East Coast: Where the Wild Things Are

[Botanica-3]

The jungle green surrounding the temple is wild, much wilder than the forests near the decimated base, so it is small wonder that when she sussed out the Warchilde's destination, Botanica followed his hunting party. She loves this place, she does, and only that odd, niggling feeling in her spark has kept her from fleeing here before now.

She saw the broken one before the altar, and the green and growing is strained, annoyed at the intrusion of these metal giants into it's peace. She does not care what that wicked, wicked Prime has planned- what's more she'd like to see it fail horribly. These are not her people, no, not her kind... but he is strong, horribly, horribly strong, violent of temper, and he has no love for her. Rodimus Prime would burn her, burn her and all the green and laugh as the trees cried.

So she is not too near to the temple, no, but close enough to be near to hiding Decepticons and Autobots, perhaps. She holds up one of her hands, watches the green fuzz she's been so carefully tending- so carefully altering-squirm along her skin. A silent command and it begins to multiply, falls to the ground and begins to seek out metal alloys. Specific metal alloys, from a specific planet.

She is very curious as to if her experiment will work.

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OOC: Thread open to anyone who'd like to tangle with the crazy plant lady. Botanica-3 is a wild card, and her fuzz is looking for Cybertonian alloys to nom on. Please keep in mind that this thread is happening within hearing distance of the Offering thread.

[Rattrap]

This is Rattrap, multitasking. Trying to get "his" division in line, probably more than a little on the late side – this is what he gets for putting it off – trying to keep a low profile when the bad guys have their big button-pushing mousetrap less than half a grid away and….

And Grimlock has just walked. Right. Into it. Shouting his toothy, fool head off all the way.

"You big, dumb, pea-brained lizard!" Rattrap hisses under his breath in Grimlock's general direction, clapping one paw over his muzzle and grimacing. "They can prob'ly hear ya all da way back in Cybertropolis…!" Why? Why do the saurians always have to do things the dangerous and stupid way? Does the machismo overload come pre-installed? Is it part of the DNA? Because Rattrap is very in favour of a little creative genetic engineering to fix that problem, permission from command to go play a harebrained game of cat-and-mouse or not.

The smart thing for the rat to do now is double-check his surroundings and back away a little further from the treeline, so in reverse goes Rattrap after a quick and possibly unconvincing parting encouragement to Sir Gnaws-a-Lot and his entourage, carefully putting some distance between him and the stage… and putting one foot into something soft. Soft and kinda fuzzy. His fur stands on end and he sneers, looking back under an armpit.

"What da heck–?" Is it moss? Mould? And is it growing?

[Botanica-3]

While Rattrap is puzzled and distracted by the ever-growing green fuzz, strong, supple vines are sliding beneath the thick fuzz toward the rat .

A melodic, happy cry rings out just before the vines strike, swiftly wrapping themselves firmly but gently around Rattrap.

"Rattie!"

Not her Rattie, no no her Rattie wouldn't come, but it's a Rattie, a soft and fuzzy and grumbling Rattie, and all Ratties must be kept safe and as far as possible from the nasty Prime and his people.

Botanica drags the scrabbling, squirming rat into her arms, one finger going to her lips, "Shshshshssh!" She flinches at the unmistakable sound of the Warchilde loosing his fury. "Careful Rattie Not-My-Rattie! Careful and quiet, else he turn his Darkflame our way. He does not like us, no no, he doesn't."

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OOC: pouncing and posing of Rattrap done with player permission.

[Rattrap]

Ambush by vine is a good way to make Rattrap foster doubts about his manliness. It tends to make him squawk and screech in very undignified ways. But he's seen some videos in his time and if you'd seen them, too, you'd make some pretty unmanly noises.

That it's Botanica doing the snaring doesn't much help. One, she's a slightly unsettling earth mother hippie sort. Two, he knows the right Botanica shouldn't be here; she's supposed to be out playing in the grand sandbox. Three, she does not call him "Rattie". In fact, nobody, but nobody, calls him "Rattie". So he kicks and he thrashes – oh, he should've transformed – and he twists trying to get loose, hissing all the while.

Until he realises just what's the wrongest thing about this.

She's cuddling him in her arms. He can already feel his circuits crawling.

