Transformers: Steel Reign

[Charon]

Shellshock perked as Blindside's message went out on all channels. "Oh pits." He glanced over at Overload. "Two guesses where the Decepticon is gonna be going. Stay here and prepare, I'm gonna go pick up a few surprises from the armory." With that Shellshock ran out of the CR chamber and started towards the nearest armory. He openned a channel to Blindside, hoping it wouldn't get jammed. "Blindside, do not engage. I repeat, do not engage. Wait for backup."

[SirNitram]

"You got it." Overload planted his feet and steadied himself, gripping the blade firmly. Until Shellshock got back, he'd have to rely on sheer brutal close combat, never a fun thing to do in such tight quarters against a total unknown.

[General Havoc]

This was a surrealist nightmare.

An Autobot materialized out of nowhere and made a broadband transmission regarding the presence of an unknown Decepticon outside the base. Now everything was shot to the Pits. By Primus what the hell was an Autobot doing up on top of the damned mountain?! Sightseeing?!

Stealth was no longer an option. The Autobots would send some five dozen guards out to see what the matter was, and good as Reaper was, he knew he wasn't good enough to manage that. There was a time for being stealthy, invisible, and undetected, and then there was a time for when one had already been spotted, and there was nothing left to do but shoot people.

As he resumed full-scale frequency jamming (so what if the Autobots used it to determine that there was a threat. The game was already up), he spun around to face the mountain, spotting the metallic wolf sprinting back up the hill. It was a diversion. It had to be. The damnable thing was trying to occupy Reaper long enough to let his friends get into the fight, long enough to take Reaper down. Reaper might have smirked if he had possessed a mouth in vehicular form. Sometimes one achieved great results by swallowing the bait. The Autobot wanted Reaper's attention. Generally this was a bad idea. Attack helicopters also possessed claws.

And then Reaper blew up the mountainside.

A barrage of high powered missiles streaked out of the rocket arms on either side of his fuselage, detonating all around the unfortunate Autobot, who was caught with enough firepower to fell a human armored battalion in seconds. Dozens of rockets, 105mm Pyroclasm-class rapid fire missiles, with the power of an anti-tank warhead packed into them, atomized the entire hillside down to the bedrock. Reaper's electron weapon blasted out in place of a chain gun, strafing back and forth and back and forth over the area that the Autobot (Breakout, according to the broadband transmission), was so ostentatiously running through. The barrage lasted barely a second or two, enough time to unleash more than fifty unguided rockets down at the Autobot. Indeed, so much firepower did Reaper deploy that he then proceeded to turn back around towards where he had disabled the previous Autobot sentry, and lob another dozen rockets at the unmoving form of his unconscious enemy.

The Autocannons at the front of the entrance were just now coming online, and Reaper had no interest in challenging them, but he would determine the state of the threats to him before proceeding.

[rhoenix]

Just as Blindside heard an aborted message from what sounded like Shellshock, the hillside erupted in a hellish conflagration, completely obscuring a large part of the hillside Blindside had been climbing with hellish flames, ash, and shards of rock. Just as the barrage ended and the Decepticon turned to loose another barrage in Stryke's direction, Blindside had emerged from the flames now belching from the hillside behind him, flying sideways to hit the Decepticon heavily in the side, his claws on his functioning limbs digging in to hang on.

Blindside could feel his hindquarters in this form cooling now from the great heat; most of his skin had burns on it from the hellish eruption of missiles. Large, melted and charred craters dotted his form, and his underbelly was still burning from the direct hits he had taken in leaping into the line of fire. His right shoulder and hip were sluggish at best in their reaction, having taken direct hits each multiple times from the rockets.

However, he knew what he must do. His perception of time began to slow down as his mind cleared of all thoughts, and grimly sunk his claws into the Decepticon with his relatively undamaged left fore- and hind-limbs, and held on as best he could with his weakly responding right limbs.

[General Havoc]

Apparently, this Autobot did not know how to take 'no' for an answer.

