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Post by Hook on Jun 16, 2007 6:06:50 GMT -5
Hook is not a being terribly known for his tolerance of idiots. There comes a time when the other Constructicons can't let him remain in the fore anymore because he will likely attempt to rip their client's head off with his bare hands, and the only one who wants that is Hook.
Thankfully, as rocket-launchers do too much splash damage for a warning shot, Hook radios Starscream for whether or not he really wants Demolishor alive.
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Starscream
Major
"Sometimes I can almost feel it!"
strangely enough, male.
Posts: 945
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Post by Starscream on Jun 16, 2007 8:32:28 GMT -5
Is Starscream travelling on the ground? No, silly! He's just replying to Hook's radio message.
Private to Hook: //Let me guess, he's still asking idiotic questions. My cranial processors are burning out at the prospect of dealing with him in the long run. He has completely exhausted my patience, Hook. Pick the least valuable of his vital components and then obliterate it.// And of course, of all the people on this planet to decide which part of a Cybertronian was the least crucial while still being lethal, it would be Hook. //Disassemble the rest and take what we can use.//
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Dead End
Major
Yes, we're all doomed. I already knew that.
Posts: 797
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Post by Dead End on Jun 16, 2007 11:54:02 GMT -5
"That's funny. I'm not seeing Starscream."
"That's because he's tunneling under the mud behind you--no, wait, that's not right. Ah, I have it," said Dead End in a very dry, very British voice. "Perchance he's flying. Very unexpected, him being a jet and the Air Commander. We really did expect him to walk with us."
"So who are you all, then? Decepticons?"
Demolishor's sheer density is finally getting under Dead End's derma-plating. "No, actually we're a troop of travelling mimes with vocalizer failures. Very soon now, we're going to mime shooting you. Don't worry, it'll only hurt for the first few seconds."
Something is tunneling under the mud, but it's not Starscream or any other Transformer. The tunneling robot is fully on line now, and it's homing in on the last known position of that anomalous beacon. Massive boride cutting heads bite into rock and earth; flanking intakes suck up the cracked rock and earth and spew it out the rear of the mining robot. It moves through the ground like a gigantic, drill-headed worm.
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Post by Demolishor on Jun 16, 2007 18:18:16 GMT -5
"It was a simple question, you don't have to get all snooty about it. For all I know you guys are starting an ambush again your own people or something, I don't know what's going on in this freaky place."
Demolishor knew he wasn't the sharpest bulb in the box, but the patronizing attitude was certainly starting to piss him off. It wasn't his fault he was confused and muddy and about to throttle the next thing he saw that wasn't supposedly on his side. Not responsible for his actions, no.
"Look, you can put down the big guns, I'm on your side. Right?" As a show of good faith, he lowers one of his hands.
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Cannonball
Minor
Me, I'm dishonest. And a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest.
Posts: 470
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Post by Cannonball on Jun 17, 2007 14:37:27 GMT -5
"Look, you can put down the big guns, I'm on your side. Right?"
Cannonball didn't hear the last bit of that, he was too busy grinning. "Well, the loud-mouthed flybot did advise to avoid expendin' energy wit' lasers..." he comments, the compartment of his left shin opening. A pressurized launcher within ejects a large block-like object. It is quickly caught and placed upon his blaster barrel that is in the place of his left hand. Clicks sound as the device locks onto the shaft of the gun, and as his compartment closes.
"Ah've been itchin' tae keelhaul something since I got 'ere, anyway!" the pirate announces, rushing forward, the ground thumping with his steps. His left arm draws back, and once with striking range, it swings forward toward the tank-former's head, coupled with a nice piratey "YAAAAAARRR!" of a battle-cry.
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Post by Hook on Jun 18, 2007 16:43:17 GMT -5
Hook transformed to robot-mode as Cannonball rushed forward at the tank. "How exactly can you keelhaul someone-"
Hook paused as he suddenly felt vibrations in the ground through his feet. Something, somewhere moved. Something moved very powerfully.
He glanced out over the swamp to try to gauge where it came from. All he could see where ripples in the water and shaking plants. Then his optics caught on a small crevice spreading in the road.
Five years of ice getting in and expanding would damage the road severely. Except, he realized as other cracks appeared, they didn't have five years.
