Decepticon Interim: Welcoming Skyfire

[Starscream]

The gray F-15 flew some distance away from the town, but it is still visible behind another mountainous range. Transforming back into robot mode, he landed on the ground at the co-ordinates he transmitted both to his fellow Decepticons and to Skyfire. There is little to remark on the area save for the paved road leaving into the city, and of course all the mountains. Starscream checked his chronometer. Can't be long until Skyfire showed up. If things turned bad, Starscream needed the others there.

"He can travel through systems faster than light.. but he cannot even show to a meeting on time. Good old Skyfire."

[Skyfire]

Skyfire lives up to his name, a streak of fire across the sky as he comes in. At last he's low and slow enough to maneuver, but still faster than anything else living or machine. He couldn't possibly land at these velocities.

He doesn't intend to, not this pass. This pass is just to get a good look at the landing zone, to size up the situation--

Thunder cracks as Skyfire hurtles overhead and the shockwave of multiple Mach numbers touches ground. There's Starscream! Alone in the midst of a level expanse--suitable for landing--no one holding a gun to his back. Skyfire only sees him for an instant, and he's past, but there's no mistaking those colors and that stance.

There's a town off to one side--activity there, too, perhaps the allies Starscream mentioned. Skyfire tilts one aileron just a whisker, and rockets over the town, sonic boom like an exploding tornado lashing everything below. Several mechs mill around below, or look up--but Skyfire is gone as swiftly as he came.

Skyfire raises his nose, pulling up to ditch speed. He has a lot of speed to ditch, and skyrockets nearly to the stratosphere before putting his nose down and wing over to circle back, slower now, spiralling down toward the landing site.

// Skyfire to Starscream: the landing site appears clear and solid. Do you confirm? Oh, and sorry about the surprise overflight--you dropped so many hints about being monitored that I wanted to make sure no one had a gun to your CPU. //

[Fleetwind]

What an awkward flight! Fleetwind isn't made for robot sized passengers!

Fortunately, he hadn't been in the air when the shockwave of Skyfire's flyover hit, because at the moment, there's no way he'd have managed to stay in the sky. Eye-fire rides in his cockpit, but that isn't the problem. No, the problem is Needlenose straddling him - think about how Sideswipe and Sunstreaker rode the Seekers during that jet-judo business, only remember that Fleetwind is a tetrajet! If it weren't for his antigravs, the Seeker wouldn't be able to fly like this at all, and as it is, he's forced to move much more slowly and is a lot less maneuverable than normal.

And there's still the trip back to think about, too!

The Seeker lands and Needlenose clambers off. Then Fleetwind opens his cockpit and, assuming Eye-fire leaps out at that point, he'll transform once it's empty.

"Fleetwind reporting for duty, sir."

[Needlenose]

Needlenose arrives... riding Fleetwind.

Needlenose really wants his transform back.

When the Seeker lands, the Targetmaster clambers off. Where are his Nebulans? Why, they're magnetically holstered to him for the flight. He moves a small distance from the Seeker, taking a moment to glower at him, then transmits to all the Decepticons present, //Can you guys adjust the frequency for your visual filters? If things go bad, you'll need to start filtering out...// and he gives the frequency of the light that Sunbeam produces, //from your spectrum when I fire, otherwise I'll blind all of you, too.//

You can tell he's from a comic book universe by the way he gives exposition!

[Eye-fire]

Eye-fire transforms from his rifle mode back into clanker mode, and stretches a bit, he doesn't like being cooped up in small spaces, and it had been happening far too often.

He moves to Srarscream's side, he;s been given orders to protect his master, and he'll do it irrelevant of the possible dangers.

"At your service, emperor." He says as he goes to one knee, then stands again.

//I'll try to filter, but I'll probably go blind anyway, my optics are quite acute.//

[Starscream]

You can even tell Needlenose is from a comic in the eighties, since if he were a modern comic we wouldn't have exposition, but a full recap would have arrived just before he did.

Starscream adjusted his optics with the filter code Needlenose gave him. "Let me just clarify something, given the wonderful comprehension people seemed to have over the concept 'covert mission'. I am going to be saying things to my old friend Skyfire. Now, some of these things? To your audio receivers, might sound in some way to be inaccurate. These things are called 'Lies'. I am saying them intentionally, so do NOT look surprised, do NOT snort in amusement and do NOT attempt to correct me." Fleetwind nearly botched things up last time and Eye-Fire seems a bit, well, 'special', so he just thought he'd check. "Now, if you can handle that, all weapons need to be in a ready-to-blast situation, and kept either readily holstered or pointed to the ground in a non-threatening way in the case of mounted weapons. If things go bad, I want us to be ready. And lastly, even if you've met my friend Skyfire before, if it was less than nine million years ago, you haven't met him before. Ever. Understand?" Starscream prayed they did.

