Ep. 1.5 - Good morning, Starshine (Closed-ish)

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<< Pass for Cat! Take it away, Alti, darling! >>

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There were few things that could sour Altruous’ mood quite as soundly as senseless violence. The laughter in Altruous’ field died a sad, premature death when Skywarp seemingly lost his mind, his cheerfulness suddenly and inexplicably shifting into a murderous rage. The mech’s subsequent violent outburst came as a complete and utter surprise to Altruous, who had not expected the smiling, child-like mech to be wholly consumed by mindless bloodlust in the fraction of a second, for seemingly no reason at all.

It wasn’t until the mech spoke, his outraged voice making his words somewhat difficult to discern, that Altruous got an idea of what it was that had prompted his anger. If the mech’s words were to be believed, Deuce had wronged him in some way, had stolen something from his slain cohort.

Deuce, on the other hand, seemed not to have the slightest idea what the Decepticon was talking about, which put into question just how valid Skywarp’s accusations actually were. Not that it mattered much to Altruous whether or not the mech was speaking the truth or not - regardless, he was incised into violence over the matter, and it did not appear as if he was in any state to be reasoned with. The feral gleam in his optics, his battle ready stance, and the viciousness in his tone and field - they all spoke volumes of how possessed the mech was by his anger, and Altruous knew better than to try to talk down someone who had abandoned their sense of logic in favor of acting solely upon the directions of their emotions.

The old mech knew what his strengths and weaknesses were, and as such, he was well aware that he would be of no help in stopping such a violent confrontation. Frail as he was, he would hardly be able to set a foot between the two quarreling mechs before finding himself soundly evicted from the fray (or perhaps even life itself) with very little effort. He simply could not do anything to restrain or dissuade Skywarp, to prevent him from attacking Deuce once more and escalating things even further.

But he could do something to prevent others from being harmed in the crossfire.

Altruous was far from in his prime, his frame having aged rather poorly throughout the years, but he could still move with something resembling swiftness when he felt the need to do so - and in that moment, he felt the most pressing need to make his way over to the little native Deuce had brought with him, to usher her away from the fray before she found herself involved in it.

As he approached her, he found himself cursing his memory, as he could not recall what she had said her name was. It was something short, he knew, something related to a local species - felines, he thought they were called. Memory failing him, he took a shot in the dark, and hoped the girl would forgive him for his aged processor.

“--Kitten, dear?” He called out, rolling with the first name to come to mind. “I realize we’ve only just met, but would you be so kind as to accompany me to the opposite end of the mire?”

He lowered himself closer to the ground, his joints creaking as they were wont to as he dropped to one knee and held out a hand, offering it to Cat, quietly becoming her to step into it.

“It seems to me a safer place to become acquainted than where we currently stand.”

[Deleted]

There it was.

Deuce vanished.

Skywarp landed in a crouch hard where Deuce had existed only moments before. He raised his head slowly, optics locking onto the top of the starship. A rumbling snarl grew in Skywarp's vocaliser in response to Deuce's speech. The Seeker was long beyond words, his mind consumed by fury. He was unaware of Alti leading the human away. Even if he was still able to think beyond his anger, he would not care what the aerial had to say. The neutral had to die and he would not allow any other outcome.

Skywarp was an interesting mishmash of deep instinct and rote learning, driven mostly by his impulses. But there was an ancient sort of cunning to him, he'd survived more far battles than the average Cybertronian and bit by bit, he'd slowly learned despite his throttled mind. The berserker rage that overcame him when he hunted down the scant few teleporters he'd encountered had been tempered. Slightly. The seeker's own warp core lacked the efficiency that others had and he'd learnt not to rely upon it even in the middle of his fury, when he was at his most instinctive. It would tire him out, leave him vulnerable or, worse, allow his target to escape. This was the one instance where failure was unacceptable and that had been the driving force to curb the automatic impulse to simply follow each and every jump his enemy made.

