The Diego Diaries: Quick Silver (dd8 589)
=0=In the shop
Pyrite stared at him with fury. "We came here once to get the processes. You could have shared and there'd be no bad blood."
"We had slaggers do that same thing once a decaorn since forever. Our processes are ours. They will never be shared because no one but us can make these things. No one else can," Ratchet said.
"Is that so?" Latinum said as he stepped closer to Ratchet.
"It is," a deep voice said.
Everyone turned toward the voice to see a huge mech come around the end of an aisle of handmade tools that sparkled in the light, their transparent steel shafts set into silver, copper and gold grips. They were the most primo tools that the two made, so perfect in form and substance as to be sentient. To have them was to be a king.
They took stock in the mech before them, then Pyrite frowned. "Ironhide."
"Whoever you are, you're treading thin ice. These tools, their process and all of it, its off limits to you," Ironhide said.
"Is that so?" Latinum said none too wisely. "This is a private argument. Stay out of it, slagger."
Ironhide considered the mech before him, a slim but wiry mech emboldened by entitlement and his own ego. "You make me stay out of it."
The room seethed with rage, something that felt very old and curdled to these, a species that read energy the way humans read the papers. Springer and Drift watched from nearby.
"Fragging Ironhide," Merchan said. "I remember you."
Ironhide gazed at him for a moment, then glanced back at Latinum. "Leave and don't come back."
"Or what?" Latinum said. "I heard The System doesn't exist here anymore. You have no authority to order us around."
"He does," Ratchet said. "I give it to him." He glanced at Ironhide. "Read 'em from The Book," he said with a tension in his voice he only got when his genitors were in some form of jeopardy.
"This is a public place," Pyrite said.
"The wares here will never go with you," Ironhide said. "They're made from a holy process aided and abetted by Solus Prime Herself. Unless you want to bring Her wrath your way as well, I'd leave."
"How long have you been here, Pyrite? Are you trying to restore your business? What's the deal?" Ratchet asked.
He stared at Ratchet, then Ironhide. "Our business is none of your business."
"Then take your slagging business and go," Ironhide said.
It was silent as a tomb, then Pyrite glanced at the swords. "I want that emerald handled one. I'll be back for it shortly." With that, he walked to the door to leave.
His brothers stared after him, then Ironhide. Without another word, the two walked out to cross the concourse of the building where Pyrite waited. Then they walked onward until they were out of sight.
It was silent a moment, then Ratchet vented a sigh. "Well that went badly."
"Those slaggers aren't allowed in here. Ravie and Tie aren't going to be here or anywhere for a while without one of us here. We can make an arrangement around everything else. They don't go home or come here without one of us going with them." Ironhide turned to Ratchet. "Not one time."
Ratchet nodded. "Maybe an Iacon sanction is needed. Put the word out that this slagger is fragging us off and every Iaconian they encounter has free rein to beat them to a pulp."
"How's the artist coming? The one who bothered Sunstreaker?" Drift asked. "I remember the sanction."
"Sunstreaker, who?" Ratchet asked with a grim grin. "That slagger knew what was coming. He's been invisible ever since."
"We'll check this out. What do you have already?" Springer asked as he looked at a gun barrel tool in a kit nearby.
"I'm running details," Ratchet said. "If you like that kit its yours."
Springer glanced at him with surprise. "Really?" he asked.
Ratchet grinned. "No."
Springer snickered as he put it back.
"Yes," Ratchet said with a smile.
Springer picked it up.
"No."
By the time Springer and Drift walked out Springer would have the kit.
=0=Sitting in the lounge regrouping
"We have a plan," Ironhide said. "We'll get this organized and in the end those slaggers will toe the line. The orns of coming into a place and demanding things are over."
"It'd be nice," Ratchet said. "These slaggers were always showing off, hanging out trying to discover the next 'big talent' to exploit. I wonder if Sunny had problems with them."
=0=In an artist studio, Tyger Pax
"Those slaggers are here?" Sunstreaker asked as he paused his brush. He turned to Springer and Drift. Nearby hanging onto the couch, Tell grinned at everyone. Sunstreaker glanced at him, then reached into a jar nearby. Pulling out a cookie, he broke off a bit, then handed it to Tell. He patted his little butt, then looked at Drift and Springer lounging in another couch nearby. "I had nothing but trouble from them."
"Tell us about it, Sunny," Springer asked.
Sunny sighed, then put his brush into a solution. He walked over to sit on the couch next to where Tell was standing. He glanced at the pair. "When I was starting out as a painter, I had a lot of attention from high castes. They liked danger and they liked my stuff. I painted mostly landscapes, interiors that had a dangerous point of view and had only started getting into portraits. They were part of Sentinel's crowd.
