(DONE) Ep. 1.5 - Mercy, that's Cold [Wheeljack]

[Deleted]

Wheeljack observed the hits with cool satisfaction. The big mech had taken damage but he wasnt out of the fight yet. Just meant the Wrecker had to work a little harder.

Out of the flat top of the cliff, there was far less cover. No walls or boulders for Wheeljack to use as spring boards for his wild acrobatics. The Wrecker rolled to the side to avoid the plasma fire but a shot caught him on the upper arm. He grunted but allowed no further reaction to the wound, his armour had weathered the shot fairly well.

The Wrecker's optics narrowed as the Con again yelled at him to come close. Fortress Maximus was almost as big as the Decepticon himself. Wheeljack might be tough but he also wasn't stupid, the Con had a few extra limbs and a lot more strength but he was almost pathetic at a distance. Had this been a real mission, rather than a personal one, one with a vital objective that Wheeljack needed to accomplish quickly, he might have been tempted to move in, fight rashly. Before, he'd refused to rise to the bait when there had been energon he'd been planning to blow. Wheeljack could leave now, there was nothing really stopping him from doing so. He was fast enough to get to a ground bridge before the Con could even hope to catch him.

It was because of this assurance that he was taking his time. Leisurely stripping the Con piece by piece. The mech's bad aim was making this easy.

"Dunno Con," he replied lazily, giving a cold smile. "Sounding a bit flustered there? Thought you were having fun, having trouble fighting back. Sounds like to me now you're feeling a little bit helpless. So tell me, is it all that it is cracked up to be? Because I can pull you apart slowly all cycle if I have to and yet you seemed to really enjoy it so much when you gave me that delightful little lecture just now."

Wheeljack was deliberately forcing himself to remain calm. Anger burned beneath his cool veneer but he would not give the Decepticon satisfaction by regarding the degrading words with any importance. They held power only if Wheeljack let them and in this he absolutely refused to allow his regard for Fort Max to be swayed. He had, in fact, completely scrubbed the actual wording from his memory core already. The warden was entitled to his privacy, to have his trauma left in the distant past. Wheeljack would not taint their association by holding on to such hurtful words.


The Wrecker cocked an optic ridge when the Con transformed and tried to charge him. Wheeljack fired as few shots as he swiftly turned, folding into alt mode and taking off. He'd put some distance between the two before changing quickly back to root mode and resume shooting again. He could do it again and again, rapdily changing back and forth for as long as it took to wear the Decepticon down.

He meant what he said. Wheeljack could and would do this all cycle, if he had to.

OOC: BD landed a shot on WJ's upper arm but it didn't do much damage. WJ fired a few shots before he changed back to alt-mode to put some distance between him an BD

[Deleted]

The cybuffalo-like Deception charged, mud spitting from his wheels as his move furrowed the earth. The ground was as thick and slick as oil, the dump truck skidding from side to side as he blindly went after Wheeljack. He wouldn't let the Wrecker get away, not again losing to a Prime-fragging, Unicron-sparked, piston-sucking, wheelgrinding son-of-a glitch that was that Wrecker —

The screaming of jets was barely heard above his own fury. Their armour flashing with sudden lightning, the storm intensifying as time had passed, two air support Vehicons were now blasting towards Wheeljack. They fired missiles haphazardly at him, having trouble aiming from the wind and rain; two hit near Buffalo Dump, and the mech skidded to a stop. Blue was dripping and dribbling from his wounds, and he ex-vented heavily in ragged, angry pants.

He was so close. So close to just ending the trashfragger and keeping him from his men, from B-Dump's brothers-in-arms, from any other Vehicon the bastard came across. The garbage mech's HUD protested in difference; B-Dump's display was alive with glyphs of warning, of Energon gloss and the fact he had no lights to see in the dark with. Cold and pain was beginning to settle into the mech, and he transformed rapidly and aimed his blaster.

