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Post by Deleted on Dec 11, 2022 2:32:26 GMT
Characters Appearing: Open Location (s): In and around Bar Harbor Maine Timeline: Late November, Nightfall
Plot Summary: A ferocious “Nor’easter”, one of the deadliest to appear so early in the season in years, wracks and batters the scenic rural coastline in and all around Bar Harbor, Maine.
But though the imposing caul and veil of ferociously dark clouds, frozen rain, and driving gales are an ominous emergence in their own rite, something exponentially darker and more purposeful is using the ferocious presence of the storm as a damp and frigid veil to pass over the coastline and into the dense and untamed forests along the wind, sleet, and hale-swept islands, archipelagos, and rolling countryside to the human city’s north and east.
Cloaked in the breast of a vast storm, the Decepticon Mire sweeps over the storm-battered town below, and drops out of the sky, metal pinions and span shifting, folding, stretching, re-arranging, and twisting until a vast figure of contusion-purple, dusk grey, and drowned pallor plummets into the wooded island hollows in the deep, dark void of light a half second after lightning pierced the sky over the open sea, and lit the tempest brilliant shades of storm and ocean grey-blue.
Mire lands hard, but not painfully so, and stands, a wan smile flickering, lightning-brief, over her pallid faceplate as thunder roars behind her, and pummels the trees and soil with the bone-rattling pulse of its voice.
The Decepticon’s bootsteps shake the forest likewise as she rolls her shoulders, smirks challengingly at the frozen rain beating at her chassis, and marches uphill into the storm, intent on highest ground and widest field of view.
“Majestic,”
She exhales, spiked skull craning back, slit-apertured red optics yawning to drink in the horizon, sea, and sky, as she crest’s the island’s spine.
“Majestic. Absolutely one of the only things about this planet worth anything at all—“
The hail and wind beat harder against her chassis, bowing and thrashing the canopy of trees all around her, as if in answer to her appraisal and passion.
Mire laughs.
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Post by Nightshroud on Dec 12, 2022 0:12:21 GMT
Earth weather was the worst, but at the same time the Nor'easter was quite fitting. Much like the weather itself at this very moment, Nightshroud's own emotions ran tempestuously. She was alone, angry, confused, hurt, and now concern had joined the ranks. It'd been some time now since she'd last seen Starscream, and a part of her deep down was worried about him. She knew he'd been captured, but she didn't know where. That was the part that bothered her most. She wanted to stage a rescue so badly, but how could she when she had no clue where he was being held? She was furious with the Autobots and with G.H.O.S.T. for it as well. She finally had something that made her happy, even just the slightest bit, and they took it away from her: the one fragging bot that was capable of making her feel something other than hate and distrust!
Wherever he was, Nightshroud hoped Starscream was alright. That he was hanging in there and was managing just as he said that he would if worst had come to worst. Even if he didn't want her to, she was going to find him. She was going to make everyone suffer, and she didn't care who she had to go through to get what she wanted.
And so in her search she had found herself here in the bitter cold, huddled close to herself as she walked through the forest in Bar Harbor, Maine. The femme had hoped maybe she'd find some sort of clue here, but there was none to be had. None that she'd come across anyway. The cold was distracting, but at least it wasn't enough to drop her core temperatures to a freezing point. The freezing rain had certainly not helped as the small crimson seeker shook her wings a bit to keep them from freezing. It was going to be hard to fly out of this if they iced over.
As she continued walking, shuddering a bit, she heard a voice in the distance. Nightshroud didn't know who or what it belonged to, but she doubted it was a human in this weather. Feeling curious in that moment, Nightshroud opted to investigate to see what the source had been. The femme found herself walking uphill, and it didn't take long to spot the source of the sound: another Cybertronian.. this one tall and unfamiliar to her.
"So I'm not the only one crazy enough to be out here in this weather." Nightshroud spoke in a dry tone, eyeing the other femme down. If need be she was prepared to grab her sword, but she wanted to wait to be sure. Fighting in this weather would not be easy, and if she could avoid conflict that would be optimal at this time.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 12, 2022 1:08:53 GMT
Even as absorbed and immersed as she was in veritably worshipping the storm above and all around her, Mire did not cease to be perceptive, and she did not cease to be a Decepticon with whole human epochs’ worth of experience in reconaissance, data-gathering, and carefully minding the details of her surroundings, her fellow Decepticons, and….
Her enemies.
But this newcomer didn’t register to her as the last category.
Yet.
A relatively small bot. But still audible— Mire first noticed her by sound—
The crackling of damp, but still limb and twig-littered forest floor, under a weight far too great to belong to a human, but still far lighter than her own.
Mire made no effort to turn and face this stranger. Far better to let them reveal something of their own character by making the first move. An enemy? Some Autobot fool? Mire could hear the smaller Cybertronian’s parts veritably clattering, in the battering cold. Less cybermass, less plating, a smaller frame. Less insulated against the cold. Whoever they were, they were bearing straight for her.
Following the makeshift path Mire had carved through the canopy and into the teeming forest floor with long, implacable strides.
Now, this Transformer walked that same path, taking far shorter steps, until—
Crazy.
Not precisely a word she was fond of. One she’d been branded with, many times, over the centuries, by Autobots too lazy to think of better definitions for the passion that drove Mire to crush them and cast aside their vacuous moral crusade. Or offline trying. It made her spark simmer and boil with sullen, affronted hurt, then rage.
But—
No violence. Not just yet. This ‘bot hadn’t struck her yet, and— Was that? Yes, it was. The familiar chatter of delicate, angled wings, in the cold. Mire had heard it on a hundred different worlds, from ten times as many different Seekers. Many of them now perished, undoubtedly.
But a Seeker was a Seeker. And in these terribly uncertain, frustrating, demoralizing times, any Seeker was a friend, provided they hadn’t forsaken the Decepticon cause.
Mire turned, very, very slowly, rust-and-cherry optics half-lidded against the deluge, but still feverishly hot and bright.
“Little Seeker,”
Mire intoned, faceplate cracking open into a grin, more suppressed mania and toothy guard, than warm welcome. Above it, eyes like questing, searching, red-hot pokers, cold intelligence behind the feverish burgundy heat and jagged grin.
”The weather on this dull, cloying, half-suffocated little backwater of a planet is one of the few aspects of this world worth anything. Anything at all.”
Fully facing this stranger, Mire found that she was even smaller than she’d been expecting. Warm red eyes, slight in build, red and grey-black frame shuddering and half-bowed by the Storm.
Mire was nigh on twofold her height.
No wonder she was having trouble maintaining a healthy operational core-temperature, let alone subsystem temperatures, in this freezing, or, rather, frozen, rain.
”But I can see why you wouldn’t like it so much—“
Mire’s grin fades and subsides into something almost warm and genuine, only a little crooked, a hint of bemusement in the set of her mouth and brow, head cocked.