Cracks expanded into fissures that tore through the roadway, and the ground shook, bucked, heaved-
Later, Hook would blame himself for not uttering some sort of warning before it got to the point of the seeming-earthquake. He was a surgical engineer, after all, and a Constructicon. He knew how much fore-warning saved the need for repair efforts.
Metal screamed as the mining worm erupted from underground, its massive bores rending road-metal and swamp alike. Metal, including Hook, was tossed into the air around it.
It reared up in the air, twice, thrice as tall as a Transformer, with more of its enormous body still hidden in the earth. The sharp, heavy teeth of its boring heads whirled in the sunlight. The yawning maws on either side of its borer sucked ravenously at the falling metal.
Hook had an extremely good view of the initial set of grinders inside those intakes.
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Dead End
Major
Yes, we're all doomed. I already knew that.
Posts: 797
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Post by Dead End on Jun 18, 2007 17:04:20 GMT -5
Dead End felt the ground shift under his feet--his first thought was "Earthquake!". His second thought was "Dinobots!"
As he flung himself aside from the sundering road, he realized neither thought was correct: it wasn't an earthquake, and that thing with the headful of whirling spikes was most decidedly NOT a Dinobot.
Dead End rolled and came to his feet running toward dry ground-- then leaped forward and spun in mid-air, transforming as he jumped, so that he landed on all four wheels, pointed back at the worm. His forcefields hummed and his vehicle-mode air cannon deployed. Wheels spun as he sped toward the worm, cannon firing as he charged--
The results were less than spectacular. The armored shell of the mining worm, designed to withstand the pressures of burrowing thousands of feet into rock, shrugged off the super-pressure concussion shot with little more than a loud ringing sound. The side of the worm was not its weak point.
OOC: No, not every alien robot is intentionally carnivorous. This one just has a wee programming glitch. It's supposed to shut down the boring heads when it surfaces and go into maintenance mode; further, it's supposed to avoid above-ground metal structures, as they probably aren't something that's supposed to be chewed up by a mining robot. The lowland marshes are below the reference geodesic, and the overworked programmer who was coding this beast's firmware didn't allow for the possibility of "above ground, but below reference height". The mining worm 'thinks' it's still below ground, and various metal objects are ore bodies. In a large cave.
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Post by Demolishor on Jun 19, 2007 8:44:14 GMT -5
Holy shi--
Demolishor's arms immediately twisted around until his missile turrets were pointing forward and his hands were resting comfortably atop his shoulders as secondary guns. He took a more stable stance and began firing at the borers themselves.
"I'm guessing this isn't one of yours!" he shouted over the sound of his weaponry and the whirring of the drills. He began pacing around it in a sort of clumsy inward-moving spiral, trying to find a potential weak spot where his missiles could actually do some damage.
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Cannonball
Minor
Me, I'm dishonest. And a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest.
Posts: 470
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Post by Cannonball on Jun 20, 2007 0:07:11 GMT -5
Well. Cannonball had seen his fair share of strange spatial beasts, but very few worms. Especially ones this big.
"Sweet mutha o' Unicron 'imself!" he retorts, his assault on the tankformer interrupted by the ground's rumbling. He stumbles outward, away from the epicenter of the rumbling. This proved easier than expected. He'd have never thought that it was possible that being on a ship would prove useful while on solid ground.
Once he got a fair distance away, he replaces his hammer in its proper compartment, firing some shots at the beast to little avail, despite aiming for the seams in the armored shell.
"Oi...tahm tae bring out th' big guns!" he says out loud to no one in particular. A ghostly key flies in from the heavens, and plugs into his back. Power surges through his circuits...but not in a familiar way. The pirate stumbles, as the sensation doesn't feel right, at all. It still works, though...the panels on the sides of his backpack open, deploying two golden yellow gunbarrels, unleashing beams of laser energy into the side of the worm, trying to focus on a seam.
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Post by Hook on Jun 21, 2007 21:33:48 GMT -5
//As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, how can you keel-haul someone, Cannonball, if there isn't a keel within a hundred mile-radius of our current position?//
Hook tumbled toward the mining worm's intakes for one brief, scattered moment. In the far, far distance, he thought he saw a structure too tall to be organic.
