Loose Cannons (Cas)

[Sporky]

( www.youtube.com/watch?v=mR3jnW2kcUs&feature=related THIS IS THE OFFICIAL THEME SONG. ORIGINAL THEME DO NOT STEAL. olololololololololo)

Crime never changes. Never.

You get all bright-lensed and excited when you're in the academy. You're gonna save some folks. Make a difference. Feh. They spoon feed you lies and hope so you won't break down the moment you hit the streets. Oh, sure. At first you think you're just starting off slow. Thing'sll pick up. Beginner's unluck.

But then, it hits you. Maybe some wacko gets jacked up on deathsticks and guns down a restaurant full of people. Maybe some punk decides he's had enough and hacks up his family so bad you'd swear they were choice Dewback cuts. Whatever it is, you realize that it ain't ever gonna change. You get into a rut, cases blur into each other, perps all look the same. You get old, weak. Your CPU starts to lag, your servos get weary. You start to realize there's only one way outta this line of work: Retirony

Crime. Crime never changes.

---

Smoke wafted up from a myriad of desks as officers all buzzed about their business, working on cases they either didn't care about at all, or cared about far too much. They were all in different stages of a lawkeeper's life cycle, but they'd all end up the same in the end: Dead, or as grizzled old detectives with nothing left to lose.

One of the latter clanked along the halls of this out of the way, middle of nowhere police station on some far forgotten corner of Coruscsant. He was old, he'd seen his fair share of the mundane, the odd, the despicable. You name a case archetype, he'd seen it. and now his optic lens was just a little dimmer, a little glazed over. He was Detective Scraphead, one of the most senior officers on the force. He hadn't been promoted to chief yet, simply because he refused a desk job.

The current chief was Masterson, some young upstart with a permanent brown stain on his nose. He'd kissed up, whined, pleaded, and begged, and he'd got the job. Scraphead held no love for the little punk, and he had a bone to picked with him.

"MASTERSON!" he roared in the deep, distorted voice that was his vocalizer. With one sweep of a durachrome-plated arm, he burst into the room, once again splintering the door and breaking a hinge. Masterson sighed in response, rolling his eyes. "Yes, Scrap?" he asked with feigned enthusiasm. "What favors may I do for such a decorated officer as yourself?"

This remark was met by a three-fingered durasteel fist slamming down on the desk that had long ago been reinforced by a rpevious chief, as well as a single orange optic lense being shoved all up in his grill. "I work this force for nigh-on eighty years, grinding my gears and busting my ball bearings, and what do I get? SOME RECKLESS OLD PILE OF SCRAP THAT'S CLOSER TO RETIRONY THAN I AM!" he barked, rage emanating from his rusting frame. Old or not, Scraphead was still intimidating, and Masterson couldn't help but shrink back just a smidgen, though he put on his best steely gaze, no doubt honed more in front of a bathroom mirror than through actual use. "I'm the chief, I call the shots, Scrap! You know that! And I know you're too gorram proud to quit! So do tell me, was there a point to this little visit other than once again destroying my office door?"

Scraphead pounded Masteron's desk again, then turned and walked away silently, muttering incomprehensible curses all the way down the hall.

[Casual]

MASTERSON!

The words rang throughout the office unhindered, a wide-open door the culprit to the un-muffling of the uproar. The green officers were startled at the boisterous beration, while the rest of the room continued as normal. They knew the Scrap's nature. What they didn't know was that he was about to be partnered with an officer who had a knack for the same hijinks.

R4DE, also known as Rade, leaned and floated against a wall in the polar opposite direction of Masterson's office. He stared as blankly as fixed photoreceptors could allow, had he had a face, a permanent scowl would have been affixed to it, and he would have had a glare for every passerby that dared reach three feet of him. He had little tolerance for three things: crime, incompetence, and the little umbrellas they put in glasses of juma juice sometimes. All of them are for pansies. He was no pansy.

When he heard the insult spewed from within Masterson's office, he slowly meandered towards the office, subtle rage boiling out his bolts. These old bulldogs can be just as frisky as pups young times, and all of 'em had the temperament of a rancor, to boot. He'd been on the force too long to even care about his actions, they got the job done, and whoever couldn't see that needed to be retired via ion cannon and melted down into something useful. Like a doorstop. The irony being that the one he drifted through no longer needed one.

He replied to the insult in a cool and nonchalant voice, as if he could care less at the arrogant bassard's remark:

Ya got a bone tah pick with me, Scrap-heap? Save it for off-duty, there's poodoo hitting the fan bigger than tha both-a us and our differences, an' if ya can't see that, getcher photoreceptors checked, ya lunk-a junk.

He stared Scraphead down for a long moment before turning to Masterson. In the same cold voice, he shouted at the tin-can he held little love for.

Whaddya got for us? Make it fast, too, I have little tolerance for havin' tah look at either of yah.