She sheathes the glistening, dripping rotor-blade dirk in her left hand, and favors the little Seeker with a breath of soft, throaty laughter.
”A little bite like you must just be…”
The entire sky lights up pure white, a jagged bolt of fission arcing across it, in the furious heart of the storm. Thunder rumbles, rolls, and roars all around them.
”Absolutely soaked to the Spark….”
Another gust of laughter, perhaps a smidgen sardonic, but not mocking or cruel.
She lifts one pale claw toward the heavens, palm upturned, digits half-curled, letting the onslaught of ice and sleet ping off of her talons, trickle down her fingers, pool in the cup of her palm.
With the other claw, she points, not unkindly, at Nightshroud.
”I’ll be fine in this, ‘till I’ve found somewhere better to watch the world go by. But you? If you aren’t careful, you’re going to freeze up your wings and engines. Maybe even end up with fluid pooling inside your vents and lymphatic conduits. Could cause an infection. Rust. Corrosion. Serious issues, down the line…”
She clicks unusually sharp dentas against a lavender-tinted, pointed glossa, tut-tutting half mockingly, half with genuine warning, if not precisely concern. But her words betray her— If some small part of her didn’t care about what became of her fellow Decepticon, she would never have said as much as she just did.
”The Decepticon cause needs its warriors intact, now more than ever—“
She leans forward, flanged crest hooding her eye-sockets in shadow, the coal-like slits within eyeing Nightshroud over shrewdly.
”Which makes a ‘Con curious what someone as ill-equipped for this as you is doing out in this squall to begin with…..”
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Post by Nightshroud on Dec 12, 2022 3:38:02 GMT
As Nightshroud was pelted with the frozen rain and sleet, her crimson and azure optics met with rust and cherry ones when the other Cybertronian finally turned to gaze upon her. Despite the cold she didn't let her intense stare falter in the least, unflinching aside from wings decorated by golden filigree fluttering to break up the ice. It didn't matter that this bot was at least twice her size. She'd strike up a fight with them if she had to, but the other didn't seem as interested in fighting. Not yet anyway.
The crimson seeker listened as Mire spoke to her, gritting her dentae as she growled at the other's joke. Yes she knew she was smaller than most if not all other seekers, but she didn't like the teasing even if it was playful. She wasn't about to let some ice storm get in the way of her self imposed task and she was quite used to taking extremes to getting the job done. Her hud displayed messages of decreases in temperature, but she ignored them. They weren't to low enough readouts that she needed to be concerned. Just simple warnings giving her a heads up that her core temps were on the decrease and it was something to be aware of. Nightshroud would decide for herself when it was important, and if she wasn't closing in on the threshold of nearing damaging temperatures then it could wait.
"The thoughtfulness is appreciated, but I'm more than capable of knowing my own limitations. A freak storm like this isn't going to take me offline, and I know when to retreat." She didn't. She'd keep going until she either decided she wasn't going to complete her task or she literally could not function enough to finish the job. Only then would she make her hasty retreat, though with this weather icy wings were incredibly dangerous. Almost on cue, her wings fluttered again to break up any ice trying to cake up to prevent it from becoming a problem.
The femme did take Mire's words in a mocking tone, especially given that the sleet seemed to have little impact on her due to her size. It truly was not fair, but alas. Life itself was not fair. Nightshroud watched her carefully, listening to her words as she watched her movements to determine whether the larger femme was in any way displaying signs that she would become aggressive. However, instead came the question that she'd expected. The 'what in the world are you doing out here' kind of question. That alone was easy enough for Nightshroud to answer.
"If you need to know, I'm looking for someone. I have no means of finding clues, and so I am searching anywhere I can find. Just so happened I got caught up in this storm. Someone's in much more need than I am, and I swore an oath that I would find them and liberate them." Nightshroud huffed. She had no intention of stating that Starscream was the one she was trying to find. That was on a need to know basis. "You're a Decepticon.. What do you know about G.H.O.S.T.? Do you know where they are?"
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Post by Deleted on Dec 13, 2022 22:02:00 GMT
Mire notes the tension in the smaller Decepticon’s faceplate. The tightness about the intake structure and mandible. When the growl slips free of the far smaller Seeker’s vocoder, Mire can’t help herself—
She laughs.
Her smile bunches and thickens, exposing teeth like daggers, and then she makes a high, whistling keen, and then—
Her entire chassis rocks with high, piping, dulcet-tone laughter. She puts a hand to her spark, drags a shaky, uneven breath into her vents, and bursts into high, funeral-potpourri sweet cackling once again.
”Oh— Ok— Yeah, yeah, oh, of course—“
Her rotor-wings, razor-edged, scintillating, and faintly pearlescent, almost like dragonfly or mantis wings, bob and flutter with her laughter.
”Sorry, no, yes, clearly— Clearly you’ve a mind for your own tolerances. Strengths and weaknesses. All that.”
The mirth trails off into a muffled giggle, and Mire’s expression abruptly sobers, evens out, fades into opaque ambivalence and haughty bemusement, once more.
”Don’t take me too personally,”
She sighs.
”I’ve just fished a lot of overconfident Decepticons out of ditches and craters. That’s all. But— Hey! If you’re that determined—“
She bobs her head back and forth, flattening her glossy intake-buffers out into a line for a brief moment, as if acknowledging the little Decepticon’s courage.
”Power to you! To be honest, it’s kind of refreshing to see a Decepticon motivated by anything except self-pity and petty crime, these days.”
She bobs one shoulder, the armored paldron atop it shifting with the motion. A half-shrug.
”I hope you succeed, however little that may be worth to you.”
Her optics narrow into shrewd slits the color of day-old blood when the other fembot continues speaking.
”Need to know? Oh. Always, Seeker. Always…..”
But her voice is so soft it could be called a whisper, and, as the Seeker continues speaking, her expression sobers, flattens, and turns cold and distant with thought.
When the little Decepticon finishes speaking, Mire takes a long time to respond.
The cast of her faceplate is drained of all mockery and amusement— She looks chilly, unreadable, and a million miles distant from the here and now. The wind howls, beating over the treetops, and over the two Decepticons, like some vast set of pinion-wings, and ice pounds both Decepticons.
”I could…. Tell you… About Ghost.”
She blinks, and then her optics shimmer, and project a red-tinted hologram into the chill evening air, obliquely driven gusts of hale and thick, heavy, burgeoning snow causing the projection to shimmer and fluctuate.
Images of armored vehicles. Experimental weapons. Decepticons rebuffed by forcefields, of impossibly advanced make for humans, obviously product of Autobot collaboration and assistance. Armored and uniformed humans, some in military masks and aviator-glasses, some not. Decepticons wounded. Decepticons surrouded. Decepticons in shackles. A vast convoy of human vehicles and Autobots moving Decepticon prisoners.
”I know them,”
She breathes, voice full of a quiet hate and fury so thick, and cold, and potent, it rivals the ice constantly building on the smaller Decepticon’s wings for danger and chill.
