Tarantulas
Minor
The not-so-friendly neighborhood spider-man
Posts: 398
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Post by Tarantulas on Nov 19, 2011 19:26:28 GMT -5
Tarantulas was standing over Elita-1's body, poised with a circuit probe in his hand. When she screams, he does too, the tool clattering to the floor as he jumps back, optic band wide with terror and his hands going up to make a cross in front of his face.
"She's supposed to be dead! Her vitals were all flatlined for megacycles!" he protests, backing away until his progress is stopped by a piece of equipment.
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Tasha Walker
Minor
She's got legs, she knows how to use them. She never begs, she knows how to choose them.
Posts: 430
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Post by Tasha Walker on Nov 20, 2011 13:14:13 GMT -5
Blackarachnia stares blankly at the screaming thing on the table before them. Her hand fall from the panel to hang loosely at her sides. This can't be happening. She can't be thwarted now, not when she's so close.
But it is.
"She was dead," she insists, in an eerily flat tone, "She was."
Blackarachnia has lost her composure on more than one occasion, but usually it is in a very spectacular fashion. Now, though, she looks much less the femme fatale and much more the lost.
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Post by Sable Conolly on Nov 20, 2011 13:23:06 GMT -5
"So kill it all over again," Scourge suggests flatly. This would appear to be the obvious solution, in his book, to the problem of the body being alive.
He looks over it meaningfully and reaches his hand behind his back, as if to draw a weapon. Really! If Blackarachnia and Tarantulas don't want to do it, he'll kill it. If a contingency plan needs killing, Scourge is the Decepticon for the job.
"Unless you think we should interrogate it first and then kill it." He looks at his little lost lady questioningly.
OOC: Still skippable.
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Nov 20, 2011 13:54:31 GMT -5
Coming into the world is a confusing enough thing to deal with once. It is generally not recommended to do it all over again, especially not while in a state of extreme pain and cold. If Sentinel Prime really understood what was going on, she would be sorely vexed at herself for not following proper procedure. This isn't even how Primes are supposed to come back into the world, anyway. There's no cute sidekick with an AllSpark key here. Then again, Sentinel Primes tend to just stay dead, which... ...continues to be true, if one looks at the monitors. The body is still flatlined in most meaningful respects for a Transformer. Sure, it is moving, and the internal systems are operational, but most dead Transformer bodies are like that. There is no spark, however, which is the most important benchmark of life for a Transformer from her particular reality. The fact that there is higher processor activity is just a quirky aberration. Sentinel Prime has not noticed the lack of spark yet herself. She is, as has been mentioned, amazingly confused. A thousand questions besiege her at the gates, such as: - Why is she a woman? Wasn't she paranoidly afraid that Blackarachnia would turn her into a woman when Blackarachnia and Oil Slick tormented her at the asylum? Did she ever actually get out of the asylum or is this just some terrible fever dream? Is she at least a hot babe?
- Why isn't she dead? She thinks she isn't dead, anyway, though she is incorrect. A punch right to the spark from behind is liable to be pretty fatal, she thinks...
- Why does everything hurt? Ah, she thinks she has an answer for that, if she flicks back to the question of why isn't she dead.
- Why does everything feel so cold?
- Why does everything feel so intense? Didn't Elita-1 damp down her emotions? Why does she feel like breaking down and weeping? She shouldn't even be able to do that anymore.
- Why is she here? What is here?
Then the talk of killing 'it' invades the morass of questions she has going on, and her hazy vision snaps into focus, and she sees... "...Optimus!?" No, sweetie, that's Scourge.
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Tarantulas
Minor
The not-so-friendly neighborhood spider-man
Posts: 398
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Post by Tarantulas on Nov 24, 2011 12:21:08 GMT -5
Tarantulas looks over at Scourge when the Decepticon commander makes his transmission. Cut her radio and tie her down? Sure, he'll just climb up on the table and do that. Nevermind that she can pick him up in one hand.
Actually, she (it? Whatever.) doesn't seem to be doing much other than screaming, so Tarantulas does climb up onto the table, draw his gun, and shoot a stasis web at Elita-1's closest wrist. If that works, he'll try the other limbs. Hopefully she's not in bug-squashing mood.