That didn’t mean he wasn't above using it once or twice for some short jumps when he thought it might be useful. Newer teleporters generally weren't like him, a walking spacebridge able to see the tell-tale tears that a teleportation device left around them. Spatial equations streaming through their processor. Skywarp had caught a few by surprise by because of this, confident that their warp core made them invulnerable and unaware that they were dealing with a teleporter themselves. It was why he hadn't engaged his warp drive for his first attack, a tactic meant to spook the other mech into jumping first.

Skywarp broke out in a run, then he teleported, vanishing with a flash of green. He emerged out on the Concordia roof behind Deuce, a fist cocked and pulled back, a powerful blow aiming at the aerial's back.

[Deleted]

The grey jet whirled, casting one golden optic back over his shoulder. He grinned –

Five hundred feet up the mire, Deuce set one feet against a slab of white rock slanting up from the valley grass and struck a dramatic pose.

“Oh ho!” he said. “A fellow ’chucker, eh?”

The teleport had been soundless and instantaneous – no rush, no flash of light. He had simple existed in one space, then existed in another, as if reality had acknowledged a mistake, puzzledly scratched its head, and placed him elsewhere. Somewhere one of Deuce’s internal systems had calculated and insisted he belonged, no, really.

Inwardly, Deuce was mystified.

Cybertronian teleporters were extremely rare. He could admit that. His own particular drive had been... well, sometimes sacrifices were made in the name of pursuing a common goal. And it wasn’t even functioning properly. Its original purpose had long been perverted. This Decepticon though – he had the real deal, an actual warp drive capable of whisking the brute across solar systems. He would be envious if the guy wasn’t currently using it to make a spirited attempt to kick a hole through his head.

Deuce hummed in eager curiosity. This was great! He’d never seen a proper warp drive in action before. That it was attached to an angry Decepticon was going to be a nuisance, though. And there was another thorny matter on top of that...

He clapped his hands, then pressed them together in front of his chest.

“Oi, you!” he called out. “Babe! Can we talk? Or do you communicate entirely in yelling and punches?”

[Deleted]

’Oh shi-‘

…’Wait, what?’

’What the fu—‘

Bwip!

Gray plating obstructed the sun’s rays again, and suddenly the deep color of Skywarp’s armor was cast in a shadow that hadn’t been there before. It felt as though her brain had temporarily reset, like she had blinked, walked into a room, and forgotten that she moved the furniture around. They swapped. Their places swapped, one was where the other was and the other was… ’No way.’

She was so ready to see Deuce be thrust back into the tree line from the power that must have been behind that ‘Cons punch, and for the first few seconds, her brain refused to believe that anything else was possible. Hesitated in overlapping what truly was with what it expected. The tenseness, the way her stomach twisted when Skywarp lunged all kind of… froze. It’s okay. Deuce was okay. He was fine. Deuce… Deuce looked more than fine, not even a scratch on him, that cocky, silver-tongued, peacock feathered, struttin’, beautiful, rat bastard, wonderful li’l shit

…who she would hug the tightest of tights immediately after this was all over, damn him—

Bwip!

’Sonnuva—!’

Skywarp there, Deuce over there, her brain somewhere far, far behind back there. It took her a couple weeks to get used to the idea of the Groundbridge without shoving it completely to the back of her mind to (like a lot of things) deal with later. This left her disoriented, enough so that she didn’t even realize she might be in danger until the Vector’s shape shadowed her, but it was so fucking neat she had practically scrambled over Alti’s palm just to look around him and keep her eyes on what was happening. Eyes wide behind their bright purple frames, afraid to blink, else she might miss something. Else, Deuce get caught.

He won’t.

’He won’t.’ She repeated firmly to herself. ’He’s too good for that.’

Just look at him go.

“Who is that?” She heard herself say, brain automatically adjusting to the new height and movement of Alti’s movements without much trouble (that sensation she had gotten used to rather quickly). “Who the fuck is that, do you know him?” Did Deuce? It didn’t appear so… but judging by how quickly Purple Fuck launched at him, she had to wonder if the dude knew Deuce. And what the grey mech, who she always saw as smiling, cheeky, could have even done to him to make him just want to crazy fucking murder.

Above, atop the rocks with a struck pose, Deuce perched again, not looking at all flustered to Cat’s eyes, even as he shrunk in the distance while Alti steadily carried them away from the scene. That’s when she felt the patient vibration in her pocket, coupled with the polite and pleasant ping that snapped her brain back to some semblance of reality.

