Swindle fled down the hallways as quickly as his legs - one still giving him a bit trouble in his attempts at moving in a fluid motion - could carry him. He'd be damned if he was going to sit still and let one of those... those... parasites on him again. The creepy little slime snakes! Vortex just had to bring one home didn't he. Of course he did. Of course! It's Vortex! His goal in life - even if sometimes unintentional - was to ruin everyone else's happiness with his... his ignorance. And of course, when he decided to choose a pet. It had to be a worm. One had eaten Vortex! And of course, that probably just pushed him into wanting one as a pet even more. Damn Vortex and his... weird.
Astrotrain followed behind at a distance, calling out to get Swindle's attention and being duly ignored. While Swindle held no doubt Astrotrain was just as panicked about this situation, he had no intentions of stopping to talk. Nope, not now. He had planned on going to see Onslaught anyway, but now he had a 'bone to pick'. A worm bone. ...Do worms have bones? Oh, what did it matter. No. No it didn't. Not in the slightest.
"Swindle! Will you stop running? I'm not as... aerodynamic as you one the ground!" Glancing back at the triple-changer, Swindle watched as he stumbled around corners, and the occasion random passerby in the hall, struggling to keep up. he felt sorry for him for a second there, but decided that the inevitable infestation was more important than possibly being fallen on. Turning his head back forward, he let out a yelp and clumsily stumbled around a slightly hungover Motormaster. The taller mech barley spared him a glance as he staggered on down the hall. Unwary of the other mech heading right for him as well.
Swindle winced as the sound of their crash echoed down the halls, but didn't slow his steps. He was currently a mech on a mission, and he didn't plan on stopping for anyone until he got to Onslaught to talk about Vortex's newest addition to the team.
Turning his last corner, Swindle slowed to a jog, then walk, then stopped at the door to their shared room. Quickly keying it open, and walking in, he glanced around with searching optics. Brawl was lying sprawled across the couch, asleep on his stomach. With Onslaught sitting on his lower back, datapad in hand. Taking a moment to... stare at the unusual scene, Swindle walked across the room. Not entirely sure if they had fought and Onslaught solved it by sitting on him... or if Brawl had passe doubt on the couch and Onslaught couldn't managed to shove his fat aft off the couch. Knowing those two it could be either. ...Or both.
"Swindle." The jeep jumped, having spaced out too far in through before the deep voice cut through them like a knife. "I see you finally decided to join us." Those were his words. But his tone spoke an entirely different sentence of; "I'm pissed off at you. You better have a good excuse."
"...Well." Swindle glanced to the side, nervously. Wow, ranting at Onslaught was a bit harder than he remembered it being. Of course, that could be the fact he was sitting on one teammate already. For unknown reasoning. The last thing Swindle wanted was to end up dieing from being smothered or crushed by Onslaught's aft. "Uhm... sorry. I ended up staying with Soundwave because... Starscream shoved me off on him for some reason. Then when I woke up I kind of got sidetracked." Giving a nervous smile, Swindle watched as Onslaught lowered his datapad, and gave him a look. One optic ridge raised, his mouth in a fine line. He didn't believe him.
Damn.
"I'm not lying!" Crossing his arms with a huff, he turned his nose towards the ceiling. "But believe what you want." Onslaught had a very unamused look on his face, he lowered his datapad and stood up. And the door to their room slid open not a second after, Vortex stepped in, held his hands up and cupped around his mouth, and called out as loud as his voice would allow; "Fluff~y!" Swindle visibly cringed at the sound, Onslaught looked at the Helicopter. And inquisitive look on his face plates. "Vortex." He vented a sigh. "What are you doing."
The masked face of the copter snapped to look at Onslaught, and you could just feel the grin under his mask yet again. "Looking for my Fluffy!" It stated, like it was a well known, obvious fact. It just got an irritated sigh from Onslaught, and a very stern demand for an explanation. In which Vortex just cackled.
