Author's Notes: Hi everyone! Well, we've got another chapter of The Sixth Component, and after writing this I've come to the conclusion that if Huffer was real he would hate me. Seriously, I don't know why I keep torturing this Autobot. I actually like this character and even consider him a favorite. Top fifteen anyway (out of hundreds that isn't bad). Speaking of which, I just finished sewing the body of the very first plush toy I've ever attempted to make (finally), which oddly enough is a little sky blue version of Huffer. Once I finish his orange hood he'll be finished, and I'll post a few pics on my Deviantart page. Anyway, now I'm just rambling. Sorry ^_^'
Anyway, hope you enjoy this chapter of The Sixth Component :)
Chapter 4
Get To Work
Huffer had trouble recharging on that hard cot in his cell. Aside from the typical tossing and turning he also had thoughts about Brawn and his team. Were they coming to rescue him? Would they make it in time? Was Brawn alive or dead? He also wondered what Megatron planned to do with him. Would he be tortured? Would he be executed? He didn't want to die on a Decepticon ship under earth's salty water! He wanted to die on Cybertron after a long drawn-out illness! Yes, Huffer had thought this through in advance.
He was jolted out of his thoughts when he saw Long Haul come through the door holding a long strip of wire that was designed to connect to Huffer's stasis cuffs. That meant he was going somewhere, and Huffer didn't like any of the places the Decepticons would want to take him.
Long Haul deactivated the force field and walked right into the cell. Huffer thought about making a break for it. There wasn't even a guard, and Long Haul didn't have a gun. It would be easy to run right past him. Then again, Huffer wasn't very fast, and the Decepticons would just catch him since he couldn't swim.
"I hope you got your beauty sleep, Autobot," Long Haul drawled as he connected the wire to the stasis cuffs, "Because you're gonna have a long day ahead of you."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Huffer asked irately despite the terror he felt.
"It means Megatron gave you to us," Long Haul replied before pulling on the chord in order to get Huffer to follow him, "You now serve the Constructicons, and believe me when I say we can use all the help we can get!"
Huffer was forced to walk with Long Haul down the hallways of the Nemesis. Well, the good news was he wasn't going to be tortured. The bad news was that for the time being he would have to work for the very mechs that had harmed Brawn, and the one mech he was supposed to assassinate. Terrific.
They didn't pass anyone else on the way to the Constructicons' collection of labs, which Huffer was very grateful for. It was humiliating to be led around like a criminal going to trial or an animal on a leash. They stopped in what could only be described as a waiting room. It was a small area with chairs, but it led to six different rooms. Each of those rooms was a lab, and each lab connected to a berth room for a Constructicon.
"Scavenger gets you first," Long Haul informed him, "We drew straws. Scavenger says he wants your help organizing things. Oh, and he also says the cuffs stay on for his shift. Apparently he doesn't trust you."
"What!? How am I supposed to do anything with these slagging things on my wrists?" Huffer snapped indignantly.
"How should I know? It ain't my problem," Long Haul shrugged, "Anyway, Scavenger lives in the room 3rd from the left. He has a lab, but it's mostly filled with junk. I don't know how he gets anything done. Well, see you when it's my turn, Autobot."
With those words Long Haul went into his lab, the one furthest on the right, and left Huffer alone in the waiting room. He wasn't alone long, however, as Scavenger soon opened the door to let him in. Huffer assumed that the stupid overgrown shovel had been listening in on their conversation the whole time. Figures.
The day was almost gone and the Autobots still hadn't come to rescue Huffer yet. He wondered if they were having difficulties, if they were trying to negotiate with Megatron, or if they just wrote him off as dead and went on with their lives. He didn't really think it was the last one, but who knew at this point?
Working with Scavenger had been exhausting. Mostly Huffer's job was just to grab things when Scavenger told him to. He hauled rocks, he lifted things up to Scavenger so the Constructicon could nail them to the wall or ceiling, and he grouped different items into categories so Scavenger could put them in the correct boxes. In short, it was a boring, tedious, backbreaking, thankless job. Then came the next shift.
This time Huffer was sent to work with Hook. Hook was an utter perfectionist, and nothing Huffer did was right for the uppity medic. Huffer cleaned the beakers and test tubes, but Hook complained that they were spotty. Huffer mopped energon off the floor from patients, but Hook complained that the floor was wet.
Gee, wet underwater. Wonder how that happened? Huffer thought sarcastically.