She pulled the device from her pocket, seeing Layby’s name display along with the text beneath it — oh right. They were sent here to bring back someone. The someone whose palm she was sitting in while he carried them away from Murder-Face McGee over there.

Her thumbs flew over the screen, not wanting to keep her eyes from the scene for too long (as if watching it would prevent something from taking even more of a downward turn).

// universe hates us. im sorry. shit hit the fan. i think. not MECH bad tho. def purple face bad. fuckin crazy ass dude just went berserk on Deuce and now they’re warpin all over the mire. he’s handling it, but i dunno for how long. con not focused on me or vector rn. sending coordinates. ill keep you posted. //

Send.

…Suddenly the lag in her brain caught up to her while Deuce was talking. “….Did you just call me Kitten?” She asked with a touch of bemusement.

[Deleted]

Having only just met the girl, Altruous had little idea of how Cat would respond to his request. He had hoped for the best, of course, but he was prepared for the worst as well. In the event she proved reluctant to go with him---be it because she did not wish to go anywhere with a complete stranger (for which he could and would not blame her), or because she did not wish to leave Deuce to fend for himself (though he doubted she would be able to do much to aid him)---Altruous had a backup plan.

That plan consisted mostly of him asking her once again to please come with him, only with a slightly firmer tone.

Thankfully, Altruous did not have to resort to using his Don’t-make-me-start-counting-to-five Dad voice, as Cat was more than willing to scurry up into his hand like a particularly energized squirrel whose attention had been riveted by whatever it was squirrels usually found themselves riveted by. Altruous didn’t know. The extent of his knowledge of Earth animals was limited to what he had gleaned from their “Internet” whilst entering the planet’s atmosphere.

Apparently cats were enigmatic creatures of great importance to the people of Earth, judging by the amount of content related to them he had stumbled over. He supposed that explained Cat's name - she might possibly have been named after the odd little grammatically-challenged species that her own species seemed to revere and hold in such high regard.

Once she was settled in his hand, Altruous blinked a bit in confusion at the girl, who seemed to be riveted by whatever it was that was going on behind him. He did not care to look, having no love of violence, so he did not know, and he did not particularly want to. All he wanted was to remove himself and Catherine from the area as swiftly as his rickety old limbs could carry them.

Easing back upright, Altruous brought the hand that cradled Cat to his chest, curving his fingers so that he could cup the fragile little human against his plating, to reduce the risk of her being jostled and falling to the ground. He couldn’t bear the thought of what might happen if he accidentally dropped her.

“I’m afraid we’ve only just met...and what an unfortunate meeting it has turned out to be.” He replied, unsure if his words were lost on the girl or not.

She seemed rather distracted by the fighting going on behind him, after all, and he did not wish to prod her with further questions by asking if she had heard what he had said, so he simply let the matter drop and carried on with his task. He moved across the mire at a relatively swift pace, his staff tkt tkt tkt-ing on the ground below as he carried both himself and Cat away from the chaos behind them.

He had made it halfway across the mire, a decent distance away from Deuce and Skywarp, when Cat spoke up once more, asking him something out of the blue. Blinking, he looked down at his hand and the (oh so tiny) person he held inside it, before raising his eyebrows in feigned confusion.

“No.” He replied, earnestly. “Though I did a few moments ago.” He smiled, amused at his own cheekiness.

“Would you prefer that I didn’t?”

[Deleted]

Skywarp wheeled around, locating Deuce by his obnoxious voice and by sensors. The Seeker did not register the words, only the sound of the hateful thing he was trying to destroy. He wouldn't have cared anyway, had he the mind to discuss it, the mechanics of his warp drive was something he understood intuitively but could not be explained in words to another mech.

He paid no attention to Alti or Cat. The Seeker perched on the roof of the Concordia. His optics were narrowed to orange slits. Inside his throttled processor, a jumbled mish-mash of memory, combat protocols and decision trees fired and ticked. Past encounters, past fights trickled through his processor as he settled on a course of action.

