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Post by Sentinel Prime on May 7, 2011 10:55:35 GMT -5
"I have a name," Sentinel Prime mutters direly, when Whirligig calls him 'Big Blue'. It's not even a hard name to say, like Emirate Xaaron. What's up with that? Is the 'X' a click noise or something? Why are there two 'a's? Why is he an Emirate and not an Emir?
One Shi'ar shakes her head and comments to another, "Giant robots." The other says, "Ayup." They nod, and open the back hatch. The first thing is that the light outside is very... green. The sun in the sky has a distinctly different spectra than Cybertron's long-lost star, Earth's sol, Gillanan's sun, or even Pz-Zazz sun, which was usually obscured by smog. This is really, really green. It makes Sentinel Prime's blue look teal when...
...he's sucked outside by the whoosh of air. Sentinel Prime is probably screaming, but since this is parachuting, he probably can't be heard, either.
There are no missiles yet, just a vast, tangled forest that looks like it stretches on forever, coming up beneath them.
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Post by Perceptor on May 13, 2011 21:53:32 GMT -5
As soon as Perceptor spies the ambient light from the planet's star, he begins to wonder again if it isn't too late to simply back out of the whole Sim. He's frantically attempting to calibrate his visual clusters to compensate for the polarization and color shift, but the Shi'ar ladies are also crowding him forward toward the back of the plane.
Well, one thing at least, since he's tail, that means that Whirligig is supposed to go out before him. Perceptor manages to stifle his smirk as he "assists" Whirligig out the back ramp with a quick shove, and then, steeling himself, shuffles forward enough that he, too, is sucked out.
He really hates falling. Feet belong on the ground, not kicking wildly to orient himself to scan the surface.
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Post by Whirligig/Wednesday Gilgamesh on May 13, 2011 22:21:29 GMT -5
"And it's a very pretty name!" Whirligig shouts cheerfully after Sentinel Prime as he's sucked out of the plane.
He doesn't expect to be shoved out of the plane shortly after, but a surprise now and then does the body good! Keeps you on your toes. Or wheels. Or whatever. He concerns himself with whooping happily into the wind as the tangled forest spirals far beneath him, but coming forward real fast.
Fanning out his thrusters, he fires a series of short bursts to orient himself properly in space. He's not as graceful in free-fall as he is in zero-g. Even 75% Earth gravity is more than most of the hunks of rock and ice he mined ever had.
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Post by Sentinel Prime on May 14, 2011 20:20:10 GMT -5
Sentinel Prime, thankfully, cannot hear Whirligig, because when one is parachuting, one really cannot hear much of anything, unless one is in a bad movie.
They're in the air for a few seconds when a volley of evil purple missiles marked with peace signs comes up at them.
Perceptor might not notice this immediately, but if he's doing well, there will be suddenly be more missiles, and they'll be coming from more awkward angles. If he's doing poorly, there will be fewer, and they'll be slower and less agile. This is a teaching sim, after all.
This means that if Perceptor is feeling passive-aggressive, he can just put in a 'meh' effort, and they'll mostly be safe.
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Post by Perceptor on May 16, 2011 18:57:47 GMT -5
Even for those things which Perceptor really is not fond of, he cannot conceive of doing anything but the best he is capable of. Which means that the longer they fall, the more missiles that come streaking at them, as he is contorting himself every which way, attempting to track and eliminate anything that approaches their vector. He is too busy attempting to target and destroy the incoming missiles to figure out that the difficulty in directly proportional to the effort he expends.
He is also getting very, very frustrated; he feels as if he is facing Oil Slick's Hydra Box all over again. For every missile he successfully manages to negate, two or three more appear in its wake! He is being very careful of Whirligig's and Sentinel's positions, though, and is more likely to let missiles targeted for him to slip through, rather than risk them.
He very much hates this whole sim already, and the lighting and gravitational differences are not salving his irritation one bit.
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Post by Whirligig/Wednesday Gilgamesh on May 16, 2011 22:31:10 GMT -5
Whirligig will just have to make sure to not use Sentinel Prime's name again when they can hear each other again. For now he'll just whoop unheard into the rushing wind and keep an eye on the oncoming missiles.
As his thrusters aren't completely useless in freefall, he is going to be doing his best to avoid any missiles that he decides are getting too close for comfort - though Whirligig's comfort zone for approaching explosives is likely rather narrower than most people's. So long as Perceptor keeps the missiles at bay at a great enough distance, it won't be an issue. But if they start getting closer as the barrage increases, then Perceptor is going to have to deal with shooting around a jinking Whirligig.
It's not often that Whirligig might be better off showing less self-presevation.
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Post by Sentinel Prime on May 17, 2011 13:57:04 GMT -5
Sentinel Prime's chute pops and yanks him up, hard. His suspension will hate him later. Pretty soon, they'll be hitting the ground, and Perceptor won't have to worry about Hydra missiles anymore.
There might be snakes, though.
Then they just need to break into a Decepticon base, find the McGuffin, and get it out.
Cake of piece, as the Twins might say.
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Post by Perceptor on May 23, 2011 16:24:48 GMT -5
Well, if Sentinel had wanted to test Perceptor's abilities to keep his mind on the job and deal with not hitting his own, then adding Whirligig had definitely been what the Drill Sergeant had ordered! By dint of the fact that Perceptor is compensating for the altered gravity with every shot, and has gotten paranoid about hitting Whirligig after the first close call, he manages not to hit his won teammate. It does, however, take shooting his own rocket out of the air with his light cannon when Whirligig dodges right into the rocket's path.