Claws dug into Reaper's armor, lighter in chopper form than in humanoid, but still substantial enough to withstand a mere impact. The claws were somewhat more of a problem. Ribbons of stealth material were lacerated from Reaper's frame, causing warning lights to flash. For now, primary stealth containment had not been breached, but that clearly wasn't going to last. This called for desperate measures.

Reaper's form shifted, twisted, rent a bit, and then suddenly he was no longer a helicopter, but a humanoid Decepticon robot, and Blindside's claws were no longer dug into his weapon pod and passenger door, but into his left arm and side. With nothing more to support him in mid-air, Reaper dropped for a quarter second, stopping with a jolt as his powerful antigrav generators kicked in, arresting his descent as though he had landed on the ground. Red optics bored into Blindside, who was about to make the acquaintance of one of Reaper's personal friends.

Specifically his scythe.

He did not hesitate, or try to rip Blindside off of him, and instead spun the scythe on his right forearm around to attempt to plunge it into Blindside's form like a pickaxe. The Autocannons below had given him an unpleasant idea, and he was looking for a very specific system within the Autobot's body, fortunately one that was broadcasting a nice long signal to him, enabling him to find and bisect it.

At least that was the plan.

[rhoenix]

Seeing the Decepticon change so quickly, and glare at him with a baleful red gaze, even to Blindside's slowed perceptions, made his choices few. Seeing his opponent draw back his right arm, the arm that had a long, wicked-looking scythe where a hand should be, illustrated Blindside's precarious position.

Twisting the claws from his still relatively functional left limbs currently digging deeply into the Decepticon's left arm, Blindside then yanked them both free at the same time, beginning to freefall downward. With his golden eyes not leaving his enemy's baleful red ones, he transformed painfully into his robot form, his body almost not responding due to the heavy damage he had taken on his right side. As it was, his right leg had shorted out, and his right arm was about 25% functional. Even so, he wasn't finished.

Immediately after his transformation finished, his eyes not having left his opponent for an instant, he touched his clenched fists together in front of him in the old Metallikado tradition as he nodded slightly. The gesture was simple - it was an old Metallikado salute he had been taught that meant "I name you as my opponent. As long as energon beats within my body, I will not stop until you do."

He moved his arms perpendicular to his body then, the savage claws atop his wrists and feet sprouting forward.

[General Havoc]

The Autobot let go and plunged into a freefall. That was perhaps his only reasonable course of action, which is why Reaper proceeded to follow him.

The Antigrav unit in his boots forced him upwards as the weight was suddenly relieved, so he tilted his center of balance, upending himself like a trapeze artist until he was facing straight downwards, head pointed towards the ground. Then he let his antigravs go, and dove after Blindside, swinging his scythe downwards to fishhook the Autobot as he fell.

It was a ridiculous maneuver, an impossible maneuver, one that only a practiced master of Metalliko might have even considered. It was even more ridiculous to actually parry such a blow, but the Autobot did so, not once, not even twice, but four times in a row, both robots plunging downwards as fast as gravity could propell them. Whoever this Blindside was, he knew his fighting, certainly. Unfortunately, Reaper knew it better.

The fifth strike, the last Reaper assumed he would have time to make before the Autocannons opened up on him, was not a mere stab but a reverse grip slash instead. A straight blade might have been parryable, but even a computer could not calculate all of the angles involved with a scythe/saw. It tore into Blindside like a machete into tissue paper, a deep, solid slash, not enough to kill by itself.

Unfortunately again, Reaper had a very specific plan.

The blow cut Blindside's IFF transponder in half, silencing it instantly. To the Autobots, it would appear as though Blindside had been killed, which was near enough to the truth, for having done the damage he wished, Reaper's anti-grav unit activated once more, arresting his descent, ripping the scythe out of Blindside's body. Even that would not have been fatal...

... except that Blindside now fell straight into the line of fire of a dozen autocannons seeking targets... and he no longer had an IFF transponder to mark him as an Autobot.

And as Reaper pulled upwards as quickly as he could, he permitted himself a grim smirk of satisfaction at having bested a competent opponent (for once). The autocannons would finish the rest, and leave the Autobots that were no doubt racing to the rescue with something to think about. Nothing like friendly fire casulties, all out in plain sight, to deliver a good old fashioned morale jolt.

