Summary- Cyclonus continues to give Scalpel questions. Skywarp tries to expand his weapons repertoire with Tailgate's help.
It was showing off. Clearly, that was the purpose of this little pose.
Scalpel did have to admit that this purpose had been successful. He was impressed. If he was to bet on reading his commander's mind, he'd say Strika was impressed as well.
In the courtyard, Cyclonus continued his vicious kata. If Scalpel were a true doctor, he may have been concerned over the movement his patient was exhibiting. Obviously, the mech needed to rest further, let his welds settle more. If he had stuck with the warm up meditation and slow kata he'd started with, it wouldn't put nearly the strain on his repairing state as this rapid movement now was doing. Cyclonus likely needed to stop, no matter how imposing this was. Scalpel, however, was hardly a true doctor.
"He is quite impressive," he clicked his front claws together and glanced up at Strika. She gave him a growl or grunt absently in return. The general's attention was rather focused on the show in front of them. Cyclonus's alien blades flashed in the starlight and Scalpel uneasily remembered their energy-absorbing capabilities. What maniac invented a weapon like that? He was almost envious the credit could not go to him.
"Zere's an over-elegance to it, vouldn't you say?" the scientist looked up again.
Strika's optics narrowed.
"No," she answered flatly. "Practice forms are designed to be over-elegant. But he's barely constrained in his form now. He's itching to lash out of it."
And what, kill them?
They hadn't exactly erased that option. Cyclonus may have claimed loyalty to the decepticons, but he hardly seemed trustworthy.
"Seems too showy to me-" a different decepticon viewer burbled through his helmet. Despite being invited by Scalpel, Oil Slick's commentary wasn't all that welcome. It only served to remind Strika of his presence and that in turn reminded her of the scientist's odd 'friendship' (alliance, more accurately) with the alchemist who, at the moment, the general had not given permission to leave his post and come here. It was, all in all, just a insubordination that served as a reminder that Scalpel and Oil Slick hardly fit in her military order and that rather left her unwelcomingly snappy with them.
"A better question, I suppose, is to ask vere he learned zat," the minuscule scientist changed topics.
In the courtyard, Cyclonus completed another set of what looked very murderous to anyone too near those swords.
"I recognize some of the style," Strika offered stiffly. "It is reminiscent of Lord Megatron's, from a blade seminar I was fortunate enough to have attended many vorns ago. There, we witnessed techniques that he was the first master of."
So this visitor was old enough to have attended this meeting as well? The thought did not match the other mysterious data he'd collected: the Starscream code, the dimensional-temporal anomaly, the name he repeated in restless stasis.
When Cyclonus's kata came to an abrupt end, the tall oddity slid his blades into seathes on his back and strode their way. The three decepticons had blocked access to the lab that he had taken up a home in so recently to watch his show. He did not ask for them to make room and his approach didn't slow despite their presence. Scalpel panicked and scurried up Strika's leg until he rested at the safely non-pede-height of her shoulder. As Cyclonus stormed past, the scientist decided he had no interest in seeing his departure go about ignoring the audience he had summoned by leaving his medical berth.
"Vere did you pick up zis all?" he called.
The dark mech did break his stride then. Though he did not look back at the scientist, he did stop still.
"It does not concern you."
Was that so? Scalpel's mandibles twisted in restrained aggression.
"But your skill does concern me," Strika stepped forward. To the scientist's continued insult, Cyclonus did turn his head to acknowledge her.
The general tilted her head to one side; thankfully not the shoulder Scalpel was avidly trying not to be squished by sitting on.
"I think we should talk," she elaborated with optics curved into a smile. "You could very well have a place among Team Chaar."
Oil Slick giggled from where he still stood ignored. Scalpel noticed the clenching of his fist that Cyclonus made at the sound, though the mech himself did not offer the alchemist any other outward attention.
"We may talk," the anomaly said in his gruff flatness.
Despite the insult to superiority that must have posed, Strika did not react to the 'permission'.
Still, as Cyclonus walked back into the labs- ignoring the trail of oil and drips of energon slipping from cracked welds-, the scientist continued making a list of his own questions for the normally silent oddity.
Where had he picked up his combat method?
Where did he learn to fight at the mastery he seemed at now?
Where had he found that caliber of weaponry?
Scalpel kept his intrigue private for now. He had little doubt that Cyclonus wouldn't feel like sharing.
The big question of the cycle was hardly one Skywarp had a good answer for.
Are you ready to fight?
The longer this communication blackout lasted, the more certain Rodimus had become that something very unfortunate had happened to their sister division. The Prime itched to return offworld and scout the sector for dangers. The others hardly wanted to. There was a bubble of idealistic safety here. For the last few orns, they'd gotten to enjoy happy passerby's, bars, flashing lights of a lively city, life, normalcy, everything. Everything their little outpost hadn't had. Everything it couldn't, because there they were in reality and that reality was tense and miserable and here there was no such danger among the idealistic bubble from the times.
