From the Dark Side of the Looking Glass

[Duskwing]

// Whaddaya think I'm tryin' to do, ya stupid bint? // Duskwing snarls in frustration. He's been trying to disengage from these singularly vicious Autobots since Needlenose gave the order, but they aren't cooperating. // These guys are like Wreckers on a revenge spree! Listen, doll, you try 'get moving' wit' a line hooked into you and one engine down and-- //

"YAARRGGGH!"

Duskwing lost his precarious balance on his single functional boot thruster as Slingshot's aim proved all too true. Heavy explosive shells ripped asunder one wing and ripped the tip off the other; Duskwing tumbled from the sky. He flailed, trying to recover his balance, but the control surfaces he instinctively relied on were gone, shot away--and like in his one-sided 'duel' with Scourge, the ground was too close. He crashed through tall spiky trees before smashing into the ground, bent, battered, wings shot away--a crumpled wreck, offline from the impact.

---
Note: Duskwing is in robot mode, not jet mode. His self-repair systems will bring him back online in a bit, but right now, he's out of the fight and skippable.

[Skystrike/Skylar Stringers]

Doll? Ah, so even sixteen ton fighter jets get called toys by Duskwing. What strange little seeker the other was. Now what in the world did ‘bint’ mean?

Skystrike idly noted Duskwing’s yell of pain afterwards, her sensors telling her that the damaged jet was falling towards the ground. That meant Skyblast’s wingmate was now free. Subspacing her pipe cutter as she carefully watched Skyblast move while tweaking a few setting on her laser cannons. She was loathe to show the Autobots her little lightshow tricks, but it was hard to avoid it when her opponent was proving to be so irritatingly hard to hit on short notice. The little jet seemed hell bent on getting those blades in her wings. Fine.

The seeker’s face twists into a snarl as a few of the shots strike her chest, wings and sides leaving charcoal black burns and glowing hot patches in her already dull blue paint. She brings her guns up to bear nonetheless, aiming so that her target sights crossed over right in Skyblast’s path of approach— and the air practically shrieks as twin concentrated beams of light lance through the air rather than the usual burst of laser rounds.

[Slingshot-3]

Slingshot dives down to make sure his prey isn't going to go wandering off, then pings Skyblast with the coordinates. If Skyblast wants to do something with those coordinates, the little jet most certainly can.

Once he's certain Duskwing isn't going to wander off, the Harrier shoves himself into a redline overload and catapults back into combat with the other blue Seeker.

---

No attack this turn. Slingshot's coming to cause damage next turn.

[Skyblast-3]

The first Seeker is down. Skyblast decides not to check on him. These Decepticon are acting weird, and why, the other Seeker might shoot him in the back while he paused to kick the first while he was down. No, he has to deal with the clear and present threat and just shoot the other Seeker if he rouses.

A few shots do strike Skyblast, despite his agility. Were this light and not night, he'd be looking positively ugly - a mess of blackened armour and bare metal forcibly stripped of it paint, with pitting and sparking, exposed wires.

Skyblast does another close pass on Skystrike, but this time, he transforms and pulls his spear together. Quickly, he attempts to spear her before gravity takes him.

[Skystrike/Skylar Stringers]

Skystrike felt the mild irritation grow into something a lot more palatable with every shot that the small fighter dodged. The overheat warning her cannons just issued just fans the flames and finally, finally a malicious snarl twisted her features. She watches Skyblast, hands curling into fists and the blazing red light from her optics highlighting the seeker’s black face.

Then the Autobot flier transforms and charges at her with his pathetic toy spear. Skystrike’s snarl abruptly vanishes and continues firing all the way through his approach, but she doesn’t move away, only slightly sideways so that the spear impales her right wing.

The low growl of pain was a bit embarrassing but she’ll live with that.

She tilts reflexively tilts forwards to trap the spear in place. Skystrike then folds the wounded wing back, thrusters igniting and arms outstretched with every intention of pulling Skyblast close enough to tackle him and then crush his tiny head.

[Slingshot-3]

Wing-shape... Not a standard Seeker. Skystrike. That guy didn't ping big on Slingshot's radar, but any Seeker was worth ripping out of the sky.

Air Raid hated them.

Skyblast hates them.

Skyblast is also between him and the bloody target.

Slingshot executes a half-loop to bring himself up behind Skystrike, his vectored thrust allowing him to execute it tighter than even most Cybertronian jets could manage. He almost didn't perform the half-roll at the end to right himself - who cared about up-and-down when you were the jet?

But just before his mortars opened up, he rolled to be right side up.

Time for the Seeker to learn a thing or two about how impossible it was to outmaneuver a Harrier.

[Skyblast-3]

Skyblast uses energon weapons. It means that after a battle, he's hungry enough to tear someone open and eat him. (Has he? Oh, an artist doesn't eat and tell.)

The thing about energon weapons, though, is that he can just resorb them. It's at a fuel deficit, of course, due to thermodynamic processes, but it means that his spear isn't stuck in her wing – it's back in his somewhat emptier fuel tank.

