Arena: Turrets Make Good Security

[Ironfire]

An arena. Hopefully, this doesn't indicate the Inevitable Tournament Arc. It is a rather abandoned arena. But... the Tournament Arc is Inevitable. Usually. Ruins do tend to be scenes for fights. After all, they're ruins. They're all dramatic and stuff!

Ironfire ceases her silent musings long enough to switch albums. Something a little more upbeat. After all, ruins can be depressing. Except when they're instead awesome.

This is so confusing, sometimes.

So, the stands sentry duty. More like, sits duty. As a turret. Because, that way, she can blow up intruders before they get close enough to do Bad Things^(tm). Well, preferably. With the way these things usually go, she'd probably end up in melee range. Turrets are no good against plot-relevant threats!

But, maybe, that won't happen. Subversions happen, after all. Sometimes.

Some company would be nice, to keep the mind from wandering down such roads.

But for now, the turret sits, partially obscured by the handy remains of a wall. From the front, the likely path of attack, she'd be hard to see, but the sides leave her far less concealed, and the back is open.


((OOC: Come on in, the atmosphere's not too deadly. Hopefully... Anyone who wants to, feel free to wander on by.))

[Duskwing-3]

Somebody gets the job of periodically checking that everything is in its place, every place has its things, and all the doors are locked and secure. Preferably someone who isn't badly needed elsewhere because of his superior talents.

Duskwing is usually that person. He has a few talents (just ask him!), but no one in the history of the Great War has yet decided that his talents were more urgently employed at something besides guard duty, patrol, "KP", or improvising drainage viaducts.

Pity. He could have filled in for the five-year-old plot-hole checker in any Evil Overlord's council just fine. Not to mention his vast unfulfilled potential at instruction manual usability analysis. ("Dese here instructions are no good at telling me how to pour sand outta my boot-thrusters! Youse guys need ta rewrite dem!" )

Duskwing drifted by overhead; he really, really liked his new robot-mode lifters and kept trying out new things with them. Tonight's new thing was hovering in robot mode and drifting along slowly, as if blown by the wind.

It let him look over the ruins without making a sound.

(The arena and outbuildings weren't actually ruins until certain Transformers fell on them or through them repeatedly. Buildings tend to have short, hard lives around giant robots at war.)

Duskwing scowled, red optics narrowing. There was something down there that he didn't remember being there earlier... looked like an artillery emplacement of some kind. On the other hand, they were preparing for ambushes and stuff, and arti was just the kind of thing you needed when Autobots came to visit.

Duskwing drifted lower, studying the big gun. "Huh. So where's the crew?"

[Ironfire]

Giant robots do have a tendency to leave big machines lying around. That is, big machines that aren't themselves sentient giant robots. This isn't one of those machines. This is, instead, one of those giant robot things that seem to be all the rage. Shocking!

Ironfire, too, would be a good adviser for an Evil Overlord. She is rather aware of most of the things that make them fail. But, then again, aren't those the ways it's supposed to be?

Ironfire's turret rotated to face towards the airborne arrival. True, it was fairly unlikely that he was hostile. Most of the time, a hostile would already be shooting her. On the other hand, it could be a Fiendish Plot. Alternatively, judging by his thinking her a station to be manned, she could just be dealing with somebody dense. But, dense guys still have weapons. When they don't forget them.

As protocol demands, she initiates radio contact. //Identify yourself.//

[Duskwing-3]

The big gun suddenly turned toward him. Ruh-roh. Automatic defense, or gun-former? Either way, it had the drop on him--

Duskwing dropped suddenly to the ground, hopefully below the current angle of fire and dodged sideways. How fast could the gun de-elevate, slew and track?

And just who was demanding he identify himself? Maybe it was an enemy trying to find out who was on patrol.

// Who dat who say who dat? // Duskwing asked suspiciously, forgetting that the Alliance frequency was, in theory, restricted to allies.

[Ironfire]

Conclusion Number One: Ironfire is dealing with someone dense or acting dense.

Conclusion Number Two: This is an ally. That or the frequency has been compromised, but that's not nearly as likely.

Thus, Ironfire swings her turret back to a neutral position, hopefully showing that she's not interested in shooting this being. Good thing he's not an enemy; she'd be at a severe disadvantage right now if he was.

//Ironfire, the guard on duty. Now, identify yourself.//

[Duskwing-3]

Gun pointed away from him, not tracking, check. Reply on channel, check.

Duskwing pointed his guns at the ground and straightened up, then replied, // Duskwing, on patrol.//

"Youse Ironfire? Nobody told me youse a big gun!" he added in surprise. "I was lookin' for a guy standin' around, see?"

[Ironfire]

Ah. Duskwing. Him, right.

