A/N: On the pronunciation - think of Captain Sparrow. Hear him say 'Savvy'. Replace S with K. Now you know how to say Cavvy's name. :)

Chapter 4
Low life

The second star to the right and straight on till four millions years ago...

Energon was undoubtedly the most efficient form of energy in the universe, highly concentrated and relatively stable. Unfortunately, natural deposits were hard to come by, and its complex, crystalline structure was impossible to artificially replicate. Or so it was believed. Shockwave, the ever humble and underestimated genius in the field of physics had his own theory, which he had unwisely shared with another mech, who was about to take credit for it.
The presentation of gathering first artificial energon into cubes went smoothly, if one didn't count snappish barbs coming from Starscream's direction. The Air Commander though it highly suspicious that the mech who's only talents were eavesdropping and building micro-mechs with weird root modes would accomplish such a feat. His snide comments finally reached a critical level and triggered a reaction.
"You are trying my patience, Starscream!" Megatron rasped, gesturing with his cannon threateningly.
Starscream wisely averted his gaze. "I was merely expressing my concern, mighty leader," he assured insincerely. Megatron accepted the submission at face value and returned his attention and prize to patiently waiting Soundwave. Starscream barely restrained the urge to hiss static at both of them. It was getting increasingly difficult to keep his vocalizer on a leash. He'd got to his current position by carefully avoiding voicing too much of his true opinions, but recently he nearly slipped up several times. He blamed it on the after-crash stasis. He'd always reacted badly to stasis. And there was of course the matter of Megatron's incapability to make away with the Autobots, hiding in their volcano like a pack of retro-rats. Hopefully, with the invention provided by miraculously-brilliant-eavesdropper, Megatron would finally manage to finish the millennia long conflict and get them back to Cybertron; up there they wouldn't have to interact on daily basis, and life would go back to normal.

The second of Mondern, nearing the end of the first shift

Pipes spent a good hour exploring little novelty shops scattered across the plaza, sating his gaze with thousands of essentially useless but not less fascinating for it knick-knacks from, as the sellers assured, most exotic worlds. He would very well spend at it the next two shifts, if it wasn't for an argument he overheard. A customer accused the shopkeeper that most of his goods had been dug up on the nearby scrapyard, to which the accused retorted that even if that were the case, most of the scrap rusting out there was of alien origin.
Since he couldn't afford to buy anything, and he'd hate to leave this place without some souvenir, Pipes decided to stray even further from the rest. He waited for the argument to end, asked the shopkeeper for directions, and set off toward the promised land.

"Officer Surescore of Vos Police Force. May I have a moment of your time?"
The spacebridge operator took a moment to verify that the call had indeed come from security channel, and straightened in his chair.
"Off course, officer. How can I help the police?"
"A mech with following energy signature arrived through your station at 24,91 breems on the First of Mondern." A little beep announced a transmission of energy pattern. "I require all details concerning his journey, arrival and company if applicable. I also wish to know why there was one and a half shift delay in forwarding the information on him into the system."

The second of Mondern, beginning of the second shift

The scrapyard was located on the very outskirts of the city. It obviously had been made by constructing a wide platform on rooftops of several comparatively short buildings (just ten levels - no more than twelve hundred meters) and building a level-high wall around it. A very large litter-box, which was gradually filled with litter, until the present state was reached, when some of the larger heaps threatened to crawl over the wall onto adjoining walkway.
However, to Pipes' great disappointment, the area was fenced off. The 'AUTHORIZED PERSONEL ONLY' plaques were placed on the fence every hundred meters, and in a nearby gate a guard surveyed the area with a bored look. Slouching his shoulders slightly, Pipes dragged along the fence, longingly eyeing a shipwreck sticking out of less identifiable wreckage. He thought he recognized the design - that little kickback of Devcon piloted something similar during his single visit on Earth.

A startled yelp drew Pipes attention. There was a mech under the ship, and whatever he'd been doing must have ruptured a fuel or waste tank, because a stream of old, stale fuel, liberally mixed with dirty grease was spouting on his head. The unfortunate mech flailed, trying in vain to get the liquid off his face and stop the leak, but only succeeded in slipping on the suddenly unsteady floor. With another startled yelp, he tumbled into one of many depressions in the scrap-yard's surface. And the fuel kept flowing.

