Fireblade: One

[Rodimus Prime-3]

The city roads are still metal, and they still sing for the Prime.

He lost his chorus at the city limits, as his troops scattered to end their counterparts, but he's gained a new one in the form of the echoes off the sides of the city buildings.

Rodimus triggers a building-collapse trap, bringing it directly down on him, but even that does not slow him. He bursts through with a crash and the shriek of rending metal, and continues on his way.

His destination is simple. The co-ordinates Synapse provided over the radio, the last reported location of his alternate. He will have his counterpart, and with him, the power of two Matrixes. Any who stand in his way will go the way of that building he just ran through.

Somehow, just now, the Dark Prime's paint seems to glow brighter than usual, brighter than his counterpart's. His counterpart's paint is reflective, but this Prime gleams.

A closer look, however, shows that the Prime is no brighter at all. It is an illusion, caused by the contrast between himself and the area immediately around him. Rodimus seems to shine more brightly, because he carries a small patch of darkness with him.

[Nimbus Tsura]

One will stand and
One will fall

One in victory
One in misery
Only one will take it all

Skyblast is not flying with Slingshot and Oracle or even Skyfire and Synapse and Airazor. He's used to flying alone, due to Autobot fliers being rare and being a daredevil by nature. His ire toward Slingshot has mostly faded by now, but it still cannot be said that he actually like Slingshot.

Now, he really will dare the devil. He is aware of his own Rodimus's location, due to radio, and so this one is definitely not him.

That, and to the artist's optics, this guy just looks wrong. Shadows don't work that way. If Skyblast rendered a painting that looked that way and tried to pass it off as realism, he would have been whipped!

He tries to come up behind, low and between the buildings, and he summons his electro-discharge cannon, slung under his nose. Fearless to a fault and foolhardy, he fires.

[Rodimus Prime-3]

The Prime spins out as Skyblast's, well, blast fires, and catches it on the side of his trailer. The shot mars and blackens, and boils paint, leaving an ugly scar across his yellow flame design, and then he transforms, and that section of himself vanishes into nothing, anyway.

He pulls himself upright, and for a moment looks not at his attacker, but at a direction behind and to Skyblast's left, as though he were looking through buildings at someone who can't be seen by normal senses. He smiles in that direction, and his smile widens as he looks up at Skyblast. He seems to glow brighter... or the darkness around him grows thicker.

"Come closer, painter, and I will light the landscape with your flames," he challenges, gathering darkness in his hands.

[Spinister]

Behind and to Skyblast's left, there is someone lurking inside a building, hiding behind the facade, and just barely peering out from behind darkened glass.

He has been seen, he knows it, knows how impossible it is, and as soon as the Prime's glance flicks to Skyblast, he is gone, off to find a better place to snoop and to follow.

---

OOC: Skippable, as I follow Prime around.

[Nimbus Tsura]

His shot hit! Maybe this Prime isn't so tough at all. Maybe he talks the big talk but can't... can't...

The Valkyrie has already started another strafing run.

There is a growing malaise inside Skyblast as Rodimus Prime transforms. Light doesn't work that way! This Prime does not bend the laws of physics; he breaks them to his will.

The jet whimpers. He can't pull back now, can't pull up, not without hitting a building, but frantic and scrambling, he thinks that might just be the better option, to tear off his own wings to escape.

[Rodimus Prime-3]

'Too late!' he cried.¹

And the little jet is drawing closer, though that has more to do with momentum and less to do with the Prime's taunt. And the dark-lit Prime raises his right hand, fingers extended casually, as though to beckon Skyblast down to the sky, invite him to the ground for a cup of tea.

And from that lightly, playfully extended hand, and powerful blast of pure black is fired at the Valkyrie.

Tear off your wings if you will, little jet, and save others the trouble later, but there will be no escape.

---

¹ Not sure where they got this from, but I'm quoting an episode of Fox's Peter Pan and the Pirates

[Nimbus Tsura]

Skyblast, in his panic, does hit upon a fairly sensible idea. He transforms to robot mode, which kills his aerodynamics and slowly him dramatically, so that he is no longer flying like an angel but dropping like a brick.

For all his quick reflexes and his paragon agility, he is too late and too slow, or perhaps this dark Prime is simply too good at destruction.

The darkness envelops him, chilling him to the core, even as it burns off his out armour, sinks through his circuits, and tears his struts apart. For a second, Skyblast shrieks as if the cold had seeped into his very soul, froze, and left him shattered.

In the next second, he cannot even finish that banshee wail, for his voicebox has been incinerated.

A pile of composite ash, scrap-slag, and twisted circuits hits the ground.

[Rodimus Prime-3]

The darklight dims, and Rodimus takes a more normal cast, though still, he is 'off' to a viewer, the light around him still doing things it shouldn't, even if it's subtler now.

The Prime smirks arrogantly over his kill, and flexes his right hand before curling it back up into a fist. His smooth voice purrs out a single word, both out loud and over the radio. A gloat, a taunt, a warning, a challenge.

"One."