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Post by Spinister on Jul 6, 2007 22:49:21 GMT -5
Spinister watches something moving through the flames. It's moving erratically. He might even say that it looks to be running scared. Oh, that's good. Very good. Spinister just loves it when they run scared. He leaps into the air and transforms, chopping after the little hovercraft. The flames play havoc with the air currents, and Spinister grabs a bit of altitude, trying to get away from the turbulence. The fire's giving his FLIR a headache, too.
Ah, ah. Spinister can hear the Decepticon channel, remember? Better than that, he can put two and two together and gets a pretty little picture with a white spray-paint outline. The helicopter hisses at Shortround, "Stand down and stop your squalling, soldier, or I will sit you down personally. Do you understand?"
If Shortround doesn't understand, he has a fusion bomb with Shortround's name on it.
Hairpslitter resembles a small robot, when he's fully suited up, although he's rather more rounded than most Transformers. His suit informs him that the air is safe for him to breathe, and he pops off his helmet. The suit's recycled air gets so stale, and removing the helmet clearly was a brilliant move. This is a swamp, Hairsplitter! He grimaces and pinches his nose. He mutters, "No idea what a Quintesson is, I'm afraid, and you're – you're rhyming?"
He sighs. The robots are all insane or something like it. Hairsplitter explains, "I'm a Nebulan. In particular, I'm a Nebulan Targetmaster. Means I turn into a gun. Spinister's my partner. You've, ah, never heard of us?"
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Wheelie
Rookie
Can't sleep. Sharkticons will eat me.
Posts: 191
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Post by Wheelie on Jul 7, 2007 20:47:37 GMT -5
"I talk as it goes! If I rhyme, who knows?" Wheelie says. "A Nebulan? That's quite grand! Never heard that before! Are you the only one? Are there more?"
Paging Doctor Suess, you seem to have left a creation behind.
"Is this place your home or from far did you roam? It's not where I was last, much distance has passed! First there, then here! If it happened once, it could one more time! ...Maybe to someplace, with a little less slime?"
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Shortround
Minor
Breaker of the Fourth Wall
Posts: 272
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Post by Shortround on Jul 7, 2007 21:40:12 GMT -5
It's a good thing hovercrafts can't jump, otherwise Shortround probably would have leapt very high. Regardless, he transformed back to his robot mode and looked up at the helicopter, looking for some sort of faction symbol and finding a Decepticon one.
"Oh thank Primus!" Shortround says, half-sunk in the muck "Listen, there's something very big thataway that scared the wits outta me and might be coming this way! And you... Came realy quick... Sorta expecting a response or something on the radio."
No, Shortround is not very bright in these situations.
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Post by Spinister on Jul 8, 2007 1:59:02 GMT -5
Hairsplitter sighs, “There’s a whole planet of us, but I can’t go back there.” Not unless the Decepticons win this front and subdue Nebulos as a conquest. Then he could return a triumphant victor. Until then, he is cast out as a pariah. “This is definitely not Nebulos. Now, Wheelie – did I say that right? – Wheelie. This isn’t your home turf, either? Where are you from?”
Hairsplitter looks down at the murk, debating a point with himself and the voices in his head. Finally, he asks, “Have you ever heard of ‘Decepticons’?”
Spinister transforms and lands just behind Shortround, in a suitable position to loom imposingly behind the other Decepticon. He may be bright pink, but his facemask doesn’t give away anything. Spinister might as well be emotionless, and he carries himself not just like a rank and file soldier but like a born killer.
Shortround has given away their position to ‘Starscream’. Spinister has a number of options. One is to kill Shortround and continue on with his own objectives. Shortround has shown himself to have poor combat responses. It is not an option to simply allow the other Decepticons to come to them. However, he isn’t going to kill Shortround yet. If combat breaks out, he can use the hovercraft as a living shield. Besides, perhaps he contains potential yet unseen.
Spinister says gruffly, “Describe it.” He has half a mind that the thing that spooked Shortround might well be himself.
Then, over private band, he uses his Lord Starscream’s last known personal frequency and reports, //Lord Starscream, I have contacted Shortround. The situation is in hand. I also have a prisoner.//
There are still impostors who could glean Starscream’s personal frequency, but that would put an impostor in Soundwave or Blaster’s skill level ballpark, and neither Blaster nor Soundwave are known overly much for vocal imitation.
