Title: Torturer Wanted
Universe: IDW 2005, Pre-Canon
Characters: Tarn, Original Character
Rated: K+
Description: There’s an opening in the DJD, and Tarn reluctantly interviews a mech to take the spot.

Tarn eyes the mech sitting across from him, slouched in the chair as if to prove he is not intimidated, and glances over the dossier he’s compiled on this mech, this Pillager.

He is grateful for the mask which hides his sneer.

Pillager is clearly a newly assumed designation, a pathetic attempt to strike fear into the sparks of the Autobot enemy alone, for no Decepticon would be alarmed by a mere designation.

Well.

Unless said designation is on the roster of the Decepticon Justice Division.

Once more, Tarn angrily thinks of Tesarus, who had the audacity to blow himself up in a laboratory accident and create an opening on Tarn’s team. If there is anything that brings out the false followers, the stupidly hopeful, the mechs who think they are dangerous, it is an opening in the Decepticon Justice Division.

“So is this interview gonna get started anytime soon or…” Pillager rolls his neck and gives Tarn a grin, his sharpened denta polished to gleaming in the overhead lights.

Sharpened. Denta.

Those paltry modifications might make a low-ranked Autobot soldier quiver in the trenches, but they wouldn’t startle even the weakest Decepticon.

Tarn puts the datapad down and folds his fingers atop it. There is nothing the dossier can tell him about Pillager’s qualifications that he cannot divine on his own with this parody of an interview.

Next time, Tarn is going to recruit instead of opening up for applications no matter what that idiot Starscream screeches.

“What makes you believe you are qualified for a position on this team?”

Pillager kicks out a foot and grins -- arrogant, unafraid, foolish. “I mean, I got a good track record when it comes to tearing apart mechs. Got no problems with it either. Like to hear ‘em scream, you know.”

Tarn cycles a ventilation and keeps his field in check. “There are thousands of soldiers who are capable of that very thing. What makes you more qualified than any one of them?”

“I got a strong spark, which means I can be modded any way you want me to be,” Pillager says, and the rush of hunger in his field points to the reason he’d applied in the first place.

Everyone knows that when it comes to powerful weaponry, the DJD get their pick of the best toys.

Pillager straightens then, looks Tarn up and down, and says, “I’m bigger than you. That ought to count for something. I don’t need a cheap party trick to scare mechs.”

Tarn cycles two ventilations before he makes the mistake of killing the mech here and now for the simple crime of being an irritating moron.

“Thank you, Pillager,” he says, lifting the mech’s dossier and adding it to his stack of rejections. “That will be all.”

“So I got the position, right?” Pillager asks.

“We’ll let you know once I’ve conducted the rest of my interviews.” Tarn gestures toward the door, internally commanding the ruffled edges of his armor to smooth.

Pillager grins and leaps to his feet -- yes, he’s a large mech, but size does not make up for the rest of his appalling personality. “Sounds like I got the job.”

“Sure,” Tarn says and points to the door again. “Speak with Vos on your way out.”

“Yes, sir!” Pillager’s salute is both sloppy and uncoordinated.

He leaves.

Tarn sighs.

He hits the intercom. “Send in the next candidate, Vos,” he says, and nearly ends the comm before a devious thought smooths over some of his irritation. “And tell Helex he’s welcome to play with Pillager for a while if he’s bored.”

Tarn releases the intercom without waiting for confirmation, and glances at the next dossier.

Scissorsaw. Hmm.

Well at least this one’s designation is more creative than the last.

***