[ti]Ep 3.5[/ti]Hell on Earth [CLOSED]

[Hellion]

Episode 3.5 | Week 1 | Day 4

Hellion awoke to the sound of rumbling. To the sound of metal churning and ripping, to the sound of air battering the walls of her shuttle in a way that only signalled one thing. Atmospheric entry. But as she slowly blinked her optics, the femme quickly realized it was more than that. She wasn’t just breaking the atmosphere, but the atmosphere was breaking her ship.

Because as she slowly glanced up from the floor, she realized that most of the shuttle was missing.

Scrap!

Lurching up suddenly from the pilot’s seat, Hellion shook off the last of her induced stasis, eyes darting around as she tried to analyse her situation. She’d known the shuttle had been in disrepair when she’d taken it, and it hadn’t even flown in cycles before her repairs. But she’d at least hoped it would survive re-entry. For a brief moment she pondered why the alarms hadn’t warned her before the situation had deteriorated so quickly, only to come to the conclusion that it was likely said alarms were in the part of the ship that no longer existed.

The entire aft of the ship had been ripped off, and was nowhere in sight. Or at least, that was how it seemed at first, as Hellion quickly came to the realization that the showering of shrapnel now raining down upon her, was in fact all that remained of the aft of the ship and its boosters, the fuel lines of which had likely ignited. But that hardly mattered now, what was important was what parts of the ship remained available to Hellion, and how she might best use them to ensure that she didn’t become a smattering of scrap on the proverbial sidewalk.

Reaching for the communications console, Hellion pressed a digit to the panel, quickly opening a broadcast on a global channel. She didn’t have the time for passcodes and keywords, to find the right frequencies to maintain her secrecy. Not when the entire ship was falling apart around her. No, for now, a broadcast to all Cybertronians upon this world would have to do, and the consequences of such an action hers to deal with.

“This is Hellion, of the Wreckers! Requestin—” The femme didn’t have time to finish her sentence before the severe forces of atmospheric entry ripped the console out from it’s mounting, sending it spiralling up into the air above the hurtling shuttle as it erupted into a fireball. Sparing a glance towards the console’s detonation as it showered shrapnel, Hellion only hoped that her distress beacon had been sent in time. But that was a concern for later, a concern only for if she survived this.

A quick cursory glance at what remained revealed Hellion’s only hope, and one she quite literally leapt at. Throwing herself at the pilot controls, she hastily maneuvered through the various options and overlays, desperate to set her plan in motion lest the console suffered the same fate as the communications one had. There! With a hurried input, Hellion pressed the button to fire the last of the boosters remaining mounted on the front of the ship, staggering backwards abruptly as the sudden burst of reverse thrust caused the vessel to lurch backwards. There was another screech of metal as more of the ship fell away under the influence of the conflicting forces.

For now, it would have to be enough, though Hellion had a feeling the thrusters wouldn’t last the whole way down, and in their state definitely wouldn’t guarantee anything less than a bumpy landing. She just hoped that when they went, that they wouldn’t take the remainder of the vessel with them. Even now, parts of the ship were still peeling away, and all that was left beside the thrusters, was the pilot seat, console and what amounted effectively to a large slab of metal that had once been the bottom of the vessel - admittedly designed to take the brunt of re-entry, but certainly not in a manner such as this.

Even with what little safety the reverse thrusters had managed to buy, the ground was still coming up fast. Pressing her back against the ground, Hellion braced herself from impact, hoping that what remained of the ship’s structure would be enough to shield her from hitting the ground.

The last thing Hellion saw was white, as her whole world went black.

— An Unspecified Time Later

When Hellion awoke next, it was once more by the sound of rumbling. But this time it wasn’t the sound shrieking metal being ripped free from it’s mountings, but rather it was the rumbling of fire. Gathering her strength as she blinked hazily, the femme slowly picked herself up, an arduous task given the large mass of her backpack. Her entire body ached from the impact, but for now, she was alive, and seemingly in one piece. After a few attempts, Hellion finally rolled onto her front, picking herself up and rising to her feet.

The world around her was one of ice, blanketed by snow, but amidst the world of white it was easy to see the flames. The remnants of her shuttle had been shattered by the impact, breaking the ice beneath. What remained of the ship was either ablaze, slowly sinking beneath the broken ice, or both. Hellion herself had been flung free of the ship on impact, having landed some distance away in a small snow drift. The world around her was cold, even as the flames of her former shuttle burned, but Hellion found herself thanking Primus that for now it wasn’t cold enough that it was a threat to her functions. For now, at least. Unfamiliar with this world as she was, the Wrecker had no idea when or if such fortune would change, and only hope that someone would find herself soon enough.

[Crescent]

After Optimus and Jetfire had saved him from certain doom, Crescent had always wanted to return the favor. He did not expect he would be doing it so soon. A standard flight patrol took a turn when an unexpected distress signal cut through his open comm line, and seeing as he was the closest in location to the coordinates the broadcast originated from, he felt obligated to help.

In this landscape, the seeker blended right in, his primarily white alternate mode camouflaged against the snow. He sailed along for some time at a consistent pace, though his speed decreased as he approached his destination.