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Tasha Walker
Minor
She's got legs, she knows how to use them. She never begs, she knows how to choose them.
Posts: 430
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Post by Tasha Walker on Nov 24, 2011 14:10:11 GMT -5
Blackarachnia isn't looking at the thing on the table anymore. She's staring down at the floor, at nothing, really, and so she misses Scourge's questioning glance. Her hands grasp the edge of the table, claws digging into the metal.
"I don't care," she eventually answers Scourge, her voice hollow and broken.
She sends a line of webbing toward the thing, an attempt at aiding Tarantulas by snaring the thing's legs, then pushes herself off the table. Blackarachnia moves toward the door, weaving slightly from the shock of both the surgery prep and the reanimated body.
People sometimes talk about the last straw, and this is hers. It's too much. Just too much.
OOC: will be out of thread unless stopped.
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Post by Sable Conolly on Nov 24, 2011 17:02:57 GMT -5
Tarantulas is a spider. Tying things up is sort of his thing. Forgive Scourge for thinking that Tarantulas might be competent!
Scourge grabs the corpse by the hand that Tarantulas doesn't have, since Blackarachnia is getting the leg. Then he quickly takes his hand back and stares at its hand, one antenna twitching with unbridled revulsion. Yeah, he's just going to let Tarantulas web that hand down, thanks. There was an... astringent tingle when he touched that dead body.
He instead reaches around behind the corpse's head and unlatches its helmet. Scourge sets the helmet aside, only carefully because he's sure Blackarachnia won't want dents in it, and yanks the corpse's radio.
Scourge decides, because a quick decision is needed, "First, we need to know what in the name of Vector Sigma is wrong with that corpse. Then, we need to finish the surgery so that Blackarachna may be returned to a body she prefers. As determining the failure will take time... where is Phobia?"
Then, at very last, Scourge looks to the pretty little dead girl, and he growls, his voice like cracked glass, sharp and biting, "No. Never. I am Scourge. Always."
OOC: Posing of Sentinel done with permission.
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Nov 24, 2011 20:20:47 GMT -5
Sentinel Prime looks sidelong at the webbing holding her hand down, not quite willing to believe it is there. She wants to think that Optimus is there on that AllSpark-forsaken Reaver ship, and he's going to save her and Elita-1, and Sentinel Prime is just a she right now because... Elita-1 did something terribly inappropriate and kinky? Sentinel Prime doesn't know. She's not creative! Too much imagination is seditious.
But she can't move her hand, and she looks past it to the... spider...
Sentinel Prime screams again, shuddering. Down at her feet, something lashes them down, and... and...
Blackarachnia.
Sentinel Prime stares. She whispers, "No. This is not happening. I refuse for this to be happening."
Then she looks over at 'Optimus' as he grabs her hand, as he tears off her helmet and breaks her radio, as he declares that he's... not Optimus. Her vision snaps into full-colour and real focus. At least four different trains of her worse nightmares are colliding in a four-way trainwreck. Sentinel Prime tries to do what she always does when she's in over her head: radio Optimus and beg him to bail her out.
Scourge just broke her radio. The recent memory hits her hard and mocks her for forgetting so quickly. She is on her own. Being able to feel again makes all of this too much to bear. Being stuck in a room and mostly tied down by a pair of spiders is too much to bear. Being stuck in a room with Scourge is too much to bear.
And Blackarachnia may be her failure and her shame and her burden, but that doesn't mean she can handle it.
It's all too much.
So Sentinel Prime snaps, and she snaps into her usual bluster and bravado, because that's all she has. She reaches for her lance and shield, and... they're not there in her subspace pocket. Her expression turns incredulous. What does she have in there? Why does she have so many pairs of gloves in subspace? And what is this nagging 'download' alert she has? Why does she feel so weak, too?
Slag it. If in doubt, sneer at everyone else. Sentinel Prime says loudly, "You won't get anything out of me! I'll bring this whole operation down on your heads! You will rue this day!"
