Station Battle: Holi and Wheelie

[Holi]

Holi's siren is certainly loud, but he can barely hear it himself over the chaos of the battlefield. To say he isn't scared would be a lie. He's pretty much always scared in a battle. But there's someone out there who looks even more scared and the Autobots have to rally against the disadvantaged position they're in here. He can't let himself be overcome with fear and worsen things. He has to screw up his courage and lend a hand.

Staying brave becomes much, much harder when he sees the flash of a weapon and hears Omega Supreme's cry of pain. Something that can hurt Omega – something that powerful – oh, no, no no no–!

"I'm not scared, I'm not scared, I'm not scared, I'm not scared," he chants rapid-fire to the howl of his siren. He skids around a boulder, darts through a gap between two others. Did he lose the orange bot? No! There, still on the other side of that rock. Don't worry, Holi is here to help!

He transforms once behind the cover of a low ridge driven up by the Guardian's landing and bolts the last hundred or so feet.

"Hey!" he calls to the orange bot as he approaches. "Are you alright?"

[Wheelie]

Wheelie gives Holi a strange look. He'd been told, quite firmly, that the mechanoids with the orange insignia were of a less status and, more importantly, that they were jealous.

Then Starscream had gone and attacked first, screaming death from above.

"I was told you guys were the jealous type, now I'm not so sure I believe the hype. You don't seem so bad as though I call my own, makes me think I need to leave them alone! Who's good, who's bad, what's wrong, what's right? All I know is this is all quite out of sight!"

[Holi]

The rhyming brings Holi up short while he tries to parse it. He also stares oddly at Wheelie, but not for the same reasons as the other; no, he stares because this orange bot is only so much taller than he is! For a moment, the dash of purple on his chest gives Holi pause; but it isn't a Decepticon emblem. In fact, it's nothing he's ever seen. Tentative friendly, then?

"J-jealous?" he squeaks finally as the rhythmic speech sinks in. Well, some of it. Other parts just sort of fly over his head. "Jealous of what?" He's missed something here– Wait, wait, bad? "But I'm not bad! I'm Holi, the captain of the Rescue Patrol Team, under command of Supreme Commander Star Saber!" he adds as if it makes perfect sense. To him, it does. "…Or I'm supposed to be, anyway. I'm here and I don't know where my team is, or any of the others…." For a moment, he feels like he could cry. He probably looks like he might, which is why he quickly puts on his best 'we'll get out of this okay!' face. He can't let himself get down, not now. "But it's okay. I'm sure we'll be alright. We have Kup, after all, and Emirate Xaaron, and Long Haul." His overwhelming confidence in his superiors might just be the most inspiring thing ever. Or maybe it makes him look too gullible and trusting. He thinks (hopes) it makes him look like a good Autobot soldier.

But this isn't helping out the orange bot! So many questions.

"The Decepticons are bad, of course," Holi says with certainty. "They're always trying to steal energy from the Earth, and they hurt others who get in the way. Even the humans, and they can't really fight back!" That the Decepticons hurt Autobots is a given for Holi and goes without saying. "We do what we can to stop them. We can't just let them take stuff that isn't theirs or bully everyone else." He pauses, covering his head at an explosion. Maybe here isn't the best place to explain things.

He gives the other small bot the signal to wait a moment while he peers 'round the side of their hiding place. The battlefield is… still really, really frightening. No! He can't let himself be scared! He has a job to do!

"Come on," he says, offering Wheelie a hand. "I'll get us back to the others. It's safer there."

[Wheelie]

Wheelie bases most of his judgments of people on what they do to him. Trickster though he might sometimes be, it somehow escapes his notice that other people might try and lie to him.

"But Starscream said they were quite good, he helped me like he said he should! Now you go and do the same? Wheelie doesn't know who to trust and who to blame!"

[Holi]

Holi stops again and blinks. A Decepticon, helping someone? …How does that even work?