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Wheelie
Rookie
Can't sleep. Sharkticons will eat me.
Posts: 191
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Post by Wheelie on Jul 9, 2007 0:32:16 GMT -5
"You got the name right, so I won't fuss and fight! Where I come from, I know not, crashed where I lived before, but it's all that I got! Sharkticons, gator-droids, Quintessons and more, mechanical fish, it's nightmares galore! Catch me they try, but I'm more than meets the eye! Hide and seek, I'm not so meek! They've never got me, it must be years, I know I've frustrated those five-faces to tears!"
For reasons relating only to narrative causality, Wheelie took a little bow after all of that.
"Decepticons, I know not the name! Sharkticons sounds similar, are they one and the same? Deception's not nice, it's the opposite of fun, bad guys try it and when they do, I run!"
Had he made an error in judgment here? It wouldn't be the first time he'd made a stupid choice. Like that time he tried to adopt a Sharkticon. Named it Gnaw, fed it some of his rations, even made it a sparkle-studded collar and little house, complete with food bowl.
It had tried to eat him during his sleep cycle. And also left a considerable mess in lubrication puddles.
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Shortround
Minor
Breaker of the Fourth Wall
Posts: 272
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Post by Shortround on Jul 9, 2007 1:47:41 GMT -5
Shortround shrugs. Okay, he's intimidated to the Pit by this taller, tealer and deadlier Decepticon, however he's intimidated by so many other Decepticons every day he's almost gotten used to it.
"Didn't actually see it, just heard something and fired at it... Probably a tree falling now that I think 'bout it" Shortround says, keeping his eyes on Spinister, just incase he needs to run for his life. "Name's Shortround by the way, what's yours? Can't say I've ever seen you before" he adds.
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Post by Spinister on Jul 9, 2007 5:31:10 GMT -5
Hairsplitter listens along to Wheelie’s explanation. At the mention of Sharkticons, he looks confused. Organics’ faces are almost like some sort of molten plastic, almost liquid, and they twitch and change almost constantly. His is saying that he’s honestly never heard of a Sharkticon before. Hairsplitter shakes his head and excuses, “Oh, no no. That’s, ah, not it at all. I’ve never heard of Sharkticons. All I know is that sharkoids sometimes try to eat Sunbeam, but they always spit him out.”
Hairsplitter pauses. Did he say that present tense? Sunbeam is dead, rest his soul, a casualty of war. All he wanted was to surf! Autobots and their allies can be such monsters. Sighing and looking rather glum, he changes the topic, “A famous Nebulan once said, ‘All warfare is based on deception,’ and we do happen to be at war. It’s not so unreasonable a name. Now, when you’re doing this survival thing, you tried to trick my boss, Spinister, yeah? You can’t think deception’s too ‘not fun’, then? Can you?”
His name is Hairsplitter. Watch him quibble.
“That, and I’ll note that in all my experience of working with Spinister, he’s never eaten anybody. You’re safe, and Nebulans? We don’t even need fuel like you guys do. We go for this stuff called ‘food’.” Hairsplitter makes the air quotes. Spinister then asks him to ask an odd question. "What day and year does your internal clock and calendar say it is?"
Spinister keeps in mind that the shots came in his direction. He starts to wipe the swamp muck off of him, methodically, revealing more of his garish colour scheme. It’s not vanity that drives him.
Spinister’s rule of stealth: no one expects anyone to be able to hide with a colour scheme like his. They’re not expecting him to be able to hide, so he can do all his set up work in plain sight, and no recognizes it as what it is. When he does hide, it still comes as a surprise at least twice, because they write the first time off as a fluke. By the time anyone is actually looking for him, they’ll never find him.
Here’s another one who doesn’t know him. Snapping off the salute of a superior to an inferior, because incompetence like Shortround’s cannot be faked, Spinister replies coolly, “Spinister. Next time, get a proper target before you use your guns. What was your last time stamp?”
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Wheelie
Rookie
Can't sleep. Sharkticons will eat me.
