| abstract
| - Note to self for future reference: they should get a whole raid force together some time and just plunder this 'storage world' to the bare bones some time. But that was for another time. Right now, it was a very specific reason they were taking a bit more of a deceptive (being Decepticons and all) and subtle approach. Though 'subtle' in this case probably still involves cutting torchs, sharp objects and possibly explosives. After pacing for a bit Blast Off stopped to peer over his shoulder at his teammate, up at the building, and then back to the other Combaticon. "Are you sure this is the right place, Swindle? I'd -hate- to have wasted time and effort flying you out here for some misguided abjunction..." He was understandibly a bit on the twitchy side, considering some meddling outside interference could turn up just because of the other backwater dealings that go on in this place. Arcee just so happens to be visiting the Storage Planet, putting her winter tires in her storage unit since she's not going to need them for several months of Earth-time. By sheer coincidence Arcee's storage unit is within earshot of where the Decepticons are messing around, although she hasn't noticed them yet. She's inside the unit arranging the tires in neat stacks and wiping down the snow chains with grease so that they don't rust. Understandably, the less scrupulous of the Combaticons had numerous loans and deals at any one time. People who promised to pay him, people who paid him in other sorts of funds or items... Anything that possibly could work out to his own benefit. His ledgers were almost literally bursting at the seams with people who owed him something or other, humans, decepticons, aliens or otherwise. He is perhaps the loan and deal shark of the Decepticons, and yet they can't seem to do away with him for it. Of course, whenever someone fails to pay on a loan or deal, Swindle is one loan shark that takes matters into his own two hands. In this case, reposessing the possessions of one alien who had failed to meet their end of the bargin. "Of COURSE this is the right place!" Swindle currently is working on the lock to the building. And the security device. It's a tricky thing, but they can't really go barging into the place - That would only result in precious objects being blown to smitherines. And Swindle doesn't want that. "Time is money, my good friend. I'm already losing money on this deal, so as if I'd lose more!" A few more buttons there. A jurry-rig there... And the lock gives up under the skilled knowledge of the Swindler bot. Nightbeat also just happens to be here but for less wholesome reasons than the role-model to young females everywhere, Arcee. In specific, he's cracking an old vintage of titanium-tubbed energon. And maybe, just maybe, he happened to have a hot tip. At the very least, that's what he'll claim after the energon's gone! Blast Off busys himself checking over his rifle for the umpteenth time, just in case. As a sniper he didn't like being out in the relative open like this. But the rare oppritunity that Swindle was after something he was also after for a change would hopefully make it worth while. "As long as this guy has got the stuff you said he has..." Blast Off grumps a bit, but steps closer when the lock on the facility finally gives way to the skilled hands of his counterpart. "... You know, I'm just not going to ask how you got to be that good at that." Arcee wipes the grease off her hands using a disposable biodegradable shop rag, then takes a few minutes to sweep out her storage unit using a broom she stores in the unit just for that purpose. Maybe she'll hang up some art prints after that, who knows. Consequently, while pleasantly whistling "Blackbird" to herself, she does not overhear the Decepticons. "You're better off not knowing anyway," Swindle replies as he works on the alarm system. "Probable deniability and all of that." Abruptly, there is a brief blare of a siren as the alarm goes off. But it's silenced quickly - By Swindle's scatter blaster. "Slag it, they've updated those alarms! Okay, we're on the clock now." Grunting, Swindle pushes himself back up to his feet and pushes the door open... And inside, well... There's probably a good reason that Swindle wanted to reposess some stuff from this guy. There's all sorts of stuff, from random gadgets, to a few warheads, to blasters. A rather nice storage room to steal from, that's for sure. There's even more than a few stacks of flattened metals of various composition, perfect for armor plating. Nightbeat hmms to himself. Arcee whistling Blackbird, Blast Off and Swindle yammering about something, alarms... he reaches for the tub of energon. Blast Off and Swindle. Nightbeat sighs. He steps back, closes the storage unit, and opens his radio link. Arcee pauses in sweeping, looking up alertly at the sound of the truncated alarm. She sets the broom aside and touches a button set into the center of her left head-bun-thing, responding to Nightbeat's radio transmission. Blast Off jerks at the alarm, but Swindle just blows the scrap out of it first. "We're in the middle of nowhere anyways. Let's just grab your stuff and get out of her..." He trails off for a moment as he steps up behind Swindle and sees just how loaded the unit is. "... No wonder you wanted to reposess from this guy. He tried to torque you over good." .. Ah, there's the lots of alloy. "Make it quick Swindle. No telling who's around to actually hear that alarm." He