It didn’t take him long to find what he’d come looking for. After all, it would be hard to miss a smoking ship. It’s owner took a bit longer to locate- but surely enough, she was also present.

Keeping his distance, Crescent would examine the situation in front of him, before dropping altitude in order to transform back into root mode and return to the ground. Ice crunched beneath his heels as he landed, and his wings perked up slightly, as he inspected the damage.

Slag. Right. His Wings. He was a seeker. And how many seekers were Autobots? Barely any. Considering the femme he’d just found would likely be on high alert [and perhaps ready to fight perceived threats if physically able] he sought to clarify his allegiance. Quickly.

“Hello. Are you Hellion? I’m Crescent. I’ve come to help if, ah, I’m able.”

[Nokta]

Meeting Lord Megatron for the first time had been less than invigorating.

No, frankly it had been embarrassing for the lieutenant. And for the past three days, the bitter shame that festered inside with every waking minute had grown, his dissatisfaction with his own performance threatening to turn into something worse.

He knew couldn’t afford anger. Not now.

But a little release in the form of a hunt would help more than anyone could know.

The Autobot had, either out of desperation or pure idiocy, broadcasted both their faction allegiance and location over an open comm signal. Moreover, they’d broadcast the fact that they were a Wrecker, which was a woeful mistake indeed. Woeful, for the Autobot and the attention it had attracted to her. But much the opposite for the mech who’d received her.

The moment the femme’s broadcast made it through to Blackridge, with Nokta conveniently on deck at the control room, he’d ordered a ground bridge to the planet’s southern pole where the signal had apparently originated from.

"This is Lieutenant Nokta, officer identification C dash 135, sanctioning an extraction mission on the Autobot HVT in the broadcasted region," He’d been sure to notify the chain of command first and foremost, before turning to the radio team on deck in the control station. "Keep a squadron of Vehicons on standby. If I don’t return within the hour, send a second operative to my last known position."

And so, leaving the radio team at Blackridge with their orders, under the setting sun he stepped forth into frigid wastes, the silhouette of a frame black as pitch was bordered by the swirling blue-green of a ground bridge. Until the portal dissipated just as suddenly as it had formed, and the mech was left standing there, crimson optics beaming out into the great white expanse before him.

Contrail lines from the fallen ship had long since been lost to the frozen desert’s winds, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t follow the charted trajectory Decepticon satellites had marked over the region to find the actual landing zone. And then, there had been the trail of debris as well.

Despite the drifts of snow, some multiple feet in height, Nokta’s reliable alt-mode made short work of the terrain in a way no bargain-bin Vehicon alt could ever hope to. The flaming debris grew in number and size as he passed them by, and it became clear that his destination was growing closer. Opting to break off from the direct trail of the ship’s landing path, the mech would climb a ridge in his alt until its steepness, combined with the loose terrain, became too much for his alt mode.

The wraith transformed, devoid of any biolights now but for the two stark white lens plates within his de-powered optics. Thin spindles for digits dug into the rock, testing for purchase, and lifting his slender body upwards to climb once they did so, for a short while, until he made it to the high ground he sought out.

It was here that the ship finally came into view, and further, the targets of this hunt. Were wind not an obstacle, any decent wielder of the right kind of sniper rifle could have easily taken the lone femme out from the ridge he’d made his own.

But that wasn’t his modus operandi.

Instead, he waited. Watched, and gained as much info as he could as scouts of his caliber were apt to do, content in knowing that his silent running would keep him hidden from any and all scanning technologies for as long as he needed it to. He’d a full tank of energon, any injuries sustained from his own arrival to Earth a week and a half prior were but a distant memory, and most importantly: he was patient. Something that paid off in the form of another’s arrival.

A flier. No, not just any flier– a seeker.

He’d never in all his days mistake a frame like that for anything else. At first, the scout thought another Decepticon had somehow beaten him there first. Perhaps scouting in the region themselves when they came across the lone Autobot, more eager than even he was to snuff their spark. But if they were, he’d have been able to warn them over an encrypted faction channel to halt their approach.
Visible enough by the fact that they were now attempting to communicate with the Wrecker in a non-threatening way– the hesitant distancing of themselves from the target, the upwards, skittish movements of their wings denoting nervousness.

This seeker was no Decepticon.

Shelving the thought, lest it inspire flames of anger that could quickly sabotage the mission, Nokta began moving. Quietly, nigh invisibly, he climbed down from the ridge, his black frame scarcely perceivable against the equally blackened and ice-bit rock, aiding camouflage for now. At least until the sun dipped below the horizon and the cover of night became his closest ally in this lonely, evidently traitorous environment.

He was many things. Reckless was not one of them.

[Hellion]

Night had begun to fall, the sun slowly descending from high in the sky. The bitter cold had begun to turn to biting winds, though Hellion found herself lucky enough that the conditions had not yet deteriorated enough to become harmful to Cybertronian life. Yet. The femme wagered that if she lingered too much longer, that was something that was likely to change.

