Botanica-3
Cadet
Audrey II second cousin, twice removed.
Posts: 73
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Post by Botanica-3 on Dec 11, 2008 11:14:07 GMT -5
"I am no weed!" Botanica snaps indignantly, "I am a Zantedeschia Alata Utricularia, a flowering carnivorous plant. Not only beautiful, but useful, as it prefers to snack on creatures detrimental to many other species." She snorts, "A weed, indeed! Idiot!"
Her eyes narrow, though, when Kup pulls out his musket. She's seen what he can do with the weapon. If she wants to continue poking the politician, she will have to be very, very careful.
"But I've done you no harm, Old Man. I am merely watching and talking. Do I frighten you so much that you feel you must attack me first, hmmmm?" She smiles again, "Besides, you're likely safer here, and it gives you an excuse for not aiding the Prime. You despise him as well, do you not?
While she talks, her lower vines have slipped back into the soil. At the first sign of hostility, Botanica will drop back below ground.
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Post by Kup-3 on Dec 11, 2008 21:31:38 GMT -5
"And here I thought you were a /Transformer,/" Kup answers, faintest of smiles on his expression as he traps Botanica into admitting something he's long believed: that these semi-organics are not proper Transformers. Granted, she hadn't intended it that way, but that doesn't particularly matter to him.
"And please. Don't think me so foolish as to believe it's complete coincidence the walls got softer the moment you showed up. I merely want out. You're the who's chosen to impede my progress, Cularia, and in doing so, well, my hands have become freed."
"You're wrong about Rodimus, however. I don't despise him, though..." and here he shakes his head. "He is not my Rodimus."
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Botanica-3
Cadet
Audrey II second cousin, twice removed.
Posts: 73
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Post by Botanica-3 on Dec 11, 2008 23:06:34 GMT -5
Botanica bristles again, "Oooooo, you arrogant, outmoded-," she breaks off, biting her tongue- both literally and figuratively. The ancient Autobot is baiting her as much as she's been baiting him. She will not give him the satisfaction of a seeing her loose her temper. At least not right now.
"I am a Transformer," she counters, voice deliberately even, "But my alternate mode is not a weed, which was what I was explaining. Something you knew from the off."
She watches him warily. So far Kup is being...relatively easy-going, all things considered. But that will not last, she is sure, "Mmm, you know my mere presence encourages growth. There are many, many tiny seedlings buried in the sands. I do not have to actively encourage them for them to grow and soften the soil." She tilts her head, as if listening, "Oh, oh oh, and I am not the only me here, it seems. Double double, toil and trouble!"
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Post by Kup-3 on Dec 12, 2008 20:17:32 GMT -5
"Why so angry?" Kup answers, the right corner of his lip lifted just a slight bit higher than his left, marring the otherwise polite and attentive expression. "I wasn't even the one to bring up talk of weeds, or to compare other Transformers with them. If you'd throw words around so casually, don't be too shocked when they're tossed back at you."
"So... if your presence encourages their growth, then you're telling me that by being here, you're a threat to me? You claim to have done me no harm, but you won't just leave and let me be on my way, either. Even knowing that if you're around, and the other you is around..." he doesn't yet lift his weapon, but instead looks down at the musket, as though checking its condition. "Why, it'd be very easy for us to mistake one for the other, wouldn't it?"
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Botanica-3
Cadet
Audrey II second cousin, twice removed.
Posts: 73
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Post by Botanica-3 on Dec 12, 2008 21:36:48 GMT -5
She tucks her head back so that her eyes barely peek over rim of the hole and hisses, "Not a threat if I don't actively wish to be, but if you attack me, you will find out how big a threat I can be!"
With the next breath, she is all smiles again, sing- songing, "Make a mistake and kiss a snake, how many medic will it take? All the little lambs follow the wolf, thinking it will protect them from the other wolves but that is not the case. For once the wolf has proven itself alpha, he will turn upon his flock and devour it in turn."
She slips beneath the sands again, circling the hole, once, twice, before popping back up again and saying, "He's not yours and you're not his, and well he knows it true. What if the other you is more like his, what will he do with you?
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Post by Kup-3 on Dec 13, 2008 16:43:13 GMT -5
"But don't you always actively wish to be a threat for anyone but Rattrap, my dear?" Kup asks casually as he approaches the wall of the pit. One hand still holds the musket, but with the other he rakes down the side, sending more loose dirt around his feet. "After all, don't you despise the rest of us 'outmoded heaps of scrap'?"
Now Kup almost casually kneels down next to the spikes and pulls one of them out, then hefts it experimentally. "And it makes no difference how like his Kup the other Kup is. This Kup stands against him, not with him." Kup throws the spike hard into the side of the pit, then smiles when he sees that it, at least, sticks in the wall.
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Botanica-3
Cadet
Audrey II second cousin, twice removed.
Posts: 73
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Post by Botanica-3 on Dec 13, 2008 18:36:50 GMT -5
"Hmmmm, there is a difference between actively harming and wishing one harm," she titters, sounding entirely too pleasant, "While I might be perfectly happy to see you melted down into slag, it does not mean that I wish to be the one doing so at any given moment."
She watches Kup find a rather creative solution to his dilemma. Oooo, not fair! He's not supposed to do that! Botanica calls shenanigans! Now what is she to do? She can't best the politician in strength or survive his weapon's fire. She must think on this a moment.
Meanwhile she continues to poke. "His pet used to have a worse bite; you think the Prime can't make your mirror more amiable as well?" She laughs darkly, "I slip around and hear things, Kup-truck, and this Kup is a warrior born. Whereas you spent...how many vorns sitting on your ancient aft?"
