The Long Howlloween

[Silverbolt]

Day 14. Open.



This planet is vile. Crime, poverty, corruption, greed. These are the things that rule this planet. The law turns a blind eye towards the criminals and thus they flourish. The few lawmen that attempt to dispense justice have no influence whatsoever. Their superiors, the judges, the lawyer are all payed off to make sure the good and upstanding officers' work never accomplishes anything. Honest people who work try and do honest work for a living are the downtrodden . The scum of Pz-Zazz, they rule this planet. Pz-Zazzian scum.

This planet is quite alien to me, as I am to it. It has no rules, no dignity, no heavy urgency to right it's many wrongs, no sense of order. It needs to be cleaned up. Even if I am only here for a certain amount of time, I will try. I will try to help it off of the crutches of despair and into the arms of justice. For every night that I prowl it's streets-

This planet is my planet.

Aaaaaaand cue the cheesy heroic orchestral score as Silverbolt opens his optics, previously closed as he stood in robot form atop a skyscraper's flagpole. Unfolding his arms, he leaped down from his perch and dived downward, spreading his wings as he glided down the side of the building, towards the hushed, darkened streets with a howl.

"ARRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!"


Ba ba ba baaaaa bum!

[Tarantulas]

Tarantulas is stalking Silverbolt, in his own roundabout way. As soon as he heard some vigilante called 'Bird-Dog' was making the rounds, he knew what he needed to do. So now he's clinging to the underside of a space mafioso's hovercar. He's been quietly making sure that this particular crime boss's movements are easy to track.

If the police show up, he'll quietly scuttle away. If Silverbolt shows up, he'll quietly scuttle away, and then detonate the bomb he planted on the undercarriage of the car.

[Silverbolt]

"Beast mode!" the Maximal spoke, transforming into his odd, yet noble looking alternate mode. Placing his front talons, over his head, on the lookout for anything suspicious. Anything out of the ordinary.

The bird-dog had found his target. He instantly recognized the hovercar. No one in this particular city couldn't. The man practically ran the town with his villainy. Unpunished, he went about committing his wrongdoings without repercussion. Silverbolt glided as fast he could towards the car, but as he approached, something felt...wrong.

Sniff sniff. Sniff sniff. The bird-dog smelt a scent very familiar, very foul. Something wrong was afoot. Something vile. Something...evil. Evil and vile. And so, the fuzor hung back. for this woeful whiff was one that he had crossed paths with before. This sinister stench, this ominous odor, was that of...

"Tarantulas..." Silverbolt muttered under his breath with disdain.

[Tarantulas]

Unlike Silverbolt, Tarantulas didn't inherit a heightened sense of smell from his beast mode. Thus, he remains unaware of the Maximal's presence, continuing to lurk under the gang boss's car until it arrives at its destination, which happens to be his estate.

As the car stops to wait for the large wrought-metal gate to open, Tarantulas drops off and scurries into the bushes. He has no wish to get trapped inside the fence and have to explain himself to hostile gangsters.

[Silverbolt]

Silverbolt waited until the car was behind the gate and he was positive that it's occupants had left to go inside the estate before he alighted down. Sniffing around, Silverbolt was able to pinpoint the Predacon's whereabouts as somewhere around the mansion.

Turning his head and sniffing around for a minute, Silverbolt transforms to robot mode and lands in front of the bushes, his arms folded.

"Planning something sinister, spider?" Silverbolt asks. "I would not expect any less from you."

[Tarantulas]

Silverbolt! Slaggit! And well outside the blast radius of his bomb. And the fuzor is a frontliner too, beating up Tarantulas is what he's built for. So Tarantulas thinks fast, which is what he's built for.

"Alright, you caught me, Maximal," he says, transforming to robot mode and coming out of the bushes with his hands up. "There's an important drug deal going down in there. They're unveiling a new strain of Blight. I was hoping to get a sample but I couldn't get through the gate. Are you going to let me slink back to my ship or are we going to have to fight?"

Of course, what's actually going on inside the compound is a birthday party for the crime boss's (Let's call him Mr. Chelae) larval daughter's birthday party. Tarantulas doesn't know that, or that anything at all in particular is going on in there. He just figures sending Silverbolt in to get shot at by gangsters is a good idea.

[Silverbolt]

"Hmm..." silverbolt mumbled, narrowing his optics at the estate for a second. "I will see if your story checks out, Predacon," Silverbolt growls. "But, I believe it is best if you come with me."

[Tarantulas]

"Oh goody!" Tarantulas says, voice full of mock-glee. "I'll just accompany you, my hated enemy, into a heavily guarded compound full of hostile beings many times our size! We'll have fabulous adventures, make new friends and enemies, and maybe learn something about ourselves in the process," he finishes.

"Or I could do this," he says, drawing his pistol, firing a few random shots over the wall, then dropping back down into beast mode and scurrying into the bushes.

[Silverbolt]

"Aroo?" Silverbolt questioned, his ears dropping as the shots were fired through the windows. "Tarantulas! Come back you-" Silverbolt began as he glanced around. "Ah, gone. Very well, then," Silverbolt began as he searched around, looking for a a place to hide for the moment. The bushes where Tarantulas was hiding seemed as good a place as any.

[Tarantulas]

Tarantulas huddles down into the giant bushes as a group of armed aliens rush out of the gate in response to the shooting. The gangsters spread out in a well-coordinated search pattern, looking for the source of the shots.

"Can't get enough of me, fuzor?" Tarantulas hisses as Silverbolt appears beside him in the bushes.

[Silverbolt]

Silverbolt ignores Tarantulas' question for the moment, as he parts the bushes with his fingers, his optics darting as the giant mobsters walked around with their flashlights, searching for the fired shots.

"A fine situation you've gotten us into, spider," Silverbolt sighed, quietly. "I doubt you're trustworthy enough to allow us to work together to get out of this, but it seems we do not quite have a choice at the moment."

[Tarantulas]

"Are you really so dim you think I need your help to get out of this? I wouldn't have attracted their attention if I thought I was incapable of escaping, fool!" Tarantulas says, narrowing all nine¹ eyes at Silverbolt. He'll never understand what Blackarachnia saw in the Maximal.

It's around this point one of the mooks with better than average hearing asks "What was that?" and shines his flashlight into the bushes, stalking toward the two Transformers' hiding place and brushing aside some branches with his arm to reveal them.

Tarantulas does his best 'small frightened animal, totally not a robot' impression and scuttles away as fast as he can.


_{1. Tarantulas has nine eyes in robot mode, not eight, for reals. Rattrap just can't count, apparently.}

[Silverbolt]

"What d-," Silverbotl began only to be interrupted by the shuffling of the bushes. Quickly transforming into beast mode himself, Silverbolt had no time to quickly scurry away as Tarantulas did and instead did what most canine-like creatures would be doing when they we're near plantlife. 'Water them.'

[Tarantulas]

"Yo Queeler, you find anything?" a voice calls, as a second cone of light, this one originating from a flashlight farther away, moves to illuminate the bushes. "Nah, just critters in the bushes," the first thug responds. "And get that snarggin' light outta my eyespots, snotwad!" "Arright, arright, don't get your bladder-based vascular system in a knot!" responds the second voice as the cone of light moves to cover the other side of the street. "Boss is gonna have our heads if we don't figure out where those shots came from."

Tarantulas, meanwhile, is looking for a way to escape without having to expose himself. Curse these nice neighborhoods and their lack of open sewers and dark alleys.