In the time since her awakening from the crash, Hellion had made her way out of the snow drift in which she’d awoken, resting up against an ice ridge not far from the crash site. Back against the wall, she was cornered if attacked, but at least she wouldn’t have to worry about someone sneaking up on her from behind. The giant backpack that adorned her back, though useful with the weaponry inside, greatly inhibited her ability to see behind her, and so she was constantly wary of such a fact. She’d rather have her back against the wall, firing at an enemy she could see, than out in the open and with a knife in her back.

The femme wasn’t sure how long she’d been out for. It had been light on her way down, though the transition to night had already begun. She hadn’t kept track of her internal chronometer amidst the chaos of planetfall, but she wagered that she hadn’t been waiting too long already. Beginning to check over her weaponry for any signs of non-superficial damage in the crash, Hellion soon found herself pressing them into action regardless. Amidst the chill winds of the arctic, she heard a new sound, but one that was all too familiar.

The roar of an engine flying overhead.

Though she couldn’t pinpoint the origin of it due to the arctic winds buffeting against her audial sensors, she nonetheless readied herself for combat, figuring she’d rather be safe than sorry. She was aware that her broadcast had been on an open channel, and though she hoped for a rescuer, Hellion wasn’t about to let herself get blown away by a Decepticon air strike.

The wheels embedded in Hellion’s shoulders began to spin as her engine revved, the servos in her backpack working in tandem with the wheels to drive the twin pylons on her back upwards, then rotating to rest flat on her shoulders. The large structures of kibble pointing forward, they further transformed, two large telescoping cannon barrels extending out either side of her head. Though the Aegis Blasters may have been more suited for attempting to hit a fast target, as she assumed the jet to be, they lacked the range that the Steelhammers provided, and so the task fell to them.

Even with the Steelhammers ready and in position, there were just two things holding Hellion back. The first was that this may be her rescuer, and shooting down someone who had come to help was an obvious faux pas. The second was that the jet was well, a jet. The Steelhammers were ideal for blowing targets away, that was true, but it usually helped when there was some ground beneath them to hit in their stead. Aerial targets were much more slippery, not to mention that anything but a direct hit with the mortars, wasn’t going to be a hit at all. The femme quietly cursed herself for not equipping some kind of flak round, but opted to remain patient.

If the jet decided to strike first, that was fine. Because Hellion’s strike would be the last.

And yet, that hardly mattered. As the jet pierced the clouds above, descending towards Hellion, she braced herself for an attack that never came. Arms outstretched, she levelled the Aegis Blasters at the mech that had landed before her, though it was more of a bluff than anything else, like a dog raising its hackles. Using the Steelhammers and Aegis Blasters in tandem was risky, especially given the terrain, but Crescent didn’t need to know that. Certainly not if he was a Decepticon. His wings indicated he was a seeker, but the sigil on his chest was that of an Autobot - not to mention that he’d clarified his intent to help. But words were hardly much assurance, not when perhaps the most infamous seeker was well known for his deceit. Though if this was all a ploy, it was certainly more complicated than it needed to be.

The Aegis Blasters began to softly hum, indicating that they were ready to fire at a moment’s notice. Hellion narrowed her optics at Crescent, trying to read his nervous body language, though she was hardly an expert. “I am.” The femme answered stoically. She had little else to say, and had no interest in wasting time with talk.

[Crescent]

“A pleasure to meet you too, ma’am.” Crescent figured a bit of humor might help ease his nerves. It worked, somewhat. He wasn’t terrified, because he had a feeling he could convince the femme that he was on her side if he made his intentions clear. However, there were still guns pointed directly at him. This situation could turn bad quickly, especially if there were any Decepticons lurking nearby. After all, Hellion had broadcasted her call for help on an open comm channel. It was a very real possibility that an unwelcome guest or two might stop by to see what was going on.

“I know you don’t know who I am…and I know I don’t look like your typical Autobot. But please, trust me. We might get some...unexpected company soon.”

Perhaps, if he disengaged his own “gun”, Hellion would relax a little?


“I won’t shoot you. Promise.”

He felt the warning was needed, given how on edge the femme was. Slowly, the white seeker snapped his fingers, mindful not to raise his arm too quickly or too high. He didn’t fancy being vaporized. At the signal, what most would have assumed to be an inanimate weapon began shifting and moving, and was soon replaced by a cassette. More specifically, an owl cassette- and a large one at that. Luna stayed on her perch, where she had been previously resting in her alternate mode, and eyed the unknown Cybertronian with curiosity.

“Are you injured?” His optics scanned over Hellion's frame, as he looked for any signs of damage. He knew from personal experience that falling out of the sky didn't usually go over smoothly.

[Nokta]

Time passed. Night encroached.

But night never just 'fell.' It waited. Patient, until the sun could no longer disregard all the hidden shadows of the day.

The two Autobots were out in the open. The radiance of the sun had seen its death, sure, but the pair were just as exposed as they would have been in the daytime– if not more so, given their sudden lowered visibility.

They stood, perhaps weary of one another, perhaps confident of their safety in such a dire, desolate environment. For who in their right mind would come so far out into this planet’s obscure, seemingly resourceless southernmost biome looking for blood?

He would.

Whatever it was the two were taking their time standing around talking about, he didn’t care. The only two resources the Decepticon stood to gain from this region at present were standing right in front of him.