Meanwhile he needed to find somewhere to hide. Fortunately, he had a Plan C. He flew up and over the lip of the caldera of the volcano, and plunged down into it, not slowing or hesitating as he checked his containment seals. His left arm was punctured, which meant this was going to hurt. A lot. But he activated his autorepair systems and his internal segmenters to make sure no circuitry got damaged, sealing off the damaged areas moments before he dove headfirst into the molten lava, and sank like a stone into the raging furnace of the volcanic crater, his temperature gauge reading 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. Hot, but not hot enough to damage him. In here he would be all but invisible to every sensor ever made, and he could prepare for his next move. The mission still stood, even if it had gotten... interesting.

But then he hadn't had an interesting mission in long enough that he was willing to accept one as a gift.

[rhoenix]

At first, Blindside could not figure out why the Decepticon would stop after only one deep slash, one that had not punctured any of his critical systems - especially after he had made the Decepticon work so hard at getting it through. However, just as the Decepticon pulled up and rocketed upwards, Blindside chanced a look at the ground to gauge the distance to impact, and noticed the defense auto-cannons beginning to track him. Then it dawned on him with awful certainty - his IFF module had been silenced.

Changing into his wolf form to absorb the harsh impact of hitting the ground from such a height, he finished and braced himself right before landing. Unfortunately, before he even had a chance to land properly, the automated auto-cannons opened up, belching lead at hypervelocities to pepper his form from multiple vectors. He bounced awkwardly against the ground, the bullets tracking every millimeter of his movement, and promptly responding to it with a hail of metal moving at hypervelocity.

As he hit the ground for the second time, Blindside very briefly thought of his shadowy opponent, the one who created a raging conflagration, the one with a scythe for a hand, the one who had made him fall prey to the automated defenses surrounding the base he called home. He resolved that this would not be the last time they met. These were his last thoughts as his golden eyes went dark, his body shutting down into stasis lock.

[Dark Silver]

Blindside's body was coated in burn marks where the fires had heat scorched it, yet other portions of his chassis had thin layers of a dull substance, not unlike ash and soot.

As he fell from Reaper's attack, the ash grew brighter, turning a brillant red, then white, as it burst into flames. The heat was intense enough to melt armor and circuits beneath, filling Blindside's frame with intense sensations, pain sensors overloading as vital circuitry was consumed in a internal conflaguration.

As the first hypervelocity slugs and energy beams sliced into Blindside's body, he was already begining to go into stasis lock, by the time he finally fell, his body was holed through in all but his head, char marks from the intensely burning chemical coated the little armor he had left....

As the body slumped to the ground in finality, TELETRAN ended the firing cycle, a few hypervelocity slugs still enroute, along with a trio of particle beams. Blindside was in stasislock, when his Laser Core was snuffed from exsistence, and his internal fuel stores ignited like a small bomb.


There was not enough left of the martial artist to even place in a CR Chamber, by the time Red Alert and Blind Fire arrived, the component scraps of Blindside had already turned grey with death.

"Red Alert to Optimus...." he Autobot Sergent spoke, "Blindside's gone."

Red Alert picked up a peice of scrap at his feet, the half charred, half slagged faceplate, shaped like a wolf...

[Dark Silver]

Blind Fire moved away from Red Alert, looking over the debris at the source of the explosion - the destruction of Blindside's body. When he transformed from his car form, back into Robot, his optics fixated on a pulsing object.

Somehow, despite the amount of firepower, and the ignition of the Energon in Blindside's body, somehow the cranial unit remained....heavily damaged, but the head had not turned the pallid color of Cybertronian death.

"Red Alert!" Blind Fire shouted, rushing down the crater to the precious cranial unit, "He's still alive!"

Carefully, Blind Fire picked up the head, craddling it, before he started back towards the Ark......


-------

Helion had gone up the mountainside, picking his way carefully in his massive cyber-cat form. The metallic green skin showed dully in the starlight, as he approached the fire strewn and cratered area of mountain where Stryke's IFF still radiated from.

Helion stopped, Stryke's body was damaged, heavily, what hadn't been torn up by the rockets, had looked to be eaten and slagged away.

