Fireblade: New Exhibit

[Hellbender]

At first, Hellbender was going to ignore Omega Supreme's grip and try to gnaw that hand into shards--but his armor groaned under Omega's power--

Bastard's strong!

Hellbender yanked his head back out of Omega's grip, Omega's claws gouging deep into his head armor. About then, the Guardian's foot connected with his mid-section, denting the massive armor.

"Damn, boy, what were you built for? Demolishing cities? Seriously!"

Hellbender reared back and lunged forward like a striking cobra, trying to sink his cutters into Omega's midsection.

[Omega Supreme]

Omega Supreme was built for a task he really does not like to mention: oppressing the populace and keeping the slaves in line. Why, precisely, the Quintessons built such a robot to also be able to rearrange geography on a whim, Omega Supreme is not sure. Perhaps Quintessons are fond of overkill.

Speaking of overkill, he spares a moment to point his main cannon at one specific little building, and he removes it from the map. Perceptor may flee with the knowledge that his secrets have been atomised.

Bristling, Omega Supreme intones to the too-chatty miner, "Creation: irrelevant." Just as Hellbender will be irrelevant if he continues to fight the Guardian.

Omega Supreme attempts to violently swat away Hellbender, ignoring the pain in his hand, but the mining worm does get at least a surface 'bite' into the Guardian's middle.

[Hellbender]

Omega Supreme's hand slams into the side of Hellbender's head, sending the great worm reeling to one side. He twisted, coils rolling as he circles behind Omega, tail sliding between the Guardian's feet.

Coils tightened; Hellbender tried to slam into Omega's side with all the weight of his forebody as his lower coils pulled at the Guardian's legs. With luck, he just might bring the mighty Autobot down.

[Omega Supreme]

Omega Supreme is suprisingly difficult to knock over. He doesn't have spindly legs like an AT-AT, for one thing. His are massive and sturdy. For another thing, it's hard for Hellbender to get leverage. For the final thing, Omega Supreme's a great deal stronger than Hellbender. The titan does wobble, however, and many flower beds are senselessly crushed. Botanica is going to have Omega's Supreme's head for this, isn't she?

What Omega Supreme really wants to do is throw Hellbender somewhere and go off to hunt down Hook and Mixmaster. He tries to grab the worm by the neck and pull him off his body forcibly.

[Hellbender]

There Omega goes getting grabby again! Hellbender swipes sideways at the grabbing hand with his cutters; maybe he'll get lucky.

It's dawning on Hellbender that this is likely to be a long fight of maneuver, each attacking and the other countering, until one of them screws up. Every time he counters one of Omega Supreme's grabs, that's time Hellbender can't spend attacking--and it'll take time to grind through Omega Supreme's armor.

Contrariwise, every time Omega Supreme tried to grab Hellbender--or if he should try to press a gun against Hellbender--the giant mining worm would twist and try to eat the appendage... and Omega had to pull back lest he lose it.

Hellbender needed to take out those hands, but how?

[Omega Supreme]

A scrape of metal is removed from Omega Supreme's claw hand. His claw hand is still oeprational, but that's a nasty gouge, all the same.

Omega Supreme is nothing if not persistent, and he tries to grab Hellbender behind the head again.

However, he also attempts to shoot off a cannon-blast at Hellbender's tail tip, to keep the mining worm distracted.

Something else that Hellbender needs to worry about are Omega Supreme's feet. He attempts to stomp on the sections of Hellbender that are still on the ground.

[Hellbender]

Hellbender seems to have the part of the giant anaconda, while Omega Supreme is 'Jim'. Fortunately, no one shot him full of tranq darts first.

Hellbender swung back and slashed at Omega's claw hand again--

FWAASSH! Omega's cannon blast took off the tip of Hellbender's tail! Hellbender involuntarily flailed with his whole stern end--and Omega Supreme obligingly lifted one of his feet, shifting his balance off-center...

While Hellbender was still coiled around and between his legs.

Something was about to get tangled up here.

[Omega Supreme]

Another gouge is scraped out of one of his talons - his armour can withstand pretty much anything short of a direct thermonuclear weapons strike, so it ought to be an awful lot harder on Hellbender's grinders than even the toughest of bedrock.

Omega Supreme is definitely taken a bit off balance now, and he comes crashing down on one knee, nearly falling. He roars incoherently and glares balefully at the mining worm.

Then, deliberately, he attempts to sit down on Hellbender's midsection.

[Hellbender]

Hellbender's grinders will need some serious re-sharpening if not re-cutting when he's done here. He won't be grinding his way through hard rock for a while, not after grinding his way through Omega Supreme--but he's still got enough for that.

Hellbender threw his bulk against the other leg, trying to bring Omega Supreme down--only to further Omega's own end as the mighty Guardian came down square on Hellbender's mid-body. Oops.

Hellbender found himself pinned under Omega Supreme's bulk and thrashed violently, slamming his head against the Guardian's mid-section again and again.

[Omega Supreme]

Omega Supreme is not so foolish as to attempt to stand, not with Hellbender wrapped around his body and smacking his head into his torso like some demented cardinal against a window. Instead, he first attempts to kneels, shins to the ground - and hopefully exerting vast amounts of pressure on different portions of Hellbender.

Okay, so Hellbender is going to eventually cause some damage to Omega Supreme, ramming his head into Omega Supreme's chest that way, if Hellbender does not first give himself a headache.

He tries to elbow the back of Hellbender's neck, hard, to perhaps deter the Decepticon who just won't stop and let Omega Supreme go hunt Constructicons.

[Hellbender]

Hellbender's body was built to withstand vast amounts of pressure, fortunately for the mining worm. Digging deep under the earth with no shoring is not for the easily-crushed.