The white one, most definitely a seeker, was busy placating the other, a much shorter, much bulkier Autobot. She didn’t look very convinced by the seeker’s promise of ministrations, yet. This would likely play in his favor, depending on how distrusting this femme really was. Seekers had their weaknesses, staggering plenty he’d always been aware of for one reason or another. Dispatching of the white one would be of little consequence if it came to that. But the femme, he found himself inspecting more closely. More armored, and undoubtedly the most well-armed one here, she was practically a walking armory. Something that could be used to his advantage at such close quarters. The black-yellow femme had a nasty blind spot, and that almost certainly lent to her being a more medium to long-range fighter as opposed to the alternative.

Despite his terrifyingly close proximity to them in reality, all evidence of his shared vicinity was subdued. Faded in the night, just as the impossibly light tire tracks that might have otherwise heralded his arrival to a keen-eyed viewer had already faded, scattered by the Antarctic winds. The typical hum and chatter of mechanical biology that would typically sing from a living, functioning Cybertronian being was snuffed out by the same smothering force of nature that kept his biolights and optics offline, lest he physically broadcast his position. They hadn’t seen him yet. They wouldn’t. Not until he cared to let them. Not until he cared to see the fear in their optics upon their realization that it was all too late.

Further incriminating the seeker in front of Hellion, a series of sudden languid movements would arise from behind Crescent. Formless and uncanny in the dark, it would be a moment before shapes could be pinpointed as something other than living.

Thick and voluminous, the grayish substance would continue to grow behind the seeker, unfettered by the sudden gusts of frigid air, as more and more seemed to filter out of a tiny capsule buried in the snow behind the seeker, threatening to utterly obscure all vision.

Smoke.

[Hellion]

Crescent’s attempt at a sense of humour caused Hellion to narrow her optics at the mech. It wasn’t rare for someone to try and defuse a tense situation with a joke, but it also wasn’t rare for that same person to get their head blown off as a result. Still a little disoriented from the landing, and now in an uncertain situation, humour was the last thing on the femme’s mind - and unfortunately for Crescent, right now turning him into a smoking corpse was a little higher priority.

At any rate, Crescent seemed far more afraid of Hellion than she was of him, and with good reason, given the myriad weapons currently pointed at him. But she was familiar with such tactics, pretending he was weak and afraid so she would lower her guard, so he could slip a dagger in her back. Her gaze was fixed squarely on the mech, not wavering for even a second, watching as Crescent slowly raised his arm up high. But the beginnings of some kind of transformation caused Hellion to stir, and though she allowed Crescent to continue to do what he was doing, she made a gesture with her blasters to indicate that she was still more than ready to dispatch him at a moment’s notice.

But to Hellion’s surprise, and her fortune, the result of the signal instead prompted some manner of cassette to transform. Though Luna wasn’t a weapon, at least not to Hellion’s knowledge, the femme did note that her stature meant that perhaps rather unfortunately… Luna could be quite the threat. It was easy for most to dismiss Cassettes out of hand for their scale, but that wasn’t exactly a factor for someone as short as Hellion. Though the distance and snowfall made it hard to gather Luna’s exact scale, the femme was wary nonetheless. After all, two targets were harder to dispatch than one.

“Nothing for you to worry about.” Hellion answered abruptly. If Crescent was true to his word, as the femme was beginning to believe, then she had nothing to fear by revealing her injuries to him. But if he wasn’t… then she would’ve simply been painting a target on her back, practically announcing her vulnerabilities to him. She wasn’t that naive. But a part of her felt that maybe saying it aloud would make it so, that if she just acted brave then maybe she wouldn’t be hurt.

The truth of the matter was that her joints were sore from landing, and the cold had been no help. Perhaps it numbed the pain a little, but it was only going to make the issues worse. Hellion had been fortunate enough that her backpack had taken the brunt of things, the slabs of metal aimed at Crescent from over her shoulders littered with impacts and dents. But something was wrong with her right leg too. A small yet noticeable limp had plagued her trek from the landing site to the ice shelf she’d sheltered under, though given that she’d yet to actually walk anywhere since Crescent’s arrival, she held such a card close to her chest.

And perhaps that had been for the best.

Buffeted by the biting winds that had begun to whip and churn, what looked like smoke was now rolling in across the snow-cloaked plains. Hellion’s optics darted around the peripheries (yet ensuring at least some manner of Crescent was visible at all times) as the roiling black gas encircled the two, threatening to enclose them in a matter of moments.

“Brace yourself!”

Back quite literally against the wall and thinking quickly, two loud cracks of what could have been thunder echoed across the icy plains. The sound of ice cracking and fracturing quickly followed, though fortuitously the permafrost beneath seemed to hold.

Crescent could consider himself lucky that he was not Hellion’s target. Instead, she had swivelled her shoulder cannons down as far as she could manage, and then tilted her body further still, discharging a round from each of the Steelhammers into the expanse of ground in between them. Hellion’s intent was for the blasts to disperse the smoke, and for the most part she considered herself fortunate to have kept her distance from Crescent. If she’d done things right, then at worst he’d only have been on the edge of the blast radius. She could only hope that she had, and that if things went her way and the smoke dispersed, then that Crescent would see that she hadn’t attempted to kill him amidst the chaos.