And yet even that illusion could not last forever. Not when Rodimus was so visibly uneasy and grew only moreso obvious as each cycle passed.
The Prime had gone up to (presumably) each of them and asked the same question.
Were they ready to fight?
Was he?
Sure, he'd fought on Earth. A little bit. With his fellow clones. He'd even shot Megatron in the face! But his current allies weren't fellow Starscream clones. They lacked that unity and they didn't exert the confidence of belonging in a fight like battling with the clones had. If he had to fight now, like this, he'd more likely freeze up and warp away than shoot someone as scary as Megatron in the face.
Rodimus hadn't looked impressed by his half-sparked assurances that yes, he was, he wasn't a complete novice. Considering that the Prime spent his extra time 'practicing', it was little surprise that this activity was lightly hinted at in Rodimus's response to his assurances.
Not wanting to repeat the last time, Skywarp snuck off to the shop on his own. The previous 'sparring' session he'd engaged in resulted in Kup and Rodimus cornering him to ask about his heritage because apparently his ability to practice with someone else was as bad as a protoform's. It had been rather insulting. He knew he had Starscream's skill, he knew it, he just- (didn't have his experience? his ability to concentrate past fear? what?)... Trying to figure out how to pull punches with Rodimus had been bad enough, but Kup's talk afterwards had been enough to make Skywarp desire the ability to melt into a puddle of goo and remain in that state. And, with that track record, they'd probably try to come with him to offer 'pointers' or something else that seemed like criticism that made him feel lacking (and feeling lacking made him scared- because what didn't?- and he'd rather avoid that).
Maybe he wasn't ready to fight. Maybe he never could be. Life felt that hopeless most of the time. But he'd still get himself as ready as he could before the autobots decided to watch him.
That wasn't to say he didn't end up without an audience. Training was set up to occur in Tailgate's shop, after all, and that meant the shop owner had full rights to be present. Skywarp didn't really mind. For one, the little autobot probably had zero combat experience. He couldn't judge mistakes the way Rodimus and Kup could. For another, Tailgate just wasn't...He wasn't bad to have around. Not really. The autobot team still made him uneasy, despite how much less they unsettled him now compared to the start. Everything did at the start. But Tailgate had no fear of his own to make him hesitate from chatting away and asking for help and sharing energon and all the rest of the activity he engaged in brightly- and that lack had made Skywarp's own uneasiness fade away.
It was startlingly odd to lack that, but it wasn't so bad either.
They'd set up a little training room in one of the (mostly) open spaces; a few makeshift targets stood by the far wall, a little shelf carried dummy weapons (and a few real ones), and there was enough space to move around a bit. Granted, it was harder for Skywarp considering he was about double the size of the average autobot on the team.
Tailgate had crawled onto one of the crates leftover in the room to watch. The attention made him nervous, but the clone tried to investigate his options as if he didn't have a visor staring at his wings.
First one tried was a standard stinger. It was an incredibly weak weapon and required him to get far too close to his opponent to be comfortable to Skywarp's style (which was, mainly, distance. distance was Good). Tailgate had giggled from his perch at the look of Starscream-esque disgust the clone shot down at the little weapon.
Next was an energy bow like Rodimus favored. Skywarp shot the wall first. And then the next time. And the next. At the least, they didn't all hit the wall rather than targets. One shot hit a shelf leftover in the far left corner and the energy cut through one level, tipping a few items through the new crack to the floor. He'd wilted pretty well at that even as Tailgate assured him through more giggles that it was fine. The energy bow got dumped back on the weapons shelf, hidden away on the lowest level as if that could erase his own embarrassing attempt with it.
Alright, so maybe distance wasn't all that perfect. His attempts with a rifle went better than the bow, but were hardly comfortable. His own missiles worked, but they were hardly unlimited.
He supposed-
the admission came with an uncomfortable shudder
-that he would have to pick up a way to keep his plating alive if something got up close to him.
So much for sticking to distance.
His close range weapon built in was undoubtedly the set of claws both servo's had. That and kicking, slapping, brawling, the like. His size would make this effective against little autobots. There was no saying how effective it would be against whatever ground troops this lumen purgatio may or may not have.
There was no harm in experimenting, he tried to convince himself (it weighed against the harm of embarrassing himself, accidentally injuring himself, accidentally causing property damage that erased his apparent truce of safety with these autobots, etc; there was always a harm).
The first attempt came with the sort of bludgeoning ax thing that the Prime on Earth seemed to use. It was alright. Skywarp couldn't help but frown at it though. Maybe combat just wasn't for him; nothing here was really meshing comfortably with him.
