Fleetwind
Major
The Chancellor, His Eminent Grandeur, Marquis Fleetwind. The Insurgent Subduer of A Non-Threatening Cute Little Furry Kitten
Twined Elf
Posts: 730
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Post by Fleetwind on May 12, 2007 9:10:18 GMT -5
See "Magnetic North" in the "Locations Description" thread for a full description.
Fleetwind's awakening is painful, though not nearly as unpleasant as his last remembered moments of consciousness. He immediately shuts down the feed from his optic sensors and triggers a recalibration cycle - he's a visual with an improved long-distance array, but that'll be useless until he's adjusted to the bright.
One thing the bright makes clear, however, is that he is not covered in broken-building under an eternal night-sky, which is one of the two most likely scenarios for his reawakening. The other is that he was eaten.
Still without re-activating his optics, he considers that possibility. The intense light, extreme cold, and strange material on which he lies, seem unlikely for Unicron's internals, but not impossible. The magnetic fluctuations were annoying, but they appear to occur at entirely too random of intervals to be indicative of surrounding circuitry. Still, he could be wrong there, as well. After all, the pale Seeker has absolutely no comparative experiences on what it's like to be on the inside of Unicron to measure against, a fact which he's rather grateful for.
Finally, the Seeker re-initiates optical feed and sees endless pale blue-violet sky. Ah. Definitely not the inside of Unicron. This is the surface of... certainly not Cybertron. The pastel pyramid decides he'll have to start working on unlikely situational scenarios, since this is not covered by any of the likely ones. Still, he can't help but feeling... relieved; it would be difficult to imagine any circumstances that could be worse than the ones he off-lined in.
Fleetwind begins to look around, and he sees that he is not alone. His optics widen and his jaw drops, and he kicks himself for forgetting that there's a whole lot of very, very bad that qualifies as "not worse than a giant, transforming, planet-devouring monster trying to extinct your species."
If he were human, perhaps the phrase, "Out of the fire and into the frying pan"* would occur to him right now.
*No, this is not backwards.
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Omega Supreme
Minor
Shorter and Coloured Funny but Still Angry as the Pit
Posts: 456
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Post by Omega Supreme on May 12, 2007 12:56:34 GMT -5
Omega Supreme never deactivates while on the job. Never. The rocket base stands tall, as the tank circles on its track as ever-vigilant sentinel. Perhaps he even stands his shifts too long, and those long times awake and aware tear at his fragmented mind, but no defragmentation cycle will ever make him whole again. The only things a defragmentation cycle might bring him are nightmares.
Words cannot express his dismay at awakening and not knowing when he put himself down, but words are such filthy little liars. Omega Supreme wouldn't have anything to do with the wretches, if he could avoid them.
Possible options scroll through his mind, as sensory data trickles in, thick and slow. His optics refuse to online, citing overload. He could have run out of fuel. Times are tight. People debate the necessity of Transformers as large as he is. He likes to think he would have noticed, but hard as he has worked to ignore the hunger biting into his tanks, perhaps he ignored too well. Maybe his protesting systems had conspired against him and sent off to defragment, deciding he had put it off quite long enough.
The other option is that someone or something external knocked him out. Magnetic fields are torridly strong here. The gravity is wrong. Omega Supreme is a spacer, and he doesn't need to sight to reckon that this place is not Cybertron. He had to get here somehow, although he has no idea where 'here' itself is. Omega Supreme knows that his options ran to the dangerous side. He would not be overly shocked if that was a penal colony, although a weapons-check - all there and functional, if pitifully low in charge - makes that possibility remote.
His optics online to searing white. He first ascertains it as cold spectrum white, not the warm spectrum heat of a star, which is rather consistent with the frigid reading his thermoreceptors report. Relief flickers through his circuits. He struggles to ascertain if there really anything more to it than just white. It occurs to him to look up, although the magnetic fields make him a little fuzzy as to which direction is up. His turret swivels, and he sees a sky painfully blue, touched with violet frost.
