Botanica-3
Cadet
Audrey II second cousin, twice removed.
Posts: 73
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Post by Botanica-3 on Apr 11, 2008 22:29:52 GMT -5
Timing-wise this thread happens a few days after the Bots-3 came over.
Not everyone who crosses that glowing line comes at the Prime's invitation. No, some come slipping across in the night, unwanted, drawn by curiosity and driven by some niggling need they can't quite identify. That feeling that something is missing, something that barely registered as there before it was gone.
A green and gold figure slips out of the ground by one of the outbuildings. The poise and grace which defines her counterpart is not present. This Botanica is a hunched, skittish thing, eyes constantly darting this way and that, evaluating threats, and studying, always studying. Her eyes are wide and wild, and always she seems but one step, one breath away from madness. Still amazingly intelligent, frighteningly so, but lacking, lacking in so many ways.
This place...it feels the same, but not, the land does not speak with quite the same tongue. But that missing piece, whatever it was has been replaced, and now she can settle to understanding this strange-but-not-strange land.
She sidles up close to the building, bending down to scoop a handful of soil and examine it, letting it slide through her fingers. A sniff and a moment's reflection, and she smiles nastily. Oh yes, that is the right fungus.
She steps back again, lower vines digging into the soil slightly. A purplish fuzz begins to grow up the side of the building, spreading rapidly.
It has a particularly voracious appetite for certain metallic compounds.
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Post by Hook on Apr 14, 2008 22:58:05 GMT -5
Ever since receiving the report Frenzy made of his and Barricade's scouting of the city, Hook has sought a chance to get out there himself. However, between the latest round of Seekers being moronic and the Autobots-3 feeling the need to throw themselves into his path whenever he stepped outside of base, the Constructicon has had a hard time getting away from things.
Now, though, he has slipped away as stealthily as a lime-green and royal purple piece of construction equipment can. He has not slipped away with no one knowing whither he has gone, however. He is quite bright enough to let Dead End know, just in case he makes the mistake of not coming back. (Mistake, because Dead End going "I told you so" would be terrible to suffer through.)
He rolls into the square where the debarkation point of the portal is. But something catches his headlights- a gold and green creature with face and manipulatory tentacles.
"Well, what do we have here?"
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Botanica-3
Cadet
Audrey II second cousin, twice removed.
Posts: 73
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Post by Botanica-3 on Apr 15, 2008 11:50:03 GMT -5
Botanica stared at the Constructicon, eyes narrowed, lips drawn in a thin line. Unexpected this. Her vines rustle, and tiny little sticker bushes begin to peek out of the ground around Hook. A tiny hiss escapes her.
"He does not let him walk freely, for fear that he would flee, and so you cannot be he."
She sidles sideways, her best approximation of pacing around him, though she is careful to keep her distance, ready to flee at a moment's notice. She has learned that she cannot stand up to most of these flawed ones' weapons.
"Have a care, have a care, that you do not move too close. A matched set might appeal to him, Prime's orders or no."
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Post by Hook on Apr 15, 2008 19:14:58 GMT -5
Not only does it talk, but it recognizes him. Or someone who looks much like him, which must mean... "You are one of the dark Prime's soldiers."
Her attempts at circling disturb him, and the crane transforms into a robot. It also distracts him from puzzling through the pronounitis that afflicts her speech. He senses the warning in it, the need for caution, but- "And what will he do with a matched set once he has it, little golden one?"
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Botanica-3
Cadet
Audrey II second cousin, twice removed.
Posts: 73
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Post by Botanica-3 on Apr 16, 2008 0:35:23 GMT -5
She throws back her head and laughs, a laugh similar to he counterparts, though the music in it is much darker. "No, no, not his, never his, am I. And he would not claim me. I am my own, and only my own. I am neither a lamb to follow the shepherd to the slaughter, nor a wolf to chase the leader's heels." Yet she followed the Prime here.... "I am what will be."
She keeps circling as she answers him, "Perhaps nothing, and perhaps he will lock you in that same crystal cage, to sing prettily for his pleasure. Or for Long Haul's." And still, she does not explain who "he" is.
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Post by Hook on Apr 16, 2008 11:24:40 GMT -5
An interesting reaction, indeed, from such an intriguing creature. The golden metal of her face and chest, the inflections of her vocoder... This is a person of Cybertron, no matter how odd she is. But, ah, wouldn't some find the mers of the Sea of Rust strange and beautiful?
Besides, he has heard the assertion of being the future before.