"I…" he begins, not sure what to say. It isn't his place to tell the other – Wheelie, so that's his name! – what to think. Not that Holi knows what to think about it. Wheelie is a Decepticon? Or with the Decepticons? But he's nothing like any Decepticon Holi has ever seen. He seems terribly nice, really. And they helped him?

The Micromaster's probably as confused as the Minibot right now.

"I…." Holi smiles and tries to come up with something that sounds proper for an Autobot. "I think you should trust who you want to trust," he says. "And if you want, you can trust me. But I should get us somewhere safer than here." Omega Supreme has transformed and things are getting uglier. Still, he can't let himself give in to his shaking knees. He just can't.

[Wheelie]

Wheelie thinks back to what he's seen and shrugs. "Thinking maybe I made wrong choice, you've helped make up my mind with the power of your voice! Rather not be here, rather not right, let's leave before the fighting becomes a blight!"

[Holi]

If Holi could grin any more widely, his face might crack.

"Right! Follow me, then!" Eager to reach safety both for his own sake and Wheelie's, he grabs one of the orange bot's hands and insistently pulls him along¹. They should find Emirate Xaaron and Long Haul; that's probably the safest place right now, he reasons, since they'd want Jazz away from the fighting.

// Emirate Xaaron, sir! // He pauses to double check before deciding the coast is clear and transforming. // I'm bringing Wheelie back with me! Where are you? //

"This way!" he beckons his new friend. He doesn't have the others' new position yet, but he can at least lead Wheelie out of the thick of battle.

---

¹ - Done with player's permission.

[Wheelie]

Wheelie follows after Holi, transforming into his own vehicular mode and speeding alongside him.

"Where're we going? To where do we run? All of this fighting, it's not much fun!"

[Holi]

"We're getting away from the fighting!" Holi tells Wheelie even as he swerves to avoid a falling rock, and it isn't really a lie. They have to join up with the others, and to do it, he plans to circle wide of the battlefield. "But… just in case… if we get into trouble, you keep going, okay? I'll hold 'em off so they don't hurt you!" He said he'll help Wheelie, get him to safety, and he means it. He'll do it whatever it takes. "For now, though, Kup wants to know your timestamp!"

[Wheelie]

Wheelie follows along, easily keeping pace with Holi, though occasionally making a griping or "oomph!" sound as he does so. He's extremely low to the ground, with minimal clearance, so he's sometimes running over rocks or other things and getting a bit bumped around.

"Wheelie will fight when he has to, though it's not something he likes to do!" he says, before responding with his timestamp. Sometime in the 2000-2005 time range, though changes in the basic calender over time make an exact date harder to get.

[Holi]

"Don't you worry, Wheelie." Holi skids around a turn on the way out from beneath the thinning dust cloud. "I'll make sure you don't have to, okay? You just get to the others if we run into trouble." Is this brave or stupid? More importantly, can he make the distinction?

Wow, a timestamp from all the way back then?

"Hey! I've never met someone from the past before!" chirps the Micromaster while he dials up his radio again.

// Kup, sir, Wheelie's timestamp is from… uh… actually, I can't figure out the date. It could be anytime from 2000 to 2005. // And just for emphasis, he sends along the actual timestamp, too.

[Wheelie]

Wheelie continues following along.

"The past? That'd be a blast! Are you saying the future is near? Is it coming to bite us on the rear?"

[Holi]

"I sure hope not!" Getting bitten would be bad! "But I don't think it's that near, really," Holi adds thoughtfully. "A whole twenty Earth years away, at least." Twenty years is hardly a blink of the eye to a Transformer, but it's still a time difference. Everyone's just all over the place in more ways than one.

Hey, is that a dash of lime green over there? Here we come, Long Haul!

"We're nearly there," Holi says for Wheelie's benefit.

---

OOC: If it's alright with everyone else, we should probably shift over to the Repairs thread shortly.

[Wheelie]

Wheelie continues following along, swerving out of the way of the occasional obstacle.

***

((To the repairs thread!))