Unfortunately for Hellbender, his head was build as a drill and rock crusher, not a hammer. Welds creaked and groaned inside his head at the repeated shock of slamming into Omega's unyielding armor, and minor little warnings about excessive shock G's and strain started popping up in the stubborn Decepticon's alarm queue.

Ah'm not giving up! Ah can take it, and him, too!

Omega's elbow slamming into the top of Hellbender's head, behind the cutters jostled loose a series of connectors that had already been loosened by the constant pounding against Omega Supreme. Hellbender reared back, shaking his head from side-to-side; red failure lights on a quarter of his forward sensors illuminated the alarm queue.

Omega had blinded one of four invisible "eyes"-- and that damn gun hand was still being held out of reach!

Frustrated and petulant, Hellbender slashed at the elbow with his cutters running.

[Omega Supreme]

Omega Supreme has been given the order to retreat, and it galls him. He is unyielding by nature - he knows that he can demolish this Decepticon. It's simply a matter of time. Then, he could hunt down Hook and Mixmaster and put them to the deaths that they so richly deserve.

And then Long Haul will hate him forever.

The hate would be a large price to pay, but Omega Supreme has already signed the check. All that remains is to cash it.

Omega Supreme attempts to stand now, attempting to put a heavy foot on the attached remainder of Hellbender's tail. Then, with all of his monolithic fury, he attempts to grab the mining worm by the neck and tear him apart. With his elbow injured, Omega Supreme cannot exert as much force as he usually can. Instead of the strength to move mountains, Omega Supreme can merely demolish hills now.

Optic glaring an icy blue, he intones, "Resistance: futile."

Yeah, even Omega Supreme has seen a drive-in flick or two.

[Hellbender]

When Omega Supreme wants to stand, he stands. Hellbender quickly found out that he wasn't strong enough to stop the giant Guardian from moving, even with the weight of his coils around the legs of the colossus.

The stomp at his wounded tail seemed too petty a tactic for the Guardian; Hellbender flicked it out of the way and caught the foot on a slightly higher coil--unaware that the sturdy, unyielding hull was exactly what Omega had been aiming for.

He should have expected the next move--hadn't Omega tried to grab his head repeatedly? Hellbender's mind had been preoccupied with where Omega might shove his gun hand, assuming that the Guardian had given up on getting bits of his claws chewed off. With a quarter of his sensors offline, and more failing from the battering he himself had given them, he failed to noticed the initial movement of Omega's claw hand. It was only a fraction of a second's delay, but his motion sensors had been the lion's share of what let him anticipate the Guardian's moves in time to counter then.

He twisted too late; Omega's claws closed tight not on his head, but on the massive body behind Hellbender's head, and dug in until the mining worm's hull groaned with the pressure. Writhe though he might, Hellbender could not reach Omega with his grinders.

"Slaggit, Ah told Hook Ah needed a ranged weapon! Seriously!"

Either Hellbender's timing was very bad, or he shouldn't have mentioned Hook. He roared with incoherent agony as Omega Supreme suddenly yanked his body taut and beyond, pulling the complex interlinked spinal joints apart with one slow, brutal heave. Hellbender's hull was built to resist compression--not tension.

The overlapping scales that fit so tightly and neatly together warped and twisted as they were slowly pulled apart; Hellbender's roar rose higher and higher into a scream of tormented agony as he was racked apart. Finally, one of the spinal joints, deformed beyond all semblance of function, gave way completely, and the rest of the horribly twisted armor tore apart like paper, as did pipes and cables and wiring. Black river silt spilled from shredded ore bins, mixed with lubricants and fuel...

[Omega Supreme]

Mentioning Hook, that hated name that tears at Omega Supreme, was indeed a rather bad idea on Hellbender's part. The Guardian's icy glare turns into the sudden, sharp fall of a glacier.

Filled with fury, he twists like a discus thrower and attempt to lob the half of Hellbender still caught in hi clutches into the river. May silt, fish, and rocks accumulate in the miner's most sensitive circuits! He has denied Omega Supreme access to his enemies and to have his wires nibbled by crayfish is entirely too good for the Decepticon.

Omega Supreme tries to kick away the remainder of Hellbender, likely demolishing a few buildings in the process. Then, the Guardian settles down to initiate his transformation.

[Hellbender]

The only thing that saved Hellbender from being shorted into stasis lock and sinking into the river mud never to be seen again was his core. At his core, he was still Midnight--still possessed of hardened, multply-redundant cognitive processors. It took more than massive trauma, agonizing pain and shorting circuits to knock him offline.

Hook hadn't had the equipment, time or schematics to rebuild Midnight's distributed, redundant power and control systems in Hellbender; the severed tail of the worm fell limp and flopped lifelessly when Omega Supreme kicked it away. It was so much dead metal now.

Omega Supreme's throw was powerful indeed--it landed Hellbender's head and forebody near the opposite bank of the river! As he fought off shorting circuits and slowly, painfully crawled along the river bank and into the nearest sewer outfall, Hellbender berated himself mentally: You're still just a big, dumb fighter-bomber, ain't you? Taking on Omega Supreme--Ah was warned about him! But no, Ah just had to prove Ah was tough and could fight anyone. Seriously. Look, y'all, this is me stunt-flyin' against Wreckers over the Smelting Pools again! An' lookie here, this is what happens when Ah do stupid slag like that.

Critical power warnings, more damage warnings than Hellbender could count blinked in his alarm queue. Time to admit that just maybe he needed a little bit of help...

// This here is Hellbender. Omega disengaged; repeat, Omega Supreme disengaged. Ah am wounded and low on power at <(underground) coordinates>. Might maybe could use a spot of assistance. //

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