With a denta-clenched string of Neocybexian curses, B-Dump fired wildly at Wheeljack, spraying and hoping for something to hit.

//ooc//

SPOILER: Click to show

Blow-By-Blow: B-Dump tries to keep going after Wheeljack. Two jet-Vehicons came as cavalry and fired between four and six missiles at Wheeljack, two hitting near B-Dump (but doing no damage). B-Dump transforms into his root mode and fires his blaster in a spray-'n'-pray motion at Wheeljack.

[Deleted]

Vehicons.

Wheeljack folded out of alt-mode but kept moving. He twisted as he ran, attempting to shoot the missiles out of the sky, his cannon fire lighting up the darkened sky and helping him aim. One of his shots caught one missile, the detonation set off a nearby one. The last, the Wrecker just barely dodged out of its way. Barely, but that was good enough for a Wrecker, even as mud, dirt and shrapnel was sent flying, obscuring Wheeljack's shape for the moment and singing his plating a little. He'd lived, he'd done more damage to himself working in his own lab and the encounter had not deterred him the slightest.

Hmph. Vehicons. Always lousy shots. Just like big and ugly over there. Wheeljack had his swords drawn again, reflecting laser fire as he dodged and weaved backwards, increasing the distance between them. By doing so gave him more time to react to the shots and made him harder to hit, some of them harmlessly splattered past him, way off. Hmm….to get in close or just let the big mech tire himself out? Acutely aware of the Vehicons circling somewhere round his head, the Wrecker frowned to himself. How long could he rely on the bad weather and terrible aim before they became an actual threat? Would they still shoot at him if he got close to ugly over there?

Nah, Wheeljack decided. He was gonna pick the guy off at a distance, working the range advantage. Moving in close would just ruin this whole thing. It would be giving power back to the Decepticon, giving him a little bit of control over the fight. And after the Con had struck at Fort Max's own helplessness, Wheeljack was only too happy to allow his opponent flounder powerlessly against him.

Just keep shooting Con. Every shot lit up the ground, helping Wheeljack get a fix on the big mech's location in the dark. Wheeljack didn't fire back initially because a target lock was building in his processor and he didn't want the Con to move. It was only when the lock was complete that Wheeljack quickly stowed his blades away, rolled out of the way from the last couple of shots and came up firing.

OOC: Wheeljack transformed once the Vehicons appeared and shot one missile out of the sky, blowing up another one. He just barely dodged the last missile. He pulled out his swords and deflected a few of BD's shots while Wheeljack put some distance between the two of them, making him harder to hit. He kept dodging, using the light from BD's laser fire to build a targeting lock on BD's position. It isn't very good and he'll lose it pretty quickly if BD moves again

[Deleted]

There was a loud, squelching huff from Buffalo Dump, the sound resembling a cross between a hand going up a slimy pipe and a ragged cough. He staggered off to the side, his shooting arm drooping as lancing pains ran up from his wounds and his face. His HUD fritzed with static, firewalls dropping for a second as his field was filled with pain. He fell to one knee, panting and huffing, and gagged on a wad of Energon in his throat.

More of the sickly-looking stuff fell to the ground, and Buffalo Dump's vision doubled. He was struck with a sense of vertigo, of unease and creeping-crawling up his lines. Shakily, he lifted a hand to his comm., the pain in his face cascading into an oncoming migraine.

::Buffalo Dump...to Nemesis...:: the titan wheezed. ::Requesting...transport.... Kind of havin' a problem here....::

He coughed loudly and wetly, the force of the hack enough to jerk his hand away from his radio. "Unicron fraggin'..." he began to mutter, digging thick digits into the mud to try and keep himself from tipping over. He was becoming aware of a burning sensation in his chest, right where Fortress Maximus had nailed him a week before.

[Deleted]

Go fetch some stupid fragging groundpounder, they'd said. Skywarp idly twiddled his thumbs as the order came through. They didn't have time to send a squad and the condition Buffalo Dump was in, didn't sound like he'd make it to a groundbridge. Or if they did send one, whoever the dirt eater was tumbling with might be able to sneak one aboard the Nemesis.