Otherwise things were going to get a lot harder.

[Crescent]

It was a good thing that Hellion hadn't fallen for Nokta's attempted setup. If she had, Crescent had a feeling he would currently be a vaporized pile of ash.

The smoke was thick- he couldn't see anything, and as a result, had no way to gauge where their "company" was. However, he had the sense to know that he needed to have his weapon on ready. And so, on command, his cassette would revert to her previous form, locking into place on his forearm.  

As the femme tried to disperse the dark clouds with her cannons, Crescent would join her, letting off a few rounds from his rifle. When he was able to (somewhat) see his surroundings again, his optics would dart around rapidly, searching for any sign of the mech who had ambushed them. 

Dealing with a Decepticon...was something he had expected, though dreaded. But, assuming he was alone, they had him outnumbered. At least for now.

"Get behind me."


After making the request, Crescent would turn his back to Hellion, intending for her to face the opposite direction so that approaching threats could be seen from all angles.

[Nokta]

Doubt played a role in every battle. Doubt in your surroundings, doubt in enemy numbers, doubt in the individual.

Doubt created uncertainty. Uncertainty bred fear. Fear consumed all.

He was everywhere and nowhere all at once. He stalked, and he circled, and he watched them from the shadows as they tried in vain to get a read on their assailant before it was too late. Peds trudged through the snow this way and that. In front of them, behind them. Like a pack of wolves, a dozen phantoms surrounded them in the cold darkness. It was as though the very shadows themselves were closing in upon Hellion and Crescent with the unmistakable intent to suffocate. To expunge. To terrorize. To end.

Slowly, wordlessly, a point was being made. He was mocking them. Mocking their ignorance of their situation. Of their unspoken hubris in assuming mere numbers equated to odds. Of who they were dealing with. Sewing crippling seeds of doubt.

Everywhere.

His prey’s sudden reliance on deploying their weaponry to attempt to disperse the thick smoke surrounding them gave their pursuer a well-needed moment to inspect the weaponry from a distance. Through the thinning smoke, he spied two shoulder-mounted cannons and took note of their construction, coming to the conclusion they were made to fell targets much larger and slower than he was upon seeing them fired for himself.

While the blast and rifle fire did have the intended effect of clearing the immediate area around Hellion and Crescent of the smoke that had been limiting their visibility, it only really had the effect of pushing the smoke out to a ring of thick mist that still blocked much visibility further than a dozen meters or so.

As for the mech who believed himself to be rescuing Hellion, he took note of the role its cassette played in their arsenal, but their weaponry would be less of an issue than their alt-mode would. It was not unheard of for an Autobot to have wings, merely uncommon. Unfortunately for Crescent, the being stalking him knew of multiple ways to handle those with a flight advantage.

This would not be pleasant for the Autobot in question.

Both Autobots would be kept waiting agonizingly long in the cold. Enough to let the oppression of shadows sink into the seams of their armor and worm its way into the strength of their resolve.

Just as soon as the smoke had finally cleared enough to make out a hellish figure standing in the dark a few meters away, a second pellet exploded in the air above Crescent and Hellion, raining shadows down on them like hellfire, gravity’s aid inundating them even faster than the first smokescreen had.

From the opposite direction the figure had just been seen prior, an unseen mass leaped forth from the shadows, in a silent, acrobatic careen high above the heads of the Autobot pair. Crescent would feel a light tug on his right wing, and then a numbing vacancy in that same spot a moment after, almost as though nothing had happened at all. The palpable dread of their current situation would likely mean that the pain wouldn’t register immediately. After this, a splash of warm fluid painted the back of Hellion’s left cannon, and then nothing.

Nowhere.

The howling winds masked the sound of peds landing in the snow a few paces away, a wraith quickly dispersing into shadow once more. If they’d seen anything at all, it would have been nothing more than a fleeting glimpse:

Horns. Talons. Eyes– two white pinpricks to be exact. Thin rings where healthy optics should have been, sucking away all other visible light like supermassive black holes. A nocturnal animal stalking its prey through the night.

Silence again, for another long, grueling moment, until something landed at Hellion’s feet in a splatter of neon blue. A slab of white metal, about the length of a forearm, leaking energon from where it had been torn clean from its hinges. Upon closer inspection just what this was would become clear.

A stabilizing flap ripped from the Seeker’s wing, effectively grounding them. But that wasn’t all.

Carved into the valuable piece of the flier’s anatomy was a single word written in poorly legible Cybertronian:

Mercy.

It was sending them a message. Would they decode its meaning, or was uncertainty already fast at hand?

[Hellion]

Hellion hated this. A battle on an unknown world, against an unknown foe, with an unknown ally at her side.

Her attempts to disperse the smoke hadn’t met with the success that she’d hoped for, only causing the gas to recede about a dozen metres back. The thought of successive fire crossed the femme’s mind, but she was already down two of the six shots she was going to get before reloading, and was in no rush to squander what remained on diminishing returns.

The Seeker barked a request at Hellion, and for better or worse, the Wrecker complied. It was becoming clear that Crescent wasn’t her enemy, and even if he was, it was quickly transpiring that she had bigger problems to deal with. Between the shadows that writhed and roiled around the duo, she could make out movements of some kind. It was nigh imperceptible to determine what said movements were or who the perpetrator was, but the sudden flickers and motions of the smoke indicated that someone, or many someones, were moving through the clouds.