Scaling the fence and sliding down the slope didn't take Pipes even twenty seconds.
"Hey, hey, stop trashing like that," he called, getting to his hand and knees at the edge of the hole. "You're just digging yourself in deeper!"
The greasy fuel quickly soaked in between loose pieces of junk that formed the floor, giving it a quality quite similar to Earth's quick sands. The mech in the pit had already sunk up to his knees. He raised his head at the sound of Pipes voice, his half-blinded optical band bending slightly in an expression of hopeful dismay.
"Hold still for a moment," Pipes ordered, looking around quickly. He then rotated pipes mounted on his forearms, so that they were sticking out over his elbows rather than his hands, and lied down flat on his chest. With one hand he grasped tightly the nearest thing that looked unmovable, and reached the other toward the trapped mech. "Here, take my hand."

It was very messy and exhausting breem. The fuel victim was over trice Pipes's size, the grease in the fuel made every grasp unsteady, and the loose rubble kept shifting under them. When they finally crawled away from the pit, they were both identical shade of sickly brownish black. This was probably why the guard who came to investigate an alert from the fence didn't notice that Pipes was present.

The exchange was pretty much one-sided.
"Hey, wha' do ya think yer doin'--?" The guard huffed, all righteous anger at having to leave his cozy post. Then he took a good look at the soaked mech, and calmed down. "Oh, it's you." He turned to call out to his following friend "False alarm, i's jus' 'Cavvy!", turned on his heel and marched away.

Pipes snickered and looked up at the bot he rescued. "Cavvy, right? I'm Pipes." He extended his hand, and, misunderstanding the gesture, Cavvy quickly scrambled to his feet to help him up.
"Hi Pipes, thank you. I'm sorry, I got you all dirty," he fussed, trying to brush some of the crust off Autobot's frame.
"Hey, don't worry about it," Pipes laughed, carelessly brushing the worst of crust off his arms and leaving the rest alone. It wouldn't come off without a good solvent anyway. "I usually look worse after a patrol."

He looked curiously at the shipwreck looming above them. "What where you doing to get yourself in this fix, anyway?" he asked of the bigger mech.
Cavvy brightened like a tree on Christmas Eve, and proceeded to explain that one of his teammates was recently working on designing a new fuel flow system, and brought in any type of engine he could find to compare efficiency of different models. So when he saw relatively undamaged ship, he thought he might retrieve the engine for him.

"I was trying to get to the back clamps when the fuel burst out. I don't know where it came from," he added ruefully. "I'm sure I wasn't anywhere near any tanks." He turned to scan the area of the ship where the remaining trickle of fuel dripped around a ragged edge.
An unusual movement caught Pipes optic. He took a closer look at his new friend. He was a big mech, sporting thick curved plates that looked like they formed some tool in altmode. What drew Pipes' attention, however, were three curious, multi-joint jibes protruding from his lower back, looking very much like a triple tail. Their last segments hovered horizontally about three inches above the ground, swinging this way and that.

The moment Cavvy notices Pipes' gaze, he took an instinctive step back, and the 'tails' jerked up and curled against his back.
Surprised by the reaction, Pipes made an apologetic face. "Um, sorry, didn't mean to stare."
The bigger mech dipped his head sheepishly. "No, no, sorry, it's not that, it's just they are sensitive sensors, and people keep stepping on them."

Pipes could understand why. Cavvy was a big mech, but if he ever met, say, Sideswipe or Cliffjumper, his shy demeanor would immediately earn him a little 'kick me' plaque on his back. And no matter where you were, there'd always be a jerk or two around who wouldn't mind actually following the instruction. Pipes had a very firm opinion on this kind of mechs. It instantly made him feel (even more) sympathetic toward the mech.

"I'll watch were I put my feet," he promised. He then gestured to the hole in the ship's hull. "Want some help? I'm small, I'll have less trouble with reaching the back clamps," he offered. "You'd have to give me a boost up, though," he added as an afterthought, measuring the height with his gaze.
Cavvy brightened again.

The yellow-opticed bridge operator was approached while (with much grumbling and griping) he was settling his debts at the racing track, and was asked to follow the officers to the nearest police station to 'help with an investigation'.

