Wilderness Survival Training

[Spy Shot 6/Cameron Otto]

Spy Shot cheese it as well as soon as Dinobot's lasers singe the air right next to him, ducking behind the nearest tree, putting it between himself and Dinobot.

He's not really worried. It's just like normal training! Except for one important fact that occurs to him after a moment.

"Dinobot, we are not the simulation room," he calls, tone flat but voice raised so his teacher can hear him. "Also, why are you using Predacon command codes?"

This is a rather baffling development! And he was totally going to find a way to non-lethally subdue that badger, too.

[Dinobot]

In the privacy of his mind, Dinobot facepalms, because really. "Scourge made me a better offer. Now come out and make this easy on yourself and I'll terminate you painlessly, Autobot scum!" he growls, stalking around the tree that conceals Spy Shot 6.

[Spy Shot 6/Cameron Otto]

"But life under Decepticon rule is cruel, with little personal freedom, and they torture their captives!¹" Spy Shot calls, quickly grabbing onto the tree, and climbing up it in a spiral direction to try and keep the trunk between himself and Dinobot. He learned that from watching a squirrel.


¹ Quoted from Dinobot in War Stories.

[Dinobot]

"I merely told the Autobots what they wanted to hear!" Dinobot snarls back at Spy Shot, leaping up onto the tree himself. He's heavier than the cameraformer, but he has claws and a much longer reach, so he can climb well enough. He spots a branch that looks like it'll both take his weight and give him access to Spy Shot 6 and heaves himself up onto it.

[Spy Shot 6/Cameron Otto]

Spy Shot is still learning about telling deception and truth, and is generally inclined to still take what people say at face value, however much wouldn't like it if Dinobot joined the Decepticons. However, something about this situation just doesn't seem right to him, and he quickly plays back his memories of the past few minutes, even as he strobes his flash and flees onto a smaller branch.

In a moment, he realizes what's bothering him, and declares, //But you do not want to kill me.//

[Dinobot]

Dinobot snarls as he's momentarily blinded. "Of course I don't want to kill you! Your memory makes you far more valuable alive! Capturing you will be easy. Death by my hand is an honor reserved for a worthy foe." Or an annoying stinky frenemy.

Dinobot inches out along the limb he's on, cautiously. He gives Spy Shot 6 a predatory smile, baring his teeth, before firing his optic lasers at the base of the branch the cameraformer is standing on. If Spy Shot falls, Dinobot will jump down after him and try to catch him in mid-air.

[Spy Shot 6/Cameron Otto]

Well, now Spy Shot is just terribly confused. He thought he was on to something about realizing Dinobot didn't want to kill him - really, if Dinobot wanted to kill him then he would have been dead with that first surprise shot. Time in the sim room has proven that Dinobot is very capable of killing him. Repeatedly. But now Dinobot is changing his story!

As the branch jolts underneath him and begins to drop, Spy Shot pushes off it jumping towards the next tree. He almost doesn't make it, managing to catch hold of a tiny branch with one claw, bobbing precariously up and down.

"But if you don't want to kill me then why did you say you'd terminate me painlessly?"

[Dinobot]

"A figure of speech!" Dinobot all but screams. This is becoming very annoying. He makes a note to himself that spur-of-the-moment deceptions do not work well on bots with eidetic memories.

The Maximal Totally-a-Predacon-Again-for-Realsies leaps after Spy Shot 6, holding his shield over his head as a sort of rotor to provide lift and let him make it across the gap without losing too much height, which works because physics was looking the other way. He lands clinging to the trunk right below the tiny Autobot and reaches up to grab him.

[Spy Shot 6/Cameron Otto]

"I do not think that is a figure of speech," Spy Shot says, firing his chest laser at Dinobot's approaching hand. He certainly doesn't want to try and kill Dinobot, but he's fairly certain that Transformers never died from losing a few fingers or a hole to the hand. "I think that is being indecisive."

[Dinobot]

Finally, Spy Shot 6 is returning fire! It's about time. This was starting to get annoying. Dinobot jerks his hand back reflexively with a snarl. "You're going to have to do better than that if you want to save yourself," he hisses. He's decided just ignoring the little cameraformer's incredibly frustrating idea of banter is the best course of action.

The raptor inches up the trunk of the tree. One foot finds a knothole and braces, preparing to spring.

[Rattrap]

The shuttle ride is a quick one, not terribly smooth. Rattrap has piloted here and there in the past, but he's hardly well-trained. He doesn't much care. He's largely happy he sets it down a mile from Spy Shot's coordinates without bashing it into the ground. He wouldn't have looked forward to hearing the local officials pitch a fit after the fuss they made giving him clearances. Truth is he's looking forward to this more for the chance to smack Dinobot than to bail out Spy Shot. The kid got himself into this somehow; kids, in Rattrap's experience, have a tendency to do just that. But Dinobot is a legitimate target.

"Lousy lizard," Rattrap huffs to himself as he books it through the woods on light, quiet feet, shuttle silent and locked far behind him. Being quiet means going a little slower than normal, burdened by the heavy pack on his back strapped between the rat halves. He'd rather kill the sorry traitor, but the satisfaction wouldn't offset the reaming he's sure he'd get for not bringing Dinobot back in to face charges. Slag, watching him squirm for this stunt might even be better.

Now, Spy Shot is tiny and difficult to spot, but it's impossible for Rattrap to miss the ten feet or so of robot scaling a tree. Rattrap sneers and brings the nozzle slung under his arm to bear on Dinobot. He lets his high pressure water cannon do the introduction for him.

[Spy Shot 6/Cameron Otto]

Quickly swinging back and forth, Spy Shot attempts to fling himself at another branch, hoping to avoid Dinobot when he lunges- only there's another person on the scene now.

Hitting a slightly lower branch chest-on, Spy Shot quickly grabs a hold of it and says, "Oh, hello Rattrap."

[Dinobot]

Dinobot was readying himself to jump, meaning he wasn't particularly firmly attached to the tree. The stream of high pressure water easily dislodges him and he ends up in a wet heap on the ground.

From bottom to top, Dinobot's field of vision is: Tree trunk, sky, Rattrap, leaf litter.

He covers his face with a hand and sighs. "If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."¹


_{1. Twelfth Night Act 3, scene 4, 118–128}

[Rattrap]

"I should condemn ya the right way," Rattrap snaps, "wit' my blaster. Stinkin' saurian." He fires another blast of water at Dinobot just because he can.

[Spy Shot 6/Cameron Otto]

Now that Spy Shot isn't quite so concerned with escaping Dinobot's clutches, he makes his way to a larger, more stable branch and settles in to watch the altercation.

//Should I do something?// he sends to Rattrap.