"So you are of Blackarachnia's time," he says, turning to keep her within his sight. "But are you bramble and thorn to him, or soft and pliant grass?"
His plant metaphors aren't perfect, but sheer exposure to the bedeviling things on Earth has given him some ideas about them.
There is only one person in all this world who would build a cage of crystal, and only one who would use it to hold Constructicons. "Omega Supreme."
Suggestion that he might be kept 'to sing prettily' sends a shudder through his cable, and a very short length drops down. He is a Decepticon, and in that artful mess of language she uses, he can well imagine what singing prettily for Omega or Long Haul's pleasure entails.
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Botanica-3
Cadet
Audrey II second cousin, twice removed.
Posts: 73
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Post by Botanica-3 on Apr 16, 2008 19:06:42 GMT -5
Botanica pauses in her sidelong movement and tilts her head, considering. For a moment, there is something almost like hope in her eyes, and then nothing. The words she mutters seems more for herself than for Hook1, "No, no, doubtful that it is she. Did Rattrap not mention...? Yes, but perhaps, though he does not speak as if she is an enemy." Botanica's voice rises as she addresses Hook again, "From further down am I. The conflict over an done with, and all reformatted into what they were meant to be. From a Cybertron now in perfect balance, a technorganic paradise." The need to move overwhelms her once again, and she resumes her pacing. Quite interesting it is to see him free of his bonds, even if this is not the Hook with which she is familiar. She notes his reaction as he realizes she was speaking of Omega Supreme. Telling. They are alike in their fear at least. Finally she answers his other question. Yes, the metaphors were poor, but she gets his gist. "Both and neither. We do not see eye-to-optic on even the most basic of things. And my physiology is a bother to the Prime, I think. He cannot see that it is perfect, the ultimate evolution. In that sense I prick him, yes, but I value my own existence and therefore bend before him." She shudders, "His Matrix is a most perverse thing. It pains me." 1OOC: Botania-3 has had little actual contact with the majority of the 'Bots-3 force. She isn't 100% sure of all those under the Prime's banner, let alone, those aligned with Starscream.
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Post by Hook on Apr 16, 2008 19:25:02 GMT -5
Of perfect form was she? But what price perfection and what measure to call it such? "Tell me of your perfection then. I am one noted for my seeking of such, and I will not be denied my goal."
It is amazing, how easily art-speak comes again to his mouth. It does not sound strange from, not wrong and unnatural as it might from some of his gestalt-mates.
But while Hook could lay claim to the title of artist if he so desired, it is not what he chooses. So an artist of Cybertron might find such metamorphical language from his mouth just as unnatural as from Bonecrusher's.
"Tell me of the perversity of this Matrix."
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Botanica-3
Cadet
Audrey II second cousin, twice removed.
Posts: 73
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Post by Botanica-3 on Apr 17, 2008 9:07:58 GMT -5
"You might seek, yet it does not always follow that you will find. Perfection is a skittish thing. It runs and hides at the slightest noise, the smallest tremor. Always wary of being caught, that one. Though it can be coaxed to cooperation with careful handling."
Is she talking about an ideal, or herself?
Botanica's lips quirk up, and she watches Hook through half-lidded parti-colored eyes. "I watched your transform. Smooth enough I suppose, for such a large and clunky form. All hard lines and boxes, too many access points. Vulnerable joins. Not something to be called graceful."
The sticker vines which peaked out of the ground at Hook's arrival are noticeably longer now, and a few make lazy swipes towards Hook's legs.
"For comparison," She transforms, a swift, fluid movement more like a shapeshift than a transform. Vines fold in and up, some melding together, some retract, forming her long petal skirt and helm. A soft burst of light heralds the transforms completion, and she hovers before him. Hook might note the lack of a required transform command, the fine silvery lines just below her 'skin' that look remarkably like circuitry, and the whirling spark within her translucent chest. "Perfect integration of organic and inorganic life, you see."
Botanica titters at Hook's next question, "'Tell me', 'tell me', you ask, to what end? You seek and perhaps you have found, but how will you hold its attention? What tidbits will you part with, what stories will you tell, Hook?" she asks, naming him for the first time. She shifts back to her plant form. It comforts her in her nervousness.
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Post by Hook on Apr 17, 2008 20:35:16 GMT -5
"Perfection is not in grace." Hook steps forward, deliberately crushing the central portion of one of the sticker vines underneath his foot. "Perfection is found in fulfillment of function, lily."
From his tone of voice, he might have said child, he might have said fool.
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Botanica-3
Cadet
Audrey II second cousin, twice removed.