”I know them too well,”
Images continue to cycle and flash. Some infuriating. Some merely informative. Some grotesque and horrific— More than a few of Decepticons in horrible, barely-online states, crowded and bound by amassing human soldiers and Autobots.
Mires optics flutter, as if she’s coming out of a trance, and one claw flicks spasmodically, then the red light flickers and fades away.
”But I don’t do intel freebies for plucky strangers. And certainly not out in the frozen rain. And certainly not out where any prying Autobot or human optics could be watching. And certainly not when those strangers haven’t even given me their names. I mean—“
Her optics narrow, surfacing back into the present.
”For all I know, you could be some little G.H.O.S.T. spy, fishing for what some mouthy Decepticon rube might know, out in the inclement.”
A very dangerous tension builds, momentarily, in Mire’s faceplate.
”How do I know you aren’t?”
She takes one step forward, metal foot shattering a deadfall beneath the weight of its impact, slouching forward slightly as she moves, vents suddenly still, silent.
“You haven’t given me anything except re-assurances and a heavily abridged sob-story.”
She leans forward, until her chassis very nearly drowns the other Decepticon entirely in her shadow.
”You want data on ‘Ghost’? You’re in luck. Because you’re talking to a Decepticon reconnaissance and data-gathering unit. But—“
She straightens.
”I need to know who you are. And I need to know you’re loyal to the cause……”
Mire’s rotor flare, and beat, like vast wings, then straighten, spread and align into heptagonal regularity, and begin to buffet the air furiously as they spool up to speed, and the rest of her chassis whines, folds, shudders, shifts, and re-forms into a glossy, deep-violet U.S. Navy MH-53E Sea Dragon.
Her rotor-assemblies pound the air like Decepticon-made thunder, deflecting it not only off of her, but off of the smaller Seeker as well.
”Prove you’re a true Decepticon to me. Meet me atop Cadillac Mountain. It’s the highest point in this sector, and only a few miles southwest of this little spit, and that little human settlement out the same way.
It’ll be even colder. Miserable, in fact. But a true Decepticon would bear it. And a true Decepticon would survive it. And if you are true, it won’t matter— I’m a medic, in addition to a data-gatherer. I could fix any damage an Earth squall might do to a fellow Decepticon in my sleep.”
The huge Helicopter’s nose tilts downward.
”But if you aren’t true— If you give me reason to believe anything you say is false— Slip up even once— Give me a single tell—“
The Sea Dragon lowers even further, dangerously close, shredding entire trees like tissue-paper with its rotor-assembly, chips of shattered timber flying like shrapnel in the freezing winds of the combined tempest weather and tempest Decepticon.
”The storm won’t have a chance to do lasting damage. Because I’ll offline you myself. But—“
Mire backs away, rises, rotors beating, distinctly Cybertronian thrusters which would not be present on the human version of such a vehicle flaring—
“If you’re genuine, well, then— Hey! You’ve got absolutely nothing to worry about.”
Mire lifts off further, abruptly gathering momentum, pulling up hard, directly into the storm.
”Ta, little Seeker. See you on the mountaintop, if you’re true. Or not! Your choice!”
Engines roar in perfect chorus with the thunder, Mire’s thrusters flare, and the huge Decepticon helicopter cuts its way up and away, slicing through the Nor’easter like it’s a pale fog. Bound for the mountain top.
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Post by Nightshroud on Dec 14, 2022 12:56:01 GMT
Again the mystery femme laughed at her, and it only mad Nightshroud grow angrier. She hadn't come here to be mocked and knew full well how to handle herself. Maybe she didn't take the best care of herself at times which had only been made more evident that the tiny seeker was walking around in a Nor'easter of all things, but she had a mission to do and she was not going to let Earth weather stop her from getting the job done. She promised she'd get Starscream out of G.H.O.S.T. jail and when she promised something, she meant it. Even if she suffered for it, she was getting the job done one way or another.. even if Starscream wasn't happy about it.
But then the laughter switched to compliments for her foolish courage and determination. That had always been a skill of hers, though it wasn't without it's downsides as well. When it came to Nightshroud, she would fight to the death rather than give up the ghost. This in itself only made it the perfect challenge even if she didn't find any clues about G.H.O.S.T. and their whereabouts. It seemed, as the taller femme spoke, that she did know something about the organization, but she wasn't quite as willing to offer it over so easily. Not without proving her worth anyway, which the crimson femme found fair. In that same vein, she didn't know if the femme was trustworthy either and that was the beauty of it. Nightshroud didn't trust anybody, and even her trust in Starscream wasn't absolute. She wanted it to be, but there was still that lingering fear. That lingering doubt that in the end he would still betray her trust if she fully gave it to him.
Nightshroud was unfazed as Mire spoke of the challenge she wished to use in order to gauge the small seeker's worth and trust, listening as she continued to give her instructions. She almost had to laugh as the taller femme insisted that she'd offline her if she proved to be untrustworthy in any way. "Believe me, should it come to that I will not go down without a fight. Lucky for you, intel is my priority right now so fine. I'll play your little game and you will find me at the top of Cadillac Mountain, and I'll expect full details when I get there."
No matter the pain, no matter the difficulty, Nightshroud would walk through hell to get what she needed. Crimson and azure optics watched as the femme transformed and took off for the mountain, fluttering her wings once more to break off any new ice that tried to form upon them. Once she was ready, Nightshroud transformed and started her trip to the mountain. Primus it was getting hard to both see and fly as she fought to steady herself, but that didn't matter to her.
Only getting the information she needed to help Starscream did.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 14, 2022 14:04:29 GMT
Over ocean. Over harbor. Over twinkling human lights. Over backroads and paths. Over abandoned, rusting railways.
Mire flies.
She isn’t quite Starscream in his Prime. No ground-to-orbit-broken-in-under-120-microcycles for her. And Primus alive, especially not in these trying times, with so little Energon.
But she is fast. Startlingly, disconcertingly, impossibly fast, for something wearing the skin, the shape, of a simple, bulky human minesweeping and transport helicopter.
As if there rusty little spill-prone machines could ever,
She thinks, rotors beating steadily, afterburners growling, under the torrential notes of the storm.
She keeps it under mach-1, but only barely. Only by a calculated thread or so.
The storm embraces her, buffets her, rattles her with jagged cracks of lightning and deafening, close thunder as she flies along its breast. But far more importantly than that? It cloaks her passage from the humans. Makes her a tiny, hidden thing, like a pebble among vast, sweeping waves.
Cadillac Mountain.
Mire makes no effort to lower herself carefully. There’s a lot of wind, and she has a lot of momentum, for something like that.
And by comparison, she has very little patience.
Advanced spacial positioning and trajectory calculations fly through Mire’s processor-array like simple, intuitive estimations.
For her, they essentially are. She’d made more challenging and ominous leaps than this in hard vacuum, buffeted by solar storms and heavy radiation, and swarming, teeming clouds of ice and stone, back in Cybertron’s orbit.