She doesn't know him. //I copy.//

"This is an alternate form. It has greater range than my handheld--and mounted--weapons in my other modes, and thus is a better sentry." The turret moves in the closest approximation of a shrug it can make. "But, it's easier to talk in robot mode. Hold on."

The support struts for the turret begin to retract as Ironfire prepares to switch modes.

[Duskwing-3]

Duskwing stared blankly as the turret began to transform. Then a puzzled frown slowly spread over his face.

"Alternate form?" Another blank stare; ruby-red optics widen slightly as a faint shadow of comprehension threatens to dawn.

"Are you some kinda triple-changer?" he asked slowly. "You know, like--" Duskwing flailed at the air with one hand, as if trying to pluck meaning from the atmosphere.

"Like... like Blitzwing?" he asked, triumphantly.

[Ironfire]

Oh no! Not comprehension!

The turret finishes converting into a tank, then with speed more typical of Transformers, transforms into a robot.

"A triple-changer? I guess so." A shrug. "I mean, my turret mode's not really that different from my tank mode."

Don't ask why it takes long to change, then. She doesn't know.

"You're one of those Decepticon jets, right?"

[Duskwing-3]

Duskwing gives Ironfire a long stare, then looks pointedly at the big purple logo on one of his F-15 jet wings. Then he lifts one thruster-boot to knee-height and looks down at it.

"Ya think?"

[Ironfire]

Ironfire shakes her head and gestures in a 'no, I meant something else' sort of way.

"No, no, that's obvious. I meant, you're part of that specific group of jets with the same basic chassis, who come color coded for our convenience. Seekers, right? Or was it Skyraiders?"

[Duskwing-3]

Duskwing gives Ironfire a blank look for a moment. "Oh, you mean like me and Thundercracker and Fleetwind and Da Boss. Yeah. We're whattayacallit... Seekers."

"Only a few guys look like me, though. I'm an F-15--I went to Earth with Megatron!" he says proudly.

He doesn't mention that he was sent back to Cybertron just as fast as they had working transport going and could get reinforcements...

[Ironfire]

Ironfire nods. "I thought so. But, I'm not used to seeing 'cons up close. At least, standing still. And I'm afraid I don't know my jet models too well."

She quickly represses a violent reaction to the mention of serving under Megatron. "It must have been quite an honor to be chosen to be on Megatron's expedition, much like serving with Prime for us."

[Duskwing-3]

Duskwing thinks about that for a moment. "Yeah, I can see dat. 'Cause they'd been shootin' at you, like I'd be shootin' at youse if you wasn't really one a da good guys wit' da wrong badge. Anyways, I'm what dey call an 'F-15' fighter jet--it's a human airplane. So's Da Boss, and Thundercracker. See, dat's so we can kinda blend in wit' the human stuff."

Duskwing is very earnest in his explanations; if he didn't know this stuff before it was explained to him, obviously nobody else does, either!

"An' Fleetwind, he's whattayacallit... a te-tet-tetrajet! Dat's what we was back on Cybertron, and Fleet came straight from dere. Midnight, he's a heavy tetrajet--a fighter-bomber, works kinda like a F-14 or F-111, if you knows da human jets, only he's from Cybertron, see? Den dere's your Autobot jets. Slingshot's another human jet, somethin' called a Harrier. It hovers like Springer, only it ain't got rotors or lifters. I dunno what Skyblast is--somethin' from his Cybertron, I figure...." Duskwing trails off, thinking. This may take a while; Duskwing loves to fly, loves being a jet, and is a jet fanboy of sorts. Unfortunately, his knowledge is a jumbled-up mess accessed by an underclocked CPU, so pulling out any one fact is... problematic.

"Oh yeah!" he says in reply to Ironfire's comment about the honor of flying with Megatron. "Only the best guys got picked to go stop Prime!"¹

He scowls; Prime isn't a good guy where he comes from. "Huh--waitaminute! If youse guys is backwards Autobots, and are good guys, does that mean your Prime was a good guy?"
---

¹Megatron needed one more at-least semi-functional Decepticon to fill out the crew and they were launching in a hurry. Guess who was closest?

[Ironfire]

Ironfire nods along as he explains the intricacies of jets. Or tries to. But, hey, everybody can have their fandoms. Ironfire could ramble for hours on fictional starfighters and the like. "Very interesting. Thanks."

Duskwing's question throws Ironfire off; it seems so obvious. But, well, she's beginning to get the impression he's not playing with a full cyberdeck. That might contradict his statement about who got picked to stop Prime, but it might not. Exhibit A: Dinobots.

"Yeah, Prime was very much a good guy. Many would say the best." Ironfire herself never really knew Optimus Prime, but everyone knew his reputation.