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Post by Kup-3 on Dec 13, 2008 20:31:34 GMT -5
Of course, if Kup's intent were to actually battle Botanica, he could have done so from the bottom of the pit as well as the top... and this Kup does not favor brawls so much as his alternate. "Typical," he snorts. "So intent on being the future that you'd just as soon melt your own past to slag. That works, until it comes back to bite you."
He pulls up another spike and throws this one a bit higher.
"'Warrior born'? What, you're saying this Kup is a Decepticon? Odd. I didn't hear that." For, after all, is that not what marks the difference between Autobots and Decepticons? The fact that the vicious Decepticons were built for warmaking, while Autobots were made for peaceful purposes, and are therefore a superior bunch. Is this not the Autobot justification for years of oppression? Never mind what Kup would never point out, that he himself was built during war for the purpose of waging it, that he's as much military hardware as any Decepticon, for all that he's only ever worn one sigil.
Another spike pulled, another one thrown. One more, and he'll have a ladder.
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Botanica-3
Cadet
Audrey II second cousin, twice removed.
Posts: 73
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Post by Botanica-3 on Dec 13, 2008 23:36:25 GMT -5
This is the problem with taking Botanica too literally. She of course meant no such thing. But explaining what she meant would take too long, considering her mood at the moment. The madness she battles constantly is coming all too close to taking control.
She snorts, "Neither did I hear any such thing, but that does not mean he did play kingmaker to his king. One Kup, two Kups, which one is the better Kup. Which will be the Kup that lives and which be food for rust?"
Botanica hums a wordless little tune, wondering what to do, what to do. She is growing bored with taunting Kup, and that niggling, burning part of her mind is pushing her to do more than taunt. Tiny vines are winding around the stakes remaining in the ground, and the ones Kup has already thrown into the wall.
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Post by Kup-3 on Dec 14, 2008 21:04:20 GMT -5
Kup pulls up one more spike, and frowns at the resistance. He looks up at Botanica, optics narrowed, then looks again at the ladder he's making. He needs to find some way to keep her from interfering with his attempts to get out of the pit.
Perhaps offer himself as a potential ally? Feign sympathy for her cause? The thought disgusted him, but he was *very* good at faking approval and interest when there was none.
"So. So busy telling me who I shouldn't be following." He throws the last spike, then looks up. His musket... is shuffled into subspace. "Who I shouldn't be listening to. And what? You think you've found a better way?"
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Botanica-3
Cadet
Audrey II second cousin, twice removed.
Posts: 73
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Post by Botanica-3 on Dec 14, 2008 23:15:30 GMT -5
"Mmmmhmmm, I didn't say you should follow anyone, or shouldn't listen to anyone, merely mentioned possibilities. After all, you are soooooo good at protecting your shiny metal aft, but you can't do that if you are not aware of all the options, yes?"
She raises a brow at Kup's question, "You ask me for advice now? Tricksy, tricksy." She shakes her head, "I've no way but my own way, and that way is out of his way."
"What are you about, Old One?"
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Post by Kup-3 on Dec 16, 2008 12:18:25 GMT -5
If keeping you talking lets me get out of here, thinks Kup, I'd ask you for hair-do recommendations.
"If your way is out of his way, why are you here?" Kup asks, grasping hold of one of the bottom rungs of his 'ladder'. "Botanica, I'm not the 'old fool' you seem to take me for. Your philosphy is not one of 'live and let live.' You mean to say if he were out of the way, your way would still be out of ours? Your own behavior doesn't follow."
He pulls himself up another two rungs. He's climbing fairly fast, despite the slow, casual tone.
"Just what are you after, Botanica?"
Hmm. It would seem that Kup has not actually answered Botanica's questions.
Funny, that.
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Botanica-3
Cadet
Audrey II second cousin, twice removed.
Posts: 73
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Post by Botanica-3 on Dec 17, 2008 1:36:58 GMT -5
"I don't know why I need to stay near you lot, but I do!" she spits out, looking more feral every word. "Something, it burns, tugs, deep in my spark. Drove me near mad before I found my way here, it did, and I want it to stop!
Her eyes are wide, wild. Kup has all unknowingly hit upon a Very Big Button for the plantformer. More vines twirl around the spikes in the pit and wall, though the doing is not a conscious effort on her part.
"I want to find my way back to my place, same as you, same as all, and what must be done will be done," she hisses, then mutters more to herself than to Kup, "That you all can not see perfection of evolution is your blindness and my failure. If there were but one other, perhaps more progress could be made...."
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Post by Kup-3 on Dec 17, 2008 9:55:21 GMT -5
Kup, seeing the state Botanica is reaching, goes to scramble the rest of the way up the ladder before she decides to start focus on keeping him in the pit once more. He doesn't actually respond to or interrupt her ranting this time, at least not until he already has a hand on the surface proper.
"One may be a fluke, and two might be a pattern," Kup points out, "but as long as it's only one reality that took that route, I doubt you'll do much widespread convincing."
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Botanica-3
Cadet
Audrey II second cousin, twice removed.
Posts: 73
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Post by Botanica-3 on Dec 17, 2008 12:22:26 GMT -5
"But we do not know for sure if it is the only one," she counters, shrinking back from the pit's edge as Kup reaches it. "Just because dates and years do not add up, does not mean that another's reality will not reach the same point. 'Pretenders' they have said, an organic shell...it is but a step away from having an organic alternate mode, and that is what leads to this" She indicates her own form.
Botanica's eyes dart from side to side. The plantformer looks ready to bolt at the slightest provocation.
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