Sometimes Pyrite would go clubbing with Sentinel and hang out where we were.
"He wanted to see my stuff. I told him to stuff it. I didn't need his kind of 'help' to get where I wanted to go. I didn't like them. They didn't like me and Latinum got pulverized by Sideswipe when he mouthed off at him in a club. You can't let that slag slide around the other gangsters. It cuts your credibility among them and you could get killed. Everyone will jump you if one slagger does, especially a little tool like Latinum."
"Did you ever hear about them muscling in on other artists? Maybe the craftsmen? Wanting their designs or processes?" Drift asked.
Sunny nodded. "I heard that he and his were trying to muscle the master craftsmen in the Guild. Mechs like Appa and Amma as well as Wirelite. They wanted them to give over their formulas and sell things things exclusively through their shops. They wanted to create some kind of ultra artisan empire or something. Most of the time they were drunk in the clubs when I'd see them, all of them but Pyrite. He stayed sober to watch things. I don't know who he hooked up with but he was a wheeler-dealer with no talent for it. He was out of his league all the way."
It was quiet a moment.
"Are they here?" Sunstreaker asked.
Drift nodded. "They are. We're checking out slaggers who might come here with trouble in mind or have warrants from Cybertron. Do you think they do?"
"If trafficking in stolen antiquities and art is a felony they're guilty. Did you hear the rumor that Soundwave is buying art on the black market?" Sunstreaker grinned. "I never knew he had it in him."
"Well … I heard that "Decepticons superior, Autobots inferior' somewhere," Drift said with a snicker.
Sunstreaker grinned. "When you get ready to take them down call me and Sideswipe. We have history."
"Okay," Springer said with a big grin.
They talked a bit about kids and the upcoming championship basketball game, then Springer, Drift and Tell gathered up to go.
Sunstreaker watched them leave, then leaned over to a computer sitting nearby. Activating a program that was illegal and the domain of high end hackers, he began to search the system for Merchan, Latinum and Pyrite of Iacon.
=0=At the house
Ravie and Tie sat on the couch listening to Ratchet and Ironhide explain the new way of living until some kind of agreement was reached explicitly or not with the three mechs. The store was closed today and starting tomorrow for the rest of their foreseeable future they'd have an escort.
=0=At a high end art studio and business in The Mall of Tyger Pax
Latinum, Merchan and Pyrite walked into the store, the first of five they planned where his genitors were working to bring into being the family business. Though this wasn't the business that made them their fortunes, it was the one they favored. The business that made them their money was making and selling armaments. Art was the one that allowed them access into the highest echelons of culture. This was their prestige point.
"Where have you been?" his father, Raimier asked.
Their ada who was an actual artist though not one of any great note glanced at them as well.
"We dropped by RTR Tools," Pyrite said as he pulled a chair out to sit.
His brothers sat down on crates of things that would be used to create the high end salon that most of their stores were.
"What happened? I can tell from your auras that it didn't go well," Salute said. Salute was their ada and loved art. He inspired their atar to go this direction to add something shiny to the dull deadly whirl of war and supplying weapons always did to a family reputation.
"They were there and we were making headway when their son, Ratchet walked in. He took over the conversation," Latinum said. "He dared us to pick up their stuff and we did. It bit us hard."
"Well, that's not good," Raimier said. "They're sentient, what they make. They don't go with those they don't like. Why did you go in there angry? You might've walked out with something we can have analyzed."
"You do it," Merchan said. "I checked up on things coming here. Ratchet, the 'R' in the name is bonded to Ironhide of Praxus. Guess who was there?"
Raimier sat back. "Frag. That old bucket of bolts? What about his family? His father and such?"
"They're all here," Pyrite said.
=0=Sunny and Sideswipe
They sat in front of the computer reading up on the new slaggers. They'd just arrived a week ago through a bridge. Everything that had passed in the last twelve months hadn't touched them. Even the Convocation hadn't sunk in.
"They want to resurrect their art empire here. Their emails have contact letters with Sconce," Sideswipe said as he opened them. They were invites to be his agent for art 'sales'. "They apparently don't get it that we don't use money or that kind of slag."
"They'll learn," Sunny said grimly. "What else can you find?"
He would look.
=0=TBC 12-14-2022
cball671: LOKI! I have three cats that do the same thing. I love them so. Solus is watching. This is old news coming back. They were such a prestige firm that they had a lot of 'interest'. LOL! Love the visuals. Thank you. :D:D:D