Omega Supreme has context now. He is situated in a frozen wasteland. The radio waves are distorted, bent and tied into Gordian knots. He listens, all the same, and he fancies that hears snatches of something, but it could be the howl of the wind, for how certain he is.
The defence base has more than just context. He has a target, in the one bit of warm colours in this blue-blasted pole. There is a pale yellow Seeker. Omega Supreme transforms to robot form, and the ice cracks and moans beneath him. He rumbles, "State intent."
There is a remote chance that the Seeker knows something about this place or even brought Omega Supreme here. There is a better chance, he reasons, that the charge on his weapons will be even lower shortly.
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Fleetwind
Major
The Chancellor, His Eminent Grandeur, Marquis Fleetwind. The Insurgent Subduer of A Non-Threatening Cute Little Furry Kitten
Twined Elf
Posts: 730
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Post by Fleetwind on May 12, 2007 15:28:41 GMT -5
Fleetwind leaps swiftly to his feet as Omega Supreme transforms, then he crouches, arms held out from his body, palms downward, fingers splayed, ready to take flight at a moment's notice. "Erm... survival?" the coward answers nervously, unable to keep the fear out of his tone. In the early days of the war, Fleetwind was occasionally part of assaults against Guardian robots, but it was always part of a rather large group and he never had to face the most powerful and most dangerous of them.
He scans the area as well as he can without taking his optics off Omega Supreme. This still provides a reasonably wide view, given the size of the other robot. He runs quickly over what he remembered of those other Guardians: firepower, armor, and strength that's rarely matched even millions of years later, but slow and clumsy. Fleetwind never took a hit from one, and likely wouldn't have survived it if he had.
The Seeker knows he can't beat this Autobot, and won't even try. All he needs to do is keep from getting hit until he can get escape, and maneuverability is on his side. So, to an extent, is size, because Fleetwind can fit in locations that the other cannot.
He mentally marks the location of the nearest black crack in the ice. No doubt it will soon be better to take his chances with the devil he doesn't know.
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Omega Supreme
Minor
Shorter and Coloured Funny but Still Angry as the Pit
Posts: 456
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Post by Omega Supreme on May 12, 2007 22:59:22 GMT -5
Omega Supreme has seen himself outclassed several times over. Rare is the Seeker who can give him any reason to worry, however. Rarer still is the worrying Seeker who does not possess suspension bridge-class spun steel cable.
This particular Guardian is also possessed of quite respectable aim, for it is not brute force code that guides him but a sapient mind that once even appreciated beauty and knew friendship. There is more to aiming then just mere trajectories. Weapons beg to be used, and they appreciate the intent to hurt and harm.
However, it is not the weapons that he arms right now. He just reaches out and lunges, wanting to snare the Seeker in his talons like a butterfly in a net, fearful and fit for the pinning. The Seeker may know something, if he doesn't, there's a fine line between holding and crushing, and Omega Supreme was always rather abysmal at colouring within the lines.
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Fleetwind
Major
The Chancellor, His Eminent Grandeur, Marquis Fleetwind. The Insurgent Subduer of A Non-Threatening Cute Little Furry Kitten
Twined Elf
Posts: 730
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Post by Fleetwind on May 12, 2007 23:24:17 GMT -5
No calculations contribute to Fleetwind's response, for it takes no calculations at all to determine that the Seeker's long-term survival is served better in the depths of darkness than left to Omega Supreme's not-so-tender mercies.
The Guardian lunges, and the Seeker leaps, zigging where a zag would be expected, escaping the closing claw-grip far more easily than he would out-race light. He wastes no more time on words, and instead rockets directly towards the ice-crack, transforming as he goes, trusting himself to be able to switch back swiftly should he want maneuverability over speed.