Basically, it came down to Command didn't feel like wasting a groundbridge -understandable, Skywarp had scoffed, grounders were useless things- and had instead simply settled on sending Skywarp to kill the Autobolt giving them trouble -cool!- and retrieve one pathetic excuse for a soldier -not understandable, Skywarp had internally screeched.

Externally, too.

::WHAT?::

The order were repeated over his comm line along with Buffalo Dump's latest co-ordinates. Skywarp scowled in the general direction of the bridge but obligingly, he kicked his warp drive into gear and vanished with a wink of light. He appeared right beside the large grounder, ignoring the unpleasant downpour of rain. The Seeker was about to snake one servo over the big mech so he could dump him back on the Nemesis and kill the Autodolt giving them trouble -no wait. Kill the Autodolt first, then take the grounder back to base.

This decision was helped by the fact that the energon leaking from Buffalo Dump? Didn't look right at all. As a mech who spent much time gleefully ripping apart Autobots and neutrals whenever he could, constantly soaked in the energon of his opponents, the colour immediately stood out to him as Something Not Quite Right. Gore didn't bother Skywarp normally but he grimaced and backed up. Yuck, yuck, yuck, this stuff looked rancid. And he was supposed to take this disgusting example of a grounder back to the Nemesis? Not happening because Skywarp was refusing to touch him.

"Ewwwww," he said, towering over the dirt eater and completely ignoring the Wrecker, for the moment. Skywarp also ignored that Buffalo Dump was bleeding out, because quite frankly, it would be a kindness to everyone if the grounder died right here and now. "You're gross. Like, really gross. And, oooh. Are you dying? Because you look like you are," Skywarp rocked back and forth on his heels. "Well, sucks to be you," he said unsympathetically.

A burst of laser fire at Buffalo Dump attracted Skywarp's attention. "Don't worry," Skywarp assured the grounder. "I'm just gonna take care of the Autodolt. Try not to die before I get back to you."

Mistake number one?

The Autodolt should have tried shooting Skywarp instead Buffalo Dump. Slowly, lethargically, the large Seeker began to trundle towards the Wrecker, ready to deal out some pain and death.

Mistake number two?

He probably should have run while he had the chance.

[Deleted]

Seeker.

Make that one fragging big Seeker. One that hadn't been there a moment ago. Wheeljack frowned to himself. That...hadn't been a normal groundbridge. Too small, too precise, it had shut off too quickly as well. Damn, what was he dealing with? And who, Autobot intelligence hadn't picked up the addition of this Seeker to the Decepticon forces. Faint traces of unease began to crawl inside him as he evaluated the situation, though with typical Wrecker bravado, Wheeljack ignored it.

Two aerial Vehicons, a Seeker and the grounder Wheeljack was going to send to the Matrix. The Wrecker shifted his weight, ready in a combat stance. Most mecha wouldn't be seriously considering to fight on and yet Wheeljack was preparing to do just that. That didn't mean he was ignorant to the danger he was in, it'd take only a couple of moments to have a groundbridge called to his location.

Wheeljack raised his cannons one last time and fired at Buffalo Dump. That prodded the Seeker into action, the behemoth turned in his direction and started to slowly plod towards him. Wheeljack turned his guns on the Seeker.

His aim was dead on. His laserfire splashed against the Seeker who…

Didn't even flinch.

As it turned out, being built to handle the extremities of deep space meant that Skywarp was very difficult to damage. Wheeljack's shots were regarded as nothing more than annoying stings as they singed the Seeker's armor. Skywarp's joints were a little less armored and a good spot to aim for but Wheeljack had been shooting for his spark. Many layers of plating protected Skywarp's chassis, where both his warp core and spark were contained.

Frowning, Wheeljack abandoned his cannons as the Seeker got close. He unsheathed his blades, falling back into a combat stance.

