Not Forgotten: Investing Swerve-3's Disappearance

[Mirage]

Mirage had turned away from the group as soon as Kup gave permission to head out. He hadn't gone but a few steps when the Emirate's shrieks ring through the air, cutting through Mirage like a hot blade. Perhaps anyone else might have erred in the same way, but it was not anyone else it was Mirage, and Mirage will hold himself responsible for every pain done to Swerve at the hands of those others.

It's that feeling of responsibility, that guilt, that makes Mirage pause, turn back as he hears the sound of running feet, has him holding fast at the Emirate's ragged approach. Mirage expects cursing, flailing and punching, not an embrace, and in that moment of surprise Emriate Xaaron succeeds in flinging his arms around Mirage.

"Emirate, sir, I...," Mirage tries to gently peel Xaaron off of him, "We'll get him back, I'll get him back, but you need to let me go now if I'm to have any chance at catching up to them."

There's honest apology and concern in Mirage's voice, and the spy is not even considering how against type this is for this Xaaron.

[Ironfire]

Ironfire rolls at top speed into the lot. Quickly, she's transformed and picking loose foliage out of her joints. "Ah, sorry I'm late." She tosses the organic bits to the side. "Ran into some, ah, plants trying to get here quickly. I'm made to fight, not to speed."

She stands rather uncomfortably to the side. Hopefully they won't be too mad at her for letting Xaaron get away from her. Surely they know she's just not made to catch fugitives.

"I'm sort of in the dark as to what's going on. Can anyone, ah, brief me?"

[Kup]

The light of Kup's optics flicker in response to a surprise-induced voltage spike as the Xaaron gets up and suddenly runs after Mirage. "What the-!" He turns to chase after, but takes a moment to tell Nightbeat, "Let me know what you've got when you get something." Then he runs to chase down the Emirate.

He's hoping that the other is just seeking comfort, but a twinging in his motive-interpretation circuitry tells him this may be something else. "Xaaron! Get back here! You have to let Mirage work!"

[Nightbeat]

Nightbeat is a little too busy being a detective to see Ironfire pull up. He's got tremendous multitasking skills, but when he gets out and out focused, it's something of a different story.

All right, good. His little scanner is starting to pick up trace amounts of fuel exhaust. With that, and a little bit of access into the medical files, he just might be able to work something out. "Think I've got something," he says.

[Emirate Xaaron-3]

Despite the peeling, Emirate Xaaron tries to cuddle up against Mirage and lay his head against Mirage's chest. He also tries to throw one arms around Mirage's neck and the other tight around Mirage's waist. He's probably not the first politician to throw himself at Mirage, but he may be the first to whimper pathetically while doing do.

Then, for a moment, his optics flash a sickly yellow-green, and there is a curved knife in his upper hand, which he tries to slash into the back of Mirage's neck. The knife is ceremonial - and looking at it might give Nightbeat a sinking feeling if he's ever been called in on a cult case - and was never meant to do more than slit open energon cubes, but Emirate Xaaron tries to jam it under Mirage's neck armour with all his force, nothing held back. Face contorting into an ugly snarl, he shouts, "You wretched little retrorat! You abject gutter scum! You call yourself a spy, and you just let Swerve vanish? Where was your curiosity? Where was your need to know? If you were really concerned with guarding him and not with your own pleasures, he would still be here."

Let Mirage go find Swerve? When Mirage has already failed? Mirage would probably find Swerve and then get distracted by some pretty Decepticon, thereby allowing Swerve to be kidnapped again. Nonviolence be damned, Emirate Xaaron wants to kill Mirage for letting Swerve taken, wants to see him with his innards spilled out on the parking lot, arrayed in a fractal pattern, a sacrifice to chaos. This fury Emirate Xaaron feels is queer and strange to him, lighting up circuits he has never used.

Did he not tell Mirage, though, that at the core of every Transformer from his reality is a bloodthirsty berserker?

Kup was right to be concerned.

[Mirage]

Mirage is not used to this. Not in the least. He tends to avoid the emotional type. Add to that the fact that Xaaron is stubbornly refusing to be moved, that he is stronger than Mirage, then factor in Mirage's own guilt- well, the spy is at a bit of disadvantage.

Mirage's hand was already on the wrist wrapped around his neck, trying to gently pull it off. That grip switches from gentle to hard the minute that blade starts bites into his plating. Mirage pulls, using every bit of strength he can manage at that awkward angle, but all he can do is to counteract the downward pressure. Xaaron's knife is still sunk halfway into Mirage's neck.

Fragile armour is fragile.

It's Xaaron's words that bite deeper though, and despite the tension running through him, the pain clear in his optics, Mirage's voice is soft as says, "You think I don't know this already? But killing me will do nothing to save him, Emirate. Let me go, so I might rectify my mistake."

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OOC: posing/touching of Xaaron-3 w/ player permission.

[Ironfire]

This is all way outside of Ironfire's area of expertise. She follows Kup, because what else is there to do? Plus, she's still technically on guard duty. Then, things turn violent. Rather, Xaaron goes violent. The cannons come up, but she refains from vocalizing. She's tried enough talking; she'll let Mirage try and hope that's enough.