starts grabbing up several of the sheets as he can. "And be choosy, for Primus sake. I can't carry -all- of it." "No no no, not all of it. Just a few..." Swindle trailts off briefly, picking up what looks to be some sort of blaster, "... Things here and there. Ah, a travegian displacer ray. I'll take that." He tosses it back to Blast Off, before moving on to the next. "Here's that alloy you wanted." He pauses, knocking on a plate lightly. "Yeah, about sixty/fourty, durbillium and some varient of steel. Better than the paper stuff that you've got on." Frightening how he knows all of that. Swindle continues on, starting to collect a few things. On top of the things that he knows are his. Arcee hurries down the winding corridors of the planetwide storage facility with her plasma blaster in hand, peeking around corners as she closes in on the area she heard the alarm from. <> she transmits, ducking back out of sight and hoping Blast Off didn't see her as well. Nightbeat draws over of his photon pistols, as it has a non-lethal mode, suitable for crowded situations, unlike his plasma blaster, which just has settings like 'toasted' and 'extra crispy'. He beats feet down one of the many confusing hallways of the storage planet, converging on Arcee's location. Blast Off grunts a bit at the remark about his current durability, and lack of there for, but knowing how true it is he can't really bother himself with making a snide remark about it. He does raise an optic ridge behind his visor at just how thorough Swindle's knowledge on the composition is, though. "That.. sounds highly adequate," is all he says finally. Really, not surprised Swindle is taking some compensation other than what he originally sold the guy, whoever he is. That doesn't even matter to Blast Off; whoever he is he's getting what he deserves for thinking he can out-swindle Swindle. Swindle can do whatever it is Swindle wants to do to teach the fool a lesson. All Blast Off cares about is his cut of the deal. Gathering up several of the flats of alloy he tucks them under his arm and starts moving back out of the facility. Shame he doesn't have the means of noticing the Autobots drawing nearby, but he's still on the edge in general... the place has alarms, does the planet have some sort of security enforcement, or what. "What does a displayer ray even -do-?", he asks over his shoulder. Arcee favors Nightbeat with a thin smile as he comes into view around the corner and gestures to him to flatten against the wall and be quiet. She holds up two fingers and points them around the corner to indicate the pair of Decepticons are down that way. "It displaces things," Swindle states, matter of factly. Unfortunately for Swindle, he doesn't have much of a way to detect incoming autobots either. Scan then when they're close enough, sure, but not when they're out of eyesight. So he settles for collecting a bit more of his... ah, payment. Or re-payment, as the case may be. "I'll take one of that, one of those," He murmurs, plucking a curious few devices off of a storage cabinet, and tucks them under his arm. Then goes to pick up something a bit heavier. Like a warhead. Nightbeat can flatten himself against a wall and be quiet like a champ! That's where he's a Viking. Now Dinobots, they can't do that at all, and it drives Nightbeat NUTS. He doesn't try to peer around the corner. Instead, he just listens, trying to visualise based off the echoes. Arcee flips one of her rear view mirrors out of her arm and uses it to peek around the corner, eyeing the two Decepticons keenly for a little while, particularly Swindle and the munitions he's been taking out of storage. She leans in to whisper to Nightbeat. "I'll take Swindle, you-" Arcee pauses, sniffing delicately. "Is that..." She pauses again, and decides not to bring this up with Nightbeat right now. "...you get the other one." Combat: Arcee analyzes Swindle for weaknesses. Blast Off peers one way and then the other, but as the Autobots are keeping hidden there's nothing to be seen. Maybe the alarm got shot before it attracted attention? So it would seem. He sets the flats of composite material down for a moment while he waits for Swindle to finish, resting them against his side as he turns back to the other Combaticon. "Do you mean displace as in shifting the space it occupies into the rest of the area around it like water, or displace as in moving it from one place to the another location like a teleporter? And are you almost done?" It was quiet out here. -Too- quiet... Though maybe taking a more subtle approach than the smash and grab Decepticons typicall preferred, the ruffians most of them were, was working. Subtle, but then again, Swindle is perhaps the more subtle of the combaticons. It just doesn't do making deals when you're blowing stuff up all the time. Besides, that's Brawl's shtick. He looks over the warhead in his hand once, before setting it down again. "Tch, poor construction. Probably wouldn't even explode properly..." He mutters quietly to himself as he turns back, and starts for the doorway. But not without picking up an item or two here and there. "Oh, it displaces. As in, places something within something else, regardless if there is something there already." A pause, as he picks up an odd gadget. "Okay, I think that's that. This'll make up for my losses in dealing with this sucker." Nightbeat takes stock of the situation. Two Combaticons helping themselves to a five finger discount. One Arcee checking out