Bring it, Decepticon.

[Deleted]

Water was seeping into his internals and dripping onto fraying wires. Every part of Buffalo Dump was twinging now, and his venting was unnecessarily heavy for the fighting he'd been doing. The sudden appearance of the bulky Seeker sent more pain ripping through his neural circuits; the sudden burst of light was not good for his eyesight. His optics went black for a moment, and he realized it wasn't because his shutters had fallen over them.

"Ewwwww," he said, towering over the dirt eater and completely ignoring the Wrecker, for the moment. Skywarp also ignored that Buffalo Dump was bleeding out, because quite frankly, it would be a kindness to everyone if the grounder died right here and now. "You're gross. Like, really gross. And, oooh. Are you dying? Because you look like you are," Skywarp rocked back and forth on his heels. "Well, that sucks for you," he said unsympathetically.

Primus. Of all the fraggin' people and and places in the world, it had to be Skywarp to appear in the middle of the fight. Vision and its colour slowly returning to him, Buffalo Dump grit his denta again and said, "Yeah...sucks really bad, but uh...if y'don't mind, Skywarp, there's an Autobrander over there...."

He weakly gestured with one servo, digits loose. Said digits were nearly blown off by the laser fire, which hit him right in the upper arm those digits were attached to. With a loud grunt, Buffalo Dump faceplanted into the mud, yet more of his corrupted Energon seeping out onto the soil. Hopefully Skywarp wouldn't step in it, and be disgusted enough to end the garbage mech.

At least Wheeljack had the Seeker's attention, for now.

[Deleted]

Skywarp's thoughts to being hit in the chassis with laser fire could basically be summed up as;

Well, that stings.

The Seeker broke out into a run at that. The ground shook at his approach as his pedes pounded into the wet earth. He could, of course, easily teleport behind the silly Autodolt and rip out the Wrecker's spark, but where was the fun in that? Besides, if he killed the bot too quickly, then the sickly grounder they'd sent him to fetch might actually still be alive when he returned. Skywarp snarled a warning to the aerial Vehicons circling above in the rain. This was his kill and any of them that interfered would probably get their head crushed later. If he could find them. If not, he'd probably just crush the nearest hapless Vehicon.

They broke off whatever ill-fated plan they had and Skywarp stopped paying attention to the Vehicons. Large and thunderous, his charge could not have been more obvious to the Wrecker. Wheeljack leapt back, out of the way of the fist intended for his face. He flanked the Seeker and swung a blade at Skywarp, who simply blocked it with one armoured forearm.

Skywarp snaked his other servo over to grab the sword but Wheeljack quickly pulled his blade back. The Wrecker crossed his swords in front of him defensively. Not a moment too soon as Skywarp lashed at him with his own talons. The Seeker forced Wheeljack back...the distance between the Wrecker and a nasty drop off the cliff was decreasing.

In all honestly, Wheeljack was lagging. He wasn't as fast as he could be and he was already facing an upwards battle against Skywarp's superior strength and durability. The earlier battle with Buffalo Dump had drained some of his energy. Despite this, he battled on. Skywarp on the other hand was fresh and had plenty of energy. He just wasn't expending all of it because pffffft. This Autodolt was supposed to be a threat? Skywarp was a slow fighter, his ability to shrug off most damage gave him the luxury of time, enough time for his processor to keep up with the fight. It helped, his intuitive understanding of physics and spatial dimensions allowed him to quickly comprehend the amount of force behind a blow and whether or not he could take it.

"Gonna kill you," Skywarp crooned as he swung at Wheeljack with his heavy fists. "Gonna rip your head right off."

Wheeljack dodged back, water and mud splashing as his pedes dug into the ground. Despite himself, the Wrecker snorted. The Seeker he was up against was tough, abnormally so. He didn't think they' built them this large either. Still, the Wrecker remained undaunted. "Yeah, good luck with that." He kicked off and charged forward, leaping for Skywarp with a downward slash.