Both servos transformed into heavy cannons. Skywarp raised them comfortably and settled in to fill the air with gunfire. He held no expectations that he'd be able to land a hit despite his uncanny accuracy. But the Seeker knew from experience that his warp drive and melee at this point would be useless.

With his processor set on this course, Skywarp would keep firing as he tracked Deuce unless he somehow managed to land a hit or if his opponent was driven in close to attack. And provided there were still other viable targets around, if his opponent travelled too far away, Skywarp would simply move on to them instead before he could switch gears to a new course of action to chase after Deuce.

[Deleted]

It took time to bring weapons to bear, take aim, and fire. Deuce existed in the space of time between.

He flickered and vanished, always one second ahead on the shot. It wasn’t hard. All he needed to do was appear at an angle from the Seeker, which would require Skywarp to wheel around before firing again. Even if it took only took the big fighter a few seconds to do so, it was still more than enough time.

It wasn’t doing the scenery any favours, as Skywarp’s shots tore into anything unlucky enough to fall beneath them. The grass, the hills, the soft wet ground. Soon the air was filled with a haze of mud and fine mist, and the stench of ozone. Deuce didn’t care. What was he, the Swiss tourism board?

With a handful of processing threads tackling those calculations, the rest of Deuce’s mind was free to do some thinking. He clasped his chin between his thumb and forefinger and puzzled over the big Seeker, even as he vanished through a stream of cannon fire and reappeared on a grassy knoll a short distance away. Hadn’t he heard something about this? Seekers outfitted with warp drives or some such thing. All kinds of information had passed across his desk back then, when it had still been his job to disseminate it.

And now...

His curiosity overcame him. Deuce crouched slightly, bent his arms, and kicked up into flight.

“Whup!” he said, and vanished.

An instant later Skywarp would feel it: the press of a pair of nimble feet against his wings, one braced against each. A hand curled over the neck guard at the back of his chassis as a light body crouched in the shelter between his wings and pressed something blunt and metal against the back of his neck, in the narrow gap where it met his helm.

“Konnichiwa!” sang Deuce’s soft voice in his audial. “You’re dead. Well, not really. But I will shoot you straight into a coma if you don’t can these shenanigans and tell me your seeeecrets. Experimental batch, aintcha? For the warp core project?”

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((ooc: Consider Alti and Cat off in their own little world for this turn - take it away, House!))

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Cat's text did not fall well onto Layby's display unit. He'd immediately sent an 'acknowledged' on automatic and headed straight for his weapons stash.

Because Neutral didn't mean pacifist, not really, and Layby was a sparked warrior, trained and equipped for combat. He'd also built up a nice collection of weaponry over the centuries, mostly through confiscations or willing submissions by patrons that hadn't been picked up again due to forced ejection, death or maiming. Weapons were also one of the most valuable things to trade with, and unlike Cleaver, he had no reservations about handling them.

They were kept locked in his quarters, undeclared and untouched save for emergencies. Cat being confronted by a 'crazy' Decepticon with warp capabilities outside of the Demiliterized zone rated as a solid emergency. At least she'd had the presence of mind to say it wasn't MECH. That was something.

Stowing a rifle across his back, Layby took out the oversized shotgun as well before locking the safe back up and trotting out to the groundbridge controls. He sent Cleaver a short comm. detailing the situation with a firm instruction to stay put and listen out, then dialed in the coordinates Cat had provided. He got a curt response from the medic and heard her beginning to prep for possible casualties, then he was through the green light and out into fresh air.

Two jets trading smack talk, fixated on each other. Good. Strange mech holding Cat. Less good.

Layby kept his dorsal sensors on Deuce and the Decepticon as he approached the pair.

Don't jump to conclusions. She's fine. He looks ten kliks from the Well. Teeks peaceful. Don't jump to conclusions.

His armour was flared, engine snarling a deep base growl, and his grip on the still-lowered-but-definitely-cocked shotgun were not the epitome of relaxed. Layby's voice, however, was pitched calm and authoritative. Restrained to calm.

"Yeh alright Cat? Who's yer friend?"

