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

[Hellion]

If Hellion’s face wasn’t deeply tucked away inside her alternate mode, one might’ve been able to perceive the faintest glimpse of a smirk as Nokta’s attempt to vault over her instead resulted in the wraith colliding with her. The sound of the Decepticon impacting with her alt-mode and then being practically sent over her windshield was a satisfying one, especially after all the grief his tricks had given her.

But good things never last, and Hellion’s victory was short-lived. She could feel Nokta clinging to her form, and then suddenly, a ripping, tearing pain. Hellion cried out suddenly as a splatter of blue streaked through the air, Nokta’s knife plunging deep into the rear of her alt mode. The femme swerved, losing control, her form shaking and wobbling in the air like a leaf suspended by cobweb in a storm, fighting to stop herself going over.

The second knife sealed the deal. Though it drew a considerably smaller toll of damage from the femme, it nonetheless hurt her enough to send her careening over. In a last ditch effort to turn things her way, she began to transform, plates and panels shifting as her arm drove forward from the side of her vehicle form, a hand pressing against the ground in an attempt to perform a handspring of sorts.

Further transformation followed, the rest of Hellion’s root mode emerging from the Cybertronian hatchback, now in a tumble with Nokta practically grabbing on for dear life. Though the femme tried to practically kick him loose, it did have one drawback, as one of the knives clung to tore deeper into her chassis, leaving quite the unfortunately deep cut on what was now her right shoulderpad - having punctured through the thick plate and even into the mechanisms below.

The pain of the wound put an end to any sort of control Hellion might have had over her landing. Though she’d succeeded in managing to send Nokta careening away from herself, her own impact with the ground was anything but graceful. She clattered across the ice with a skid, trailing scratch marks all the way across the snow. When the femme finally came to a halt, she exhaled for a moment, before beginning the task of rising to her feet.

Her prior injury to the back of her leg, and now to her shoulder made picking herself up a difficult task, especially with the immense weight on her back, but Hellion was practically praising Primus that she hadn’t ended up on her back. In a predicament like that, she would’ve been nothing short of a sitting duck for Nokta to prey upon. The femme hoisted herself to her feet, gazing across the snow at where her foe had landed. With her right arm in a more dire state than the left, she raised her left, aiming at the Decepticon, warmth and energy racing through the Aegis Blaster mounted to it as she opened fire with a barrage of bolts. Their rapid fire and wide spread was intended to trail and pin the wraith, an attempt to keep him down and riddle him with gunfire so that Crescent could make easier work of him with his rifle.

[Crescent]

Missing a chunk of his wing was no doubt making things harder for Crescent. His options were so very, very limited. Using a missile or two would have certainly turned the tides in their favor, but it was too risky to fire them off at ground level. He couldn't get close to Nokta either, as Hellion was currently letting off a dense barrage of blaster fire in his direction.

He felt useless, and he hated it.

The next Decepticon that so much as looked at his wings for a second too long was getting a bullet where the sun doesn’t shine.

Dull aftershocks of pain rippled through the aforementioned injured limbs, causing him to pause and grit his teeth. He pushed through the discomfort, however, and remained focused. His rifle was all he had to work with right now, so he'd make the most of it. This time, however, the seeker would drop down on one knee, balancing himself and getting into a proper firing position before taking aim. He let off as many shots as he could,  rotating to try and trace Nokta’s movements to the best of his ability as he charged towards the femme. After stopping to quickly reposition himself, he would let off another round of bullets, though at varying heights, as he had done before. One at helm level, one at midsection level, and one near the legs.

[Nokta]

Despite the rather uncomfortable position he’d found himself in clinging to the femme’s alt mode, the oh-so-sweet splatter of neon blue blood that caught in his mouth and draped over his faceplates had made it all worthwhile. A cruel, haggard chuckle had begun climbing its way out from the depths of his blistered throat, his arm swinging wide to arc over his head in preparation to tear into the femme once more with deadly steel.

How fortunate then, for Hellion, that she finally decided her plan had not been so well thought out after all. The Autobot’s transformation sequence resulted in a violent tangle of bodies, with Nokta blindly hacking and slashing at what he could. His attempts were not in vain, it would seem, as he felt one of his blades catch on armor plating as it reformed in a far from negligible way.

Having been in the air longer than Hellion, Nokta himself ended up sailing a distance further than Hellion by a few dozen meters. The mech dug his knives into the ice upon impacting its unforgiving surface, quickly sliding to a stop. Quick to rise, despite his injuries, while pain was certainly felt it was quickly subdued and didn’t show itself in his expression. What did though, was a bottomless hatred and spite for the mecha standing before him.