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Omega Supreme
Minor
Shorter and Coloured Funny but Still Angry as the Pit
Posts: 456
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Post by Omega Supreme on May 13, 2007 21:32:25 GMT -5
Omega Supreme is still loathe to use his energy weapons. Sure, he's the type to take a frying pan to a housefly, but his fuel situation is uncertain. So he instead dips down and scrapes up a rough ball of ice. He hasn't the manual dexterity to even hope for a true sphere. When the other Autobots were learning how to have snowball fights on Earth and how to play nice, Omega Supreme wasn't there. This is a rather wicked iceball. It's also huge.
Trying to be a one-man avalanche, he brings his arm back and then throws the iceball at the crack down which the Seeker is fleeing. Hopefully, the Seeker will be buried in an impromptu icy tomb.
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Fleetwind
Major
The Chancellor, His Eminent Grandeur, Marquis Fleetwind. The Insurgent Subduer of A Non-Threatening Cute Little Furry Kitten
Twined Elf
Posts: 730
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Post by Fleetwind on May 13, 2007 21:52:36 GMT -5
Fleetwind makes it to the crack in the ice, but hot on his heels is a ball of ice larger than he is. He cannot suppress a pathetic whimper as he hears the thunderous roar of the ever increasing amount of ice falling towards him. A visual sweep of the area told him he wasn't likely able to out-race it. The avalanche was already too massive for that.
His scan, however, does show him an overhang, of sorts. Shallow, not deep enough to be called a cave, but almost a ledge of sorts. He darts towards it and then flattens himself against the wall of the cavern. He doesn't calculate his odds for survival high with this maneuver, but it is higher than any others available to him. He stays very still and dampens his audio inputs as ice and dense-packed snow thunder past him. The noise goes on forever, but isn't so loud that it can't be drowned out by silence that follows. In the silence, there is stillness, and this stretches on for some time...
Perhaps Omega Supreme did succeed in entombing the Seeker?
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Omega Supreme
Minor
Shorter and Coloured Funny but Still Angry as the Pit
Posts: 456
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Post by Omega Supreme on May 14, 2007 17:55:29 GMT -5
Omega Supreme pauses to consider his options. He can assume that the Seeker is buried. That sounds dumb, even to him, and he is not one to do anything by halves. He can shoot the burial site. That might boil the Seeker. That might also just melt the snow and release him. He decides on just trampling the snow down and compacting it.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Omega Supreme is surely the world's worst dancer, and it shows, as he stamps down the snow with all the grace of a rabid moose. When he is finally satisfied with his job of it, he starts to tromp away. The Seeker did not appear to know much of anything useful, and he can come back and dig him out for a more thorough crushing at a later date.
Perhaps Starscream will appear and dig out the Seeker and send him over to the Autobot side by virtue of being so annoying. Hah.
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Fleetwind
Major
The Chancellor, His Eminent Grandeur, Marquis Fleetwind. The Insurgent Subduer of A Non-Threatening Cute Little Furry Kitten
Twined Elf
Posts: 730
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Post by Fleetwind on May 14, 2007 20:13:58 GMT -5
Fleetwind is buried under who knows how much ice and snow. This is... certainly not good. He waits for Omega Supreme's muffled tromps fade, and then he off-lines himself.
Not for long, only an hour or so. But if manages to find a way out of here at all, it's better to be sure that Omega Supreme has moved off by the time he does find it. Since he doesn't know when he'll be able to refuel next, however, he decides that it's best that he wait in the most low-powered mode available to him. He does a partial defrag, then comes back on-line.
He wriggles, to see how much wriggle-room he has. Thanks to the ledge, it's still greater than it might have been, but after Omega's compacting job, there's still not much. He can move his arms and can reach... his daggers. The Seeker draws them and activates them, internally wincing at the charge being burned. Meanwhile, he activates his thrusters, subjecting the ice below him to intense heat. That's not really the direction he wants the heat to go, but if it gives him enough space to flip around in...