And thus, Swindle remembered why he had ran all the way here in the first place. "Onslaught!" Four pair of visor-hidden optics turned to look at Swindle. "Vortex adopted a creepy worm and then he let it out on base and now it's going to infest us all and eat us from the inside out!" An accusing finger was thrown to point in Vortex's direction, and helicopter threw his hands to his chest and gasped dramatically. "Swindle! Don't say such things about my poor Fluffy! She's nothing but a sweetheart!" He sounded offended. Swindle let out an irritated growl. "Yeah, sweet enough to crawl under our armor and turn into a slimy, sticky mess of glue they we'll never be able to completely get off!" Onslaught tilted his head.
"Eww, that sounds nasty..." Everyone looked at the source of that statement, Brawl, who was now sitting halfway up and stretching out his arms. Swindle huffed. "It is! Astrotrain and I had to take off our armor to get it all out! Then we had to rewash afterwords! And I still think I have some stuck under my armor, and in my joins." Swindle shivered at the thought. Brawl let out a noise of disgust. Onslaught was mostly indifferent. Vortex just carried on cackling again.
Onslaught vented another, exhausted sigh, and looked at Vortex. "Vortex, get rid of your..." Onslaught waved his end carelessly at the helicopter. "Whatever it is." Vortex sagged, rotors twitching downward as he whined. "But Onslau~ght!" Annoyed, Onslaught held up his hand, rubbing his forehead with the other. "Don't 'but' me, Vortex. Get rid of it. Now." Vortex pouted, and gave Swindle a dirty look for spoiling his fun. Swindle just stuck his tongue out at him.
Spinning around, Vortex walked out to finish searching for his worm, mumbling and whining about having to get rid of his new pet. Venting a sigh, Swindle walked over and plopped down on Brawl's legs. For the tank had gone back to lazily sprawling over the couch. Brawl looked down at him, Swindle ignored him in favor of staring at the ground. Trying to remember if he had anything to get done today. After a moment of Brawl staring, Swindle finally decided to humor him and looked at the broadly grinning mech.
"What?" He asked, and the tank only grinned broader. "Astrotrain saw you without your armor~" He cackled. Swindle sputtered, flailing a bit, and hit him in the hip. "Shut up!" Brawl only cackled louder at Swindle's reaction, dropping his head back. Swindle crossed his arms, and pouted. Across the room, Onslaught vented another sigh as he sat down at his desk, shaking his head as the two across the room began to bicker and tease. Grabbing a new datapad from a small pile to the side of his desk, he went back to reading.
Meanwhile; Vortex had gone back to searching for his new pet, not really hoping to find it sense the sooner he found it, the sooner he'd have to get rid of it. And the sooner his fun would end. He hadn't been walking long before he turned a corner and ran - quite literally - right into a very fretful Astrotrain. Which is where he now stood, listening to the triple-changer complain to him about adopting disgusting creatures, midgets refusing to slow down, and something about grumpy drunks.
"Seriously, you freaked Swindle out so much he ignored me entirely in his panicked fleeing! I ended up running right into Motomaster trying to catch up with him." The purple and gold mech gave him a glare, which Vortex ignored entirely. "Well, you two got your way. Onslaught is making me get rid of her. Once I find her." Vortex crossed his arms, and sulked. Astrotrain just gave him a look of exasperation. "Well, we should probably go find it-" Both jumped, hands flying up to cover their audios as a shrill scream echoed down the halls. Loud enough to make your audios bleed, and it was followed by high pitched screeching about 'moving organic goo monster in my cockpit' in a voice they knew all too well.
"Well. It seems Starscream solved that problem for us!" Vortex said a little too cheerfully, before spinning around on his heel and skipping off down the hall. Atsrotrain stood, contemplating the situation, and decided he really didn't give a damn. Turning on his own heel, he walked off in the opposite direction. Swindle could wait. And getting as far away from that slime snake as possible wasn't such a bad idea either...
Author's Notes: Sorry this took so long! I've been having problem writing or drawing anything for a while now, bad case of muse block. This chapter was also giving me a bit of difficulty, it ended up not coming out how I had originally planned it, sorry if it's disappointing... Hope it's acceptable.
Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers nor do I own any of it's characters.