Fireblade: Cue Up 'Danger Zone'

[Slingshot]

Autobots vs. Bad Guys furball thread so that we're not all jammed into one thread and doing five thousand different things at slooooooooow once.

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One.

He's not a real Harrier.

For one thing, he's stupidly faster than any real Harrier has a right to be.

Slingshot leaves the sound barrier behind as he dives down on the Decepticon jets.

Two.

He's not a real Harrier.

Anything a real Harrier can do, he can do better.

Which means he's stupidly maneuverable compared to even a Transformer jet.

He comes in from the side, trusting to speed rather than stealth, because there's not a cloud in the sky today.

Three.

BluejetbluejetyellowjetgreyjetSTARSCREAM!

HimselfSkyblast (creeeeeeepy!), purplegun!

Slingshot slows as he levels out, and then his mortar cannons open up. Strictly energy blasts right now as he scythes through the enemy fliers.

He's been saving his big rockets since he got here. When they're gone, they're gone.

Starscream's a good reason to bring one out, though.

FOUR!

He's through them almost before he realizes it. Kick in the afterburners, go up-

Pseudo-random zig-zag. It'll kill speed, but it'll cut down on missile locks.

If he had a face in this form, Slingshot would smile.

Good ol' Skydive.

[Fleetwind]

Fleetwind, who had been flying overhead, starts to circle around to attack the buildng from a different direction, when two things happen:

1) He is cut off by a darting Aerialbot.

2) Starscream gives him an order that is virtually impossible to carry out because he's been cut off by a darting Aerialbot.

//Erm, I'll do my best, sir, but I'm going to have to deal with Slingshot first.// With that he transforms, twists, transforms again, and starts to climb, perhaps to give chase, perhaps to play bait, or perhaps merely to get above the trouble.

[Slingshot]

Slingshot zig-zags, corkscrews, and otherwise tries his best to dodge the anti-aircraft fire being sent his way. Okay, sent at the Decepticons' way, but it's not like that makes much of a difference when he's in among the sons of glitches.

New holes in his wings by the time he breaks out of range enough, though.

Now for a brief radar-check to see who all's on his tail...

- Okay, he's insulted now. Just the yellow guy? C'mon!

Grumbling, the Harrier turns back towards the pyramid jet.

[Fleetwind]

'Just the yellow guy.' Oh, Slingshot, if Fleetwind had been aware of that thought, and you hadn't been engaged in battle with him, he could love you for that thought.

Well, no. Love is a weaknesses that Fleetwind doesn't allow himself. But close enough.

So the Harrier has now turned towards the climbing pyramid jet, meaning he's heading down while Fleetwind headed up. Fleetwind keeps on his own heading, letting loose a quick spattering of laser fire before suddenly twisting off, spiraling towards his 'up' to a flight path more level with the ground, even if the jet itself isn't upright.

The coward has run away so quick! Time to press your advantage, yes?

[Slingshot]

Eeesh. Licentious advances for not knowing a guy's name. 'Cons are kinky.

Slingshot quarter-rolls to the side to dodge Fleetwind's fire, then happily gives chase as the yellow-bellied jet runs away. He opens fire with his cannons on 'energy blast'.

Two points to keep in mind:
- Slingshot was barely two weeks old when he got ganked to the Deadzone.
- Slingshot is not even a year old, and he hasn't spent most of his life in aerial furballs with clever, treacherous, skillful Decepticon fliers.

[Fleetwind]

Okay, this part will be tricky.

An ugly black scorch-mark darkens the Seeker's cream-white wing as one of Slingshot's blasts crosses it, close enough to take off a layer of first paint, then metal, than more layers, until a painful hole is burned into that left wing. It's not enough to hinder his flight - yet - put the fragile Seeker can only take a few more like that.

