The Yellow Badge of Courage

[Skyfire]

With growing dismay, Skyfire follows the short trail of destruction to its end under the trees where a blackened wreck lays crumpled against the bole of an ancient, now-smouldering tree. It's a tight fit for the big white shuttle; he resorts to a mode rarely seen save by a few Autobots (that this Skyfire has not yet met). Skyfire hovers on vectored jets as he shuts down his rockets and scramjets; then he partially transforms, swinging his legs down to stand while his wings and forebody remain in shuttle mode*.

Once he's sure of his footing, Skyfire transforms fully into robot mode and stoops to fit under the trees where Fleetwind-3 lies. Grim forboding fills him as he sees for the first time how Fleetwind's blackened hull has shattered on striking the bole of the great tree. The jet-former's entire upper right chest is smashed open, and the right arm and gun assembly separated and thrown into the undergrowth. Metal should bend and peel, not shatter. Skyfire knew just how much heat it took to turn Cybertronian alloys that brittle.

A patch of yellow catches Skyfire's optics as he crouches to examine Fleetwind more closely--one wing, torn away in the crash, still flaunting its bright, gay colors. The rest of Fleetwind's body is charcoal gray, now; heat-shattered optics gaze hollowly at the sky. Ever so gently, Skyfire tries to unlatch and lift his half-melted cockpit, to see if by some miracle Fleetwind's laser-core survived. The latch crumbles in his hand like so much rust, and the remnants of the canopy fall away.

There's nothing left inside. The fire burned fiercely inside and out; only char and melted lumps of servos and semi-conductors remain, iced with strands of melted wire coating them in an abstract tangle.

Skyfire's optics dim, and he bows his head. Too late, again. "I'm sorry, Fleetwind. I wish I'd had the chance to know you better. You were a far better mech than your counterpart, that I do know."

Skyfire does not have any particular belief in an afterlife--he's too much the scientist to hold a belief based merely on "I wish it were so", and none of the dead he once knew have returned and provided evidence.

But oh, for the deep dark ache in his core, he wishes it were so!

The distant sounds of combat, and the thunder of sonic booms reminds Skyfire that time is short and he has a duty to fulfill. He rises, and changes into gerwalk mode again, using his still-available arms to load Fleetwind's remains into his cargo hold. Even as he does so, fervently hoping that there will be no more such cargoes after this, he lets it be known what must be known.

// Starscream, this is Skyfire. I regret to confirm your report on Fleetwind; he has fallen, and will not fly again. I have recovered what remains. // Skyfire's voice is heavy with grief, and he makes no effort to hide it.

A strangely familiar set of engines shrieks in the distance as the owner hurtles toward a fateful rendezvous...

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*Macross Valkyrie in gerwalk mode (As seen in "The Day of the Machines" G1 episode). Trivia: it's an undocumented transform mode of the TF Classic Jetfire toy, too.
Fleetwind-3's unfortunate condition by arrangement with player

[Skyfire-3]

Those distant engines grow rapidly closer as Skyfire-3 closes in on his Other, his mirror, his imposter-fake-imitation-cheap knock-off that must be destroyed. There can be only one Skyfire, and he is it.

Skyfire-3 skims over the treetops, not wanting to give his target any warning, missiles armed and cannon hot and ready.

Alas that his sonic booms were a most unsilent alarm....

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Interested parties are encouraged to join in, because writing my character fighting himself is fun fanfiction... and this isn't FF.net

[Skyfire]

Warned by the renewed sonic booms and shriek of engines, Skyfire does the one thing his counterpart does not expect--he runs beneath the forest canopy in gerwalk mode. Treetops toss at his passage like long grass when a predator runs through it, but there's not enough visible for Skyfire-3 to get a lock on--

Skyfire-3 is going too fast. He'd opted to come in fast and low for surprise, and it costs him; he overshoots, zooming past the tossing treetops.

Skyfire jumps up above the forest canopy behind him, hovering as he pulls his legs up in to place and fires two missiles toward his counterpart.

The battle is on.

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Everyone is skippable until someone else joins the thread. If no one else does, there will be catch-up/concluding post later on.

[Skyfire-3]

Skyfire-3 simply opens his throttle to leave his counterpart's missiles behind--they aren't as fast as he is. The battle is indeed on.