Posts: 73
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Post by Botanica-3 on Apr 19, 2008 0:28:42 GMT -5
"Perhaps not, but form follows function follows form and-," Botancia breaks off her sing-song speech with a pained wordless cry when Hook steps on that small plant, as if he had just crushed her own tender vines. She shrinks back, hissing and showing sharp teeth.
"Why, why? It could not harm you, new and soft as it was, not in that form, its thorns too fragile. It only responded, sought to protect! Wicked, thoughtless automaton, single-minded, anachronistic faulty creature! It could not harm you, not as it was. Not as it was."
Her eyes narrow to slits, and her voice drops to the barest whisper, "Not. As. It. Was."
Regardless of reality, flora responds to Botanica's presence, reacts to her moods. Her counterpart would never think to abuse her connection to the planet, to influence or force the tender shoots under her care. But this Botanica's thoughts are wilder, darker, and the plants react.
The undamaged plants surrounding Hook begin to grow again, vines expanding rapidly in both length in girth to the size of her own thickest vines. Wickedly sharp thorns cover them, glinting in the moonlight. They can't pierce Hook's armour-no organic thorns could- but they can scratch, scrape, and catch, and thinner bristle-covered trailer vines could slip between joints. The root cluster beneath sprouts new vines, and if Hook does not move, they will wrap around his leg and dig into his plating.
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Post by Hook on Apr 19, 2008 6:16:54 GMT -5
Well, that was... interesting. Perhaps a little too much of Bonecrusher if the impression the others were giving him was correct.
But interesting. And perhaps ultimately a better gauge of this little rose than merely speaking to her would be.
"Why?" He strides forward, daring the sticker-vines to do their worst. "Am I to assume that something that lashes out at me for the slightest provocation will never become a threat to me then, simply because it is currently too weak to give me harm?"
Because I am ancient and malevolent, and you are but a child for all your power.
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Botanica-3
Cadet
Audrey II second cousin, twice removed.
Posts: 73
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Post by Botanica-3 on Apr 19, 2008 13:52:55 GMT -5
"Some creatures...."
She scuttles back as he moves toward her, and the ever-growing brambles whip toward Hook. They wrap around his arms, legs, and waist, curved thorns digging into his plating for purchase. They are strong, stronger even than would be expected as she bolsters them with her own will. But likely not strong enough to do more than slow him. Thin needle-covered trailer vines flow up Hook's legs, try to force their way beneath his plating where they can prick and choke more delicate components.
Instinct screams at her to flee, but the part of her that is still scientist is curious; what will he do, what can he do? She can not stop him, but she can hurt him, give him pain for pain dealt, and how will he react? He hurt her and she must hurt him in return. That is the way it is done and that is the way that it must be. That he will do her more pain as he struggles against the vines is of no consequence.
"Some creatures, for all their fierceness, will not harm unless provoked, damaged, threatened. And some of the most beautiful and enticing specimens can be most deadly if underestimated," she hisses.
OOC: Brambles getting up close and personal, ok'd by Hook's player.
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Post by Hook on Apr 19, 2008 15:01:41 GMT -5
The brambles twining around his arms are grasped by strong hands, and he yanks-! Vines and roots are torn from the ground, dirt still clinging to that which should be properly buried. Stupid, pathetic creatures with no strength behind them-
Pain, what is a little pain? He is a construction engineer and a soldier. He has lain in the dark underneath a collapsed building, crane-arm and legs snapped in three to five places, and agonizing chemicals from Mixmaster's damaged drum trickling over his blaster-burnt chest. He has been the living canvas for Scrapper to carve plans onto. He has been Mixmaster's guinea pig.
In less exotic terms, getting hurt happens more frequently than some think in his job.
The brambles and thorny vines curling around him, driving thorns into joints and seeking entry themselves, irritate him. Even, it could be said, they cause him pain.
Hook leapt skyward. Lifters engaged and gravity ceased to chain him.
The plants clinging to him are not so fortunate as that.
"If you are not one of the Prime's, little wild rose, you are not bound by his truce."
She is such an engaging little creature, and her efforts amuse him enough to provide a warning at all.
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Post by Rodimus Prime-3 on Apr 19, 2008 19:41:11 GMT -5
"He has a point, you know," comes a voice from nearby.
Should those present turn to look, they will see a large, gaudily colored red and yellow robot, arms crossed, leaning against the corner of a building. His legs are crossed at the ankle, his pose casual and utterly fearless, a cocky smirk gracing his features.
"I don't recall inviting you to the party, Botanica," he sneers.
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