Now holding on to nothing, he falls through the air and waves up at Skystrike cheekily.

[Bumblebee-3]

Someone had to go and get the kid. You never know when they might need to see if the ground has been mined.

That someone is Bumblebee. He emerges holding a small black-and-blue mechanoid, suspended upside-down by its leg. Bumblebee's cargo appears to be offering no resistance.

Peering through his visor, Bumblebee sees the fight between his fellow time-lost 'allies,' and more pathetic Decepticons. How he loathes them all. Without another word, Bumblebee drops his cargo to the ground. He continues to watch the battle, and join in when it is necessary.

[Holi-3]

Holi didn't want to show up for this stupid foray into who only knows what was on the other side of Perceptor's damned portal contraption. Like he wanted to be even further from home, not that he has the first clue where Micro is in relation to where he's ended up. But no, the Prime had to go stomping off to destroy what there was to be seen and everyone just had to tag along. Except Holi. Surely they wouldn't need such a small, helpless little liability in unknown territory.

Bumblebee thought otherwise, the jerk. Which is how Holi's first glimpse of this wonderful new world – that the Autobots will soon ruin, of course – is upside down and partially obscured by the pig-headed Camaro. And right in the middle of a fight. It's probably too much to hope that someone shoots Bumblebee right in his miserable face, isn't it?

Or, realises Holi as he hits the ground in a face-first heap with a crash, to hope that he'll at least be set down with some sort of dignity. He'll have to worry about that new kink in his neck later; stupid Bumblebee had to walk them into combat and Holi's first objective is cover. It's nighttime. Maybe he'll luck out and no-one will spot the little black and blue Micromaster scurrying as quickly and quietly as he can for the nearest overhang or doorway.

Oh, but he hates being in the middle of all this.

[Skystrike/Skylar Stringers]

Skystrike curses the moment Skyblast slips past her grasp. She didn’t have time to snap off a few more shots at the little glitch though, because Slingshot finally chose the moment to rejoin the fight.

The seeker howls as pain blossomed over her back, having enough mind to drop down and away from the blasts before transforming. One of her air vents and the lower half of a canard were well and truly fragged now. She could still fly, but not as agile as she could before. No choice then.

Smoke still trailing after her, Skystrike tilts her nose skywards and began to rapidly ascend. Hopefully, she could reach thin atmosphere before the two Autobot fliers could blow her to bits. She wouldn't have too rely much on her thrusters there.

[Slingshot-3]

Skystrike wants to turn tail? That just gives Slingshot a better chance to rake over her unmolested.

The Harrier roars after her, seemingly willing to follow her to hell and back in order to bring her down.

[Skyblast-3]

Skyblast freefalls, the wind whipping his frame and biting into his many wounds. Above, he can dimly perceive the Harrier harrying their prey, and he knows that it is too much for him to follow that lovely white form up into the night.

With a sign and groan, eh transforms back to jet mode, and he drifts down to Duskwing's position. Rodimus Prime just wants him alive. The Seeker has to have an auxiliary tank that Skyblast can plunder. Hunger is piercing keen knives into his fuel tank now, more insistent even than his damage.

[Thundercracker]

Thundercracker roars onto the scene, thrusters at full power and guns blazing. Perhaps Slingshot will recognize the blue Seeker... despite the Decepticon sigils emblazoned on his wings and the fully functional incidenary rifle pumping away at the Aerialbot.

//Skystrike, what's your condition?// he radios. Better make sure she's capable of unassisted flight out of here before engaging in a dogfight.

[Bumblebee-3]

Bumblebee watches the smaller Autobot scurry for cover. Pathetic wimp. Bumblebee did not just drop him for him to scurry off to the first dark corner he could find! They had their leader to report to! Bumblebee transforms into a modern¹ yellow muscle-car, slowly making his way towards the cowering Holi.

Bumblebee revs his engine once, in irritation. Bumblebee didn't want to have to carry him the whole way, this was Holi's opportunity to get himself there on his own steam. If Holi didn't comply, Bumblebee would resort to carrying him suspended by some leg again.

Only not being lifted so high. There was some rubble strewn across the ground that would serve well for disciplinary purposes.

---

¹ For the time and place he was removed from, anyway.

[Holi-3]

That sound means trouble, and Holi peers from his shoddy little hidey-hole at the black and yellow car facing him down. He could insist on staying where he is, but it sounds like Bumblebee would take exception to that decision. Probably violently. Never mind what Rodimus might do if he finds out.

"I'm going, I'm going," Holi grumbles in defeat, probably too low to be heard over the general racket, and transforms. He'd even take the lead to make it look a little better if Bumblebee didn't decide now was the time to harry him and ride close on his bumper. If anyone asks him, he'll say he was taking cover so he could shoot at Decepticons without putting himself out. Because the Autobots wouldn't want to waste the time and resources on repairing him, right? Of course.

---

OOC: Holi-3 and Bumblebee-3 out of thread. Bumblebee chasing Holi with permission of player.