"Yeah, only one incoming on this shift," he said, flicking an uncertain gaze between the three officers. "A bunch of good-willers, they almost overloaded the station with that jump."
"What gave you the impression they were Children of Space?" one of the officers asked, not raising his head from the data pad in his hand.

"The red faces, duh!" the operator sniffed, making small circle over his chestplate to indicate that he meant badging, not actual faces. "And they all had blue optics, too. Fanatics."
The cop this time spared him a glance, and the operator almost melted under the navy-blue stare.
"No offence meant, sir," he managed. "And it wasn't proper blue like yours, sir. Kinda lightish shade. I know I thought it was weird, I thought they weren't making this hue anymore."
"Anything else out of ordinary?"
"Um... They were filthy, dripped some organic bits on my floor, took me half a shift to clean it."

"Little over three breems, according to your coworker," the blue-opticed cop corrected coldly.

"Why isn't the place of origin booked in the logs?" the other police-bot asked.
"Oh, I never got it. The coordinates were all scrambled. You know how off-worlders are, they jumped from homemade bridge that almost blew in their faces."
"I see. Did you ask what planet were they from? Where they checked in? If they had authorization?"

"...Um..." The operator slowly started overheating.
"I believe there's a procedure for such occurrences?"

"Uh..." The Primus-damned Book of Regulations would certainly come in handy right about now. He started regretting he never actually bothered to read it. "Look, I'm just a bridge operator! I greet new people or send them off and that's it, it's none of my business or responsibility where they are coming from!"
"Your contract, terms of service and your employer's policy say otherwise," the thus far silent, tall police-bot said, and stood. "You will be detained until this case is fully explained. From now on until further notice all your private comms will be monitored. Officer Bywheel will record your further testimonies." He nodded to his colleague, and they left, leaving the operator alone with the blue-opticed cop, who spared a moment to give him an evil glare.

"Um... Really meant no offense sir, I mean, it's a fine idea behind the movemen--"
"I've had blue optics long before some brat thought it was a good idea to sit on his aft and preach intergalactic peace, so mute it."
"Yes sir."

"And write down everything that happened on that shift - from supernovas to flickering lights, everything - nanoklik by nanoklik."
"Um... Yes sir."

OoOoO

In the corridor outside the room where the operator was slowly starting to comprehend the importance of not sleeping at work, the tall officer was radioing instructions to his subordinates.

"Check cameras' logs from outer doors nearest to washrack. Look for and secure any leftovers of organic origin in the office, corridor and the washrack. Check the elements in the recycler in the office. Bring someone from subspace department to try and trace the origin of the jump. Ask for sightings of anyone of the group on security channel. Check numbers of credit cards they got and monitor their accounts for any activity. Send the detainment warrant with their signatures and names on both security and local government channel. I want them brought in for questioning before Kaon lays their hands on them."

"Aren't you going a bit over the top?" the cop next to him asked, passing him an energon cube.
"Maybe - thanks - maybe, but like the Pit I'll have some Kaon high-upper telling me later I overlooked anything. It's insulting enough they outrank us in the global hierarchy."
"Good gracious, don't start with that again..."

The second of Mondern, one fifth into the second shift

"...and if I leave even the smallest thing in the shop or common room, he starts cleaning the area and throws my things away, saying it's all scrap," Cavvy finished tale of his pedantic co-worker. Squeezed in between engine casing and the hull and fighting with a stubborn bolt, Pipes laughed good naturedly.
"Oh bot, I feel your pain. I get the same with my collection. I usually have to keep everything in storage boxes and hope my roomy for the century doesn't decide he needs the space for something else."

Cavvy wagged his 'tails', glad to have some understanding. "What do you collect?" He asked curiously, carefully tugging and pushing at the engine to give Pipes more room to maneuver.
"...Hard to tell, actually. Small things, like... have you ever been on an organic planet?"
"Once. We hated it," Cavvy replied without thinking, and almost immediately he shrunk, while his optic band widened. "I mean, most of my team hated it, it was bearable, I mean, could be nice on a good day..." he amended hastily, anxiety in his voice betraying how much he was worried he'd insulted his new friend.