[Kup]

Kup lunges forward to try to grab Emirate Xaaron's hand and pull it away from Mirage. Mirage's variant of Cybertronian can survive decapitation, right? If he manages to deal with the immediate problem, he will then try to wrestle Xaaron to the ground. "This doesn't solve anything!" he shouts, trying to get the two apart from each other. "Let him go so he can go look."

Right. Briefing. Ironfire wanted a briefing, didn't she? "Ironfire, Swerve is gone, we think, erm, other us got him." He doesn't add, 'and the other Emirate Xaaron is trying to kill Mirage,' because that should be pretty obvious at this point.

[Nightbeat]

Nightbeat considers his readings. "I'm going to head back in," he calls out. "Run a few cross-checks real quick. Then I'll have some answers."

With that, he transforms and starts rolls out, already doing some of the calculations, extrapolated from observations, himself.

He does, however, briefly stop, laying down some fire in front of Mirage and Xaaron. "You two lost it?!"

[Emirate Xaaron-3]

"Rectify your mistake?" Emirate Xaaron sputters, incredulous and incensed, "You think that you can atone? There is no atonement! No absolution! There is no good you can do, only more harm, you factory-rejected, cross-compiled, short-circuited waste of space."

Give Mirage a second chance? When, if Mirage had been just a bit more nosy, Swerve would still be here? Not on Emirate Xaaron's life. Swerve deserves someone competent to track him down.

Mirage does manage to stay Emirate Xaaron's hand just enough, and then Kup quite grabs Emirate Xaaron's hand away. Emirate Xaaron has the presence of mind to let go of the blade before it is yanked out of Mirage's neck forcibly. Kup can then try to wrestle Emirate Xaaron to the ground.

His wild gaze turns upon Kup, and he snarls, "Let Mirage go? Go look for what? A pretty little Decepticon to go rutting with? A fine vintage of energon to nick from Starscream's cabinet? Some poor animal to shoot in the head and leave to rust?"

[Mirage]

As soon as Kup pulls Xaaron away, Mirage reaches around and carefully pulls Xaaron's blade out of his neck, its curvature making such a move a bit more difficult.

Damage seems minimal, for all that the wound aches. A touch deeper though...Mirage can survive decapitation, yes. That doesn't change the fact that being decapitated would most unpleasant. At any rate, Mirage is still functional and he has had enough of delays.

The spy's gaze hardens at the Emirate's insults and accusations, and Mirage idly flips the knife about in his fingers. After a few moments, he tosses the knife into the ground, hopefully far enough away as to be out of reach of Xaaron.

Mirage snaps, "And perhaps if you had even a hint of strength in your base code Swerve would not have been in such a position in the first place! Do not even dare to judge me when you are no better, Emirate Xaaron!"

A pointed look at Kup, "I am going. Now. Before the trail grows any colder. " And unless stopped, Mirage will be out of thread and on the hunt.

[Ironfire]

"The other us? That's... not good, I assume." Ironfire starts to step forward to aid Kup if need be, but then Mirage is freed. She stands by to aid if need be, though she's not sure how useful she would be. Her cannons would normally be flipping into firing position about now, but Ironfire realizes she couldn't safely fire.

"Anything I can do to help?"

[Kup]

Kup doesn't argue with Emirate Xaaron. It's pretty obvious that the Emirate isn't in a... receptive state of mind. Instead he just grabs him and, if necessary, tackles him and holds him down, trying to prevent the distraught alternate from hurting anyone - including himself - before he's had a chance to calm down.

To Nightbeat, he shouts, "Just get me the answers I need!" He dips his head to Mirage, indicating his approval with Mirage's course of action, then glances up at Ironfire from the corner of his field of vision. "Very not good. As for help, for now just stand by to help me get this guy back to base."

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OOC: Grabbing and whatnot of Emirate Xaaron-3 done with permission of player.

[Nightbeat]

"And I'm taking that as my cue to exit," Nightbeat says. He throws himself into reserve, then shifts gears again to drive off and out of the thread.

[Emirate Xaaron-3]

So why is that people who cannot sing or play can judge musicians and get paid handsomely for it?

Despite his many failings, Emirate Xaaron is entirely capable of judging Mirage, and Mirage has been judged, for all that he may deny it.

He looks over at his knife longingly and struggles in Kup's grasp - the struggles of a civilian who has no idea how to fight. What Mirage says to Emirate Xaaron cuts him more deeply than that knife did Mirage. If Emirate Xaaron had just a little more backbone...

...on, Unicron, he just tried to murder someone, didn't he? It's not his role. He gibbers, "I'm not - it's not - I shouldn't have... shouldn't have..."

The green fades from his optics, leaving only barren, wan yellow. Then, the yellow itself fades to black, and he stops struggling. Someone made to suffer ought not to go beyond what he was made for - he has bent his morals over backwards, ordered deaths, but never tried to kill.

He cannot handle what he just tried to do, and his processors shut down in self-defense, lest he try something else that would strain them too far.