The real problem came when Huffer tried to move a box of medical equipment for Hook, but because he was still trapped in stasis cuffs he accidentally dropped everything, and some very valuable sensors were broken.
Hook saw the mess, and all the parts that would take deca-cycles to replace, and proceeded to beat Huffer to within an inch of his life! Huffer was defenseless against the much larger mech since his subspace was closed and his servos were cuffed. Hook continued punching and kicking until Huffer was almost in stasis lock, and then started repairing the worst of the damage. It was a surreal experience on top of a terrifying one.
Huffer was allowed to return to his cell after that, but was promised a fun-filled day with Scrapper and Bonecrusher when he woke up. Then the day after that was Mixmaster and Long Haul. Huffer really hoped the Autobots showed up soon so he could get the slag out of this nightmare.
The door to his cell opened, and Huffer cringed when he saw it was Long Haul. He was already in pain and exhausted. He didn't want to have to deal with that mech; not now.
"Hey Autobot, I heard Hook really lit into you tonight," Long Haul said casually as he took his seat in front of the cell.
"Yeah, and all this time I thought Ratchet was scary!" Huffer exclaimed with a wince, "I will never take that wrench throwin' maniac for granted again."
"Your medic throws wrenches at his patients?" Long Haul asked incredulously, "Yikes! I'll never complain about Hook again."
Long Haul then chuckled, and Huffer couldn't help but smirk at the comparison. The humans had a saying about this sort of sentiment; the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.
"If I coulda just had my servos free I wouldn't have dropped that stupid box!" Huffer groused irritably, "That Hook is a real pain in the aft!"
"I know, but he's family," Long Haul shrugged, "You got any family, Autobot?"
"No," Huffer replied without inflection, "I used to have a younger brother, and an uncle. I was too young to remember my parents, and my uncle died when I was still a teenager. My brother Winge was all I had for a long time. Then the war happened. He didn't last long. He was a civilian, but he loved to run his mouth. He got into a fight with a Minicon, but when things turned physical he found out that Minicon had 8 siblings and a carrier host. He never stood a chance. I'm just glad I wasn't actually there to see it. I was off-world by then."
"That's rough," Long Haul replied; unsure of how to react to such a matter-of-fact retelling of a tragedy, "If someone did that to one of us Constructions, you can bet the rest of us would rip him apart!"
Huffer just sighed, knowing that was probably true, and knowing it would probably happen to him if he fulfilled his mission to kill Long Haul. He had put it in the back of his processor for a long time, but the Decepticons had killed his brother. They had killed a lot of mechs and femmes that had been important to him. Brawn might be next, and here he was telling his life story to one of those murderers. Somehow it just didn't seem right.
The next day's chores were just as bad as the first day. His first shift was with Scrapper, the right leg and yet somehow leader of the Constructicons. Huffer had always wondered how that worked. With most gestalts the leader was the helm, but in their group Hook was the helm and Scrapper was just a lousy leg.
Scrapper unlocked Huffer's cuffs, and Huffer rubbed his wrists to get the energon flowing back into his servos. Huffer had expected that Scrapper would want him to lift more heavy boxes or scrub the walls or some scrap like that. What he asked for, however, completely floored him.
"Grab that polish over there," Scrapped ordered as he lazily gestured to a counter, "I want you to clean and polish my frame."
"What!?" Huffer shrieked reflexively, "Listen pal, you have wash racks! You don't need me givin' you a sponge bath like I'm some kinda nurse or somethin'! Forget it!"
"Fine, I'll just kill you," Scrapper replied nonchalantly, "It's no paint off my nose if you die."
Scrapper illustrated his point by digging a gun out of his subspace and pointing it at Huffer for emphasis. Huffer screamed for him to stop and then conceded to Scrapper's demands. He agreed to polish Scrapper, and the grungy mech put away his weapon. Huffer sighed miserably. He really didn't want to touch that guy. Scrapper was filthy from working outside in earth's dust and mud. Then again, that was probably why Scrapper was asking for this special treatment in the first place.
Huffer got Scrapper to sit down in a chair and began by scrubbing the majority of the dirt off with a scrub brush. Scrapper slumped over and relaxed as Huffer worked, which somehow made this feel even worse for the minibot. It was bad enough he had to work for Decepticons, but he didn't want the slaggers to feel comfortable while he was doing it! Huffer had to distract himself from this degradation, so he decided to start a conversation with the surly leader of the Constructicons.