Mire transforms, kills all engines, dims all lights, and simply…. Drops. Falls and falls and falls and falls.
For a brief, fraction of a moment, she considers simply NOT arresting her momentum. She wonders idly if the impact, taken at full speed, would be enough to crash her processor, crush and sever nerves, and simply leave her, numb, unaware, to fade away in stasis-lock. Blissful silence and peace.
Mire sighs, deeply, flaring her rotors, huge, alloy pinions suddenly whirling and beating.
Probably not. Probably just leave her with mangled subsystems, torqued joints, and a face-full of compacted human dirt.
Mire strangles away the inertia of the fall in a few, swift moments, rotors whirling on her back, and then simply lets them fold against her back, and drops the remaining dozen meters or so with a huff, landing easily on open palms and thick, strong hind legs which bend and flex to absorb the now-meager impact.
”I knew it,”
She snarls, looking down at her mud and heath-caked hands.
”Dirt. I guess that’s why they named this planet that. Earth. Dirt. Ugh.”
Still, despite her foul mood, and mud-caked hands, she can’t help her fascination with the lichens, moss, and meager, sallow grass clinging to her clawed hands. A dozen separate species of grass, fungus, moss, and symbiotic bacteria.
It’d be fascinating, cause for at least half a smile, Mire thinks, if this muddy little planet weren’t also the tomb for her cause and entire way of life.
The earth-dirt joke has been made ten-thousand times, by a hundred different Decepticons, at this point, but…. Repeating it brings Mire small comfort. A meager sense of nostalgia and warmth. A reminder of…. What? The camaraderie of Decepticon kind, before……?
Before Megatron abandoned them?
Mire’s faceplate sours, pallid protoform creasing with mingled rage and sorrow. But— But right now, she has to—
She straightens, brushing half-frozen muck off of her knees, clapping her hands, and sniffing sullenly at the cold, misty air.
The western face of the storm hangs overhead like a caul, and, already, the air is full of mist, and she can feel hail pinging off of her metal.
Her sensors tell her its cold. Not cold enough to hurt her. She, who was designed and trained to operate in hard vacuum and in distant Cybertronian orbit, clinging to age-brittle satellites, pelted by interplanetary and interstellar showers of ice and stone.
But cold. -9 degree celsius, in the estimation of the planet’s simian dominant life. Or, she recollects, rolling her optics, about 16 degree Fahrenheit, and still growing ever-colder at a rate of, by Mire’s estimation, .03 degrees Fahrenheit per microcycle.
She estimates, distantly, gaze horizon-cast, taking in the darkness and furious, squalling lightning of the storm, and the hopeful, twinkling, shimmering lights of humans desperate to ward out the night and the gnawing, pounding, clawing cold and storm—
She estimates it might be only 12 or 13 degrees Fahrenheit, on this mountaintop, by midnight.
Had it been cruel of her? To goad and bait that smaller flyer up here?
Mire frowns, then dismisses that line of thought with a huff, puffing thick jets of steam into the freezing air, folding her arms over her breast, and fluttering her rotors quietly, trying to settle them, and her own nerves, as, even now, the winds grew a hair stronger. A hair colder. A hair harsher. With each moment.
”Hardly even a mountain, honestly. Kind of more of a hill or a bluff. But it’s not like humans were ever known for their exact use of language. Better at poetry and music than exact definitions. I guess a species this young and this prone to self-sabotaging every other cycle is lucky to be good at anything at all…..”
Mire stands, and waits, unbowed by the wind, gazing out on Acadia and Bar Harbor, and trying to quell the squirming thread of guilt in her guts.
If that little fembot didn’t make it, she’d feel…. What?
Regret for pushing her, prodding at her? Guilt for bidding her somewhere she knew the smaller flyer would be in significant discomfort and danger of system-damage? Like a massive fragging hollow-headed leaky-brained fool in her own right, waiting around on the top of some over-aggrandized hill for some curious little spec who would never show?
A bit of all of the above?
Yeah. Maybe. Maybe. But in the meantime…?
Her doubts could fragging stow it.
Mire stood, faced into the wrath of the oncoming storm, and waited.
A part of her felt sick, at how warm and inviting and soft and gentle the human lights looked below.
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Post by Nightshroud on Dec 15, 2022 2:34:03 GMT
The closer and closer Nightshroud got to the mountain, the colder it became. With the cold came the pain, especially in her overly sensitive wing joints. With all the rewiring and restructuring that had to be done to convert her wheels into wings, that area of her back had been particularly sensitive and massages always felt amazing. How long had it been since the last time she'd even let someone close to her to even enjoy in such a luxury anyway? No wonder her wing joints ached all the time, especially when she held her wings so stiffly most times.
Amazingly the mountain was barely even that but more of a hill. It'd come as a disappointment to the seeker femme, but at the same time it was nice that she didn't have to ascend to a high elevation in this weather. The faster she could get this over with the better both for Starscream and for her small frame.
Just as she began to fly up the side of the mountain, that was when her hud flashed a message telling her that she was about to crash. It was only seconds after that message flashed that Nightshroud felt herself drifting downward straight into the snowy ground below. Scrap! Quickly she transformed as she plummeted, landing face first into the ground below. The femme stayed still, wincing with a whine as she tried to gather her bearings. How could her systems fail her at a time like this? This wasn't even about her, and her body was trying to submit to the pit slagging Earth weather. Nightshroud refused to stay down, and she refused to let this weather be the thing that strikes her down. Slowly with a grunt, she got back up to her pedes and shook off the snow and ice that had clung to her frame.
Taking a moment to relax herself, Nightshroud opted to ascend the small mountain by walking. It'd take longer, and the bitter cold only made her wing joints scream in pain, but she wasn't going to let it get to her. The further she climbed, the more agonizing it became and the more she huddled close to herself to try and keep even an ounce of warmth to herself. Eventually, and just barely, she finally made her way to the top.
She looked like scrap.
The crimson seeker stared up at the taller femme, optics half lidded. "There.. I.. I made it. Now will you tell me about G.H.O.S.T.?"
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Post by Deleted on Dec 16, 2022 0:28:07 GMT
Mire stares at the Seeker, as the smaller, slighter fembot makes her slow, torturous way up the slope.
By the time she reaches Mire, she looks…..
”You look like you’re a minicycle from shutdown.”
She snorts, and puffs a jet of steam, rotors twitching.
”I suppose I’d better tell you what I know. Before you offline right in front of me. But. Come here. Step forward— I’ll shunt heat-waste from my power-core. It won’t stop this mountaintop from being…..”
Mire consults her sensory arrays.