Better the devil you knew, she thought.

Pressing her back up against Crescent’s, she figured at least if he was going to slip a dagger into it, he’d have to get through her backpack first. Raising up her arms, she pointed her fists out towards the smoke, taking Crescent’s idea as her own. The Aegis Blasters were still warmed up from threatening the Seeker, and she discharged a few rounds into the smoke, alternating between weapons every few bursts to keep them from overheating. It was a futile effort perhaps, but one that might clear patches in the fog for a few seconds, and at risk of being optimistic, maybe even clip their unseen assailant or make them reconsider their course of action.

As their tormentor waited amongst the midst, the discharge of rounds peppered the silence in regular intervals. Their assailant was keeping them waiting, but that didn’t mean Hellion intended to let silence fall. When the smoke finally began to disperse, Hellion’s attention snapped towards the figure, loosing another burst in their general direction before the second pellet erupted and plunged the duo into further darkness.

For a moment, Hellion held to the hope that maybe she’d hit her target, put an end to this farce, only to feel the warmth of *something* splash upon one of the Steelhammers. She turned her head as far as she could manage to glance at the cannon, only to see energon trickling down it out of her peripheral vision. For a mercy, at least it wasn’t hers. But the attacker had made one thing clear, such weapons would not serve her on this battlefield. Their foe was too agile, too stealthy, and so she retracted the Steelhamers back to their resting place on her back. To keep them extended would cost her mobility, not to mention vision, and she had the sinking feeling she was going to need both.

As the cannons receded, Hellion felt something clatter against one of her pedes, and she spared a glance down towards it. She narrowed her gaze at the sight, trying to make out was it was amongst the snow and energon in which it was drenched. A stabilizing flap, leaking and carved, the colours matching that of the Seeker at her back. The words “Mercy” engraved upon it.

Behind her battlemask, Hellion gritted her teeth, and punted the flap back into the smoke. Mercy wasn’t on her agenda today.

Though the cold wind had done little else but stifle Hellion’s efforts, they did carry one benefit - the Antarctic chill dispersed the heat build up in the Aegis Blasters more rapidly, cooling them down faster after firing. With the controlled bursts of her fire and agonizing delays between Nokta’s movements, both blasters had more or less returned to their neutral states, enabling Hellion’s next move. With both arms outstretched, she held the triggers, quickly dispatching round after round of energy from both barrels as she slowly swung her arms to the sides - creating a field of high-volume blaster fire ahead of her in an arc of 180 degrees. If Nokta was lingering up close within that arc, he’d be hard pressed to evade every shot being slung his way, thanks in no small part to the spread and fire rate of Hellion’s arm-mounted SMGs. Those same features lent themselves well to their potential damage output as well. Though their efficacy fell off quickly, any close range impacts were sure to leave a mark.

But for the potential effectiveness of such an attack, there were downsides too. It remained entirely possible that Nokta may have evaded her onslaught, or worse yet, not even been within her field of fire at all. And eveb worse still, both Aegis Blasters had now overheated, and though they were cooling down rapidly, they would still be out of action for a brief period nonetheless.

Hellion was for now, a walking arsenal without any weapons, but Nokta didn’t need to know that. Doubt played a role in every battle, after all.

[Crescent]

The fact that a part of himself had just been punted off into the distance should have, at the very least, bothered Crescent. However, he didn’t say anything about it. Or do anything, actually. He seemed to be frozen in place, trying to process what had just happened to him. And then… he dropped.

The white seeker was doubled over, staring at the ground and effectively hyperventilating. His left wing felt like it was on fire. It might as well have been. If Hellion thought to look, the source of the problem would become quickly apparent to her.

At the base of the appendage, there sat a massive spider web shaped weld scar, hinting at past physical trauma. The removal of the stabilizer had hurt in its own right… but the attack's close proximity to his injury had also triggered an episode of acute reactionary nerve pain. The stabbing sensation was overwhelming- it was as if there were hundreds of tiny razors lodged into his internal wiring. He’d taken plating-peircing shots that had hurt less, without contest. At least those were localized to one area.

He would have cursed, but he wasn’t able to produce a noise, so he settled for gritting his teeth. The world started to dim, against his wishes, and his audials began to ring. But… he fought to stay awake. He couldn’t leave the femme to fight the Decepticon by herself.

Crescent…wanted to help, but he wasn’t sure how. He was a sniper, after all. He needed to be able to see his target to be of use. However, he felt as though he needed to do something.

Wait a minute. He might be a semi-grounded jet…but he was still a jet. With a functional engine. Suddenly, inspiration struck. …It was time to try something stupid. After putting a good amount of distance between Hellion and himself, he would quickly shift into his alternate mode, igniting his thrusters. He then moved upwards, and downwards, in a small arch, careful to not fly too high and risk crashing. As he landed, the smoke that surrounded them began to disperse, offering both his ally and himself a clearer view of their surroundings and their enemy. Now, at least, the femme would have something she could actually aim at.


