Flashback - Three Davids and a Goliath (closed)

[Deleted]

//OKAY WE OUT! RUN RUN RUN!//

"No, no, I'm almost done! I can take this guy!" Bruticus's left leg was nearly obscured by smoke and sparks; he was walking with a pronounced limp. A few more shots and Roddi was certain the entire leg would simply fall off. Then Flareup could take out the optics and Roddi could trip him and then-

-just because Bruticus was limping, Roddi realized, did not mean he was immobile. His arms, for example, worked just fine, and could fire a half-dozen missiles at Roddi's location without the slightest impediment. Roddi squeaked and scrambled off her perch, diving into her altmode just ahead of the blast radius, though the turbulence knocked her about a bit.

"Changed my mind," she squeaked. "The civilians are clear? Let's roll."

[Deleted]

Most of the missiles streaked past Hot Rod, and into the base of an already highly weathered tower, which crashed down through the roadway. A billowing wall of dust and rust rose to towering heights, and Flareup was forced to transform to root form so that the shockwave wouldn't knock them over. The route Flamewing had been feeding them blinked bright red for blocked.

"Hot Rod! Hot Rod?" Reburn's voice showed hesitation as there was initially no answer. "You're trapped in that street. If you can move, turn around, get past him and go straight."

"We'll draw him," he added, in the light tone of voice that always had ominous implications coming from this gestalt. A white point on the map showed where their shuttle had agreed to meet them... past the blockage. This had complicated the retreat quite a bit.

[Deleted]

“Good job, Roddy! You’ve managed to knee-cap one of the most infamously destructive gestalt glichfrakkers in the history of the war, barring a phase sixer of course. You have optics on Black Shadow’s knees in the future, maybe? Keep those ambitions high, new spark! Scrap, Reburn, he’s chasing you. Roddy, run faster! That’s an order!”

It occurred to Sola as she sped down the space between skyscrapers, rushing with her teammates toward the extraction point, that next time she was going to leave the position of squad leader in any fashion to femmes like Elita and just stick to blowing things up and generating shields on command. Reburn had managed to draw the Con’s attention but that wasn’t going to help if Sola couldn’t get her two ground-based teammates up and over that blockade.

“Flareup! Roddy!” She hit the ground in her alt. “If you can’t get your big-afts over this, grab my armory mounts and I’ll fly your over! Move!”

[Deleted]

One knee. One knee on one of the most brutal gestalts living, granted, but still - one. Fragging. Knee. That was not what Roddy was hoping her legacy would turn out to be.

She'd wanted a whole gestalt at least!

But here she was, desperately rolling from an enraged, limping, but very much alive giant death machine, and her pathway was blocked ahead. Roddi flung herself at the barricade of debris in a fog of desperation. It crumbled under her hands, but not nearly enough.

//Grab my armory mounts and I'll fly you over!//

"Sola!" Roddi cried, clawing her way up the pile. Smoke rose from the tower's wreckage, stinging her vents. Some shard of metal dug into her knee. The monster roared behind her, shaking the very atmosphere; with one last cry of desperation she scrambled to the top and leaped for the round shadow passing overhead. Her hands grasped Sola's mount and Roddi held on for dear life.

[Deleted]

“I gotcha, ya gear head!”

The massive helo-bot roared upwards, engines and blades blowing up the ashes and dust of a long ago firebombing, darkening the world in a cloud of black and gray and slightly radioactive soot. Her stabilizers spun wildly for a moment, scanners telling her that Bruticus seemed to be inspecting his knee instead of giving chase which meant the idea of chasing down Neutrals was tiresome to the Decepticon heavyweight or Roddy had done him some legitimate damage. As the helo jumped up through the soot, dragging her dangling sister-bot upward, Sola shouted through the roar of her own engine nose.

“Good job, shortstack we might not get slagged to hell! Flareup! On your left, there’s a ramp up! That girder!”