"Hey, it's fine," Pipe's laughed. "They were days I couldn't stand it too. But, you see, organics - sentient ones I mean - they do such neat little things. Like... clockwork toys, for example; they have some small entertainment value, their offspring would use for so brief period it's almost like a blink, and it has some dozens of separate parts, all fitting and working perfectly. Or clippers, designed specifically for some small part of their bodies - it isn't really useful, and I don't think many humans really used them, but there was still someone who sat down and thought it up, and someone else took his design, and materials procured by yet another someone, and then hired people to make it and it's so... I don't know, important, somehow," Pipes finished thoughtfully. He looked down to see Cavvy nodding enthusiastically. And it wasn't nodding of someone just being polite, but nodding of someone who he actually got it.
Pipes grinned and, for the sake of perfect honesty added "And sometimes they're just too nifty to resist."

Cavvy gave a delighted laugh. "That's what I keep telling the guys," he said, and then his optic band brightened with a new idea. "The Alteenians scrapped here one of their orbital stations few days ago. They always leave a lot of stuff aboard. We could check it out later. I mean, if you have time?"

Pipes had no idea what Alteenians were, but exploring a scraped orbital station sounded like fun, and it wasn't like he'd have to report on patrol or monitor duty anytime soon.
"Sure, that would be great," he smiled, then tapped the engine he was leaning on. "We're almost done here. Can you make me a little more room?"

Nodding with even more verve, Cavvy applied more pressure on the metal under his hands. Pipes slid in a bit further, feeling around in the darkness. It was a little disconcerting not to know the precise layout of his immediate surroundings, but it couldn't be helped - for some reason all his (and Cavvy's as well) scans of the engine area were blurred.
His wandering fingers found a slippery edge where there should be a solid metal of engine chamber.

"Hey, I think I found what dropped all that fuel on you," Pipes called, feeling around the edge. He tried to move closer, slipped, and fell heavily. He felt his foot connecting with the wall, and breaking right through it. And then a wave of disgusting, greasy liquid hit Pipes and flushed him right out of the ship. He landed on top of Cavvy, who yelped and sat down heavily from the impact.

Then there was an ominous creaking of strained metal, and the engine, stripped of most of clamps and devoid of the big mech's support, fell out of its casing. The remaining few clamps gave and, with a deafening clang, the engine thumped to the ground right next to them. For a few seconds both mechs gaped at it. Then they looked at their freshly re-grimed frames, at each other, and they started laughing.

"Okay, I guess this ship just doesn't like us," Pipes chortled, scrambling to his feet. He looked up at the dripping hole, and risked saying "I think that was the last of it," when the actual last of it landed on his upturned face.

During long vorns of fighting, Pipes gained a whole range of useful reflexes. However, protecting his face from basically harmless liquids was not one of them. He didn't do as much as turning his head away, and was very surprised to suddenly find himself bent over and choking on the repulsive stuff. He realized the reason a moment later, and his desperate coughs intertwined with laughter at his own oversight.
"My mask," Pipes managed to wheeze after a moment, leaning heavily on Cavvy's arm. "I forgot I'm not wearing it." He snickered again, and coughed out a lump of muck. "Yuck."

"Wait, I think I had something somewhere..." Cavvy rummaged hastily in his sub-pockets, dropping several tiny items until he fished out a five-pack of coolant bottles. Pipes accepted one gratefully, and gurgled the clean liquid. If nothing else, it removed the awful taste from his intakes.

The day was, as usual, hot, and heat absorbers scattered over the scrapyard were of low quality, so after making sure his small friend was going to be fine, Cavvy picked a bottle for himself as well. He took several swings, and spilled the rest of liquid on his frame.

It was a good idea, Pipes decided, and followed suit. He sighed contently and shut off his optics for a moment, letting himself revel in how nice the coolant felt on his dirty, overheated metal. Then he laughed softly, just because he felt like it, and because it was such a nice day, and there wouldn't be any Decepticons' attacks to spoil it.
Cavvy laughed too, just because Pipes did, and for a moment they just stood there, snickering for no apparent reason.

Finally Pipes activated his optics and raised his head to look at Cavvy. And he froze.

The coolant the bigger bot had spilled on himself meshed with some of the grime coating him. Cavvy was absently wiping off some of it, and tough it didn't really improve his appearance, it removed enough of the dirt for his own bright colors to shine through in places. And with the colors, something else became visible too.