Swindle. One Nightbeat, kinda stinking of... never you mind. A lot of explosive material about. He flicks a switch on his photon pistol, and he bursts around the corner. His photon pistol is faster than he is. Combat: Nightbeat strikes Blast Off with his Single Photon Pistol attack! [Pulled -2] Combat: That attack has temporarily affected Blast Off's Accuracy. (Blinded) Arcee dives around the corner after Nightbeat, sliding down the corridor on her ankles and kneepads so that she can open fire on Swindle while ducking under Nightbeat's shot and the most likely line of counter-attack! "Consider yourselves nicked, Decepticriminals!" she announces, between pulses of the plasma blaster. Combat: Arcee strikes Swindle with her Tequila Slide attack! [Pulled -6] Blast Off lets out a soft sigh of relief when Swindle puts the warhead back. "Best you leave it if it's shoddy, I'd rather not have to be concerned with it possibly detonating on the way back to Cybertro--GAAH!" And he's cut off by a sudden flash of light blasting in the face, causing him to yelp in alarm. "Slaggit, someone's here after all!" He stoops down a bit, partially shielding himself with the panels he was carrying before as he moves to pick them up again. "I'm not even going to question how Autobots managed to be here at the same time we are, it seems to be a universal constant of annoyance." He tries to make up for the glaring spots in his vision as his optical sensors try to recalibrate by resting his gun arm on top of the alloy sheets to balance it and firing off a shot back in the general direction of where the flash came from. Combat: Blast Off misses Nightbeat with his Returning fire on reflex attack! [Pulled -2] CRACK. The gadget that Swindle had been investigating is blown to pieces as a blast of plasma pierces right through it. Another blast strikes the swindler in the shoulder a second later, leaving a small hole and a nasty singe of burnt armor. Swindle hisses in pain, clasping his hand over the singe. He moves quickly to put something between himself and his assailant, sliding behind the cabinet that he had been rifling through a few clicks earlier. "Ah, is that the voice of Arcee that I hear? I'd say it's a pleasure, but well, you're shooting at me." In an instant, Swindle pulls out his Gyro gun from his storage. Then quickly pushes himself off of the wall and out into the open, but only for a few seconds as he tries to duck down behind something else. In that time, the gun crackles with energy, firing a few retaliatory shots at the fembot. Combat: Swindle sets his defense level to Guarded. Combat: Swindle misses Arcee with his Gyro Gun attack! [Pulled -2] Nightbeat bluffs, "Combaticons, your days of trading Ukranian brides are through!" Maybe he had a hot tip folwing a train of warhead trades. Maybe he's just lucky. Most days, it is better to be lucky than good. Such is proven when the orital sniper Blast Off misses Nightbeat. The detective ducks back around, flat against the wall. He fires back at Blast Off, secretly admiring Arcee's plasma weaponry. Probably a fair sight less dated than his own... Combat: Nightbeat strikes Blast Off with his Nightbeat Will Never Have Enough Guns attack! [Pulled -1] Combat: That attack has temporarily affected Blast Off's Accuracy. (Blinded) Arcee bends backwards and slides under Swindle's gyro-disruptor blasts, throwing sparks off of her elbows as she does so. "I'd say the same," she replies as she rolls up onto her feet and charges at Swindle, "if you weren't such a thieving little creep!" Springing into the air, Arcee does a double forward flip, kicks off of the ceiling of the climate-controlled corridor, and comes spinning down towards Swindle feet-first like an airborne drill. Combat: Arcee sets her defense level to Fearless. Combat: Arcee misses Swindle with her EX CANNON STRIKE attack! "What the slag is that ignoramous blathering about?", Blast Off growls, even as he takes another shot across the shoulder. Though the glare is shot in his teammate's direction, as if wondering if the accusations were somehow true. You just never know with Swindle. With the sheets of alloy under one arm and still somewhat spersed between him and his assailant, he starts backing away. A drawn out firefight in this location would be totally counterproductive to their entire reason for being here. Making a few calculations in his head, he opts on saving on power for the moment, instead only firing a few low level energy bolts back at the detective-bot, not trusting to expend too much juice when he's having trouble getting his visual targetting systems to clear up again. Combat: Blast Off strikes Nightbeat with his Disruptor attack! "Thieving little creep?" Swindle replies, sounding aghast. Sparks fly off of the ground as he spins quickly, taking a few steps towards the entrance of the large storage facility. He just narrowly manages to avoid getting his head pounded into the ground, so narrowly that he nearly loses a few chips of paint. "Please, I'm just taking back what's rightfully mine. This time. Mostly." "I WAS going to offer to sell you some tridaxian diamonds..." He shuffles back a step further, crouching briefly, "But instead, I think I'll just offer a boot to the head!" And stands up straight, one leg swinging out in an attempt to round-house kick the fembot along the head. He doesn't say anything about the Ukranian brides. Combat: Swindle strikes Arcee with his Kick attack! Nightbeat is nailed by Blast Off. So his little