They burn. They burn, and burn. Meanwhile, his energon-daggers cut and melt at the ice closer to his head, if more slowly. Before long, he has a good sized pocket of empty, large enough to flip around in. So he does, and ends up facing the other direction on top of everything else. The faint red of his optics then illuminate a wall that... is not made of ice. A hand that uses two fingers to continue grasping the dagger touches the metal, and he hmmms, wondering if there's a way to get that open before he runs out of energon.
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Omega Supreme
Minor
Shorter and Coloured Funny but Still Angry as the Pit
Posts: 456
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Post by Omega Supreme on May 15, 2007 14:17:16 GMT -5
Omega Supreme occasionally glances back at the stomped-full ice crack, just to make sure that the Seeker doesn't have a secret drill tank third mode or something like that. Everyone has an extra mode or transforming body part or something these days. It's enough to make Omega Supreme look boringly average, and that's a bit disgusting. It's hard to be the brooding outsider when you're exactly the same as everyone else.
Eventually, he stops looking back, and even if he did, Fleetwind's industrious work wouldn't show in the surface. He just continues his solitary trek, leaving cracks in the ice in his wake. He considers transforming and lifting off, but on most planets, polar launches are absolutely abysmal. This appears to be one of those planets.
Besides, Omega Supreme has no idea where he's headed. He hopes to hit a patch of better radio reception and transmission. Someone or something brought him here, and to do that, no small amount of power had to have been used. He vows to find out who or what.
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Fleetwind
Major
The Chancellor, His Eminent Grandeur, Marquis Fleetwind. The Insurgent Subduer of A Non-Threatening Cute Little Furry Kitten
Twined Elf
Posts: 730
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Post by Fleetwind on May 15, 2007 14:36:44 GMT -5
Fleetwind has no extra alternate mode. He really is boringly average, in that special sort of way that only Seekers can be.
What Fleetwind does have is a big metal wall in front of him (front being a relative term - he's also dangling upside-down in an empty pocket in the ice, after all). He touches it. Wall... or door? The Seeker checks the edges and decides he hasn't cleared out enough of it, but can he really spend the energon to...
Fleetwind smiles. Metal conducts heat. Very well.
The pastel pyramid adjusts his position until he can hold his feet against the metal. He braces himself... this is bound to get very very wet and very very uncomfortable for him, but it's better than dying.
Once more, he fires his boot-thrusters.
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Omega Supreme
Minor
Shorter and Coloured Funny but Still Angry as the Pit
Posts: 456
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Post by Omega Supreme on May 16, 2007 12:00:11 GMT -5
The ice and snow tends to get to people after a while. Usually, it’s the monotony, but Omega Supreme is up high enough that he has a fairly varied view of the surrounding, how the ice drifts rise to eerie, wind-shaped peaks. Some of the dagger like structures glint blue in the unfiltered sunlight, and the snow glitters like a thousand diamonds.
The Guardian covers his face with his claws, homesick for a home that is no more. He used to love the look of crystal, the way light placed through its facets. Now, it’s just another knife, stabbed through his core.
At his sigh, frost clouds form from his exhaust. Spires, even the air glistens! Omega Supreme looks back. His track is unmistakable. He hasn’t doubled back along his path.
Fleeing much colder than he really should, Omega Supreme continues his trek. Eventually, he makes it to a shore. Massive icebergs float deceptively placidly in the bay. The sound of water is soothing. Sea-avians fly about, screeching, and dive, down down, and nick the water. They pull up, beaks full of slivery piscines more often than not. The avians are unafraid of him, he notes dimly. He’s too big to prey on them, more like a living iceberg in funny colours, he supposes.
Omega Supreme stays back, unsure if the ice nearer to the shore can hold up his weight. So this is as far as he goes. Omega Supreme can follow the coasts for a little while yet, but it’s looking like there’s going to be no getting around a wretched polar launch.