"Helion to Blades, priority e-vac, lock onto my signal."

Minutes later, Blades, the Protectobot helicoptor was hovering over the location of Stryke and Helion - the cat-bot loaded Stryke into the tray, and watched as Blades rotored back to the Ark's med bay....

The repair techs will have a long night ahead of them....

[Dark Silver]

Prime was about to call for Breakout, when TELETRAN had alerted him to what occured outside, it was against his better judgement, but he went to the Command Deck where TELETRAN-One was housed, instead of going outside to see what happened.

He made it just intime to watch Blindside become obliterated by the auto-guns, Ironhide grumbled, not being able to shut down the guns intime to stop the triplechanger from being seriously damaged.

Prime, on the other hand, was reviewing the vids of the battle, watching as Blindside attacked the black helicoptor, who then transformed into the dark figure.

Unfortunatly, Optimus knew the figure, knew it well. Though the exsistence was still a closely held Decepticon secret, and very few Autobots knew of his exsistence, but the scythe clenched it.

Reaper was in play.

As the damage reports came in from Red Alert and Helion, Prime felt the weight of the world, here, at the heart of Autobot territory, in their home base....the Decepticons had attacked, and put two of his own down. And Reaper escaped.

He had to be coming after Thundercracker...

"Ironhide, increase security sweeps, all sensor webs on active scan. This isn't over...."

Prime watched the screen, he still had to met with Breakout...and as such, sent the younger autobot the summons.

[LadyTevar]

Crimson didn't see Blindside's fate, she only knew when the IFF vanished. The only thing that kept her going then was the faint IFF still emitted by Stryke. She got to the front of the Ark just in time to see Blades carefully lowering Stryke's heavily damaged chassis onto a stretcher for transport inside. "No.... nonono... Stryke!"

She tried to get closer to see more, but was blocked by Skyshadow, who put his hands on her shoulders gently. "Easy, Crimson," the larger flier said, holding her in place until she finally looked at him and not Stryke. "He's torn up, but he's still repairable. Calm down, let the med-techs work on him."

Crimson tensed, watching as the stretcher was rushed down the corridor to the med-bays. Logically, she knew Skyshadow was right, there was no way she could help, she'd just be in the way. Emotionally?
"We'd had a fight," she muttered, not really talking to Skyshadow, just talking because she had to say something. "He said he was afraid he was gonna get scrapped next mission. I thought he was being silly... overly-dramatic." Her shoulders slumped. "He'd just radioed that he was coming inside to apologize. ...."

[General Havoc]

Hornet's voice suddenly popped up over the radio comm to Crimson.

"I'm all cleaned off!" he said with an exuberant chirp to his voice, having no idea of the chaos that had occurred outside. "Can I come and help out now?! What's going on?!"

[LadyTevar]

Nothing like a cheery reminder of things you forgot to derail your darker thoughts. "Oh, Primus... I left Hornet in the pressure showers...." Torn, Crimson looked up to Skyshadow, who seemed to understand what she was feeling.

"Go help Hornet," he urged, knowing it would leave her less time to worry over Stryke. "Can't have him running amok in an emergency, can we."

A half-smile, and Crimson nodded. "Right...." Turning away, heading back the way she'd came, she answered Hornet on the same frequency. "No, Hornet. Stay there until I come get you. I'm on my way now, and then I'll tell you what happened, ok?"

[General Havoc]

Hornet sounded puzzled over the radio comm, but did not question Crimson's orders. "Um... okay!" he said, with the sound of steam hissing in the background. "Is... is something wrong?"

[Charon]

Shellshock came to a stop as the doors to the armory openned for his transponder code. "Alright then... we've got a decepticon out there. Probably sneaky, probably has damn good stealth too." Shellshock looked around. "Gonna need to... ah ha!" Shellshock grabbed up a few electron grenades. They didn't pack nearly the punch that Crimson could, but every little bit would help. Shellshock quickly went through the melee weapons, finally grabbing a large, almost mace-like one that looked like it could take a beating. A few small motion detectors, and then Shellshock was off again after closing the door to the armory, running back for the CR chamber where Thundercracker was.