Skywarp raised both arms and blocked against the attack. The blades dug into his forearms slightly and Skywarp's servos curled around their tips. The Wrecker kicked him hard in the shins but it was not enough to deter Skywarp. He grabbed the swords with his armored servos, wrenching them forward and yanking Wheeljack as well by extension. The Wrecker's pedes dug deep into the ground but he didn't have enough traction, he was drawn forward, right into the crushing head-butt Skywarp brought down against his forehead.

Dazed, the Wrecker reeled back, managing to retain his grip on his weapons, as Skywarp released the swords. The Seeker had done so that he could lash out with one hard fist. His fist crashed into Wheeljack's faceguard, smacking the Wrecker's head back and flinging him over the ground.

Wheeljack's body hit the dirt hard, skipping the ground a couple of times and eventually dragging to a stop near the edge. Skywarp merely cocked his head and waited to see if the Wrecker would get back up or if he'd hit him hard enough to put him out of the fight. Wheeljack stirred with a groan, battle protocols forcing his awareness to come surging back, dispelling the dizziness. He was quick to climb back to his feet, giving his helm a shake to focus. Warily, Wheeljack kept watch on Skywarp, choosing not to attack as he defensively stepped to the side, moving away from the ledge.

Skywarp's attention span was notoriously short. He'd taken the Wrecker's measure and found it...lacking. The Seeker knew he could take Wheeljack, so now it came down to figuring out ways to extend the fight long enough to keep things interesting. Or maybe, Skywarp turned his head to eye the other reason he was here.

Well. The silly Autodolt had shot the stupid grounder instead of Skywarp when he had the chance.

Hmmmm…

What to do, what to do...

[Deleted]

Deep beneath the surface, in an underground pocket not yet reached by the minors, smoke and a blue glow filled stale air. Unseen for eons, unnoticed thanks to the poor conditions of the mine, a pocket of potent Energon began to light. Cyan and sky-blue fire creeping up the crystals, the delicate and dangerous structures cracking with the heat, near-invisible veins reached for the surface like the branches of a tree. They crackled and went alight, hot and roiling against the rock, stone hissing where it melted and shifted from the temperature.

A crack would form beneath Skywarp's foot, a sharp smell wafting out. White-blue lines would spiderweb from it, another crack appearing a metre away from the Seeker. One would reach up the edge of the cliff and towards Wheeljack, bluish smoke beginning to rise and twirl in the rain.

POP! Ksssss.... POP! Ksssssss.... The cliff began to be covered in cracks, the pops and hisses turning into small booms. Buffalo Dump winced away from the light, his field flaring in alarm as the ground broke beneath one servo. Something intensely hot licked at his right servo, scorching his hand; the grounder yelped and scrambled backwards. Blue fires now spouted from random sections of the breaking-up ground.

"ENERGON FIRE!" B-Dump bellowed. His tank and spark lurched as he realized the extent of how much Energon had been missed due to the conditions the miners had had to deal with. The entire cliff was going to blow, and he, Skywarp and the Wrecker would be charred hunks if they didn't run.

[Deleted]

The ground sunk under the big Seeker's weight. Frowning, Skywarp diverted his gaze to the treacherous rocks beneath him as he tried to regain his footing. In that moment, while he was looking away, Wheeljack finally called for the ground bridge he should have summoned ages back.

Nimbly, the Wrecker navigated his way up to the portal, dodging the gouts of fire as the ground shook and shuddered beneath him. He glanced back for half an astrosecond. ::You and me, we have unfinished business, Ugly:: he broadcasted on an open channel. Then, swiftly, Wheeljack slipped through, the portal closing quickly behind him.