Posts: 191
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Post by Wheelie on Jul 9, 2007 15:47:43 GMT -5
Ah, but that would under the category of 'it's okay when I do it.'
"I do what I must to keep alive, don't go giving me that guilt-trip jive!" Wheelie retorts, but the next question puzzles him greatly.
"I don't know what you mean, it's confusing my mind! How does one begin, to go stamping the time?"
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Shortround
Minor
Breaker of the Fourth Wall
Posts: 272
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Post by Shortround on Jul 9, 2007 23:44:24 GMT -5
Shortround leaves himself mucky. He'll just need to clean it off again later anyway, swamps are like that.
"Um... Sorry Spinister, sir" he says "Sorta panicked and well, yeah... Oh, timestamp? Sure"
Shortround then transmits his timestamp, placing him somewhere around 2030, give or take a few years. "So... Anything else in this swamp you've found?" he asks, out of simple curiosity.
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Post by Spinister on Jul 10, 2007 8:58:16 GMT -5
Hairsplitter smiles and reassures, "We all do what we need to survive. I'm just saying, there's nothing inherently bad about deception. It's a tool, one of many. You pull it out of your toolbox when you need it for a job, and you put it back at the end of the day."
Like he hasn't lied on reports. Some people have never gone for various energy-saving policy changes if they knew the savings were only 7.8%, not 10%.
Hairsplitter's a bit taken aback by the time question and explains, "You guys have these little clock-watch-calendar things in your heads or maybe in your wrists. Chronometers! That's what they're called. They tell you what time, day, year it is." He holds up his helmet and points out a little display inside of it, gesturing. "See, I'm not a robot, so I just have this head's up display to tell me what time it is. Gah, I'm still getting used to military time."
Spinister stares at Shortround for a moment and mutters, "Either your clock is broken, or you're from the future. What are the humans up to, last you knew?"
Then he stalks off to examine a log. It caught his attention, despite being a half-eaten log. The other half-eaten logs look worn down, rounded, and much darker and greyer. This looks lighter and fresher. Also, it doesn't look nearly so worn down. Spinister crouches to examine the marks. They look more like something took a fairly large chopping blade and grinding apparatus to the log. It's too angular to be natural to the swamp.
Spinister waits patiently for Shortround to reach his own conclusions about the log. Then, he says lowly, "We have company."
And they should be expecting the company of Starscream and at least two other jets, to judge from the silhouettes he saw earlier. Spinister omits mention of Wheelie for now.
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Wheelie
Rookie
Can't sleep. Sharkticons will eat me.
Posts: 191
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Post by Wheelie on Jul 10, 2007 14:56:51 GMT -5
Nevertheless, there's some very primal instinct tugging at the back of Wheelie's mind. Nothing he can understand or explain, but it's there all the same. Something about the name Decepticon and the badge Spinster wore. It was similar, but different from the one that decorated his own body. Just why was that significant?
"I tell time by watching the sun, the stars, and the sky. It's how I know when the day goes by! A clock in my head, a clock in my hand, why if that were true, it might well be grand! But wait, could it be, is it true? Is that what some of those numbers are supposed to do?"
Quite simply put, not all of the sensory information available to Wheelie made much sense. That's what happens when you grow up pretty much in isolation, without others to help tell you how things worked.
After a moment though of careful though, he finds what he was looking for and relays that to Hairsplitter. The date's based off a Cybertronian calender from at least one Great War early, but it basically adds up to the some where around 2005.
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Shortround
Minor
Breaker of the Fourth Wall
Posts: 272
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Post by Shortround on Jul 10, 2007 21:44:42 GMT -5
Shortround shrugs "Eh, might be wrong, ever since Prime broke the universe by trying to kill Unicron a lot of wierd junk has been happening. Humans?" he adds "Slaggin' Autobots have some 'Secret treaty' with a few of 'em so the majority don't even know we exist, so we have to have these earth forms. I miss having hands..."
He then turns towards the logs Spinister is looking at and takes a glance, kicking in his hover-fans in his leg to... Well, not so much fly as hover. By his 'I've barely seen organics in all my life' opinion, it looks like something cut the tree. Something with a saw that could potentially be used against him. "... So... This place might have some natives?" he says.