[LadyTevar]

What to tell the little bot? "I said, I would give you the sitrep when I got there," Crimson said a bit testily, striding down the hall, resisting every urge to turn down the corridors to the med-bay. Focus on Hornet. Take care of him, and Red Alert will take care of Stryke. Oh Pits... Hornet's probably not noticed Blindside's IFF is gone...

"I'm nearly there. Just... have patience for once."

[General Havoc]

Hornet gave a soft yelp of alarm at Crimson's tone that was audible even over the radio. "Y.. yessum..." he said nervously, now clearly detecting in Crimson's voice that something was wrong. He shut off his radio thereafter, not willing to antagonize Crimson further, but becoming afraid that something dreadful had happened.

[LadyTevar]

When Crimson came into the showers, there was a steamy mist in the air. That was solved by turning on the exhaust fan and turning off the water that Hornet probably could have reached. The next task was to find Hornet. ...

... who emerged sheepishly, still dripping wet but blasted clean of all the muck. As well as all his paint, down to bare metal.
Yeah... she'd be very busy with Hornet for a while.

It took her a full cycle before she could speak. There were too many questions that began with how/why/what that her logic processors warned her she did not want to hear the answers for. So she started with the simple ones. "Why are you still wet?"

[General Havoc]

Hornet lowered his head, sensing that Crimson was somehow upset with him again.

"The autodriers tickle!" he insisted. "I thought maybe instead I could go flying for a little bit and dry off that way?"

[LadyTevar]

"NO." The response was a little too forceful, as it came from Crimson's sudden fear of Hornet running into whatever Decepticon hit Blindside and Stryke. She was instantly sorry as Hornet winced and shrank back.

"Sorry, teenybot.." she said, sighly heavily and leaning back against the nearest wall. Think military. Spell it out for him. "SitRep is this, Hornet. Unknown Decepticon surprised Stryke and Blindside just outside the Ark. Both are ..." here she had to stop, as if her vocorder glitched for a moment. "Both are heavily damaged and have been rushed to Med-Bay, so there's nothing we can do to help them right now." The pain in her voice was audible, but she slowly straightened up.

"So.... we have an Unknown Boogie out there, and you're in here soaking wet. You are -not- going out there until you are completely dry, and we can get another coat of paint on you." And even then she would do her best to keep him from going outside.

[General Havoc]

Hornet yelped and jumped back as Crimson reacted violently to his suggestion, wincing and shying away, unsure what he had said wrong. He remained on the other side of the room as Crimson told him what had happened. As she explained, his optics slowly grew wider and wider.

"He... they... are they gonna be okay?!" he asked in a nervous, weak voice. He had heard the pain in Crimson's voice and feared instantly the worst. "Are they... they're not gonna... they can't..."

He couldn't bring himself to say it, but tears of wiper fluid were already forming in his optics.

[LadyTevar]

"Ratchet's going to get them back together," Crimson answered, both to convince Hornet and herself. "You know he got Overload fixed, so he can fix Stryke as well, right?"

Fembots can't cry, but seeing Hornet about to leak lubricant again made Crimson want to break down as well. "Get in the autodrier," she said, her voice rough from her own emotions. "Sooner you're dry, the sooner we can check on them, ok?"

[Cynical Cat]

"This is Deathstrike," the transformer said over the general frequency. "Can someone please give me a sitrep?"

[frigidmagi]

Teltran I had dump a report to me. But it had not ID the Con infiltrator. A unknown Con of rather powerful abilties that had just destroyed two members of my squad. This is rapidly turning into the 3rd worse cycle of operation I've ever had!

I contact Deathstrike.

"Prime still wishes to see us. The Sitrep is that an enemy attempted to inflirate the Ark and was stopped at the cost of two of our squad members. I will give more details when we are face to face if you will wait for that. For now report to Prime please."

I call the rest of the squad.

"Until I can get back, Shellshock is in command. Do not go anywhere alone. If you are able gather in the medbay. Guard Striker, Blindside and Thundercracker no matter what until you have futher orders. Breakout out. "

I hurry to report to Prime.