"Is something wrong?" Cavvy asked worriedly, noticing the smaller mech's sudden silence and changed expression. He followed Pipes' gaze to his own chestplate, and the purple symbol emblazoned on it.
A dismayed 'oh' escaped him. He hunched and curled his tails miserably, and he broke into frantic explanation that they weren't with military or anything; not in the government or even anyone important. It was just that they used to be in the ranks, and now they were working directly for the government, so they never changed the color but it meant nothing really...
And all the while his optic band bore desperately into Pipes' face, silently pleading: Don't leave because of that!

It was more that expression than anything else that helped Pipes regain his composure. There was no war here, he reminded himself with some effort. The purple foxface was just another symbol; it didn't announce an enemy anymore. Someone not too popular, perhaps, but not an enemy.

"Hey, easy, it's fine," he said, with a slightly strained smile, which did little to reassure his distressed companion. "It just... surprised me, I guess. I didn't expect a..." he grasped for the expression he heard yesterday, "...a high-up in a scrap yard." He laughed half-heartedly, completely failing at dispersing the awkwardness hanging in the air. Not knowing what else to do, he moved to inspect the engine and poked a bubble of rust on the far side.

The bubble gave a high-pitched squeak of protest, and Pipes jumped and stared with wide optics. "What the-- Wait a minute!" Shoving all worries aside, Pipes poked the bubble again, and watched it shy away.

"Look at that!" he called, and rolled the engine to better expose his find. "Rust leeches! That's what's been messing up our scans!"

The small, rust-colored parasites were a major pain in the aft of every space-ship maintenance crew. Not only were they easily overlooked in a visual checkup, oh no. They also gave out a weak magnetic field - too weak to register as an anomaly on a scanner, but strong enough to alter the readings, hiding the damage caused by their presence. Oftentimes they were discovered only after the ship was flooded from a pipe they ate through.

"Pests!" Cavvy leaned over the engine and poked one as well. "They must have pierced all the piping in the hold above engine room." He peeled one leech off and squashed it with disgust. "And look how many of them! It will take half a shift to get them all," he fretted.

Pipes grinned. "Nah, don't worry. I've got it covered." He rotated his pipes back in place, and aimed at the leech-infested metal. "Um, step back a little," he warned, and when Cavvy complied, he shrouded the parasites with a cloud of his trademark corrosive gas.
An acrid smoke rose, high-pitched screeches filled the air, and the ground was pelted with shrunk, burned bodies.
Acting with oftentimes practices speed, Pipes produced a can of anti-corrosant from sub-pocket, and sprayed the engine with a thin layer of greenish foam. It came in reaction with acidic gas, neutralizing it quickly, and evaporated almost as fast.

"There. Good as new."
Cavvy was in awe. "That's so neat! What kind of gas is that?"
"Ah, that's nothing," Pipes demurred modestly. "It's some custom mix a friend designed for me. It comes in handy sometimes. Except for when my tubing ruptures and it gets in my wiring." He shuddered at mere memory of such occurrence. "It burns like you wouldn't believe."

Cavvy made a concerned noise, and immediately promised to talk with a friend of his, who was a brilliant chemist, and would surely come up with some protective internal coating.
"That'd be great," Pipes agreed. He didn't think anyone could come up with a suitable formula if even Perceptor couldn't, but it couldn't hurt to give it a try. "So," he said and patted the engine, "where do we take it?"

"No good," the police-bot announced to his friend/superior. "We'll get nothing from the office. No dirt left - a maintenance crew went through there at the end of the third shift and they didn't slack on the job. In the recycler there were some traces of silicon and carbon, so not much help there. The sub-department asks if we're making fun of them, this jump is 'untraceable and undoable'. We do have visual from the cameras, so at least we know how they look like, I already sent out the descriptions." He passed data pad with slightly blurred still frames.

"Few sightings from the patrols, here, here and here." He lit three lights on the holomap to illustrate.

"One of patrolers broke up a starting fight - some war veteran didn't take kindly to good-willers symbol - here. And then one of the suspects used a City Guide - here. And that's it. Poof. They're gone. Not a peep from them until the main suspect was arrested - here."