[/permission granted to do the things/]

[Nokta]

His offer of mercy had been declined, it seemed. At least– his version of mercy. What a shame, for them. This could have all been over so quickly if they’d let themselves die properly.

Trained optics peered through the smoke. He’d familiarized himself with the thickness and contours of his smoke grenades thousands of times over this late into the war– the Autobot was making her move. The moment he spied the telltale glint of weaponry being brandished, he began moving.

Hellion’s arc of fire began wide, which was perhaps the only saving grace about the nature of her assault. Nokta still held the advantage in that she did not have a clear line of sight on him, but the high fire rate and wide spread of the blaster fire still posed a threat. His processor worked quickly in the millisecond after clocking the start of Hellion’s assault.

Even as he began sprinting in the opposite direction multiple still images remained burned in his memory banks. The angle of her attack, the median number of projectiles per second, and the approximate time before his current position would be compromised by blaster fire. Being shot was unavoidable at this point, but he could do all that he could to preserve his vital components.

He leapt, powerful pistons in his legs and peds doing the work to get him airborne and away from the spray of gunfire. The mech’s body contorted and spun into a flipping rotation, his blackened frame like a shard of razor-sharp obsidian as he soared through the open air. His arms shielded his chest and faceplates, the flat panels attached to his arms folding over his sparkchamber and visage for added protection.

Faintly, he became aware of a projectile impacting his leg. No pain followed, leading him to assume it had merely been a ricochet or just singed through kibble. He was not so lucky with the second impact, which tore through the unarmored outer panels of his left arm. The mech snarled in agitation but reigned in his reaction to the pain enough for a balanced landing in the snow about a dozen paces from where he’d been standing.

At some point during this, the roar of jet engines had sounded out. The flier, attempting to flee? No, a desperate attempt to clear the smoke again. Either way, their efforts to take flight so quickly after enduring the mutilation of a wing could not have felt pleasant. The seeker would be less of a threat now, the Autobot with the most firepower had taken priority anyway.

By the time the smoke had cleared in full, he’d risen to his peds with his back to Hellion. A thin line of blue dribbled from his upper left arm, but his leg armor had done its job where he’d been struck otherwise. Tenderly, the mech wiped the energon from his arm, a servo with too-long digits returning slick with blue. He appeared to inspect the spilled energon, tilting his head just enough for a forked tongue to be seen slipping forth from his dermas, licking away the substance from his digits.

Slowly, wordlessly, the wraith turned to face Hellion for the first time. And she was greeted by the countenance of a demon.

Two white irises peered back at the femme, hiding behind their small size a veritable abyss of dark intent. Were it not for the energon dripping from the visible blaster shot that had gouged across his arm plating, one couldn’t tell that this mech was injured at all. If he was capable of processing pain, signs of it were unreadable behind the layers of anger that painted his expression. An almost unfathomable lust for animal violence begged to be released from the thin surface of what his optics kept contained.

"My turn." A hellish rasp warbled out across the frigid air to grate against Autobot audials. Everything about it sounded wrong. Like a corpse hijacked by a specter for the sole purpose of communing from beyond the grave. This was not the voice of a mech, but a fiend who belonged to the Pit itself. Things had just gotten far more dire for the Autobots.

From the moment he began sprinting full tilt at Hellion, it would be clear that he wasn’t planning on giving either of them an inch. A weapon was produced in his uninjured hand, almost out of the darkness itself. Its dark purple coating and relative size denoted a form of submachine gun right away. If that were not clear, once he’d closed half the distance between himself and Hellion, the spread of neon fuchsia energy that flowered forth from its barrel at a rapid pace would be. 

An easy two dozen shots were fired right away as he ran. They were mostly inaccurate due to spread and recoil even as they were aimed for Hellion's center mass, but the prognosis for further inaccuracy was rapidly changing as Nokta neared closer by the second. That aside, while his blaster suffered from the similar range limitation that Hellion’s did, it did just as ample a job with suppressive fire. And more than enough to get him close to his prey to finish what he’d come here for.

[Hellion]

The sound of a roaring jet engine directly behind and above her drew Hellion’s attention, her head tilting behind her to see Crescent taking flight, injured though he may have been. She didn’t envy the mech, but it was a move that had garnered him quite a bit of respect. For a move like that, with a not insignificant wound, was worthy of some degree of recognition. Not to mention that it had finally cleared the smoke, giving Hellion a much clearer target.

And what a target he was. Their foe was not many foes, as Hellion had once suspected, but a lanky, wiry thing of a mech. One that despite his outward attempt to look dreadful and intimidating, could at least still be injured, as indicated by the leak of energon across his arm. Hellion’s optics narrowed as the Decepticon glared back at her, much of her expression shrouded by the large faceplate that obscured much of her countenance. She drew her arms up in front of herself, taking a combat stance.

Hellion found herself with few options as the barrage of gunfire sprayed towards her. Smoke still hissed from the barrels of her Aegis blasters, and Nokta had already proven him an opponent agile enough that the Steelhammers weren’t going to be of much threat. She was already somewhat unagile in her robot mode, and her injured leg hadn’t done her any favours there.