”15.7 Earth-Fahrenheit degrees, or, rather, -9 Earth-Celsius degrees, and falling, but— It should break up that nasty cold building around your wings and extremities. At least long enough for me to relay to you what I know—“
Mire doesn’t project any hologram this time. She simply folds her arms behind her back, and begins to speak—
“Ghost was founded sometime near the end of the time-period the humans term the twentieth century. It began as an anti-Transformer paramilitary group, on good terms with neither Autobot, nor Decepticon. However, as time went on, and it became evident to the humans that peace which favored the humans and their nations was possible, so long as our faction was thwarted and dismantled, Ghost achieved both greater funding, and a greater degree of coordination with the Autobots.
The name— Ghost— Is an entirely banal human acronym. In the warped human pidgin-tongue which is colloquially termed “English” by the little primates, it stands for “Global Hazard and Ordinance Strike Team”.
Ghost is, however, far less global than its supporters would have you believe. Yes— They operate all across Earth, making their monikor technically accurate. However, observation has proven time and again that the organization is HEAVILY centralized to this continent, and, specifically, to the psuedo-democratic republic oligarchy which the humans call “The United States of America”.
I have not been in touch with Soundwave for megacycles, but he and I spent quite some time monitoring Ghost’s terrestrial traffic, as well as their shoddily-encrypted radio and…. Why-figh transmissions.
Ghost’s global capacities are almost entirely virtue of both Autobot leverage, as well as the leverage of the government which Ghost itself answers to— That of these…. Supposed United States.
Longterm observation of their activities, even in the current reduced capacity for information-gathering Soundwave and myself find ourselves in, has led us to the understanding that Ghost’s most direct and important base of operations lies just outside of Autobot City. Near the human settlement of… Witw- Witwicky. Primus alive, humans and their-“
Mire clears her vocal processor, and sniffs.
”In any case— Ghost’s most promising base of operations and central hub of… Poorly hidden traffic, physical, and informational, lies just outside of Witwicky, Pennsylvania, situated in a poorly mapped region between the aforementioned insignificant burg and Autobot City.”
Mire projects an imposing, red-tinted image— Metroplex— A dormant— But well-fortified and deeply imposing threat.
”The presence of Metroplex— Even ostensibly in a state of dormancy— As well as the base’s own localized fortifications— Have made mapping the exact region in which Ghost’s base is situated an…. Unacceptably perilous prospect, with myself and Soundwave currently the only two reconnaissance and data-gathering specialists among the remnants of the Decepticons on this planet, and some of its only medically-capable Decepticons….”
She beats her bladed wings, a single time, and lids her eyes, slowly, before opening them again.
“We triangulated the position of Ghost’s base, but were unable to explore the full scope of its armaments, exact positioning, and possible entrances….”
Mire sighs, the act venting a considerable amount of warm air from her core, in and of itself.
”Very shortly thereafter, Soundwave and I separated entirely— Given our specializations, it was mutually agreed that the risk of both of us being captured simultaneously was simply too great a liability for the integrity of the Decepticon cause— What remains of it— On Earth— To tolerate.” Mire’s rotors sag, and she turns her gaze downward.
“Our divergence was…. Only logical. The best choice for the Decepticon cause….”
Mire’s gaze rises again, and she inhales a deep gust of freezing air, vents flaring, eyes narrowing to slits.
”Now— You owe me. Name. Yours, and that of who you seek. Now.”
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Post by Nightshroud on Dec 16, 2022 4:04:31 GMT
Oh good. This femme was already pointing out Nightshroud's short comings in that her systems were attempting to rebel against her. She couldn't afford to give up without finding information about G.H.O.S.T. if the taller femme had intel to share, even if it was painfully obvious that she wouldn't be able to stand on her pedes for a whole lot longer. As she was offered to come closer while the taller one radiated additional heat, Nightshroud begrudgingly stepped closer as her body shivered from the cold, wings fluttering before lowering and folding back to fully broadcast her discomfort. The warmth almost felt painful at first, causing the crimson seeker to cringe before the comforting warmth slowly started to settle in. Her core temps were slowly on the rise, and her hud was finally pleased enough to stop flashing warning messages.
"I.. guess I appreciate the warmth. Thanks?"
Nightshroud was never exactly good at showing appreciation.
She listened as the tall femme continued to speak, giving her many details about G.H.O.S.T. ranging from their creation to how she and Soundwave had attempted to monitor the group before the latter fell out of contact. However, one key detail was given to Nightshroud that she had hoped for. The small femme's optics lit up, looking to the other in awe as the location of G.H.O.S.T.'s primary headquarters was given to her. That was the exact piece of information that she had been hoping to gain from this conversation, and it took every ounce of willpower to not just bail. It wouldn't be a smart move considering the weather, but jumping between freezing, warmth and then freezing again really would do damage to her systems. Starscream was going to have to wait just a little bit longer, and it killed her to have to admit that to herself.
"Even if you don't know the full layout of their base, their location is exactly what I was trying to find so I appreciate that." Right.. the femme was looking for her name now. Not just her name, but the one she was trying to free. Nightshroud grumbled, glancing aside as her optics narrowed. She supposed it was fair at this point to divulge that information.
"My name's Nightshroud.. and I'm looking for Starscream. He was captured by G.H.O.S.T. and the Autobots, and I promised him that I would try and rescue him. I have a way of getting into their headquarters, but I don't have a plan for getting back out. The other problem was I didn't even know where they were located, so I had no way of finding him.. Thanks to you, I have that information now. But now that I've told you my name, why don't you tell me yours?"
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 16, 2022 6:01:35 GMT
Mire tilts her head, a gesture of coldly amused cynicism.
”Throttle your appreciation. Incomplete information was the reason Soundwave and I were never able to plan an attack on Ghost’s base of operations that either of us truly believed would culminate in more gain for the Decepticons than loss…..
Or….”
Mire frowns, but this was different from her prior haughty scowls, or expressions of snide contumely. There was something like genuine dread in the expression.
”Soundwave was…. Not entirely himself, in the final megacycles before he and I parted ways. It…. Wasn’t his fault.”
The big Femcon raises a claw, and rubs at the rotor-assembly and turbine which towers behind her spiked head. Her own pallid grey talons dragging visible scratches into the armor there, and, far from discouraged by the pain, she continues to dig at herself, almost compulsively, for another moment, before catching herself, pulling her hand away in a tightly clenched face, and working her mouth.
”It wasn’t his fault. Not… A failure on his part. Energon was terribly low. Soundwave forwent refueling for himself, in order go spare his Casseticons from starvation. But….
She lowers her eyes, to the frosty, grey stone and heath mountain-top at their feet.
”….During an ejection…. Rumble was caught in Soundwave’s chest-hinge mechanisms, pile-drivers, themselves, mid-deployment. The hinge pinched Rumble’s driver, gouged it, then, itself overloaded, shattered, and Rumble….. He was freshly fueled. The explosion of shrapnel….. His own Piledriver, caught and detonated in a chain reaction…. He….”
Mire scours the sadness and pain from her voice.
Or. Tries. It only makes her sound brittle, mechanical, halting, and close to tears.