"Using a City Guide as well, right?"
"Right. And before you ask, we don't know what he was looking for. It didn't seem important at the time, and it's a busy sector. Before we were sent to retrieve the information several other people used it and the records were completely overwritten."
"Pity. But what we do know is we are looking for a group of ten mech; strangers to the city, presumably with no currency, and presumably tired. So check all abandoned buildings, known hideouts and motels on the two-- three topmost levels in about three grid radius from the point where the trail ends."
"Yes sir."

The second of Mondern, one forth into the second shift

A small watchtower (which was in fact a top of a tall but buried watchtower) stuck out of one of garbage hills. A very bored guard sat sprawled in a chair placed in its shadow, and watched a monitor of a small movement detector.
"Movement at 2-4-78 point 2-3-5," he drawled with that universal 'I'm so bored my CPU is stalling' tone of voice.

The second guard, sitting at the top of the tower turned and found indicated spot with the sights of an electric rifle. "Got it, aaaand..." - he pulled a trigger, and something squeaked in the distance - "Got it! What's the score?"

"Two hundred eleven since our shift started. This city has more retro-rats than inhabitants, I tell you."
The gunner laughed. "Well, that's what you get from letting students in the city. There's a semestral break at Mekanikos, and students are designing the pests just to keep themselves occupied."

"You don't say," the watcher murmured, and tilted his head over the backrest to look up. "And you know this how?"
"Been there, done that, got caught and kicked out for it," was the cheerful reply.

The watcher scowled at the sky. "Don't talk to me. Okay? Just don't talk to me."

The gunner laughed knowingly. "So by how much you failed the exam this time?"
"Ten points. TEN freaking points."
"Aww, don't worry, you're improving. Just three more decades and you'll get there."
"'Jack, I'll kill you. All right? I'm gonna kill you."
"Umm... all right."
There was a brief silence.
"Any time today?" the gunner asked encouragingly.
"Oh, shut up." The watcher rolled his head to look at the monitor. "Movement right under your nose."
"Wha--?" The gunner leaned over the banister to look down, and blinked at the sight of two dirty mechs. "Hoooly Primussss, Cavvy, what did you do to yourself? This time?"

Sounding a little apologetic, Cavvy explained the leeches/fuel-leak correlation which led to his current disheveled state.
The gunner shuddered. "Bleh, leeches, yuck! Mech, you're devoted. Me? I'd rather sit up here and shoot things. Oy, down there!" He turned to his colleague and chucked a small piece of junk at his head. "Wake up!"
The watcher reluctantly lit his optics. "What?"

"You heard the mech?"

"Yeah? So?"

"So, mark the area as pest and fire hazard! Moron. Do you pay so much attention on your tests too?"

"I hate you," the watcher murmured sullenly, and started typing new information in the scrapyard system.

"Are they brothers?" Pipes inquired with a snicker, helping Cavvy deposit the engine in a scarce shadow.
"Um... I don't think so. Why?"
"Well, I know this pair of twins, you see, and they sound just like those two most of the time."

"Twins? Really?" Cavvy asked with interest as they set out in the direction of Alteenians' station. "What are they like?"

They walked away, the smaller mech gesticulating to his tale, the bigger one's tails swishing happily over the ground.

The pair of guards watched them go for a moment. Then the gunner looked down at the watcher.

"So, are we brothers?"
"If we were, I'd shoot myself. Movement at 6-5-75 point 1-3-7."

"Hey boss, want some bad news?"

"Shoot."

"The CS from the Glares recognized our marry band. They helped him fix some shades and rented a room in the seediest motel I've ever seen. They weren't there anymore when we visited, but they left this." The cop held 'this' up. "Our tech says it's surprisingly well maintained piece of ancient trash. There's some garbage that could be a kind of message on it; I already gave it to the coders to chew on, but I won't be surprised if they choke on it, it's really weird. And the other thing..."

"Yes?"

"They spent some time digging through the net. Guess what they were looking for?"
"Maps?"
"Bravo. Among other things, but it's the maps I meant. And guess what they were looking for on the maps?"
"Go on, I can see you're all loaded to tell me."
"Well, it's funny actually, I though that one of the names looked familiar when I first saw the list, but I only got it after I saw where they wanted to go..." the police bot leaned in and tapped the name in question. "Remember the guy?"
The ranking cop frowned thoughtfully, and his subordinate smiled grimly.
"It might help your memory chips if I tell you that they plotted a course that would take them from that seedy little motel, through the downtown, through the Plaza, and right into... tadadam... Triple H."
The ranking cop thumped the data pad on the table.
"Hot damn."
"Yep."