As bolts of fuschia impacted the ground ahead and whizzed past her, Hellion threw herself to the side, a stray shot striking her as she careened through the air. One struck her backpack, biting at the reinforced armour, though the other more cleanly ripped a wound in the side of her abdomen. Small shards of shrapnel and a faint misty spray of energon were ejected from the latter as she moved, Hellion wincing behind her faceplate.

Moving through the air with about as much grace as one could expect from a femme with a giant backpack and plenty of artillery, the sound of her impact with the floor never came. Instead, the sound of plates shifting and servos whirring rang out, carried on winter winds as Hellion transformed into her alternate mode, a small Cybertronian vehicle, of comparable size and construction to a hatchback. It was the form of a Courier, perhaps something Nokta might recognize. As her body shifted into its secondary shape, Hellion’s landing was buffeted on a bed of energy, as she began to hover perhaps a foot or so off of the ground.

A traditionally wheeled form, such as those who had been on Earth for some time had been accustomed to, would’ve left Hellion at quite the disadvantage on the ice. But for a mercy, Nokta’s attack had been so swift that Hellion still possessed her Cybertronian alternate mode, one with hovering capability. Nokta was closing the gap, and fast - and Hellion had much the same idea. The femme’s engine roared, louder than the howling winds. She accelerated suddenly, launching towards Nokta with a burst of speed, a cloud of dust and snow erupting behind the femme in her wake.

Whereas the mech was in a dead and direct sprint towards her, he still possessed a weapon in the situation, and she wasn’t intent on being an easy target. Leveraging her hovering state as she floored it towards her foe, the femme moved erratically, weaving to the left and right to give Nokta a harder time at filling her with holes. With pedal to the metal, Hellion swerved suddenly as she closed the gap, swinging the back of her alt form out to the side, and throwing herself into what was effectively a drift - but with no connection to the ground beneath her, she wasn’t exactly slowing down. Instead, she was trying to make herself a larger obstacle, one that might hit Nokta more easily.

[Crescent]

The current situation at hand left Crescent with limited options. He was unable to take advantage of his missiles or thrusters without potentially harming his ally…something he could not risk. Trying to get close to the action on foot was also a no-go, as Hellion and the Decepticon seemed to be set for collision. However…there was still one thing working to his advantage. Nokta was very much occupied dealing with Hellion, and thus was not paying him much attention.


He had no real plan, but knew he needed to do something while their foe was distracted. And so, he would shift back to his primary form before assuming firing position. As a sniper, his inclination was to try to aim for maximum precision, but such a level of accuracy was not possible in the case of a moving target. However, he still tried his best to track their foe’s coordinates as he let off three shots, at varying heights and angles.

[Nokta]

The armor covering Hellion’s face did well to hide most of her expression from the Decepticon lieutenant, but the pain in her optics upon being struck by his weapon spoke volumes. Nokta did not falter in his advance, even as he saw the Seeker moving back into his root mode behind her. Closing the distance was the most likely way he’d be able to manage both of his marks at the same time, and so he held a rapid pace on foot even as the Autobot in front switched tactics in her approach.

Distantly there was some recognition that prompted a few neurodes to fire off in his mind as he took in the shape of Hellion’s Cybertronian alt-mode. It was shoved to the edges of his consciousness where it faded entirely as a million other protocols took place in the former courier’s processor.

He’d been prepared to leap over the femme’s alt mode rather effortlessly when he registered more blaster fire in his peripheral. It was measly, only a handful of shots, but they were numerous enough for combat training to kick in. Nokta crouched low to the ground, making himself a smaller target out in the open such as he was.

Unfortunately, this had placed him right where the Hellion wanted him.

He attempted, last minute, to leap– if only so that he wouldn’t be run down completely by the Autobot as she continued her mad dash forward in her alt-mode. The hovercraft slammed into his legs, pain blossoming up his frame as his body lurched forward onto Hellion’s windshield. Nokta clung to the sides of Hellion’s alt mode, but at the speed she was accelerating he slipped easily.

But just when it seemed as though he’d fall away from the femme entirely and be left in her exhaust, a large sliver of chrome caught the moonlight in his grip.

Nokta slammed his blade down into the back end of the hatchback as hard as he could, stopping his tumble immediately. Nokta let loose a ferocious growl of pain as his injured arm went taught so suddenly, but he didn’t loosen his grip on the weapon keeping him attached to his mark. If anything, the pain had strengthened his resolve twofold.

Quickly reaching for the thigh holster built into his armor, a second blade was produced, this time its contours more visible. Undoubtedly sharp, it was hook shaped and jagged in a way that was only meant for one thing: to inflict immeasurable pain. Any weapon as sharp as this would easily tear into weak points in ways that would make stemming the energon flow a dire task for a medic after a certain amount of time.

Fortunately for Hellion, such weak points were less obvious in her current form– but that wasn’t going to stop her assailant from trying to find them. The second knife came down hard into the exterior roof panels of Hellion’s alt mode. It punctured shallow, the lack of spilled energon telling, but this wouldn’t be a boon for long as the knife raised back upwards and swung down again with a rageful strength behind it. All the while he maintained his grip on the blade keeping him in place atop her.

If he wasn’t to receive what he’d come here for, he’d take payment in Autobot blood instead.