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Post by Phobia/Pierce Fobster on Oct 14, 2011 11:15:18 GMT -5
OOC: Month 4, week 2, day 5. Private for now, but will be opened later.
It was a blue sunny day. Seagulls were scattered throughout the cloudless sky. The distant blare of a ship leaving the port sounded a few kilometers away from the small protected marina where white boats bobbed in the glittering water. Colorful swathes of people crowded around the food stands not too far away, their chattering and laughter drifting over the static sound of the waves hissing over the concrete barriers and lapping at the edges of the docks.
In a small parking lot overlooking the dock, a lone black-suited biker sits atop his bike in the sunlight dappled shade of a palm tree. He seems to be enjoying the view although he was mostly there just to keep the seagulls away and ward off curious teenage boys. Phobia isn’t particularly inclined towards having any of either group touching him in any way; Arcee may have been okay with humans randomly riding her, but this bike had a bit more conservative attitudes about that, thank you.
And seagulls were just annoying.
It’d had been a rather long night of scouting anyhow and Phobia mostly just wanted some peace and quiet as he drowsed in and out of defragging. If he happens to eavesdrop in on the conversations of any rich influential yacht-goers now and again, it was entirely incidental.
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Post by Rampage/Xavier Goodkind on Oct 18, 2011 1:01:45 GMT -5
The buzz of billions of human minds fills Rampage's head, no matter where he is on Earth. Out to sea it's bearable, an undifferentiated mass of background presences, but as he approaches the coast, picking his way across the seabed, a portion of that mass swells, takes on focus. A thousands of minds. Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, all clustered together in a single city, squirming within and at the edges of his more detailed perceptions. A chaotic cacophony of flickering emotions, beating away at his sanity, making it difficult to remember where his emotions end and theirs begin. He never stays near the populated coasts too long.
Every so often, though, as he prowls the ocean, Rampage gets a flicker of a presence that he's done his best to intimately familiarize himself with. Always distant, faint, and barely distinguishable, but it's enough, and he follows it all the way back to the coast only to find his quarry still irritatingly out of reach, no doubt hidden somewhere in the heart of the land, hidden amongst a hundred million minds.
Only this time is different. This time Phobia is here and Rampage can feel his presence drawing nearer and nearer as he scuttles into the marina. But where?
Making his way beneath the anchored boats until he's closer to shore, he uses an anchor to climb to the surface of the water, pushing his head just far enough above the waves for him to see. He scans the shore, his antennae beginning to quiver in anticipation when his gaze falls upon the black bike and its rider. Surely it must be him! Rampage quickly searches for other similar bikes, but comes up empty.
Retreating back beneath the surface, Rampage chuckles to himself. "Time for some fun, friend."
With a quick snip of one of his massive claws, he parts the anchor and most of its chain from its boat, and begins carrying it to shore.
OOC: Pop me a message if you want me to get to Rampage attacking before you respond and I'll edit that in!
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Post by Phobia/Pierce Fobster on Oct 18, 2011 4:07:49 GMT -5
Over the course of his scouting, the bike had become used to being around a substantially larger crowd than anything the ship had ever carried. He hadn’t been around this many people all at once since the Golden Age, but his empathy was created with limitations that made it bearable for him to be around them.
However, the very limitations of his powers that afforded Phobia some peace from the chaotic emotional mass that is humanity- have now become his vice. Rampage’s presence had blended into the static fuzz of the crowd’s emotions, a mere pinprick of discomfort in the white noise that draws the bike out of his drowsing with a confused murmur. He takes a moment to draw himself together, shifting quietly on his wheels before swiveling slightly, looking out over the crowds for the source of disturbance.
“Whoa!” Not too far away, a noisy and colorful group of small children were running along the wooden walkways. “There’s something in the water!” One of the girls dressed in a bright pink polka-dotted swimsuit was pointing out at the nearby wave breakers. Half asleep as he was, Phobia doesn’t pay them much heed; not until the pinprick of a presence blossoms into something substantially more worrisome. Something coming from the very direction the children were looking at.
The bike snaps fully awake and twists around- just in time to see Rampage emerge from the waves. The crab will only have a split second of Phobia staring at him before his engine screams to life.