”Rumble didn’t make it. I wasn’t close enough, and the detonation damaged Soundwave, as well. The Decepticon First Communications and Data Officer recovered, eventually….. Rumble….. When his pile-driver went, most of the left side of his body did, too.
And on top of that, when he became caught in Soundwave’s hinges, his transformation sequence backfired, and….. We discovered that his transformation-cog had shattered and ruptured within him, flooding his spark-chamber valves and…..
….We’d just used up all of our last run of energon, fueling the Casseticons, and taking enough for ourselves, to get by. We… By the time Soundwave regained consciousness, and I found the two of them…. Rumble was already going. We couldn’t save him.”
The huge helicopter chews at a fingertip, rotors twitching.
”Soundwave was the most frantic I’ve ever seen him, for a little while. And then he was very quiet. Frozen over. Kind of…. In his version of shock, I think. And then…. Just. Silence. Until the moment we split ways.
In the minicycles before we diverged— He told me that he felt Megatron was directly responsible for Rumble’s demise, given our….. Former Leader’s….. Role…. In the military-enforced embargoes on distribution of energon to any and all Decepticons not pledged to…..”
Mire’s intake-guards peel back, to expose a fanged snarl.
”To worshipping gutless, subservient integration into primitive human society, and REFORM from our….. Dangerous Decepticon ways.”
She turns away from Nightshade entirely, but stays silent only for a few moments.
”I didn’t disagree with him. I DO blame Megatron. He DOES deserve to ANSWER for what he did. To all of us. In the same way he would have had any other traitor punished, during the prime of his reign….
But. I understood, then, that we were far from ready to confront Megatron, let alone all of Ghost, and any Autobots they would surely summon to their aid…..
Soundwave…. I know he understood that too. But I’ve never seen him as hurt as he was after Rumble went. He got his cool back, fast enough, but….. He was suffering. I could see that. The other Casseticons could see that.
I can’t help but wonder where his pain led him….”
Mire trails off. Allows Nightshroud to speak, and makes no effort to interject or reply, until the smaller fem is done.
“Nightshroud….”
She considers the name. Her next words are soft, barely audible.
”I wonder if it was dark, where you were brought online….”
She blinks, as if startling awake, and then turns back to face Nightshroud.
”If Starscream is who you seek, your mission will entail maximum risk. They’ll be keeping him in the most secure area of their holding facilities. He’ll be guarded, monitored, and observed, at all times. Not that breaking into Ghost’s facilities was ever a prospect with manageable risk-levels….”
She purses her metal lips, the deep, beetle-shell gloss maroon pigment on them flashing.
“Air-traffic around the base will be monitored, easily five, no, ten miles out. Any and all Autobots on shift, or anywhere in a nearby radius will be alerted to your approach by air-traffic monitoring, within microcycles.
If you aren’t picked out of the sky by Autobot carbines….”
She projects a hologram of an F-35 Superhornet laden with heavy fragmentation-missiles and an autocannon fitted to fire high-calibre sabot rounds.
”….You’ll be harried out of the sky by shear volume of primitive, but obnoxious human firepower. And then Autobots and traitors will arrive to put whatever’s left of you in prison right alongside our precious Air Commander. If they don’t just declare you one more misguided Decepticon punk, tragically lost to the ravages of a war which is, of course, all our fault…. Or at least. That’s what they’ll tell themselves, as they watch you perish.”
She snorts, head tilting back, expression abruptly warning into sardonic condescension.
”I mean, really, how DO you plan to even get in in the first place? A plan, you say? You have a stealth-drive? The ability to utilize polymimetic firmware to disguise yourself as some Autobot? A full set of Ghost clearance codes?”
She claps a palm against her armored chest.
”Plan to get in, or no, you very obviously need my support, if we’re to get into that base without catastrophic damage, retrieve Air Commander Starscream, fight our way out, and then escape the area without being dogged back to the ground by Megatron, the Autobots, Optimus Prime, and everything the military armadas of the United States can bring to bear in Ghost’s defense, or being followed….”
She reaches onto her back, and draws a massive, humming, blue-lit rail-muzzled cannon off of her chassis.
”You— We— Are going to need heavy firepower. Everything I can possibly bring to bear….”
She braces the massive weapon’s barrel against the frost-encrusted tundra, and the ice cracks under its massive weight, than sizzles and melts under the armament’s oppressive heat and electromagnetic current.
“And that means recalling a nearby associate of mine, who’s currently down in that town with all the lights, conning human rubes….”
She smirks down at the twinkling, storm-dimmed lights, something like fondness in her gaze.
”Spindle. A familiar of mine. But— That isn’t the only bot of concern in this situation. And neither is Starscream. Once I have Spindle, and we get into this base— I have to search for Soundwave. I’ve begun to believe the decision to part ways was as ill-conceived as any of our rejected plans to storm Ghost or confront Megatron…. I have to know if Soundwave was captured. He’s too much of an asset to the Decepticon cause to risk. And…. I have a duty of responsibility to him. He trained me in many of the skills I employ today.”
She straightens, and stows her cannon back onto and into her back, rotor-wings shuffling to make room for its re-integration.
….And then she abruptly tightens her claws, takes in a deep breath of subfreezing air, seemingly unphased, and turns on a heel, before shifting back into CH-53E Sea-Dragon alt-form, seemingly heedless of how she buffets Nightshroud with the wind of her passage, and bares out, north-east, toward Bar Harbor.
A crackle of comms. Mire seemingly invites herself to Nightshroud’s frequency with very little effort or fanfare, and certainly nothing resembling a request for permission.
”Keep up!”
She barks, voice shrill and clarion-chiming with urgency and anticipation.
”The sooner we have Spindle, the better. She’ll have Energon. Whatever of it she hasn’t already quaffed, herself. Or. At the very least, coordinates where we can find Energon. She’s very good at undermining, extorting, and manipulating humans, AND their junky tech.”
Mire chuckles darkly, the timbre of her laugh making the comms crackle with static.
”She should be! I taught her everything she knows! And. Well. I guess she had Swindle’s bad influence, for a few vorns, back in the day….”
The Helicopter presses on, into the storm.
”We stay on this vector, all systems but those necessary for flight and transformation on low power, till we’re one kilometer from those lights. Then— Transform— We’ll walk the rest of the way, and I’ll signal Spindle as quietly as I can…. Not that there’s much likelyhood she’ll play along with subtly for any length of time….”
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Post by Nightshroud on Dec 17, 2022 3:45:31 GMT
Incomplete information was still information, just segmented. Nightshroud would much rather have anything as opposed to walking away with no further leads than she already had. She didn't entirely understand what Soundwave's whole sob story had to do with getting information about G.H.O.S.T., but he was still an important figure for the Decepticons and apparently someone Mire looked up to. It sucked that the mech lost someone he cared about due to the energon shortages, but it was all more reason why they should be angry with Megatron. He could have prevented this, even if for some time, but instead he chose the option of joining the Autobots and leaving all the Decepticons to suffer. To struggle to survive while scattered to the winds. Every day Decepticons were being captured if not offlining from lack of resources.