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Fleetwind
Major
The Chancellor, His Eminent Grandeur, Marquis Fleetwind. The Insurgent Subduer of A Non-Threatening Cute Little Furry Kitten
Twined Elf
Posts: 730
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Post by Fleetwind on May 16, 2007 12:49:04 GMT -5
Meanwhile, back in the ice pocket...
Fleetwind was right in assuming his jets would make things very unpleasant, but he also succeeds in completely uncovering the door. And in completely soaking himself. At this point, he's hovering above a rather large pool of trapped water, ice above him, ice behind, ice holding the water in place, and a rapidly cooling metal door in front making for slightly less ice and more water by the moment. But it is, indeed, a door, and while thick by the standards of many smaller organic species, is not likely to hold up to the onslaught of even a single, pansy Seeker.
The pansy Seeker grins.
His daggers have been returned to their wing-holsters already, and now he scoots back, as far away from the door as he can get. He raises both arms, pointing shoulder-mounted weapons towards an area already badly damaged by his boot-jets. And then he begins firing.
It is not long before the damage turns into a hole, and both Seeker and water is washed inside the structure.
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Omega Supreme
Minor
Shorter and Coloured Funny but Still Angry as the Pit
Posts: 456
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Post by Omega Supreme on May 17, 2007 10:16:43 GMT -5
Most people feel small when they look at the ocean. Reassuringly enough, this even applies to Omega Supreme, although the ocean doesn’t make him feel as small as moons, planets, stars, and space in general does. He makes his trek along the coast, heading in the direction that he reckons is either south or north – away from the pole, anyway, but the screwy magnetic fields make it tricky.
After some thinking, since he has little else to do on his walk, aside from hope that the sea avians don’t defecate on his head, he realizes that the icebergs make him feel small, too. There is a lot more to them than meets the eye, as the <i>Titanic</i> so tragically discovered. With most of their mass beneath the surface, icebergs displace a great deal of water, and they’re very buoyant.
There is a reason why Omega Supreme usually had people like Optimus Prime, Rodimus Prime, and Optimus Prime (again) around to tell him what to do. Aside from the fact that he would have spent all his time trying to kill the Constructicons, when he doesn’t have something to guard, his ideas aren’t always the greatest. Something to do with little practical life experience outside of a few narrow fields.
He backs away from the coast, getting some distance. Then, he takes off running toward the coast, and as he nears the shore, he jumps, flinging himself over the water. Omega Supreme smacks into the largest iceberg in the bay, which he grapples onto with his claws. The iceberg tips to and fro in protest, but it stays afloat.
Omega Supreme now has his very own meltable boat.
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Fleetwind
Major
The Chancellor, His Eminent Grandeur, Marquis Fleetwind. The Insurgent Subduer of A Non-Threatening Cute Little Furry Kitten
Twined Elf
Posts: 730
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Post by Fleetwind on May 17, 2007 10:45:00 GMT -5
Meanwhile, under the ice...
While Omega Supreme explores icy coastlines and discovers the joys of nautical life, Fleetwind explores an abandoned station of some sort and rediscovers the joys of not being faced with a really, really huge robot bent on your death. In one hand he holds a device retrieved from subspace which resembles nothing more than a fancy flashlight, and he uses it to examine the strange structure he's found himself in.
Well, as much as he can get to. Apparently, he entered in through a hanger of some sort, one that's plenty large enough to fit him, but many of the entrances that lead deeper into the base are much too small for him to use. This means that he is mostly examining a few strange, abandoned flying vehicles, and as he has minimal technical abilities, this proves only minimally useful.
He is able to determine this much: they seem to run on a battery-charge system, and several have energy remaining. With these, he's able to fully recharge himself, although it takes some fumbling, and at one point he manages to destroy one of the air vehicles by accidentally grounding its batteries. Whoops! Live and learn.
That done, he returns to the entrance, stands in the ice, and looks up, pondering how to get out. He looks back at the hanger, then up again, and frowns.
Maybe with what's left in there, he has enough energy to burn his way out? He wasn’t down that far when he was buried...
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