"Whadda you think you're doin' hushin' me–" he starts, only to fall very silent very quickly. Did he hear her right? Nothing's in his ears? She's… trying to protect him from her nutjob boss out there– Oh, no. No, no, it's a trick. She's rubbing his fur the wrong way already and she's got him dead to rights, too, because she's bigger than he is and he doesn't have anything but claws and teeth right now. Stupid fursuit. Okay, time to try the old Rattrap charm and do this the old-fashioned way. Get talking, rat. "Oh, I know he don't like us, Sprouts," he echoes sullenly – and quietly! – while crossing his forelegs. His whiskers twitch and he muffles a discontented chitter; Botanica smells like wet leaves. It's cloying and making his nose itch. Ignoring that, he adds as if hurt, "You coulda warned me first, y'know."

[Botanica-3]

Botanica titters and beams down at Rattrap when he settles down. When he complains about her lack of warning, though, she cocks her head, expression growing thoughtful, calculating.

"Oh, oh, but if I warned you, Rattrap, you would have scurried away, or worse, tried to hurt me, you would. I'm not your Sprouts, no, no." She ruffles the fur on the top of his head, "You need to stay like this, yes, or my babies will hurt you. Furskin is perfect, fools then, but you would be tasty in your other form Too tasty." She brushes some of the squirming moss off Rattrap's back.

She skritches Rattrap behind the ear, a touch her Rattrap usually finds soothing and pleasant. "Smart, like my Rattie. Trying to lull me, you are. No worries, Rattie, I won't hurt you. The others though, all of them..." her expression turns feral, vicious. "They should all be food for rust, especially that wicked Prime!"

[Rattrap]

For an instant, Rattrap's dead sure his teeth-grinding is audible. This petting and patronising is even more embarrassing than that time, back in the long-ago days when he was still a gawky young mechanoid, he ran into the new company secretary with his gearbox cover hanging open.

Lesson learned: Never assume there's no chicks on the ship.

Today's lesson is to let the kooky chrysanthemum ramble, because she doesn't much pay attention to the choice bits of info she's dropping. This mossy mould stuff is bad for metal, is it? That's good to know, and not just for Rattrap; he passes that one along for the sake of his fursuit-lacking comrades. Then he gives crazy Botanica what he hopes is a nice, winning smile, buck-teeth and all.

"Me, hurt a lady?" he quips. "Nev-ehh…." That's a sensor cluster behind his ear and oh man this is so wrong even for Rattrap and he should make sure she doesn't do that again. No more slack-jawed boneless pile of spy while the plant lady starts ranting. Don't get the rat wrong, he's all for making the demonic Rodimus a pile of slag – hey, let's take out those 'Cons while we're at it – but he draws the line at doing it to everyone. Some of those metalheads are his friends. He used to be one of those metalheads! "Yeh, especially dat Prime." Pick and choose. "Have you seen what he did to dat park what used to be near the base?" wonders Rattrap, voice dripping with scorn. He hasn't, actually, but he can guess, and he can guess what pushes Blossom's buttons. The normal Botanica is already pretty touchy about plants.

Now, maybe this one doesn't care. She's using them as weapons, unless Rattrap's drawing the wrong conclusions about the moss stuff finding him tasty in robot mode (and is that ever an unpleasant thought)… but she calls them her babies. And she's got one raging mad-on over the "others". It's worth a shot and if it saves Rattrap's hide while he's at it, all the better.

"And the Botanica we got spent all dat time cultivatin' and growin' those plants, too," Rattrap mournfully adds. Such a shame, that loss. Isn't that evil Prime such a bootleg?

[Botanica-3]

Botanica does not use the green! She teaches it to defend itself. That it also defends her is merely another facet of their symbiotic relationship.

She snorts in a rather unladylike manner when Rattrap tries to play coy. "You'd hurt a lady faster than I can spit, you would, if you thought she were an enemy. Or if she wore the Predacon symbol, which is one and the same to you. You gave Blackarachnia much trouble in my time, yes you did."

When Rattrap starts pushing buttons, her fingers fist in his fur, and the ones playing at the base of his ear become a bit rougher than may be comfortable. "Yesssss," she hisses, "He has no respect for anything that grows, no matter how young, or special. Almost none of them do."

Congratulations, Rattrap, you've irked off the crazy plant lady. The problem is that the plants in the immediate vicinity are responding to that anger. Not only is the fuzzy mold increasing and moving out faster, but ground vines are slithering about, grasping, and brambles are beginning to form a tight circle around them. Brambles with wicked sharp thorns larger than one of Botancia's hands.

[Rattrap]

Okay, so the sarcasm isn't quite so spot-on with this Botanica. Duly noted.