[Deleted]

Click, click, whirl. Some thoughts moved sluggishly in Skywarp's processor and yet others flew at the speed of light. He processed only the briefest snapshots, new mech, enemy? Y/N? then weight, behind, threat, hateful thing. Again, Deuce's words were not processed, not registered. Hateful thing rated higher in Skywarp's disjointed thoughts than threat, weapon.

Kill, kill, kill was the overwhelmingly dominant thought in his processor. The how hadn't been decided upon but that was okay. The hateful thing was close, nearby and touching him.

Some thoughts moved faster than others. Occupying most of his processing power, Skywarp's warp drive was always at the ready, always waiting to be engaged. Aside from one continent, he had a whole planetful of co-ordinates that would take only a moment to reach. Whether or not it would the change of location would help remove the threat wasn't important. It was the presence of another unknown on the battlefield and the fact that Skywarp could not let this hateful thing get away that prompted the activation of his warp core. Isolate it. Kill it.

They'd built Skywarp to survive extreme conditions. Perhaps that sidled a deciding factor in Skywarp's choice of co-ordinates as both he and Deuce vanished in a wink of light.

Greenland.

The two aerials emerged out in Northeast Greenland National Park, just a few feet above the ground near the Elephant Foot Glacier in biting cold wind. As gravity pulled them down those last couple of feet, Skywarp's servos shot back, up over his neck, one to grab Deuce's weapon, the other to grab Deuce's other arm. He landed with a loud crack as his pedes hit hard ice, Skywarp's knees bent to brace himself. Incidentally, it also leant him power as Skywarp shook himself hard, wings flicking, trying to dislodge as well as distract Deuce from what his servos were doing. Now that the hateful thing was close, Skywarp had no intention of letting it get away again.

[Deleted]

Skywarp would be able to seize hold of Deuce's weapon - which, it turned out, was nothing more than his hand pointed in the shape of a gun - and his other arm. Deuce let out a grunt as he was tossed into the air by the hard landing, his feet losing purchase. He soared upwards, kicking madly, pinned by the hard grip around his wrists -

Skywarp's warp drive could teleport two mechs across planets. Deuce's did not have such a capability. It could not even teleport him beyond a two mile radius, not without the risk of dreadful consequences.

But there was one thing it could do.

Deuce vanished.

He reappeared half a mile behind the Decepticon, swearing loudly. He flipped around and neatly landed on the ice in a crouch, shaking his hands gingerly. Primus almighty! The Seeker had a hard grip. The nerve circuitry in his fingertips were numb and there were deep indents in the armour around his forearms. Those were was going to take forever to bang out, amazing. And where the hell was he?

He frowned as he called up his positioning system. Oh holy crap. Greenland, really? He didn't even like Nuuk Posse.

Deuce sniffed and stood up straight. He wiped flakes of drifting snow from his cheek and gave the distant Decepticon a calculating look. What he couldn't do with a warp drive like that.

Oh, the places he could go. Instantly.

His optics narrowed.

[Deleted]

The passing Alti-flavored Dad Joke fell on dead ears while Catherine tried to find a way to scramble from his hand, up his chest, and onto his shoulder. But the rust was uninviting on her hands, and so she was left to venture only so far from his palm on his arm — as far as she could get with her hand still using his thumb as a brace, but nothing would allow her to see what was going on. Alti formed an efficient protective barrier, god damn it.

But she could hear what was happening, the same way someone heard someone enter a room — a feeling deep in their ears of the pressure switching, a sudden lack of echo, or a sudden denseness in the air. The air was still again, full somehow, and she could hear Deuce’s voice from somewhere behind them. But about that time, the ground bridge had cycled up, the greenish light bathing the mech’s rust rather than reflecting. She knew already by the thudding steps, the rumbling of the engine, who it was.

“What? Yeah, I’m good.” The way she shifted in Altruous’s palm might have been uncomfortable for him, the way a rambunctious kitten would try to climb out of the palm holding and giving appearances it might fall. But Catherine was steady on her feet, obviously being used to heights and the way weight shifted when she was being carried by something much larger.

“Can you see them? What’s going—“ Bwip! “…Did they just do the thing, I can’t hear — woaw.”