flash-bang razzle-dazzle isn't fooling the Combaticon for long. Smoke rises from Nightbeat's shoulder, where he took the hit. He snaps, "Don't try to play innocent! Swindle's exploits are well-known in the wrong circles!" He returns fire, flipping the toggle all the way up. Combat: Nightbeat misses Blast Off with his This Does Not Go To Eleven attack! Arcee lands just behind Swindle, and before she can recover Swindle nails her in the back of the head with one of his big square feet! "Uhn!" Arcee staggers momentarily, dizzied, and whirls back towards him with one of her powerful legs outstretched. "We're bringing you in, Swindle! Believe it or not, burglary is a crime on this planetoid!" Combat: Arcee sets her defense level to Neutral. Combat: Arcee strikes Swindle with her Spinning Back Kick (Kick) attack! Blam! There's a flash as the blast hits, but then it's only a scorch mark in one of the alloy plates as Blast Off twists so they're entirely between him and the incoming shot. Then pauses a moment to look down, to were the hole only burned through the first panel. A grin remains unseen behind his mouthplate as he looks up again and turns to Swindle. "You were right about the quality of composition, that's for certain!" Hoisting the panels under arm again, Blast Off forgos firing back and makes a hasty rush for the doors, ducking behind Swindle as he keeps Arcee out of the way with his kick and dashing to the open space outside. After grabbing a few things off his teammate with the other arm so Swindle has his arms free to work. Then transforms, more or less unfolding around the alloy panels to stuff them into his cargo hold as he does so, and fires up his engines so they can make a quick withdrawl once Swindle deals with the potential pursuers. The Combaticon folds up, yet at the same time expands several times in side, extending wings and engines to become a space shuttle. Combat: Space Shuttle takes extra time to steady himself. [Pass] With all of the stuff that Swindle has tucked under his arm and under his other hand, dodging isn't something that he's going to have in store. At least not against such an agile fembot as Arcee. At least, more agile than him. Her foot connects solidly with his chest, making him stagger backwards a few steps. His coolant system hisses with the effort to regain a bit of air into the system, a hand clutching at his chest. "Hah! Then they should have brought in the one that rents this place! But no matter!" Abruptly, a few of the things that he had in his hands are yanked away by the fleeing Blast Off. Which makes it easier for Swindle to pull out a little device from storage. "Well, I'd love to stay and sell you two some better paint jobs, but I'm afraid you two have a blow out sale to attend!" He twists around quickly, and starts to book it for the exit, sparks flying off of his feet with how hard that he runs. Mid run, there is a quiet beep. His finger presses down on the button to the small device... Which looks oddly like a remote. There is a second beep, echoed from the warhead that Swindle had picked up earlier on. A warhead that then explodes in a massive cacophony of light and sound. Followed by another. Then another, as several other small, but powerful warheads explode in a chain reaction that threatens to overtake the entire warehouse, and the autobots if they don't move fast. Combat: Swindle misses Arcee with Little Brawl Tank Models that Advance and Sparkle and then Explode's Totally Not A Russian Nuclear Bomb From The Cold War Area attack! Combat: Swindle's Little Brawl Tank Models that Advance and Sparkle and then Explode is destroyed! Combat: Swindle strikes Nightbeat with Little Brawl Tank Models that Advance and Sparkle and then Explode's Totally Not A Russian Nuclear Bomb From The Cold War Area attack! Combat: That attack has temporarily impaired Nightbeat's Agility. (Crippled) Swindle says, "Ignore the name of the bomb, it's something the old Swindle made. ;P" "What's wrong with my-" Arcee starts to protest, but then Swindle goes for the remote. "Nightbeat, look out! He's got a bomb!" she yells to the blue detective, diving for the corner to try to put herself out of the blast zone. The explosion picks her up and carries her the last little ways, depositing her against a wall, but she stands under her own power as soon as it passes, little the worse for wear. Nightbeat EXPLODES! Maybe not. He does get awfully busted up, and his head does roll off and fall down an air vent. Oh bugger. That's going to take a while to fix! Hopefully Muzzle will walk back to his body. Hopefully. Not quite as satisfying as shooting a hole through someoen's head himself, but watching Swindle's handiwork had entertainment value none the less. Not to mention it adds a nice punctuation to the end of the endevour. Blast Off's already got his hatch open and waiting for Swindle once he sets off the bomb, waiting just long enough for the other Combaticon to get aboard before he closes up and takes off, leaving the explosive retribution in their wake. Swindle turns back a bit once he's sure he's out of the blast radius. And grins widely at the results. "Ah, now that is something that no amount of contraband can equal!" But alas, he can't stay and watch the remainder of the chain reactions that run through the warehouse. He twists back around, and gratefully hurries into the cargo doors. "Take 'er away, Blast Off. It's been a profitable night!"
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