[Sporky]

Scraphead's rage dissipated into simple crankiness about three seconds after his little tirade. If he weren't a droid, he'd have made a beeline for his office to relax with qa bottle of 190 proof grain alcohol and a cigar. Instead, he had planned to head on down to the req. officer and see about getting some new power cells for his guns.

Unfortunately, he found himself face to face with an old dog that had no doubt been cast from the same die as he. R4DE..he'd been here longer than anyone, his years of service closing in on the triple digit mark. There was a brief moment where Scraphead simply stared at his elder, then shook his fist weakly and shook his head, turning and heading back into Masteron's office.

"Panty Raid is right. You put us together for a reason, and it had better be a gorram good one, or there'll be a bright green hole through your torso."

Masterson simply eyed the two old officers for a few moments. Scraphead and Rade...he suddenly felt very sorry for any young whippersnapper who decided today would be a good day to commit a crime.

"Scrap, you remember a case 40 years ago, five punks in brightly-colored spandex started butcherin' scientists? Sayin' science wasn't the will of the Force?"

You could almost hear the gears seizing inside Scraphead for a moment. Both of his hands clenched into fists, the sound of metal scraping against metal shattering the silence that had been left in the wake of Masteron's words. "Power...Rangers..." was the reply after what seemed like an eternity or four.

"Exactly. Seems they've sprung up again. Same victim, same MO, same graffiti. I don't think anything else needs to be said. The Sark Industries R&D labs, in the fancier section of the planet. Get going before I charge you for that door."

Slowly, Scraphead turned to Rade, shaking his head slightly. "Well, old man, you heard 'im. Can you make it to the garage under your own power, or do I have to carry you?"

[Casual]

For a moment, Rade thought the world was on pause as the hunk o' junk wuss-ball of a cop committed what must have passed for "processing" in his noggin. Rade had to check his internal chono to make certain time was even moving at all. Then, Scrap-for-brains spoke up:

Power...Rangers...

He said it with enough malice to kill a small kitten.

Masterson explained the situation, Rade intentionally internalized all he said. He actually had to focus on the old man - a punishment worse than retirony in and of itself - to even remember what he was saying anymore. His circuit-boards just ain't what they used to be.

Well, old man, you heard 'im. Can you make it to the garage under your own power, or do I have to carry you?

The medley of mismatched metal must've been off his rocker. He was already out the door looking at him.

Why don'tcha keep up sonny, there won't be much left-a these murderin' ballerinas by the time you even get out the door yeh knocked dpwn, you ol' coot.

Rade zipped off towards the garage, he may be old, but he still had some bustle in his hustle. Of course, he also had a bit of loco in his motion, as his repulsorlifts weren't what they used to be. He somewhat wobbled when he moved too quickly. He called back at the lug-nut:

I ain't got all day to stand around yackin' we got some gorram murderin' namby-pambies on the loose. Let's do this thing!

He "wheezed" as his circuits gave a jump, and reached for the controls, punching the door to the elevator button. The music that started playing as it opened was about the only thing that kept this place sane to him.

"Today's music ain't got the same soul, I like that old time rock and roll"

Rock and roll, indeed.

[Sporky]

Scraphead had been utterly lost in wave after wave of seething old man rage. Power Rangers...he'd put a stop to them forty years ago, after countless lives had been lost, all innocent..frak, they'd pay..they'd all pay..he'd shove his shoulder rifle right dowbn their gorram throats, every last one of them.

"I ain't got all day to stand around yackin' we got some gorram murderin' namby-pambies on the loose. Let's do this thing!"

"Eh..huh? Wuzzat? Who said- Oh...HEY!" he bellowed, lumbering off after the hovering little old man that was already halfway to the elevator. Mumbling curses, he shambled into the elevator, the pure unadulterated awkwardness blanketing the tiny compartment in a thick haze that you'd need an ultrachrome buzzsaw to cut through.

Then the music really sunk in, and he started grumbling about something else.

"Gorram youngin's..with their hip-poprap and their Dance Dance Hero Fallouts...they don't know what music is...I swear I actually heard of a gorup called the Music Factory..everybody dance now, indeed..."

[Casual]

The tunes that played in that magnificent elevator could not last long enough. Rade didn't even realize that they had reached the first floor of the building. They, however, were headed to the basement floor. A bipedal protocol droid who went by the name of Buck walked in. What the massive and miraculously locomotively-functional droid did not seem to compute, was the weight capacity of the elevator in which they all now stood (with the exception of Rade, who floated). This caused the descent into the basement to proceed in a more eventful manner.

