Blackguards and Rogues

[Jasper Stoneham]

Pain fades as quickly as it had slammed through his neural nets, and Jetfire watches that wing shear off and drift away with almost malicious satisfaction.

// Oh, really. Is tha' the pitiful excuse for threats tha' the Fallen teaches his little minions these days? // Jetfire snorts as he shifts from foot to foot like a swaying cobra. // Why, back in my day, the Fallen would rip out your spark, himself, if you vomited out something as pathetic as tha'. Oh how standards have slipped, little one. //

It is a very, very unAutobot smirk that graces his features as he launches himself right at Mindwipe's torso, launching them both further down the thruster bell, and away from the other combatants.

[Mindwipe]

Mindwipe is tackled!

As they go down the bell, Mindwipe pushes away from the old 'bot, using his knives to gain purchase again. As he works to get upright again, Mindwipe splutters. //What do you know of the Fallen?!//

[Jasper Stoneham]

Arcee and Nightbeat might be a bit surprised, if they could see the old Blackbird right then. Space is his element, the almost non-existent gravity giving him a grace and power that he lacks within the confines of the ship's artificial fields and the dusty planets' surfaces. He moves with a fluidity upon the wide thruster bell of the Event Horizon's engines that the other Autobots have probably never seen, an ease which seems to almost shave epochs from his age as he faces the smaller black jet.

He will pay for this later, with sprained cables and wrenched servos, but now, for the moment, he is free as he has not been in so very long. He rises to his full, imposing height, and leers down at Mindwipe with the disdain such a callow youth deserves.

// The Fallen? // he chuckles wickedly, watching as Mindwipe claws his way back upright again. // More than you could possibly dream, child. // He lashes out with his axe, more to force Mindwipe back a few more paces, to menace him, rather than damage him just yet. He wants to savor this while he can.

// If you've pinned your hopes on the Fallen, child, you will die, for he will cut you down as surely as he did his own brethren, the moment your usefulness has passed. //

[Mindwipe]

Mindwipe finds himself slightly panicked. This old wreck is moving a lot quicker than expected.

//Feh!// Mindwipe twirls his daggers, backing up from the axe swing. //I will only follow him until we revive Megatron, but even then - there are forces greater than us, and much darker than the Fallen at work here!//

[Jasper Stoneham]

// Oh aye, child, you're part right, // Jetfire chuckles as he takes another rather lazy swing with his axe on his next stride forward, always pushing Mindwipe further away from the rest of his ilk. // Greater than us, oh aye. Darker... only in tha' the Fallen, himself, shall fall, slain by the descendant of the very Brothers he murdered. The Primes I once served, before your precious master saw fit to abandon us on that wretched dirtball. //

// The Legacy of the Primes lives again, and neither Megatron, nor the Fallen, will stand against it! // This slash of his axe is anything but half-afted as he launches forward. Maybe he can shear away another wing and then pin the little black bug to the hull of the ship?

[Mindwipe]

Mindwipe's optics widen once something hits him.

Then the axe hits him, liberating him of his other wing, and knocking him for another tumble. Some scuffling, and he gets back up on his feet.

//By the Allspark... You...you're a SEEKER!//

Mindwipe retracts his daggers, and replaces them with blasters, and opens fire on Jetfire, backing up. //Goawaygoawaygoawaygoawaygoawaygoawaygoaway!//

[Jasper Stoneham]

Oh, but that just feels... glorious!

// Behold the power of JETFIRE! // he bellows, taking a brief moment to strike an appropriately intimidating pose.

Ah, but he is being shot at now, and some of those shots actually hit. A few bits of his more brittle armor plating break off, spinning away into the darkness, just as both of Mindwipe's wings are. Jetfire, however, doesn't seem to care like Mindwipe does about his lost bits, and continues advancing, the axe swinging up over his head as he leaps for the battered jet, intending to put everything he has behind this last - theoretically - cleaving blow.

Especially now that he finds that someone actually remembers the Old Ones, and he actually has a reputation to uphold.

[Mindwipe]

Mindwipe cringes at this pose, and with good reason - angry Old Ones of any variety are generally bad juju.

And this one seems intent on killing Mindwipe. Looks like he'll have to disappoint and anger Starscream. He pops off a couple more shots, trying to step out of the way, but soon finds himself liberated of an arm with a pained screech.

[Jasper Stoneham]

Lookie there, Mindwipe! Your shots actually hit! Sadly, they seem to ricochet harmlessly off into space as Jetfire gives the axe a deft little twist to send that severed arm spinning away in the low gravity.

Some Autobots on this crew may just be out to disable and escape, but not this old Seeker. Despite the savagery and unexpected vitality of his combat, there's no hate, no real rage here. It's merely the righteous indignation of having his new friends, his new cadre, threatened and attacked. You could be little more than a Ja'Aarnan Oort Squid, and Jetfire would be cutting you down the same way, Mindwipe. Well, minus the rhetoric about the Fallen, perhaps.

But, this is Jetfire, so, perhaps not. He does seem to like the sound of his own voice.

Regardless of the impartiality, Jetfire isn't about to let one of the attackers slink off, alive, to lick his wounds and come back stronger. Jetfire fights for keeps. That's why that axe is sweeping up under it's own momentum, coming back up and around in an almost graceful arc, right toward Mindwipe's head. Clearly the old codger plans on taking a souvenir with him, from this fight.

Fate, however, seems to have other plans.

The carbonized scores along Jetfire's chest where Mindwipe's desperate shots had bounced seemingly harmlessly away, spark unexpectedly with bright blue-white lightnings. Though his optics flash with surprise, Jetfire doesn't even have time to utter a single syllable, the blade of his axe but a second, perhaps less, from Mindwipe's vital bits, when a soundless explosion of light and electricity erupts--

And Jetfire - and his axe - vanishes without a trace.

-------------

Elsewhere, in the main shuttle bay aboard the Event Horizon, a battered old pile of black parts and rust suddenly appears in a clap of thunder and blue-white lightning several dozen feet from the floor. He crashes to the floor, bits of armor and a few hydraulic pistons shearing off and scattering about him like pebbles strewn along a path as he collapses into a rough heap and moves no longer.

---

ooc: Jetfire is out of thread due to a spacebridge malfunction caused by one of Mindwipe's shots. Due to the fact that he'd spacebridged up to the fight a very short time before to begin with, he is now completely unconscious do to lack of energy. If anyone would like to find him in the Autobot's main shuttle bay, please PM me and let me know.

[Mindwipe]

Mindwipe's optics shutter closed when he realizes he's about to lose his head, quite tensed up.

But the strike never comes.

And he doesn't hear any sound of the spacebridge malfunction, but he feels the impact. He drifts backwards, and slooowly ventures to open one optic. Then two, and three - the old codger is gone, and all that's left is a scorch mark.

Mindwipe is not sure what to make of it, but he's not going to question his luck! He fires off thrusters a bit to drift after his severed arm, soundlessly cackling with glee over his good fortune. Once he recovers the limb, he will then work to retreat due to disarmament, and leave the thread as well.