This may make it seem strange that Fleetwind is heading back into the anti-aircraft guns' line of fire, although he jinks constantly, up, down, up, down, just at the line below which the building-mounted weaponry cannot fire. In an up-move he catches another hole in his wing, and below he barely avoids taking fire from one of the other jets bent on destroying the building, and yet he stays airborne and continues to flee.

[Slingshot]

Slingshot dives after the yellow jet, heedless of where exactly he's following Fleetwind to.

At least until the crossfire of the anti-aircraft barrage and the Decepticon attack starts holing his wings, tail, and fuselage. The Aerialbot squawks and frantically begins to dodge, duck, and weave, trying to get between all the firepower without getting hit but still keep above Fleetwind.

The effort is doomed to failure, and soon Slingshot dives down below the lip of the building. His gleaming white is blackened and shot, his vertical stabilizer practically shredded, and there are nasty holes all through him. A few might even be leaking sluggishly.

That dirty, no good, rassa-frassing Decepticon...

Slingshot was so going to have to remember that for the next Deceptijet he got to scrap with.

[Fleetwind]

Fleetwind, of course, did not make it through the gauntlet unscathed, either, but he had two advantages:

1. He was prepared and aware of his surroundings flying into the line of fire, and
2. He mostly kept further down, below where the gunmounts on the roof could shoot.

Well, of course, there's also 3. he's used to performing these sorts of moves as part of his aerial dances.

Aerial dancing is a martial art.

Once he's cleared the line of fire, he turns and flies down a street, keeping below the level of the buildings as much as possible. That's difficult, as the 'city' the Autobase is in is not a particularly large one, and many of the buildings only have a few stories. The Seeker turns to fly down a narrower side-alley, muttering about flat worlds all the while.

[Slingshot]

Okay, enough pissing and moaning about how he hurts. There's a yellow jet out there that he needs to capture or just shoot up.

Slingshot darts off after Fleetwind, trying to stay above the yellow jet and keep an eye out that he's not going to be shot at by anyone else. This kind of situational awareness is a little new to him, so he's paying less attention to Fleetwind than he ought.

[Fleetwind]

Oh, hey, look, that Seeker you aren't paying attention to? He looks to be flying at a building. Probably going to pull up at the last minute or something typical like that.

No, no, wait. He's transforming, isn't he? And now he's pulled his knees to his chest, and is hurtling towards the building, tumbling in the air like a softball. And now? Now he's stretching his legs out again, only this time, they are pointed at the building. And now he's impacting the building, bending his legs to reduce the force to himself, still hitting hard enough to dent the building and jar himself, but not so hard as to prevent what he does next.

And what does he do next? Why, he springs off from the building, back to the ground, front towards the sky, and in a flash, his daggers are up as he tries to rake them against Slingshot's underside in a pass.

[Slingshot]

Slingshot was paying some attention to Fleetwind. Just... Not enough.

He squawks and reverses his vectored thrust nozzles as the Seeker leaps at him. This is not actually helpful when the knives bite in, and flying backwards prolongs how long they can be in him.

It's something Slingshot never stops to think about - has never needed to stop to think about it - but he's not really built to absorb this kind of abuse. Now, though, the red alerts and pain from his damage control computers are screaming at him, screaming that he needs to get out of this-

General band clicks on, then the Autobot broadband. "One?"

And all of a sudden, there's something a lot more important than his damages as it clicks together.

Slingshot transforms in mid-air, dropping like a rock, his rifle out. He squeezes off a careless burst at Fleetwind - get away from me, nothing more - then it's back to jet-mode-

Oh, hello, that was the speed of sound breaking.

---

Slingshot is out of thread.

[Fleetwind]

The shots aren't fired too carefully, and it's easy enough for the Seeker to twist out of their way. By the time he's done dodging, however, the sound of a sonic bomb indicates Slingshot's departure.

The Seeker blinks at the Aerialbot's exit, then shrugs. He was ordered to attack the building anyway. It was Slingshot who had given chase.

He goes back to attacking the building.