They exchanged looks.

"All right, change of plans. Any further clues - and the suspects IF we can find them - are to be sent straight to Kaon. If Wingspan wants to cross 3H, he can rusty well do it on his own, I'm not going to."
"For you've made that mistake once already."
"Shut up."

The second of Mondern, four fifth into the second shift

With sub-pockets weighted with looted goods and spirits lifted up to the sky, Pipes and Cavvy made their way back to the watchtower. They said hi to the guards and collected the engine (which someone had thoughtfully moved so it would stay in shadow as the suns rolled on the sky).
They were still obscenely dirty, and getting a bit low on energy, so it felt only natural that Cavvy invited Pipes to drop by his place to get cleaned and refueled.

On their way to a scrapyard exit they stopped once more to dig up something interesting that Cavvy's tails sensed.
'Something' turned out to be five six feet long metal bars. Cavvy was elated, because one of his friends loved working with that particular alloy. Of course, his other friend could make the alloy any day, but it needed to be stored for at least two centuries to acquire mechanical qualities the first friend valued so much, so this bars would be perfect.

Since metallurgy was on Pipes's list of things-that-would-make-a-good-hobby-if-the-war-EVER-ended', he voiced his interest. Cavvy was more than happy to explain the changes on molecular level that occurred in aging metals. It occupied them all the way to Cavvy's home, which was why Pipes only noticed the structure when he was right in front of the gate, and he did a massive double-take.

"Whoa. You live here?"
"Uh-huh," Cavvy nodded happily, punching in the pass code. "Come on, let's go to the wash rack first; they'd kick us out anyway if we came in the workshop covered in this stuff."
"Uh... okay..." Pipes didn't really register the reasoning. He was still too busy gaping at the building.

He had somehow expected Cavvy to live in something resembling the motel they were staying in. Or in a hired apartment at best. But this? This was a mansion. Big, segmented and yet compact building, designed and built by someone who wanted to have a living space for several mechs, small factory, workshop, warehouse, small ambulatory wing and Primus knows what else at the back, all in one place.

Each segment had boundaries clear enough to identify, but not separated enough to break the mass of the building. And although they were all designed and adorned in one significant style, each one had little twists and touches taken from traditional municipal architecture, which allowed to easily recognize each segment's purpose. Pipes's gaze skipped from one little detail to the other, easily recognizing them from Huffer's and Grapple's peace-stories.

"Classy," he finally commented. "Hey Cavvy, wait up!" He jogged to join his friend as he entered the wing with narrow yet tall windows, typical for communal baths - and sure enough, there was a spacey wash rack room inside. And the dispenser hanging on the wall promised a variety of cleansers that would made even Sunstreaker stop scowling and squeal with joy. Pipes grinned.

The second of Mondern, nearing the end of the second shift

After they both gleamed like a cut crystal, Cavvy led the way through what at the first glance looked like a maze of corridors (although later on Pipes learned it was very easy to navigate once you knew the pattern).

They found Cavvy's coworkers scattered in the workshop, tinkering with their projects. (In one case the project seemed to involve bending spare support rods in tight spirals, but hey, who was Pipes to judge?)

"That's my team," Cavvy said cheerfully. "Hey guys! This is Pipes."

All the mechs present turned to look at them, and Pipes found himself under close scrutiny of red optics and optic bands.

"Pit, that was fast," the mech with the support rods commented. "The warrant only just came out."
Cavvy tilted his head in visible confusion. "What warrant?" he asked.
"Arrest warrant, what other kind is there?" the mech huffed, while the rest took several steps to take a closer look at Pipes, and Cavvy protectively pulled the minibot closer, at the same time demanding to know what his friend was talking about.

Pipes barely noticed. Ever since he walked in the workshop there was a little nagging voice in the back of his CPU, telling him he was missing something important. But it wasn't until he saw the synchronized, almost choreographed way the 'team' moved together that he realized that he knew those mechs. Granted, he only ever saw them few times before, and with Earth altmodes, but he still knew them. And they were a very bad crowd for an Autobot to fall in with.
"Oh, scrap," he murmured under his breath.
Which pretty much summed up the situation.