The fight between the two Skyfire's rages from the heavens to the earth, and places in between. They are too evenly matched: same weapons, same performance, same range, same keen intelligence not easily deceived or provoked into foolish actions. Skyfire-3's greater viciousness is matched by the tactical knowledge Skyfire picked up flying with a skilled military-build partner for years.

Skyfire-3's feints at the battle on the ground--probably unnoticed by any save the twin Synapses--cost Skyfire smoking wounds in his wings and cargo holds as he drives Skyfire-3 away. In turn, Skyfire-3 takes his wounds when Skyfire lures him into range of the automated defenses of the Gillanese orbital stations.

// I'm a little...pinned down at the moment at [these coordinates] and engaging two Decepticons. // Tracks' voice makes it sound more like a frustrating nuisance than anything else. // Help would be very much appreciated. //

Tracks's call for help reaches Skyfire high in the thin upper reaches of the atmosphere as he trades ineffectual proton beam blasts with his counterpart. An instant's calculation tells him that there's no one else to move in to help Tracks; most of the Autobot's fighting strength is out at the desert, and he's observed the alternate Decepticons moving out there.

Others reply; they're too far away; Prime orders Tracks to retreat. Skyfire makes his decision.

// Tracks, I receive you. I.. may be able to do something in passing. // Skyfire's voice sounds just a bit strained; he's currently fleeing Skyfire-3's missiles and diving a bit too fast into the lower atmosphere; the leading edges of his wings heat up dangerously.

[Skyfire]

Skyfire, being Skyfire, knows exactly what he's doing; his wings don't melt, though numerous circuits whine and complain about overheating. He stoops low, down toward the battle below--easy to find as the smoke rises through the trees and his IR imagers pick up the heat of the nascent forest fire.

No missiles, then. The heat-seekers would only spiral uselessly into the fire.

There! Tracks's blue and black form comes into view, as do those of Runamuck, Pee-Dee and Dead End. Skyfire has only an instant to make a decision--he does, and strafes Dead End with his proton beams--then he's past and away, climbing up to face his counterpart once again.

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OOC: cross-posted to "Hounding the Enemy"

[Skyfire-3]

For an instant, Skyfire-3 thinks the imposter is fleeing, then wonders briefly what his imposter thinks he's getting at by diving away to threaten his ''allies" on the ground. It's no paint off his airframe if they can't take care of themselves.

He dives after Skyfire; in no reality where he's still combat-capable will Skyfire-3 let the imposter escape. There can be only one true Skyfire.

Skyfire leads Skyfire on a merry chase far out to sea, just skimming the waves. Their speeds are too well matched; if Skyfire-3 tried to climb above Skyfire for altitude advantage, he'd fall far behind, ceding range to his enemy.

The island comes over the horizon startling fast at their speeds; once again, Skyfire-3 puzzles at what his counterpart is up to as he hops over the small volcanic island with the tropical resort hotels--there were no automated defenses when he plundered the place in his own reality--

The turbulence around the central mountain slows Skyfire; Skyfire-3 aims his proton beams dead center at Skyfire's rocket exhaust and all but shivers with anticipation--

Too late, as Skyfire abruptly puts one wing down and pivots into a sharp turn, too late and too close for Skyfire-3 to follow through, does he remember the natural defenses of the island--

As he flies straight into the violently turbulent, super-heated air rising from the lava lake in the volcano's caldera, super-heated air accompanied by the spray of lava fountains high into the air....

[Skyfire]

Skyfire circles as the volcanic updraft seizes his counterpart and flings him around like a leaf in a hurricane. He can't get a lock with his heat-seeking missiles here, either--not with that lava lake so close. He fires his beams at the evil Skyfire-3, but the turbulent tossing of his target throws off Skyfire's aim and he hits the lava lake instead.

Twin gouts of lava splash high into the air as the proton beams detonate just beneath the surface, covering Skyfire-3 with a sheet of molten lava just as he gains control of himself. His screams are briefly audible from where Skyfire circles as the alternate wobbles and plunges into the sea, his controls jammed with rapidly solidifying lava--then the shroud of hardening rock and the sea cut off his screams as Skyfire-3 sinks out of sight to be heard and seen no more.

Skyfire circles for some time, but his counterpart does not surface. Finally, near fuel exhaustion, he turns and heads for home.

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And end-of-thread