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Post by Phobia/Pierce Fobster on Nov 28, 2011 11:29:54 GMT -5
Phobia very, very carefully doesn’t let himself make any expression when he sees Blackarachnia walk past on his way. It was foreboding to say the least, and he pauses in front of the door, gathering up his composure.
The terror and confusion filled the room like an icy cold mist for Phobia when he steps in. He takes in the sight of an Autobot tied down to the berth and represses the strut deep shiver for a moment. Even without the full immersion into the Autobot’s mental state that physical contact would have afforded him, the terror was pervasive.
“Lord Scourge,” he says softly with a meek bow. The call over the radio had been curt and lacking in information, but he suspects his has his answer to his earlier question.
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Tarantulas
Minor
The not-so-friendly neighborhood spider-man
Posts: 398
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Post by Tarantulas on Nov 30, 2011 19:46:53 GMT -5
Tarantulas is still standing on the operating beth by Elita-1's head, weapon drawn, when Phobia walks in. He looks at Scourge, then the interrogator, and shrugs, spider-leg kibble heaving up and down.
"You want to interrogate her, be my guest. This chassis was dead half a cycle ago. And it's still showing zero spark activity," he says, gesturing with his gun toward a monitor.
"You want her drugged?" the spider asks deferentially, moving to prod Elita-1's head with a golden foot. She's probably not crazy about hearing him say that.
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Post by Sable Conolly on Nov 30, 2011 21:51:54 GMT -5
"Phobia," Scourge answers, acknowledging Phobia with a slight tilt of his head.
Scourge considers for a moment and then declares, "No. Blackarachnia wants that body intact. Perhaps you and I should retire elsewhere to let Phobia interrogate Elita-1 alone."
She's tied down, half with stasis webs. She's not going anywhere. Tarantulas can analyse his data in a different lab, and Scourge can try to... give Blackarachnia a hug or something.
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Dec 1, 2011 11:13:58 GMT -5
With Blackarachnia gone, it is marginally easier for Sentinel Prime to concentrate. Tarantulas is still terrifying, true, but weak and small as Sentinel Prime feels right now, she is pretty sure that if she could get loose, she could just step on him, even with all her weapons missing. She may be an arachnophobe, but she's never been shy of solving her fear with violence. (Indeed, in Predacons Rising, which she hasn't actually experienced thanks to chronal wonkiness, Sentinel Prime's reaction to Blackarachnia was to express his disgust and then promptly attempt to murder her, not to cower in useless fear.)
Sentinel Prime, arrogant master of self-delusion that she is, further lets herself be convinced that she can escape. She's gotten out of stasis cuffs before, and those paralyze from the neck down. Besides, if she thinks she can get out, she has hope that something can be done. Otherwise, she might as well give up the ghost now.
Which is not to say that she's not completely terrified and confused. She is. She's just going to lie and hurt people, whichever seems more viable, until she is at such a point where collapsing in a closet is a viable option, and then she will do so.
There is a spike of horror when Tarantulas mentions drugging, and she thrashes as much as she can and hollers hoarsely, "No! No!" She's not sure she can handle that again. She's not sure she'll recover this time.
Sentinel Prime is not sure what Tarantulas means about no spark activity. A lie to confuse her? Of course she must have a spark. Only drones don't have sparks, and she's not a drone! And, okay, weirdos from other realities like Perceptor and Impactor don't have sparks, but Sentinel Prime isn't like them. Therefore, she must have a spark. She must.
Then Scourge calls her Elita-1, and there is a spike of confusion. Okay, yes, Sentinel Prime can agree that she appears to look like Elita-1, from what she can see of the body, and she sounds like her, though her word choice and emphasis is different. From what she has overheard, Blackarachnia wants this body, too, so... the Decepticons think she's Elita-1? And also dead? That doesn't make sense! Last Sentinel Prime remembers, she was dying on alien spaceship. Now she's in Decepticon custody with no idea how she got here.
Sentinel Prime hates being confused, but if the Decepticons want to say she's Elita-1? Fine. She'll play along. Then the Decepticons can be confused, too, and everyone can be miserable. She's Elita-1. Optimus Prime is just the hunkiest hunk ever to hunk, tee-hee, though that Sentinel Prime is also gloriously handsome but such a party-pooper. Also, the AllSpark is awesome, yay, and science is great.