Skywarp was caught up in the ooooh, look at the ground breaking beneath me and check out that pretty fire thing and had ignored the Wrecker's escape completely. Not even the ground bridge had been enough to catch his attention. Cheerfully, he hopped from one foot to the other as the rocks crumbled away. His helm had snapped up at the transmission, but it was already too late, the Autodolt was gone. Those orange optics showed no emotion, the loss of the Autobot was unfortunate but there was always next time, Skywarp assumed. Instead, reluctantly, the Seeker treaded over to fetch his other mission objective, the one he'd almost completely forgotten about.

Just as he reached Buffalo Dump and brought a large pede down, blue fire escaped from the ground beneath him. It was incredibly hot and yet the seeker barely felt it, placing his pede down all the same and merely continuing on. Skywarp loomed large above Buffalo Dump and yet made no move to help the big mech up.

"This is great," he laughed, seemingly ignorant to the danger they were all in.

[Deleted]

B-Dump glared at the retreating Wrecker, but said nothing in reaction to his comment. The garbage mech staggered to his feet, jumping out of the way of a blast of fire that nearly raked across his chassis. He almost tipped over, hands on his knees as another sharp pang went through his chest. His legs shook, and though his field shifted in disbelief at Skywarp's comment, he managed to think quickly through the pain.

"I promise ya, it'll get even better," said the mech semi-cheerily, huffing between words, "but...but we need a better view. How about you and I get off of this hunk o' rock, and we watch as it goes boom and makes all sortsa pretty colours?"

The Vehicons had said that Skywarp was fairly stupid, for lack of a better word — for once, B-Dump believed them. He hoped that the idea of watching the explosion from afar, in all its destructive and vicious glory, would be enough to get Skywarp to make some distance.

Preferably with Buffalo Dump in tow.

[Deleted]

Disgust filled Skywarp's expression as he took in Buffalo Dump properly. Part of it was because the grounder was trying to tell him what to do and the other part was because he still didn't want to touch the gross thing. In fact, he still was very much undecided whether he was going to save the dirt eater or not.

He drummed his fingers boredly but then Command came over his comms, demanding that he got a move on with the whole thing. Skywarp huffed loudly but hooked one finger carefully into a ridge in Buffalo Dump's armor, clear of any of that rancid energon. They vanished in a wink of light, appearing out on another rocky outcrop only a few kilometers. As soon as they appeared, the Seeker retrieved his servo and backed away from the grounder. There. Done. The dirt eater was safe. Ish. Still bleeding out but not Skywarp's problem.

"If you're gonna die, don't tell me," Skywarp said, wandering up to the edge of the new cliff. His sharp optics were zoomed in and fixated on the fiery island of pretty fire colours. "'m watching slag explode."

[Deleted]

B-Dump gave a coughing grunt in reply, and Skywarp would not be disappointed.

It started as a series of small booms, spreading up from the mine and intensifying in jagged lines. Blue, white and cyan flames danced and leapt towards the sky, licking at the stars with hungry, destructive tongues. There was the sound of great rock cracked and simmering, followed by a loud BANG as a large chunk fell into the sea. The resulting gap revealed nothing but Energon-fed fire, the hole in the isle's side resembling a lit wound.

A second BANG would send fissures through the top of the island, and more stone fell into the water. The hissing and snapping of molten rock and breaking pieces was echoing loudly over the waves; the light was blinding to B-Dump. As the grounder looked away, a giant plume flew up from the heart of the island, bluish smoke the herald of a small shockwave.

And then, in the span of two seconds, the heart of the cliff exploded. The sound was like thunder and a bursting engine all at once; a greater shockwave swept over the sea, and would smack into Skywarp like a brick wall. B-Dump was flipped over a couple of times by the force, and rock was sent flying into the air. Large, sizzling chunks struck the ocean not ten metres from where Skywarp stood, sending up burst of boiling water and plumes of steam. The air was acrid, almost eye-wateringly so, and a gaping hole in the side of the tiny island was nothing but flickering white.

Buffalo Dump coughed once, then twice. A message came over his comm. and Skywarp's, Breakdown's angry voice demanding to know where they were.

- fin -