By the time Perceptor's chute deploys and jerks him sharply upwards by what feels like every joint in his body, Perceptor feels as if he's been wrung through a compactor already, and they still have a very unforgiving-looking mass of trees approaching quickly, and the rest of the mission to get through.
One last missile makes it through his attempt to defend them, though, slamming into him as he concentrates on keeping Sentinel and Whirligig safe through their slowed descent. It's a glancing blow, really, but even a glancing blow from a rocket means that half of the point where Perceptor's parachute attaches to him suddenly vanishes in a gout of flame and a mist of metal and vapor. The fabric above him collapses into a flapping mess as Perceptor plummets; well, at least there's trees to cushion his fall, and at three quarters standard Earth gravity, it shouldn't hurt as much, right?
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Post by Whirligig/Wednesday Gilgamesh on May 25, 2011 15:27:28 GMT -5
Obviously Whirligig's calling in life is to make other people's lives more difficult, whether he intends to or not. He doesn't even notice Perceptor's struggles, his attention squarely - and gleefully - focused on the missiles and ground rapidly approaching from below. He's actually disappointed when his chute pops and violently jolts him into a much more sedate pace.
Then Perceptor plummets past him, trailing the useless remnants of a parachute, and he immediately begins to contort to transform out of the confines of his own chute harness.
//Whoa, whoa, head's up, it's raining scientists!//
Dropping free of his chute in robot mode, Whirligig pulls his limbs tight to his body and dives in an attempt to catch up to Perceptor. As ideas go, it's a pretty stupid one. Even if he does manage to catch Perceptor and grab him before he manages to hit the trees, there's not actually a whole lot he can do to help. The weak thrusters on his head certainly aren't half as useful as a parachute.
Oh well, he's never been much for good ideas anyway. It is pretty fun, though.
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Post by Sentinel Prime on May 27, 2011 19:56:34 GMT -5
Sentinel Prime transforms, which his chute is apparently designed to accommodate, which raises the question of why he had to turn into a truck in the first place.
When Whirligig arguably makes matters worse, Sentinel Prime facepalms. Then he radios, //Perceptor, Whirligig, catch! Use it to break your fall!//
Then he tries to throw them his shield. A forcefield that can stop a punch ought to help with the whole 'hitting trees' thing, right? This is also arguably a bad idea. Perceptor could tell him why physics don't work that way, but then Sentinel Prime would have to tell Perceptor why spiders turn one evil.
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Post by Perceptor on Jun 8, 2011 19:34:41 GMT -5
Perceptor suddenly finds himself very much not alone, and, even better, there is a shield frisbeeing for his general direction. With his luck? It will smack him right in the head.
Unlike himself, though, Sentinel has good aim with the shield, and is quite well-versed with getting that shield exactly where he wants it. Perceptor even manages to catch it in one flailing hand. Even better, since having rebuilt it completely, he even knows how to activate it, and does so, thrashing in mid-air to attempt to put the curved surface between himself and the trees.
By some miracle, he manages to pull even that off. At least until he, Whirligig, and that shield all impact the first treetop.
After that, everything becomes a confused blur of tree branches, jarring impacts, pain, and that icky, green sky. And then sudden, excruciating, complete darkness as he finally reaches the ground.
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Jun 13, 2011 16:55:37 GMT -5
OOC: Skipping Whirligig due to timeout.- - - Sentinel Prime gets stuck in a tree, which is embarrassing, but he is otherwise unharmed. His chute tangles in the branches, and he struggles rather hard, finally needing to draw his lance, and poke his way down. He lands on the forest floor in a loud crunch of twigs. He shoves himself up and looks at Perceptor and Whirligig, optics wide with concern. Sentinel Prime calls out, "Perceptor! Nooo! And... Whirligig. No." Perceptor's on the ground? Like an opinionated layman, Sentinel Prime runs over and tries to shake Perceptor.
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Post by Whirligig/Wednesday Gilgamesh on Jun 15, 2011 10:20:33 GMT -5
It seems to be Whirligig's lot in life to crash into things at high velocity. What can you do? At least there's not explosion behind him this time. Though he's not sure that's a positive.
Somewhere in the chaos and smacking into trees, he ends up separated from Perceptor, coming to his own jarring halt against a large tree branch several meters above the forest floor. His rest is short lived, as with a sound of splintering wood the branch goes crashing to the forest floor. Being rather more graceful that a piece of wood, Whirligig twists catlike and manages to land squarely on his feet. Haha! Straight 10s! Take that you stupid branch!
He promptly falls over with an understated "Ow."
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Post by Perceptor on Jun 17, 2011 15:31:42 GMT -5
The world is shaking. It's rattling back and forth roughly like a small earthquake, and Perceptor groans and tries to bat away whatever it is that's grabbed his shoulder. Probably a pile of datapads fallen over, or his lens cloth or--
Memory rushes back in a sudden flurry, and Perceptor flails, attempting to sit up midst the tangles of his chute and the deativated shield and the branches and limbs he'd torn off in his rapid passage through the canopy. "Whirligig!"
Hopefully Sentinel is not bending right over him, or there may be a bit of a... secondary impact.
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Jun 17, 2011 20:59:05 GMT -5
Sentinel Prime quickly determines that Whirligig is mostly okay and, even more quickly, that he doesn't really care if Whirligig has a boo-boo or not. Suck it up and soldier on, blade-boy!
Sentinel Prime tends to be beset by physical gags at all points, so of course he gets thwached in the face by tree branches, left and right. He wobbles, a bit dizzy, and incoherently orders, "Autobots, roll out and park it." There are little cartoon stars and birdies orbiting his head.
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