OOC: No need to edit, thank you!
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Post by Rampage/Xavier Goodkind on Oct 20, 2011 17:40:32 GMT -5
Oh dear, spotted by his prey already. Then he'd better make this quick!
Rampage stalks out of the ocean in robot-mode, mindless of the scurrying humans, swinging the anchor in a wide circle on its chain. His optics narrow, fixed on Phobia, and he lets the anchor fly, arrowing towards the black bike. He keeps a tight grip on the free end of the chain, prepared to reel it back in if the anchor hits its target.
Fishing for Decepticons, the finest of hobbies!
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Post by Phobia/Pierce Fobster on Oct 21, 2011 7:39:06 GMT -5
A rooster tail of sand arcs up wildly behind Phobia as he spins, gunning his engines to-
The anchor hooks into his back wheel and gets jammed between the spokes- and then in the space between the wheel and the brakes. The bike is violently jerked back and snaps around before spinning on his side, perfect polished black finish ruined as it was harshly scraped away by the sand and rock.
He makes a small, stunned and painful noise, hologram rider abruptly fading away. Distantly, he hears the humans start yelling and shouting their amazement, but pays them no heed. Rampage is reeling him in. Rampage was reeling him in and horrible things will happen if the bastard Predacon catches him.
Phobia transforms, twisting with a gasp of pain as he scrabbles for purchase, heels digging uselessly into the sand. The bike then grabs the anchor and wrenches it free with a shriek of bending metal and a series of sparks.
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Post by Rampage/Xavier Goodkind on Oct 23, 2011 20:52:34 GMT -5
Rampage charges for the waterside parking lot as Phobia frees himself, keeping a firm grip on the anchor chain as he runs. It may yet be useful. He slaps away any humans unfortunate enough to remain in his path, then pulls out his cannon with his free hand.
"You aren't getting away that easily, my friend!" he chortles, firing off a missile at the ground near Phobia, intended to stun rather than injure. However, any collateral damage among the humans will be greatly appreciated. Let them scream, let them fear.
In the age of cellphones and cellphone cameras, this is bound to catch attention quickly.
OOC: Good to open?
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Post by Phobia/Pierce Fobster on Oct 24, 2011 7:08:07 GMT -5
Oh. Missile.
Phobia throws himself to the side instinctively. The explosion still sends him rolling head over heels but it doesn’t stun him enough to disable him. It does have the miserable side-effect of putting some shrapnel into his armor though and probably through a few of the human bystanders too.
“Are you insane?!” he yells, scrambling to his feet and making a run for it. Wait. Don’t answer that, Rampage; he already knows.
The bike hurtles over one of the food stands and sprints into the nearby park. It was too crowded for Phobia to transform and make a run for it just yet; he didn’t have the mass to simply plough through crowds. Nor does he particularly want their gore and guts all over him.
OOC: Good to open!
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Silverbolt
Cadet
WITH ALL MY SPARK'S MIGHT!
Posts: 96
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Post by Silverbolt on Oct 24, 2011 21:30:13 GMT -5
What's this now? Two 'cons duking it out at the expense of innocent bystanders. The ne'er do wells! The fiends! ...Though it seems a bit onesided as like Rampage appears to be the only one engaged in the fight. Nevertheless! Silverbolt would like to see the end of! With backup! He's not looking forward to getting slagged to pieces anytime soon.
Silverbolt circles the sky above the two, as he raises a talon to his face, and placing a call on the broadband.
//It seems Rampage and Phobia are causing a stir in the middle of <insert coordinates here>. Backup would be appreciated.//
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Post by Rampage/Xavier Goodkind on Oct 26, 2011 1:00:35 GMT -5
Humans run in screaming panic as Rampage continues to pursue his quarry and he can't help but laugh and roar in pleasure. In chaos, people become simple. Fear and anger and hate and confusion. A million shallow, flighty emotions narrowed down to a strong, bold few. A barrier of simple emotion to protect him from the maddening effects of two many varied minds and emotions. So intoxicating. He could lose himself in the pursuit of turning all to pain and fear until none are left... but he has more important things to do.