(It was a lie, of course; any version of Starscream was ripe for combat and even if Skywarp was the personification of his fear, he still was trapped as a version of Starscream)
"No," Tailgate shook his head from his spot after Skywarp finished awkwardly trying to bash at a dummy target. "That one's not right."
Somehow, he'd gotten roped into doing this stupid feeling training with a commentative audience. At least the autobot sounded more happy and enthusiastic to be there than actually judgmental. Maybe that was why he wasn't wilting every time Tailgate went ahead and said he wasn't using the right weapon.
Whatever it meant to have a 'right' weapon. Supposedly, he'd know it when he felt it. Skywarp found that highly unhelpful advice. The fact that the shop owner had never used a weapon in his life didn't really add much promise to the accuracy of the advice anyway. It wasn't like Tailgate ever fought. Or he thought that at least. Come to think of it, he had no idea. Despite how talkative the bot was, he hadn't shared much about his personal life; no war experience, no general age, no explanation for why he was way out here instead of on Cybertron...And no experience in combat. The thought of a weapon in the little mech's servo's just didn't match up in his mind anyway. For some reason, the idea of his only weapon being that servo led to the image of Tailgate punching something more than three times his size and Skywarp almost laughed himself. It was a ludicrous idea anyway.
"Try the b-the whatever-it's-called staff?" the bot suggested.
He went along with it, because why not? He hardly had a thought of his own about this.
The staff was a disaster. He'd tried to keep it under his arms in some kind of faux-brave starting position, hit the floor when trying to spin it out of that position to a more hold-able one, then- to top it all off- managed to sweep his own legs after hitting the dummy.
Pushing up from the floor meant returning to the land of the living and that currently was filled with a backdrop of hysterical laughing. The little autobot laughed until he'd tumbled backwards off the crate. Despite himself, Skywarp gave a hesitant smile too. There was no immediate threat from the amused sounds.
"No, nope, no-" Tailgate said rapid fire when he finally managed to stop laughing enough to crawl back onto the crate.
Yes, that was about the impression he'd got from the venture too.
"But what else is left?" Skywarp was aware that he sounded whiny; the way his wings sank didn't exactly help contest the notion.
If it made him feel better, it wasn't so much a wheedling complaint as it was the perfectly rational fear that he really was helpless to ever learn any fighting outside wild scratching and missiles.
"What's left?" the autobot crawled forward to the front of his crate and peered towards the weapons shelf.
Ax-bludgeon thing? No. Stinger? Done it. Staff? Tailgate's fit of laughter at the time of disaster was answer enough.
Skywarp grabbed one of the few remaining practice weapons. Here went nothing.
The fake was lifted up and shaken around a bit while he got used to its feel in his palm. It was less tall than the staff, at least. He'd probably not trip on it. Probably. Hopefully. Knowing his luck, he absolutely would. Probably would impale himself on the dull edge while he was at it.
He took a few swipes (so far, no self-impaling), tried a few defensive poses (his favorite), and didn't drop the thing on accident, even if he'd most definitely had been killed by his imaginary opponent for his lack of speed thus far.
It was a few minutes in that he noticed there hadn't been any amused or excitable commentary yet. Skywarp glanced over at his audience and caught Tailgate looking his way with his chin resting on both his servos.
That scrutiny was just a little too intense for his tastes. Seeming to notice it, the autobot shook out of his pose.
"What?" Skywarp asked in a small voice. Was it good? Pitiful? Embarrassing? Glorious? "Was it-Did-"
Tailgate gave him a round of clapping from his seat before going serious. The decepticon realized vaguely that he wasn't wilting. They'd both gone quiet, somber- like they'd both noted the same cue to be serious instead of either nervous or amused.
"Good. It was good. Did you think it-was it comfortable for you? Compared to the others?" the autobot asked.
Had it been?
He was hardly an automatic expert. He moved too slow. He was too clumsy. He thought he still would rather fire missiles from afar. What would a sword do against some being of light anyway?
But that wasn't nearly the amount of arguments he had against all the others.
"More than the rest," the clone shrugged.
When Tailgate made no move to add anything, Skywarp felt he needed to elaborate.
"It was right," he said.
If he'd been paying attention, he may have been surprised to hear or rather not hear the usual waver in his inherited voice. As it was, the autobot had his attention instead.
"I knew it!" Tailgate brightened up. The moment of restricted speech had, apparently, ended. "I thought you looked happier, from what I saw at least! And you just seem intimidating- good intimidating! Elegant!- with a sword, I think, at least, though that is just my opinion-"
Good intimidating?
If it made the mech look at him with such excited idolization, he supposed he wasn't going to complain about that seeming oxymoron.