Shortround then hovers backwards and lands in the swamp again. "The other Decepticons? Better them than any Autobots" he says. Shortround and Autobots don't get along too well, of corse in a universe where the Autobot leader was a 'fire truck' with cannons that could level a small town this would be expected.
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Post by Spinister on Jul 11, 2007 6:20:27 GMT -5
Hairsplitter was an efficiency expert. He can do math! He nods his head and urges, “Yes! I’m sure one of those numbers in your head is what I need.”
At the numbers that he gets, Hairsplitter looks increasingly dismayed, and he can feel how perplexed Spinister is in the back of his head. Hairsplitter mentally flails, This Wheelie character says he’s from 2005! His clock could be malfunctioning, I suppose. He didn’t even know he had one until I explained it to him.
Spinister’s reply does not reassure Hairsplitter. Shortround – little hovercraft Decepticon, big plasma cannons – is from 2030. I do not believe him to be intentionally lying.
Hairsplitter gulps and wraps his arms around himself. The swamp suddenly feels a lot chillier. We’re lost in time?
And space, so it would seem.
Llyra! She could be dead or a child, Singe suddenly realises. No. I won’t have this.
Spinister notes wryly, Whatever it is, it has us.
Hairsplitter says weakly, “Thank you, Wheelie. That’s… useful. Spinister’s found what made the fire. Looks like it was just all a big mistake.”
Spinister peers at Shortround. He seems quite guileless. He decides that perhaps a shining a little light on the situation would be a good idea and explains, voice a soft rustle, “Shortround, I want to you stay calm. If you do not stay calm, I will make you calm, perhaps permanently. I hail from the dying days of the late 80s, as the humans reckon them. They know that we’re here, and they fight us on their own terms in a few odd cases.” Blasted Circuit-Breaker. He gestures back at his tailboom and blades and down to the cockpit halves on his legs. “I have an Earth mode, too. Something’s wrong with time, perhaps due to the actions of your Prime against Unicron. Perhaps it is something else.”
He continues, “I captured an Autobot and am keeping him for later use elsewhere in the swamp. He’s from around 2005. Perhaps we should pick him up now, before the other Decepticons arrive. I want you to be… nice,” the word does not sound right, coming from Spinister, “to him. He has no idea what a Decepticon is. Don’t tell him he’s an Autobot. Treat him like he’s another Decepticon and one that you like.”
If Spinister knew Shortround better, he’d be telling Shortround to treat Wheelie like he was the 2007 BotCon Exclusive Clear Mirage. That hovering ability sure does look useful, he notes.
He give the log a last glance and shrugs. He mutters, “Could be natives. Could be something else. Just watch out.” The cutting marks don’t seem very useful. Couldn’t have cut, say, an I-beam away from the log by making those marks.
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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 Jul 11, 2007 6:28:23 GMT -5
Sadly, there is little luck for stealth when there was the roaring thrusters of an F-15, He follows the signal he received from Spinister's radio to this location. There may be a Cybertronian Pyramid Jet flanking him, but then again there may not.
Starscream was beginning to wonder if he got the co-ordinates from Spinister's radio accurate, when he noticed plumes of smoke from a fire. "Well, at least we have the address right.." He said to Fleetwind. Or perhaps to no one.
The F-15 spotted a clearing with two figures nearby, and has decided he's found the right place. Starscream transformed and landed near the strange pink and aqua Decepticon and the shorter one that looked like something that Shockwave might have built when he was bored. Though it wasn't much to choose from, he hoped the taller of the two was his 'hitman.'
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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 Jul 11, 2007 7:26:18 GMT -5
Yes, there is a Cybertronian Pyramid Jet flanking Starscream! One done up in shades of pastel yellow and off white. In response to Starscream's comment, Fleetwind only answers, "Yes, sir," before he follows the other downward.
Like Starscream, he transforms and lands, although he hovers above his chosen landing spot first, tapping it once... twice... with his right foot to make sure it was firm before he actually puts his weight on it. This swamp gook does not look like something he wants to get in his thrusters.
He examines the other two, expression calmly neutral. He had only heard one of them on the radio, and he didn't know yet which one, but it seems Starscream has information he doesn't.
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