Then he activated his lifters and righted himself. Hm. Some sort of heavy mining equipment. How interesting. Obviously malfunctioning. Either that, or the locals had absolutely horrible standards to which they held their mining equipment.
What did he always say? 'Never assume malice for what stupidity can explain.'
Of course, he usually assumed malicious stupidity.
The suction from its intakes tugged at him, buffetted him. He didn't dare get any closer, didn't dare descend to go past it.
//Could you lot do something useful?//
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Dead End
Major
Yes, we're all doomed. I already knew that.
Posts: 797
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Post by Dead End on Jun 21, 2007 23:07:29 GMT -5
// Doubtful. It'll probably grind us all up for scrap, // replies Dead End. // It might be possible to delay the inevitable if we can find a weak spot in the armor. Do the mouths look like they have less armor internally? //
Dead End switches on his radar, shifting frequencies to see what kind of picture he can get of the mining worm's structure. The answer seems to be "mostly none" because of the metal shell--
The mining worm whips its head around and dives straight toward Dead End; Dead End guns his engine and darts out of the way just as the boring heads come smashing down. Curiously enough, they've stopped spinning.
Cannonball's laser fire scores the worm's armor, leaving red-hot streaks along the side and bright metal droplets along the way. Demolishor's copious fire streaks and scores the armored shell, but doesn't punch through, either.
Dead End, mindful of the hazards of unnecessary use of his radar at high power settings1, shuts it down. He's got all the picture he going to get of the worm--
There's a loud clank and whirr as the boring heads spin up again and the worm swings its head toward the nearest chunk of metal....
1 That would be the loud signal notifying all and sundry that Dead End is Right Here
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Post by Demolishor on Jun 22, 2007 11:35:26 GMT -5
Demolishor continued his shrinking spiral, now only a few dozen feet from the mining thingie. He dodged backward and nearly stumbled as it dives at him, then continued trying to fire at the inside of its 'mouth'. With all the shots he was firing, he was bound to land a decent hit at some point. Law of averages, the same way that Cyclonus managed to form a decent plan every once in a while.
"Hey, pirate-boy, watch your back!" he shouts to Cannonball as the whirring blades swing towards the other mech.
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Cannonball
Minor
Me, I'm dishonest. And a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest.
Posts: 470
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Post by Cannonball on Jun 22, 2007 22:28:26 GMT -5
Cannonball just kind of stares for a moment into the maw of the beast. Then with a few steps back (Read: Staggers.), he leaps up into the air to get out of the way, and unleashes another blast from his shoulder cannons, aiming for the blades. "It'll take more'n a landlubbin' worm tae bring me down!"
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Post by Hook on Jun 22, 2007 23:01:55 GMT -5
Hook harangued people over the broadband while he observed the battle from on-high. Very nice mining worm, all things considered. It wasn't as good as it could be, though. For one thing, it wouldn't be above-ground and randomly attacking people if it were. However, that could be fixed.
Interesting response to Dead End's radar. //Dead End, do a radar pulse again.//
He drew his pistol and drifted to a position that he could shoot from if the mining worm again went after Dead End. The way it was thrashing around, he wouldn't have the time at all to line up a shot...
... But it wouldn't kill him to try to aim properly for where he thought the mining worm would go. A quick streamlining of his targetters cut out colors and most spectra beyond the visual, while Hook lined up for a precise shot that might not even come.
Hook is trying to shoot in a manner other than 'spray and pray', which means he is putting the same effort into getting just the perfect shot as he does into any kind of construction. This also means the chances of him actually firing a shot are slim to none.
Hook probably needs something that's actually shooting back at him to make him more useful.
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Dead End
Major
Yes, we're all doomed. I already knew that.
Posts: 797
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Post by Dead End on Jun 23, 2007 6:14:39 GMT -5
After exchanging barbed comments with Cannonball while dashing around madly tossing off a shot here and there, Dead End hit the road and accelerated past the worm going the other way.
// Pulse... NOW! //
Dead End turned his radar on for one brief sweep; the mining worm turned abruptly toward Dead End and began slithering in his direction. The boring heads spun down, their roar subsiding to a whir and then a quiet hiss of hydraulics releasing.
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