If the shuddering of the device they all rested their very motherboards on was not indication enough, the speed at which they were moving was quite possibly enough to wet a Mandalorian's pants. The problem was, however, that none of them had the biological advantage of equilibrium and balance. Their means of discovering the rapidly approaching ground was through that of the convenient viewport on the opposing side of the door. The gravity of the situation only seemed to cause concern for Buck, however, as Rade was perfectly indifferent to the will of fate on his miserable life, and not to mention, the current song playing sounded like a dying Wampa and was referred to as Bustin Jeiber. Should the elevator cause his death, there could be no better time than now.

The will of the powers-that-be would not let him off that easily, however. And the elevator caught itself as they neared the ground. Buck was the first off, as he waddle/ran from the contraption that darn near killed him (as he did every time he rode it, the poor thing really needed his memory diagnosed). He was soon followed by Rade, who commented to Scrap as he departed the elevator:

Teh! Kids these days.

He drifted his way towards the only other thing that kept him going all these years. A transport that was his pride and joy...

[Sporky]

Oh...lovely. Bustin Jeiber. THIS slaggin' kid again. Shaking his head, Scraphead tried to turn out the infernal wailing coming from the speakers, and decided to peer out the viewport at the city.

She was all he had ever known. She was his mother, his lover. He knew her darkest secrets, and in turn she knew his. She was his city, and he'd seen her held in the tight vise of fear 40 years ago. A grip that he had personally wrenched her free from..

Slag it, he was [Size=3[/size]NOT[/size][/b] going to see it happen again. His city would never again feel that sort of fear! He slammed a clenched fist against the interior wall of the elevator. He would end this once again. He would free Coruscant from the Power Rangers once and for all!

In his enraged contemplation, he hadn't even noticed the elevator approaching ludicrious speed. He exited calmly at ground level, still muttering and mumbling about random things from the case 40 years ago....until his optics took in the gleaming, beautiful piece of point A to point B before him.

"Get'cher motor runnin'...head out on the highway..."

[Casual]

The pride and joy sputtered and stuttered to life, attempting with all its hunk of junk being to lift itself off of the garage ground. The repulsors hummed and groaned until they had finally succeeded in lifting the small metal case and its passengers off the ground high enough to begin their ascent through the high "streets" of Coruscant.

Like a conquering hero, Rade rode in the driver's seat, his utility arm attached in the vessel's mainframe port. Driving for him took absolute concentration. He had to float, look and control. Simple. Especially going quite high over the posted speed limit. It was ok, though, because their craft's lights only half-worked. Meaning that they flashed on a good day. Meaning they weren't on as they flew past other ships.

Blasted young'ins Rade said as he roared and sputtered past a flashy looking transport Think they own the road, ther slow as a dead rancor baby...

Rade really didn't know what he was saying as he was driving. His processors tended to overstimulate while he drove. Hopefully they'd get to their destination safely, if not, the vehicle had an override driver system put in place on the passenger side, should the need arise. This was of course, installed AFTER Rade's first signs of seniority.

Get outta theh way, ya crazy one eyed-wampa! I'll break yer leg like a Jawa on stilts! Don't make me come over there ya half-witted Nerf nose!

Those Power Ranger namby-pambies weren't going to know what hit em in the tuckus.

[Sporky]

Scraphead had to make a conscious effort to keep himself from bursting into fits of laughter as Rade drove. Much as he wanted to piss the little old man off, he knew that would most likely end up with Rade flipping the vehicle upside down. And that was not good...so he flipped on the radio.

No..no...eww, Music of My Groin, again...Bustin Jieber..good lawd, what was with these youngins nowadays? Back when he was a little cog, there was none of this computer-enchanced singin' mahoozits!You either sucked or you were good! Now, bah..anyone could do it, long as they knew someone who could work a dang holoconsole..bah.

Oh..hey...smooth crusin' music, this was the stuff! Best thing on the radio, anydanghow..

He leaned back in the seat, slowly dimming and finally offlining his photoreceptor, then went into standby. Years of data flashed before his CPU's eye. Happy times, before he'd signed up for the school, thinkin' he was gonna change somethin'. The slow realization that nothin' you could do would ever change anythin'...40 years ago. Power Rangers. He'd lost good men to those multicolored freaks before they were taken down..he couldn't help but twitch in rage, even through his standby..now some punk got it in their heads that maybe they'd been right..had taken up their cause, started killin' again..

With a roar of renewed fury, he jolted back online. "I'LL KILL 'EM! I'LL KILL 'EM ALL! EVERY GAWSH DARNED BLASTED DANGED COTTON-PICKIN' RELIGION' SPEWIN' SPANDEX-WEARIN' BUG-EYED SPOTTY-LIPPED OVERSTUFFED HALF-ROTTED BRAINLESS PLUGLESS HOPELESS MUTATED KUNG-FU FLIPPIN' ONE OF 'EM!"

If he weren't a droid, he'd be panting in fury right now, and that outburst probably would have sent his blood pressure sky-rocketing...nah. It was good, though, gettin' all that rage out at once. Damn good..