"Ehh… 'Cons are a different thing," Rattrap mutters nastily, lips curling. Even 'Cons who wanna play at being the good guys. Of course he'll fire on a 'Con, "lady" or not. "They're all– Yeeow!" Rattrap is a tiny little furry thing in very large hands that are grabbing way too tight. "Hey! Watch da fur, watch da fur!" he screeches, tail lashing back and forth, teeth bared in a grimace. "Why're ya takin' it out on me, anyway? He ain't gonna care!"

Sensitive buttons. Yeesh.

[Botanica-3]

Rattrap's screeching and twitching break through the madness clouding Botanica's mind and she relaxes her grip. "Sorry, Rattie, sorry, sorry. he makes me so angry, he does, with his burning. Corrupted, he is, he and the matrix feeding off the other, off the darkness, evil evil."

She bends her head and gives Rattrap a quick peck on the nose. "And look how angry he makes my babies!" She gestures wildly at the slithering plantlife. She watches the seething green, and she seems to suddenly shift moods. She looks down at Rattrap thoughtfully, her manner much calmer, and even the plants pause in their movement.

"But what to do with you, Rattrap? I can't let you go, but I can't just stay here and hold you. Surely you've called for help to save you from the mad plant witch by now." A sigh. She sounds almost like her alternate now, "I do miss my internal radio, I do. What to do, what to do...?"

[Rattrap]

Great. She's nuts and canny. And creepy.

And she kissed him. If the normal Botanica ever asks, this never happened. Ever.

"Help? Nope," Rattrap answers in a rare moment of honesty. Not that he might not need a bit of a hand here, but his options are limited if he doesn't wanna ask someone to wade into metallivorous moss on his behalf. And one of those options has way too many legs for his taste. "And who said you hadta stay here and hold me? There's always stickin' it to that stinkin' wannabe Prime." And not smooshing Rattrap with big thorny vines.

…Okay, so now is when he calls for help.

[Botanica-3]

"Hmph. Sticking it to him is easier said than done, Rattrap. He's a tricksy one, he is." She shifts Rattrap about in her arms so she can drum her fingertips on her chin. She shakes her head, "No, no, better to stay away, watch and wait and see what happens."

She quirks a smile, "I may have to tie you up, methinks." Yes, she likes that thought.

[Blackarachnia-3]

Scurrying through the foliage is an over-sized Black Widow. This isn't the first time she's had to deal with Botanica, but it's the first time she's had to rescue a Rattrap from her.

She's not comfortable with this. She doesn't know how Rattrap is going to treat her. But.. she has to do this.

Getting closer to where Rattrap is supposed to be, she makes her way up a tree, continuing to approach the entangled pair from a raised surface.

Blackarachnia is taking efforts not to be noticed, but if you think you can spot her, feel free to do so.

[Rattrap]

Just a nano-klik. Rattrap's supposed to be the pessimistic one!

"Sure," he grumbles,"and dat's puttin' it mildly. Never thought I'd run into somebody who out-creeps Eight-eyes, dat guy sure pulls it off and y'know, he ain't th' only– whoa!" Tie up? He waves both forepaws in a dismissive gesture. "Hooooooold it! No thanks there, Audrey. Nothin' kinky onna first date." And that's his cue to scramble from this sinking ship.

He twists and tries to kick away, because he just loves a good rat race.

[Botanica-3]

Her grip on the scrabbling rat tightens again, "But you like kinky, you do. I-" Botanica breaks off, head tilting sharply to one side, as if listening. Her eyes narrow, and she bends her head down to whisper into Rattrap's ear, "And you are a lying little vermin, you are." She nips at his ear.

The problem with trying to sneak up on Botanica through trees or any foliage is that she is always acutely aware of their "feelings." There is something in their swaying branches which should not be. She does not know what, or who, but there is something- and that knowledge is enough to set her on edge.

She does not look up. She does not need to look up. The thorny vines already twined in the jungle canopy slither toward the source of the trees' disturbance. If she knew it was Blackarachnia, Botanica would be loathe to do the spider true harm. The widow is to become her dear friend after all. But if the choice is between Blackarachnia and Rattrap- or Botanica's own life- there is no contest.

[Blackarachnia-3]

Fortunately for Blackarachnia she is already in position, at a nearby tree above the pair.

A line web is launched at Rattrap. As it launches, Blackarachnia drops down from the tree immediately. The plan is to launch a line onto the Maximal and then, using her own weight, yank him free from Botanica's entanglement.

"Hold on!"