the, 'Point it here, press the button, things go boom' part of the lesson, although he does have enough presence of mind to give a listen to what buttons he SHOULDN'T press.
"Simple systems are less likely to have something go wrong," Scrapper lectures, still loosely hanging out the side of the thing and only holding on with one arm. He then goes back into the boring details about how to set the thing up for use on different planets and how to account for meteorological events.
"Long Haul's processor doesn't often break down, it's true" Hook quips, still listening intently and taking down details on his datapad like the good little perfectionist he is. Boring technical specifications? This is better than 90 percent of Scrapper's breifings!
"Hey!" shouts Long Haul, glaring up at Hook. "I'm not simple!" Then he looks up at Scrapper. "Tell 'im, Scrapper!" He crosses his arms and looks back up at Hook. "Scrapper showed me alla our schematics. They're all complicated, 'cos we gotta interlock and stuff. An' I've got parts that the rest of y'don't have!" He humphs.
Scrapper waves his free hand and chuckles. "Oh, Long Haul's got different motors than the rest of us, because he has to haul things." Scrapper pauses, stares straight at Long Haul, and then over at Hook. "And he's a dump truck, in general."
"Plus there's the.. extra padding, as it were" Hook smirks. "Now shall we continue?"
"All right! That's it!" Long Haul pushes both his hands out on either side, intent on knocking both his brothers to the ground. "An' they say _I'm_ an ass," he mutters.
Hook acks as he falls over onto his aft. "And with good reason" he mutters, getting back up. "Now can we /please/ get on with this?"
Scrapper pushes himself back up off the ground, feeling increasingly disgruntled. He puts his hands on his hips. "What was that for? You *are* a dump truck! And of course you have different components! We all do! It's not like we're mass produced Seekers or anything like that."
"Well, yeah, but I ain' simple!" Long Haul shouts back, crossing his arm and assuming 'pout pose.' "An' if I was so damned simple, wassat say 'bout you takin' as long as y'did to pick me out of the rest of us, huh?" Of course, with the arms crossed, it makes it momentarily easier for the other two to return to their spots.
Hook siiiighs. "Yes yes, you're not simple... now can we blow something up? I assume this thing DOES actually blow something up? I mean, the accelleration rails I worked on suggest that it does."
Scrapper explains with an almost patronising tone, tilting his optic band skyward, "No Hook, it doesn't blow things up. It just moves things very, very fast. Then those things make other things blow up. Now let's get this done properly, shall we?" Again, he climbs up the side and hangs on loosely yet again, explaining the bits he hasn't explained yet and setting it to target an expendable part of a mountain.
"Hey, I wanted t'do that!" complains Long Haul, lifting his head to look up at Scrapper, although he still keeps his arms crossed. Apparently that wasn't a pushing offense.
"Technically that's still blowing things up" Hook replies. "Just because the projectile itself is not explosive does not mean the device itself is not responsible for the target's explosion."
"Look, are we gonna argue about HOW it blows somethin' up, or are we gonna actually blow somethin' up?!" shouts Long Haul in exasperation before he decides he's been patient enough. Scrapper had already set the thing to target, so he just reaches for the control that Scrapper said would make the thing fire. Yes, he WAS paying attention to that part, thanks.
Scrapper looks disgusted and grouses, "Is sarcasm lost on you? Besides, the device itself doesn't make things explode. The projectiles, which are not the device, do." He glances back over at Long Haul. "If you think you understand how to do it, just go ahead." Distracted, irritable Scrapper does dumb things. That may be be one of them.
"But when firing a superweapon, one doesn't say "This fires things that will make other things explode". In fact...Oh, just forget it." Hook says. Sarcasm IS obviously lost on him, at least in this instance. He contents himself with watching exactly what happens when Long Haul presses the button. And taking notes, of course
Woah, no one's trying to stop Long Haul or anything. So he finishes the motion and pushes the button that SHOULD, to his knowledge, make something go boom. Hopefully not them.
It somewhat dawns on Scrapper that letting Long Haul to mess with highly advanced weapons of large scale destruction in which he hasn't had much instruction may be a bad idea. But Hook was being picky over semantics! Even if that was mainly Scrapper's fault. Wincing, Scrapper braces himself for whatever he may have unleashed. Luckily, either the mass launcher is exactly that simple to operate or Scrapper's better at explaining things than one would expect. The project flies forth with a super-sonic shudder, impacts the targeted mountain, and causes a rather impressive slide of exploded rocks.
As for Scrapper, he falls off the side of the mass launcher. Again.
Hook stumbles as the ground shakes, but remains upright. "Hmm..." he remarks, optics doing that cool-zoomy-in thing on the the cloud of dust that marks the impact site. "Nice."
Long Haul holds tight in the seat, forcing himself to not be thrown from it with the sonic boom, and then stares after the projectile. He's quiet for a few moments, and then balls his right hand into a fist and pumps his arm in a 'YES' like gesture. "All right!" he shouts. Then he actually stops to think. "This thing has a pretty good kick to it, though... they might wanna think about addin', I dunno, seatbelts or somethin'," he comments, turning towards Scrapper only to notice that his brother has mysteriously vanished. "Scrapper? Hey!" Then he looks down and sees that the payloader has fallen again. "Yeah. Definitely needs seatbelts," he observes.
"Or quantum shock dampeners" Hook adds.
"Seatbelts' be simpler," Long Haul answer. Then he turns around to glare at Hook as best he can without a face. "An' no wisecracks!"
Hook has disconnected.
Seatbelts for hanging off the side?
Scrapper stands up a bit shakily. He has now fallen off that mass launcher three too many times, and now, he's not feeling all that great. He glances over at the wounded mountain and comments inanely. "Whee. That was the low setting, right? And yeah! Quantum seatbelts! Let's go do that now." Scrapper points out an arm, pointing in entirely the wrong direction.
"Uhm, yeah. I'll getcha back," Long Haul says, jumping out of the seat. It figures. Even on the fun-fun field-test day, he still has to carry SOMETHING.
Long Haul vanishes out of reality.
Long Haul has left.