"Phooobiaaa!" Rampage calls, sounding positively euphoric. "Leaving so soon?!" He dissolves back into laughter, firing a barrage of missiles into the crowd surrounding Phobia.
Held up by a crowd. Is his little bird too frightened to remember how to fly? Not that he's complaining!
He's far too distracted to notice the Maximal presence that has joined them yet.
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Post by Phobia/Pierce Fobster on Oct 28, 2011 19:52:55 GMT -5
It was like walking into a cloud of acid. Or a vortex of acid, Phobia isn’t too sure which. He was being drowned in the veritable ocean of terror as the humans try and flee the scene or die in the process. Their screams cut through the clear warm air and lance through his mind like a swarm of a thousand tiny needles.
He’d stopped thinking clearly the moment the Predacon had appeared fired at him, but now there was the miasma of terror from the humans as well. He can’t think. He couldn’t hear his own thoughts; they were swept away in the torrent of foreign emotions, the sound of a pin being dropped in the middle of a stormy sea.
One of the blasts from a missile sends the bike crashing through a restaurant window, scattering the chairs and tables. Disoriented for a moment, he just stares up at the flickering lights in the ceiling.
And then he realizes there’s a bleeding stump of a hand hand on his windshield.
Phobia screams both in rage and panic, feeling his armor burn and crawl when his visual sensors work out just how much of the stuff had gotten on him.
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Silverbolt
Cadet
WITH ALL MY SPARK'S MIGHT!
Posts: 96
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Post by Silverbolt on Oct 31, 2011 22:46:13 GMT -5
Silverbolt keeps circling above in the skies, watching the fight below. backup would arrive eventually, but the fuzor was getting impatient. The casualties. There was no need for innocents to get caught up in whatever petty squabble this was. He snarled (quietly), but held back. Two Cons against one bird-dog were not good odds.
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Post by Rampage/Xavier Goodkind on Nov 2, 2011 1:21:04 GMT -5
The area is clearing of people, a panicking crowd rushing away in screaming panic. Some are no longer capable of running, through injury or shock or fear, and others stay to help or mourn their wounded. In the distance, sirens can be heard, getting closer. More humans for the incidental slaughter perhaps?
Ah, life is good!
Rampage stalks towards the restaurant, gun at the ready, and drinking in Phobia's terror and anger. He looms in the broken window, cackling. "I told you I'd be seeing you!"
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Post by Phobia/Pierce Fobster on Nov 2, 2011 7:39:33 GMT -5
“You- you-!” Phobia recoils, making a sickly noise at the way the disembodied hand slides down his chest and splats on the floor. Organic gore. Organic gore all over his chest. Shuddering and on the verge of becoming violently ill, the bike staggers to his feet for the second time that day, clutching at the leg of an upended table.
“This was completely unnecessary,” he hisses, finally pulling his gun out from subspace with shaking hands as he watches Rampage approach. His visor flickers as he glances around the room, trying to find a way out. “What were you thinking? The Autobots will be after us in mere minutes!”
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Post by Kup on Nov 3, 2011 17:56:03 GMT -5
The spacebridge isn't a pleasant experience, not by a long shot, but Kup's a tough old coot, and there's the potential for trouble.
The old warhorse rumbles towards the port, having set down a bit further away than he'd hoped. As he drives, he radios Silverbolt.
// Almost there, lad. What's the situation? //
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Silverbolt
Cadet
WITH ALL MY SPARK'S MIGHT!
Posts: 96
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Post by Silverbolt on Nov 4, 2011 15:45:15 GMT -5
//It is...unwell. The humans are in panic, and there have been some...casualties.// Silverbolt places a bitter emphasis on the last part. Wasn't much he could do previously without getting caught in the crossfire and getting slagged before he had a chance to save anyone. But with Kup here now...maybe he'll have a chance to get the wounded to safety. //There are a few injured humans still in the crossfire. I am going in to take them to safety while these Decepticons are still distracted with eachother.//
And so Silverbolt dives downward, hopefully unnoticed to take any injured human stragglers out of the battlefield and into an ambulance. Perhaps he should have waited for Kup's word before attempting something so potentially dangerous, but alas, Silverbolt is a moron appalled by this disgusting display of carnage.
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