That was reason enough for Nightshroud to want to try working along with others. Yes it drained resources faster, but they no longer were in a position where they could afford to stay alone for too much longer.
That's why she wanted to free Starscream. No.. Needed to.
The crimson seeker listened as the tall femme commented on her plan to rescue Starscream, not even hearing the comment about her designation. It didn't surprise her in the least that he was apparently being held behind maximum security, but that didn't deter the femme in the least. When she was determined to complete a mission she was gonna do it, even if it killed her. She'd already proven that to the mystery femme already with this dangerously cold storm just to get a hint of information. It seemed though that she knew quite a bit about the security she'd have to deal with, and Nightshroud was almost annoyed that the femme didn't take her plan seriously. "It just so happens that I have a spark twin who works with the Autobots, and she's desperate to try and sway me over. I could either lure her into a false sense of security and stab her in the back when I'm in, or I have myself captured and hope I'm fast enough to outsmart them." Nightshroud was pretty quick, but the latter plan could easily go horribly wrong if she was surrounded by multiple guards. Ultimately she did have ways to get into the base fairly ease, but it was the getting back out part that proved difficult.
Worst case.. at least she'd be with Starscream. Maybe not the same cell, but at least she'd be with him again..
Yet despite it all the tall femme seemed to be in on operation jailbreak. As much as Nightshroud hated to admit it, she really did need the help if she wanted the best chance of saving Starscream, and apparently Soundwave too if he had indeed been captured. It seemed the other was already formulating some sort of a plan involving another by the name of Spindle. The crimson seeker didn't know who that was, but already she was being dragged into searching for this individual. Grumbling in frustration, Nightshroud transformed into her modified SU-27 form and tailed after the other. It wasn't even moments after their flight began that the seeker heard her comms activate, hearing the other speak further about her plan.
And did it ever anger Nightshroud.
<<"Look, I don't know who you are but how did you crack into my frequency? I don't recall giving you access to it. Secondly, you still haven't given me your name so if you want me to go along with this search for your dear friend Spindle, you'd better talk.">>
If nothing else, the promise of energon certainly sounded good. When was the last time she'd properly fueled up?
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Post by Deleted on Dec 22, 2022 19:37:11 GMT
Mire’s presence on the channel shifted— Clarified— As if a tangible body, growing somehow spatially closer, even in a medium where…. It was as if she had turned her helm toward Nightshroud, and taken a step closer, though, in reality, she still flew ahead of Nightshroud, buffeting the countryside of Acadia all around her with the discordant wind of her passage, and enveloping Nightshroud in her chaotic, but ultimately beneficial slipstream.
“A Spark-Twin?”
She was silent a moment.
”We could…. Do something with that. Make something of that situation…. I’d tell you I’m sorry your own circuitry, spark, and alloy chose the wrong side, but…. We all have people close to us who make bad decisions. Or. We did.”
Mire slowed and slowed— Her vector brought her closer and closer to the forest floor, frost-wreathed and silvered and still, in the night, but for the mighty wind of the two Cybertronians’ presences.
”How far are you prepared go go? For the Decepticon cause? How long could you manipulate her? How deep could you drive the knife?”
Mire’s chassis rippled, twisted, re-aligned, extended, contracted, and the Decepticon landed, on one knee, and surveiled the landscape, from left to right.
Lightning flashed, high, overhead, somewhere in the breast of the mighty storm above them.
Thunder roared, but was nearly overshadowed by the din of frozen rain crashing down on both Decepticons, as well as the landscape all around them, trees blown nearly sideways, and twisted by the icy winds, the voices of their inclement harrowing almost a sympathetic chorus to the thunder.
”Because depending on what your answer is….. Well. Conning your sister might just be the best asset we have…”
She chuckles low in her throat.
”As for how I’m speaking to you? Well. More than 85% of Decepticons use encrypted frequencies, the ciphers to which all work off of complimentary algorithms. Precisely BECAUSE they were designed that way. As a matched set. If you were to take the 66 most common Decepticon encryption formulas, and their matching keys, and convert those equations into functions, you’d find that each key is, in and of itself, part of a greater equation. That’s because they were all designed by one bot, and a handful of his collaborators and assistants, during the predawn years of the war…
When war was only revolution. When Megatron was still a revolutionary. When Soundwave still trusted him.
It was Soundwave himself, who forged those encryption sets, with assistance from Shockwave, Blackout, my very own self, and—“
A new voice, sudden, high almost to shrillness, brittle, and full of amusement.
”Three-story fusspot!”
Mire was silent for a moment, and then hauled a deep gust of Nor’easter air into her vents, rotors fanned and bristling, before letting her whole wing-assembly drop.
”Spindle,”
A pause.
”Come out before you freeze to death and—“
”Sooooooo.. Whose coms’re we on? I mean. Because, like. These definitely aren’t just yours…. You make a friend, fusspot? Didn’t think that was really in your programming. Kind of figured the only niche intellectual lunatics lobotomized and brain-fried enough to bare your sorry husk around all had names ending in “Wave” and-“
”Spindle— Come out before I suss you out, and wring your spinal strut out like a soggy polishing cloth.”
Silence. Then a low, piping, tittering cackle.
”Well! You’re in absolutely rare form! Too much time brooding up on clifftops, orchestratin’ energon-rituals to u-“
Mire positively sputters and seethes over the comms.
”SPINDLE. I DO NOT. DO THAT. ONE MORE-“
A dirt road up ahead twinkles with faint light.
”Alright, alright, alright, pissybolts. No more discussion of your private life around strangers who you’ve no doubt charmed with your silky charisma, and don’t want knowin’ your less than polished facets. Got it, got it.”
A human-sized figure is moving rapidly toward them, barely keeping upright in the wind. On the back of a human dirtbike. An Insecticon. Tiny. Spindly and wiry and angular. Barely any larger at all than the average human.
”Good Primus and Guidin’ Hand, Fusspot-“
”Don’t call me that.”
”Fusspot, am I glad to see you. I just about froze my phalanges off in this absolute, ah, this absolute—“
The little Transformer drops her (stolen) bike, clutches her own shoulders, and sways toward Mire in the wind.
”This absolute fuckstorm. This absolute— Oh my Primus, Unicron, and human God, Mire, warm your little Insectipal up ‘for she loses a leg. Please. I know you’ve got a Primus-given Spark in there. When you’re not being an antisocial wall of-“
Mire snatches up Spindle in one fisted, optics narrowed, and the Insecticon barely misses a beat before converting into something between a massive, human sized Earwig and an equally large House Centipede, where upon she shudders, and immediately, almost frantically wraps around Mire’s neck like a many-limbed metal scarf.