All bets were off now, there existed no regard for the femme’s sudden barrage of gunfire as he began walking forward. Gradually, red blossomed over his frame. What had been a series of dead and lifeless biolight veins across his body became an array of neon crimson. Two white limbal rings gave way to a flood of sanguine magma within his optics that flared outward in force, as though some layer of greater self control had begun peeling away from the lieutenant's stoic façade in favor of something else.

A shot directly to the shoulder would finish the process in spades as the left side of his body twisted back from the impact, obscuring his face momentarily. As he turned back to face Hellion and Crescent, it was clear that layer which had served to distinguish Nokta from anything more than a rageful beast had evaporated completely. Staring back at the Autobots was an animal that seemed to only wear the mesh of the Cybertronian standing in front of them. A husk staring back at its prey with nothing more than hungry bloodlust.

Horrifically, Hellion’s blast would not seem to stop his advance. There was no acknowledgment of it in his body language, even as energon poured from his wound.

Another snarl, long, low– drawn out like an ache. This time guttural, reverberant, echoing outwards across the frigid wastes and carrying on the wind where it would dig its putrid roots into their very cores to ensure it would not soon be forgotten.

Though the beast had seemingly gotten what it wanted, its own form bloodied by the energon of Autobots– it was not enough. It hungered to see them spread out across the valley of ice in front of him until it was an ocean of blue. 

Just as this mech with the gaze of a beast seemed ready to lunge forward once more, a stray rifle shot would hammer his leg, taking his footing out from beneath him and forcing him down to one knee with a gargled howl. He quickly reached into himself– either making for a holster or some other form of subspace– but it would all come to a harsh stop as a second round ricocheted off one of the  horns atop his helm.

And just like that– the color drained from his frame. Nokta collapsed into the snow, his body a black mass instantly made indistinguishable with the icy ground in the darkness.

The deathly lack of sound or movement from the Decepticon would creep in quickly, perhaps leading the Autobot pair into a false sense of security.

It would disappear with another bleak cloud of gray smoke that spewed out of the snow Nokta had collapsed into. Their view of the wraith was quickly obscured once more, all the while the smoke pellet provided an ominous hiss as the thick clouds fissured out into the open air.

It had not been a few seconds then before a violent and sudden volley of fuschia-colored blaster fire sprouted forth from the smoky clouds, keeping the Autobots on their toes. And then, nothing.

A long, torturous silence followed as the smoke cleared. Taking its place was a pair of tire tracks that led seemingly to nowhere– like the beast had been plucked from reality itself, back to their nightmares where it belonged.

The wraith was gone.

[Hellion]

Hellion watched with unease as the body before her changed, colours shifting with a menacing glare. Whoever the hell this Decepticon was, he wasn’t normal. But Hellion had faced the abnormal before, and given it the same treatment she was now. Overwhelming gunfire.

But even that didn’t seem to slow the beast before her, and stoic as she was, that unease was rising. Nokta was allowing himself to get hit, and the impacts were visible, and yet still his advance didn’t halt. There was little Hellion could do but keep firing, and as her weapon began to overheat, she dropped her arm, raising her left so the Aegis Blaster there could continue the work of its partner.

Of course, the wound on her shoulder made such a task far less envious, with the femme visibly struggling to raise her arm. And as bolts of energy blossomed forward from the barrel of the weapon, it was evident that the recoil was taking its toll, wearing her down further. Her aim was far less steady, less accurate than before, but it didn’t matter. She just needed to hit Nokta. She needed him to go down.

It was hard to hear over the sound of such rapid gunfire. But what Hellion heard next, she heard clear as day. The impact of a rifle, striking her target. Crescent had figured out just what the Wrecker was trying to do, and taken his chance. The femme watched with satisfaction as the shot took the footing out from under her opponent, and she didn’t dare let up the barrage now. Then another shot, seemingly to the head, and Hellion began to believe that they might have actually put this damn thing down.

As Nokta collapsed, Hellion moved to aim her weapon at him, ready to confirm the kill, only to hear the frustrating overheat warnings resounding in her helm. No matter, this was why she carried two weapons. But in the time it took to raise the second Aegis Blaster, there was only smoke as Nokta's corpse seemingly vanished. It didn’t stop her from peppering the area with what rapid gunfire that she could, only to see it returned from out of the smoke. Fortuitously, only one of the bolts grazed the femme’s shoulder, and not the one that the Wraith had already plunged his knife into.

But that was where her luck ended. The tire tracks, fading smoke and empty snow indicated all but one thing. Hellion’s quarry had returned to the shadows. And though she dared to hope that perhaps their aggressor had finally left, she remained on alert, both arms out ahead of her as she searched for any sign of the wraith.