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"sexy costume"

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"This isn't going to work," Crankcase said, predictably enough. The gloomy mech stood in the medbay door with his arms folded and sneer firmly in place. The only reason he was there was to spectate. It was technically his work that was being put into place, and it wasn't like he had anything else to do at the moment. The W.A.P.'s navigational suite had gotten them lost yet again, so until Fulcrum untangled the fragging computer code, Crankcase's mechanical skills were the only useful ones he held. "Nobody's going to fall for it."

"Why me?" Fulcrum whined at the same time. He batted at Spinister's hands futilely. The helicopter punched him in the shoulder hard enough to leave a dent in retaliation, so the K-Class mech quickly stopped in case the violent surgeon aimed higher next time.

Keeping any and all violence to a minimum was always a personal goal of his, but right now, even excess rattling sounded like a bad idea. Spinister had finally gotten the last of Flywheels' reforged metal installed on him. Surgery hadn't been any fun, but Fulcrum's outer plating still felt fragile, as if the connections were gingerly introducing themselves to his self-repair system. He'd prefer that his systems accept the donor metal with no complications. He hadn't liked being mummified in layers of repair nanite-culture bandages.

"Yes they will, and because you're the least likely to be recognized," Krok replied to them both, ignoring Spinister's casual punch. He had every bit of faith that the surgeon could keep their wayward technician in line for this procedure. The rotary medic was twice Fulcrum's size. "Also because unless we somehow manage to avoid an inhabited sector or scouting patrol for the next month, we are going to need someone to speak for us to other Decepticons over the comm. console or, Primus forbid, even in person."

The officer seemed to dread the very idea. As he well might, since the idea of his crew of misfits actually meeting a normal unit of 'Cons face-to-face was a horrible one. It was a vision that involved Misfire talking. Although maybe they could gag him? But Misfire was only the loudest moron in the group. Eventually, the truth would come out, and then someone was going to get shot. Maybe even intentionally.

This was really only a stopgate measure. With any luck at all, using Fulcrum as their front mech would allow them to skid under the radar and scoot back to Cybertron before anyone wised up.

"You're not recognizable like that," Fulcrum mumbled under the hands working on his helm. He waving in the direction of the mass of repair nanite-culture bandages covering Krok's injured face. "Even the D.J.D. wouldn't recognize you."

"I'm not going to be taken seriously as an authority figure, either," the officer said wryly. "Fresh scars are battle cred. Oozing nanite-clogged wounds are an exploitable weakness." He didn't mention the fact that none of the Decepticons currently on the W.A.P. had so much as lifted a finger against him, their wounded and therefore weak officer. Ambition and powerhunger had lost out to…whatever held the Scavengers together. "Whatever officers we encounter would move to assimilate this unit into their own if I act as our front mech. You, on the other, are K-Class."

"Disabled K-Class," the K-Con muttered, somewhere between resentful of his inherent weakness and really, really grateful for the fact that his explosive payload had been removed. No, scratch that. He was just grateful. He'd take weak over dead any day.

"But nobody outside this unit knows that," Krok reminded him. "Anybody who identifies your frametype isn't going to give us scrap about having a lousy ship or small crew. They're just going to assume you got command of this rustbucket because we're all suicidal and ready to kill whoever gets in our way to crash into the next Autobot ship we come across." Which was why Fulcrum would not be on point if they did run into Autobots first. Krok would be in front looking tired and injured and, come on, nobody would shoot a poor harmless group of Decepticon grunts who were just trying to get back home, right?

If that tactic looked like it was failing, he'd sic Misfire on the comm. console while the other Scavengers dragged Grimlock up to the bridge. Misfire had a chronic disability to stand directly in front of the ship's vidfeed. For some reason, he had to crouch really close and peer into the camera from the side, which resulted in a ginormous pair of optics staring at whoever was trying to talk on the other end. Threatening? No.

If that tactic failed, Krok would introduce Grimlock as their hostage and start with the death threats. But that was really a last resort. He, uh, didn't much want to kill the Dynobot. Fulcrum and Misfire would whine for days, he just knew it. Yeah.

Grimlock was also their last resort if they encountered a persistent unit of Decepticons, too, but more along the lines of introducing him as a prize they were taking to Cybertron to present to High Command in order to get their names off the List. Immediate execution was not going to be brought up. Hopefully, what to do with Grimlock was not going to be an issue at all. First thing Krok was going to do upon contact by anyone was shove the Dynobot into the engine room to hide him.

But that strategy relied on looking ignorable to Autobots and extremely, suicidally strong to Decepticons. Decepticons wouldn't mess with a bunch of 'Cons adopted as a makeshift K-Squad. Krok sure wouldn't, anyway.

"We can take advantage of the K-Class' reputation for fearlessness as long as you keep your trap shut about being disarmed," he told Fulcrum. He didn't add on, "And grow a backstrut," but it was heavily implied. Krok would make certain to be right there behind the techie ready to poke him with something sharp to keep him from fleeing. As well as keep a lid on Misfire's runaway mouth. "We're not using Misfire because he can't stop himself from babbling long enough fool anyone, and Crankcase…"

"Yeah, yeah, exploitable weakness," Crankcase spat, turning his gaping head wound toward the wall as if that'd conceal it.

As one, they all shot a look at Spinister, then shook their heads. Spinister looked confused for a moment, but mostly because Fulcrum's head-shaking had moved him again.

"Stoppit," he ordered the K-Class mech. "Need to get this snap bolted."

The dud K-Con stayed still as ordered, squinching up his face at the ever-ticklish feeling of a bolt turning into its hole. It didn't matter how confident they all were in Spinister's surgical skills; there was just something about having the moron up close and working on him that gave him a serious case of doubt. It wasn't as bad as when he'd been pulled apart for K-Class reformatting, but…ugh.

"I don't know. This just doesn't feel right," he said uneasily. "I've never had a face mask. I'm probably going to look so silly it'll give the game away before I even say a word. They'll be so busy laughing at me we'll be reassigned before I even know what happened."

Spinister finished bolting the last snap in place while the techie whined, and he fitted the mask on. Crankcase gave a satisfied sneer when the snaps smoothly clicked into place, testifying to the quality of his and Spinister's joint work. Fulcrum's words muffled a bit, but not badly. The small Decepticon immediately began kinking his head around as if testing if the face mask restrained his neck or head in any way, and Spinister grabbed his helm to keep him still. Fulcrum obediently stayed put until the snaps unsnapped and resnapped back into place.

"Good. There you go." The surgeon stepped back, testing over, and put his ratchet down.

"This feels so weird," Fulcrum complained in an undertone. He understood all the reasons why, but he'd never had a face mask, never wanted a face mask, and why was everyone looking at him like that?

The other Scavengers were just - staring. Krok had peeled up a bandage from his sole intact optic while Spinister had been too busy to stop him, and now he squinted in half-blind wonder at the K-Class mech. Crankcase's spectacular sneer of triumph had fallen into something blank and strange.

"Really brings out your chin," Spinister announced after careful consideration of the job.

Fulcrum fidgeted. "That bad, huh?" He laughed nervously. "I knew this wouldn't work!"

"No," Crankcase disagreed out of nowhere, sounding a little breathless. "No, it'll work just fine."

Krok nodded slowly. "They're going to be so busy staring at you, we'll be long gone before they even think to stop us."

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