"Yo Scrapper, there's somethin' I've always wondered about," Huffer said as casually as he could manage while brushing dirt out of the guy's treads, "How come Hook is Devastator's helm? Shouldn't that be your job?"
"You know being a gestalt makes the resulting mech stupid, right?" Scrapper pointed out, and Huffer nodded, "Well, imagine how much stupider we'd be if I was the helm."
"But you're not stupid," Huffer replied before he could stop himself.
"Not right now, but as Devastator I would be," Scrapper explained, "Hook is the smartest of the six of us, therefore Devastator is slightly less brain dead when he's the helm."
"Oh," Huffer nodded as he wiped away the brush marks with a rag, "So why did you pick the right leg?"
"I didn't," Scrapper replied, "Shockwave designated our positions when he upgraded us. That whole Hook being the smartest thing? We were all specifically tested so we would know that."
"Oh, so uh...does Shockwave hate Long Haul or somethin'?" Huffer suddenly asked.
"No, why?" Scrapper asked.
"Because he's Devastator's crotch!" Huffer exclaimed as if it should be obvious, "Why would Shockwave do that to him?"
"Because he tested as having the worst servo-optic coordination," Scrapper informed him, "Or to put that in terms your puny Autobot processor can compute, he's slow. Shockwave wasn't even gonna use him, but we insisted. The six of us were all that was left of our combat unit after the Autobots attacked us. I wasn't about to leave him behind, even if he wasn't our best fighter. Honestly, Long Haul isn't really cut out to be a warrior. If it wasn't for us and for Devastator I don't think he woulda lasted this long. Hey, don't forget to wax the undercarriage."
Huffer sighed again but did as he was told. He almost felt bad for Long Haul now. The guy was the worst one of his team and was punished by becoming the body part that had no control over anything yet had to hold everyone else together. Not to mention being the obsolete piece of the puzzle. Once Long Haul died no one would take his place because no one built gestalts like that anymore.
Huffer's shift with Bonecrusher was tedious but bearable. He mostly just swept the floor and vacuumed dust from under furniture. Huffer had expected a mech with a name like Bonecrusher to be a battle-hungry monster, but Bonecrusher was actually just a normal mech that was very busy.
Bonecrusher had locked Huffer in his lab to do his assigned chores and had then left him alone for most of his shift. Bonecrusher had inventory duty around the rest of the ship and didn't have time to monitor Huffer. Huffer used this opportunity to look for items he could use against the Decepticons.
He opened drawers and cabinets, checked for secret panels in the walls, and even searched under the desk in case there was a gun taped to the underside or something. He didn't find any weaponry, but he did find one thing that might help him: acid. Huffer didn't have his subspace, so he wedged the bottle of corrosive acid in between his back struts and his orange hood. When the time came he would use this stuff to expose Long Haul's spark and then let the elements do the rest. It would be grisly, but Huffer had a job to do, and he would do it even if it killed him.
The next day he was sent to work with Mixmaster. Huffer didn't know what to expect, but was still surprised when Mixmaster told Huffer they were going to another location somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. Huffer and Mixmaster rode inside a small hovering pod to the site, and Huffer was surprised to find it was dark outside and the stars were shining in the sky. Apparently he had been waking up at night.
For a while they rode in silence. Mixmaster had a reputation for being unstable and a bit of a sadist. To be fair, over half the Decepticon ranks could be described that way, but Mixmaster was the only Constructicon with such a reputation. Therefore Huffer wasn't exactly eager to talk to him. As the minutes ticked by in boring silence, however, Huffer found he had to say something.
"So where are we goin' exactly?" Huffer finally got up the nerve to ask.
"We're go-go-going to work on the the the new base for the Stunticons," Mixmaster stuttered, "Mega-Megatron finally said we could g-g-get them out of the N-Nemesis."
"I can see why you'd want this project done as quickly as possibly," Huffer said wryly, "So what's my job?"
"B-B-Building, you idiot!" Mixmaster snapped, "Just st-stay out of my way when I'm w-w-w-working!"
"Yes, sir," Huffer replied sarcastically.
Mixmaster growled and glared at Huffer, and Huffer quickly clamped his servos over his mouth. This was going to be a long orn. Once he was finished with Mixmaster, however, he would move on to Long Haul and finally have his chance to attack.