Starscream waited a moment, but not much of a moment, to ensure everything was okay witht he others. He transmitted a quick messsage to Skyfire. //Well, you've had your fun and you've seen everything is what I said it to be. Landing site confirmed.//

[Skyfire]

Skyfire continues turning in his wide spiral down to the landing zone. Hmm, Starscream has company, but none of them seem to have a weapon trained on his partner. Two more scout-type fliers--one of them, almost identical in configuration to Starscream, and a specialized mech of a type he can't identify at this range.

Skyfire skims low over the hills and flares in for a landing, cutting his lifter jets in at the last instant for a perfect touchdown. The immense shuttle holds his position for a moment after shutting his jets down, then transforms into an immense white robot, half again as tall as Megatron.

Skyfire looks down at Starscream and his companions. "Starscream. You've changed," he says, noting the bright purple insignia with the points and triangles. "And these are ...?"

[Fleetwind]

Fleetwind, shoulder-mounted weapons pointed carefully and politely towards the ground, dips his head in a polite nod of greeting. "Seeker Fleetwind, Decepticon Aerial Warrior, sir," he says, his quiet, polite, and almost soothing voice demonstrating another point of difference between himself and Starscream. At this point, he more or less falls into the practiced role of GBS, or "Generic Background Seeker."

[Needlenose]

Needlenose stands with most of his weight on one leg, the other slightly bent, and hands on his hips. His head is tilted at a cocky angle. His whole stance implies someone who is rather full of himself, and manages to make the alert, watchful narrowing of his optics easy to overlook, even when 'Skyfire' proves himself to be a robot nearly identical in appearance to the Autobot Jetfire.

"I'm Needlenose!" he exclaims proudly. "Decepticon Mayhem extraordinaire!"

His partners, still both in gun mode and in their magnetic holsters, say nothing.

[Eye-fire]

Eye-fire inwardly winces slightly at the word "mayhem", thier trying to win Skyfire over, not convince him of their more chaotic leanings.

"Eye-fire, at your service. Loyal scout and warrior of the Decpeticon forces." He says, failing to state his true purpose; assassination. Scout sounds a lot better, and is partly true.

[Starscream]

It the 'mayhem' issue is brought up, Starscream will just explain it's just name for a squadron. Military groups do stuff like that all the time, and it shouldn't be taken seriously. Even if in this case, it SHOULD be.. but never mind.

"Changing is what we were built to do, Skyfire. These emblems are the sign that I am a member of the Decepticons. My friends and I are all outcasts from our own timelines, but we all belong to this faction." Or something like it, anyway. "Once I have introduced you, we will fit you with emblems of your own." Yes, Starscream is being pleasant. There is nothing that sounds like he is ordering around his old friend. Being a Decepticon is something everyone will want, after all!

[Skyfire]

"Mayhem? What's that?" Skyfire asks, looking at Needlenose curiously. Needlenose said it as if he expected anyone and everyone to know what he meant by it.

"Starscream... we have some history to catch up on." Skyfire glances at the others. "I have questions that I'd be more comfortable discussing in private, partner." Questions raised by Kup about the actual 'goldenness' of the Golden Age. That, and what the heck happened between Skyfire's 'now' and Starscream's 'now'?

"I've also got some important data for you. Full coverage imaging of the planetary surface, preliminary system ephemeris, and something to worry about: there's an asteroid field in the fourth orbit. That crazy old mercenary I mentioned is convinced that there's supposed to be an inhabited planet in the fourth orbit. I really should run a survey out there and get a closer look, see if there's anything to confirm that; inhabited planets becoming asteroid fields is not a good sign." He hesitates for a moment. "I've also got a lot of questions about how I got here--we're nearly a quarter of the galaxy away from where I went down!"

[Fleetwind]

Fleetwind tilts his head, both at the mention of a 'crazy old mercenary' and of an asteroid field where a planet should be. The Autobots have a mercenary? Of course, missing planets were... someone else's problem, really, when the planet in question isn't Cybertron, but interesting, none-the-less.

Otherwise, he does a good job at remaining a GBS. In fact, at one point, when the camera angle changes, the animators accidentally color him as Skywarp. However, when the angle goes back to a close-up of the conversation in progress, and Fleetwind is further in the background, he's back to his normal colors again.

As with all animation errors, no one should notice this, of course.

[Needlenose]

Needlenose starts to speak up to answer Skyfire's question, then catches a Look from Starscream.¹ What? What?

So he just shrugs. "Crack military unit. Specialists in retention issues."

Needlenose doesn't have to worry about animation errors. Just excessive exposition.

---

¹ Look included with permission of Starscream's player.

[Eye-fire]

Eye-fire listened to what Sky-fire said, but didn't really care all that much. These were the types of things that higher ups worried about, not him.

He did though perk up slightly at the mention of a merc, wondering who this may be.