Elita-1 would slap Sentinel Prime so hard right now, Sentinel Prime thinks.
She tries to think what Elita-1 might say, something that will also stall for time, and she settles on, "You know, if you're going to question me, some context would be helpful. What exactly do you want out of me? Contingency plans for various planets? Troop dispositions? Or..." She smiles as sweetly as cyanide, "...a detailed description of how my boys are going to scatter your pieces across the universe when they find out what you've done? I'll have an easier time talking them down if I'm not too... upset, you know."
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Post by Phobia/Pierce Fobster on Dec 1, 2011 18:45:33 GMT -5
“She is showing clear emotional responses and consciousness. Dead or not, it is something I can work with,” Phobia says respectfully to Tarantulas, gesturing to the way the Autobot panicked at the mention of drugging. “I’d prefer our patient be left with as clear a processor as possible,” he requests softly afterwards with a grateful nod to to the doctor. Drugged people tended not to give most correct of information and it also messed with the emotional responses.
What is the goal of this interrogation? He glances briefly at Scourge and then turns his attention to the Autobot on the berth, taking out a datapad and quietly waiting for the others to leave. It would give ‘Elita’ a few moments to calm down and Phobia himself a few moments to plan out their session. If Scourge doesn’t wish to divulge furthur, then he will simply have to proceed regardless. Phobia can take a few guesses as to what they are trying to find out anyhow; Tarantulas’ presence, the equipment, Blackarachnia’s emotional state when he’d glimpsed her down the hall, the fact that Elita-1 had been dead.
“Neither of your comrades are that terrifying,” the bike says simply with a small shrug. Sentinel might interpret that as arrogance but for Phobia it was a simple truth; if the Autobots were anywhere near as terrifying as the Decepticons, perhaps Phobia wouldn’t be here. It was a long list of complicated reasons for his joining the cause, but fear was what had kept him here in times of doubt.
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Post by Sable Conolly on Dec 4, 2011 21:33:30 GMT -5
OOC: Skipping Tarantulas due to timeout. Also, out of thread unless stopped.
//Figure out why that thing is up and talking and what killed it in the first place, if you can. We recovered two Autobot corpses from a radioactive space wreck. There was some odd drug on the one of them, the female. We think she killed the male, Sentinel Prime, possibly a love interest of hers, and ate part of him, based off traces on the body. We have no idea why. So you might be interrogating a crazed cannibal Autobot there. But the female was a compatible body shell match for Blackarachnia, and she wanted a transplant, so Tarantulas cleaned it up for her,// Scourge explains to Phobia.
//Troop numbers, future plans, and the usual would also be of interest.//
Scourge snorts at Elita-1 and growls, "What a foolish slip of a girl. If I didn't know better, I wouldn't believe you could ever be anything more than useless."
Then he stalks out.
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Dec 5, 2011 10:55:42 GMT -5
Sentinel Prime willfully ignores the motorcycle insisting that she is dead. La la la, it does not work that way! She sneers, "Fine, underestimate them! See how far that gets you!"
And inside, Sentinel Prime thinks that, okay, maybe Optimus isn't that scary, but slaggit, people should be afraid of Sentinel Prime! Because of... er... nevermind. They just should. And also admiring. They should be struck with shock and awe.
She huffs loudly when Scourge leaves and adds, irate, "And underestimate me, will you?"
But inside, there's another spike of hope. With Scourge gone, it's down to just the icky little spider and the motorcycle creep. The odds are looking better and better. If only she had some weapons...
Oh well. Now it is time to be concerned about this stasis web sapping the life out of her. She queues up her settings panel and looks at the circuit breakers in this body. The stasis web can't drain current if she mentally throws the breakers, because then there will be no current to drain. Of course, that'll cut off power entirely to her extremities, probably from the elbow and knee down, but given that she's not moving, anyway, it's not like anyone is going to notice her not moving as strange.
Good thing Sentinel Prime learned how to get out of stasis cuffs, right? Not that she wants to talk about why... that's probably yet another Broken Lance story.
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