Her brain traveling a thousand miles an hour stopped suddenly when she actually settled on her eyes on Layby. She couldn’t recall a time when she ever saw him like this — armor shifted and protective, weapon in hand, and the way his optics focused unshifting on the situation, all at odds with the calmness of his tone. “This is the Vector, mech just landed, -aaah… Did you say your name? Sorry.”

Layby now here, her entire demeanor seemed to change to something more focused — it always felt easier to be calm and focused when she could borrow some from him. “Layby, you know who the hell that jet is?”

[Deleted]

Altruous was not a mech who was intimidated easily, or who, at the slightest provocation, could be thrust into a state of panic from which he could scarcely catch sight of his composure let alone grasp hold of it once again. He was calm, steady, his disposition one of near unshakable tranquility which could stand, unmoved, even in the face of the most daunting circumstances.

He was, however, just as easily surprised by sudden, unexpected events as any other mech, and as such he found himself more startled by the flash of light emanating from the newly-opened groundbridge than he was frightened by the presence of the armed mech who came out of it.

He jolted a bit, optics widening slightly as a flash of green light bathed him and the nearby landscape in its glow. He blinked against the harsh brightness, the hand that held Cat moving a bit closer to his chest, his fingers curling just a little tighter around her to form a protective cocoon. He did not know who it was who was exiting the bridge, but given the way things had gone thus far, he could only assume it was someone who wasn’t particularly friendly, while simultaneously hoping they weren’t so.

To his relief, Cat seemed to recognize the mech. Though he had a weapon at the ready, and his armor was flared out in a decidedly battle-ready fashion, Altruous found himself comforted rather than intimidated by the mech’s presence. Whoever he was, he knew Cat, and she him, and thus he had no cause to worry for her safety - or more specifically, how he would have ensured her safety, had the strange new mech actually been a threat to her. After all, there really wasn’t much he could do in such an event, aside from attempt diplomacy and make negotiations, which tended not to be a very useful course of action against those who actively wished to cause another harm for one reason or another.

It was for this reason he favored Layby with a small, grateful smile, silently thanking him for the simple act of not being undeterrably hostile and violent. This same smile was then directed down at Cat, when she, like he had earlier, forgot their earlier introduction and struggled to recall his name. It did his spark good to know he wasn’t the only one who had made that same blunder.

“Altruous.” He supplied in an undertone, interjecting just long enough to answer the question asked of him, so that he would not interrupt whatever it was Layby had to say to Cat, or vice versa.

While he allowed the two time to speak, he turned his head slightly to glance over his shoulder, his mouth thinning slightly as he let out a thoughtful hum and wondered just where it was the other two mechs disappeared to. Or what they were doing to each other.

Oh, but he did hope at least one of them would be sensible enough to teleport out of the other’s reach and avoid fighting altogether.

[Deleted]

An increment of the tension in Layby's faceplates eased away, the corners of his mouth lifting in relief. His systems, however, remained as primed for battle as they had been a second ago. Cat was safe, and so was the Neutral she'd come out with Deuce to retrieve.

Deuce... looked to be up to his optics in teleporter trouble, which Layby wanted as little to do with as possible. Personal warp drives were mercifully rare, and he'd never seen two in direct combat like this before. It was as crazy as he'd imagined it would be, and the repeated usage of jump technology was fugging up the air something awful. It was an intangible thing - not a smell nor an electromagnetic resonance, exactly, but something about the area reeked of a universe being bent and slid around with physics that honestly made the soldier's helm hurt.

Layby kept a wary optic out for them as he came to stand with Cat and Altruous, the shotgun coming up to rest at his shoulder. Unless his human companion stayed behind held by either himself or the Vector, she'd be on the ground, and thus the last place he wanted to peacefully angle any weaponry.

He extended a large hand to the new mech. "Sorry it ain't the welcome yeh might've expected, Vector. Thanks fer picking up Cat, here, whilst those two idiots blip about. Glad yeh're both safe."

To Cat, Layby shook his head with a rough, irritated sigh. "Not a long list of Decepticons who can warp like that, and none of 'em are good news. Would rather yeh both got back to Haven right now. Deuce can take care of himself."