”Oooooohhh…. Better. Better. I think I burnt through about six ounces of Energon just weatherin’ that nasty bloody fucking cold.”
Mire makes a droning noise of irritation, somewhere in her throat.
”Energon, Spindle. That’s what you were dropped off, here, to learn about. Have you located Energon for us?”
Spindle giggles.
“Right after you tell me who the stranger is, Fussbot!”
A huff.
”Spindle…”
A noise of air hissing between teeth.
“Oooh! Sorry! Errrr, Fusscon. Deceptifuss? Fussycon? Oh, or maybe I should just go back to calling you Fussyfangs?”
Mire makes a noise somewhere between “failing engine” and “spluttering rage”. Spindle titters.
”Ooh, that’s pre-cisely the noise that little human bike was making, even after I fed it like three turbofoxes worth of antifreeze. I think you’re the only thing, metal, or flesh, what likes this kind of weather, Mire. Then again, if I put off this much chassis-heat… Umph.”
The little Insecticon shudders and twitches in relief at the warmth.
Mire looks somewhere between humiliated and volcanic with barely-throttled rage.
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Post by Nightshroud on Dec 24, 2022 2:58:24 GMT
It wasn’t like Nightshroud was the first bot to suffer from having a spark twin that had joined the opposite side of the war. Though not entirely common, there were instances of it that happened here or there. Most times spark twins stayed together, but unfortunately there were cases like Nightshroud where it just was not meant to happen. Her twin Clematis had made her choice, and Nightshroud had no say in it whatsoever. It had happened when they were separated, and it hurt all the more knowing that the other half of her spark had joined the very ones who abandoned her. The ones who had left her to die.
Had she not been found by the Decepticons when she had, the crimson seeker would not be standing her talking to Mire at this very moment.
The femme snorted as Mire’s question. How far was she willing to go? That had been an extremely simple answer. Of course she would use her own spark twin if it meant saving Starscream. That had been her easy way in after all, even if it didn't grant her an easy way back out. Mire, however, seemed to be able to possibly help in that regard. “To the death. I may not believe in everything the Decepticons stand for per se, but for Starscream? I would do anything. Everything to ensure his rescue, even if it means sacrificing myself.” Would she stay behind if it meant saving him? Of course she would, though it would severely affect her sanity to stay in such a cramped cell with no escape. Would she throw herself in the line of fire if it meant saving the one mech she could call a friend?
Without question.
As they flew, the smaller femme listened as Mire explained how she’d managed to hack into her comm frequency. It irritated her that she’d even managed to pull it off, but of course this was something that she’d learned from Soundwave of all mechs: the great third-in-command and communications officer. Somehow he’d cracked the code on how to hack into comms, and it seemed that he’d taught Mire how to do this as well. However, before she could ask further questions, another voice joined the comm line.
Apparently this Spindle they were looking for.
With growing annoyance, Nightshroud continued to listen as the two bickered and bantered. Were these two really even friends to begin with because it didn’t seem like that was the case to the femme. Sure she liked to play tease Clematis and she had fun teasing Starscream, but this almost sounded like it was on a whole ‘nother level. Before long a human bike of sorts appeared heading their way and with it was the minibot themselves. Nightshroud watched as they transformed, meeting up with Mire before transforming. She hadn’t expected an Insecticon to be the one the taller femme was searching for, but that seemed to have been the case. Of course, that hadn’t stopped the squabbling.
Losing her patience, Nightshroud finally spoke up.
<<”Are we going to look for the energon or not? The longer we delay, the longer Starscream is sitting in a cell waiting for a rescue, and I don’t plan to leave him in there any longer than absolutely necessary. So either take us to the energon, or I’m going to go look for it myself.”>>
And probably freeze trying.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 25, 2022 19:19:27 GMT
Mire frowns over her shoulder, eyes narrowing, ever so slightly.
”Just take care to bring that enthusiastic dedication forward to your regard for the Decepticon cause as a whole. I admire your…. Commitment… To the captive Air Commander. However, Megatron’s defection has painted a perfect example of why dedication to and idolization of individuals, no matter how compelling they may seem, is nothing but a servo-trap in the long run.”
Her rotors twitch and flutter, and she blinks, slowly.
”I hope you’ve taken that particular, painful lesson to Spark.”
……….
Spindle winds around her neck, uneasily, jittering back and forth, legs a-tapping.
”Energon? Energon? Oh, pretty Seeker gal, have I got good news for you.”
Mire makes a low, cautioning, crackling rumble in her throat.
”For your sake, I hope it’s good news for everyone here. This Seeker will be joining us for an indeterminate period of time. The safety of numbers has long been greater cause for caution than hope, among us, of the hunted faction, but we’re going to change that.”
Spindle is silent a beat, then swallows, the noise audible, even in her cyber-arthropod form.
”So…. You’re saying we’ve got an extra intake to feed? Oh. Uhhh. Grand… HA. No, ah, listen, you are STILL gonna love this, Fussyfangs—“
”Spindle….”
”Fussycon, I mean it. I discovered… An entire THREE FREIGHT CARS of Energon, bound southwest on a human locomotive, makin’ for Pennsylvania at about the highest speed any human lump-a iron can muster! I’m, uh, patching the route coordinates and information to you both now!”
Mire squints, as the information-packets begin to flood her inbox, and then lowers her eyes, optical pupils jittering back and forth as she devours the information at rapid pace.
”A convoy. Seemingly…. Unguarded, because their precious cargo was disguised as nothing precious at all. ‘Seemingly’ as key word, here. Cute. You do realize this still may be a trap….?”
Spindle titters and wiggles.
”Oh! Yeah! Totes! Best case, they’ve got armed human guards aboard, security optics up the wazoo, and radios hot and ready to tattle on us to Prime and his Moral Oral brigade.”
Mire beats her alloy wings petulantly, and frowns.
”More REALISTIC case, they have an armed Autobot accompaniment aboard or adjacent to the train, ready to open up on us the moment we make a move!”
”Totes! But that’s why we work so well together, Mire, despite your utterly rancid emotional-chip resets and total evil-optic vibes-“
”Spindle….”
”I ballerina tiptoe in, lock down the sensitive affairs, woo the human muscle with my sterlin’ demeanor and irresistible charms— Just! Absolutely charm ‘em to DEATH! And then you, three-story fussy-fangs, crack the Autobot skulls and slit the Prime-loyal throats we need slitted t’ lock down our booty in the material sense a things!”
Mire pinches down on Spindle’s thorax, and expertly peels her off of her neck.
”That is an interesting description of our cooperative modus operandi. Still. This is good news. So I’ll forgive your…. Bad comedian antics…. And your shallow efforts to embarrass me in front of our newcomer….”
Spindle giggles, and squirms a bit, in Mire’s grip.
”So, uh…. Now that we’re totally rolling in Energon in the near to immediate future, uh…. What’s your name, newcon?”
Mire exhales a puff of steam, and promptly drops Spindle thirty feet onto her head.
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