[ti]Ep 3.5[/ti]Rock and Patrol [Avalanche]

[Hellion]

Episode 3.5 | Week 2 | Day 1

Hellion was already being called to serve - a routine patrol, nothing major by any means, but something that at least signalled to Hellion just the kind of state that the Autobots were in. Low on Energon, hiding in disguise, sheltering inside an abandoned human military base. It had only been days since her arrival on Earth, since her brawl in the antarctic, the introductions and patch-up job that followed. In a way, she was almost surprised that she hadn’t been sent back out there sooner.

Patrols could be exciting, but such wasn’t often the case. Not without Decepticon intervention, at least. But Hellion found a sort of peace in the monotony of a routine patrol, it was almost comfortable in a way. The solitude gave her the opportunity to think, to focus, schematics for weapons and upgrades running through her mind.

Of course, solitude was hard to hard achieve when not alone, not without a mutual desire for that kind of peace and quiet. Once more, the femme would have to socialize, this time a fruit borne from the “buddy system” employed on Earth. At least on this occasion, Hellion’s “buddy” was a superior officer, and the femme wouldn’t begrudge the opportunity to get a little more familiar with the chain of command. And moreover, orders were orders.

Hellion marched into the Control Room, making her way to the Groundbridge Controls, then standing aside. She’d made all of her checks beforehand; maintenance on the Aegis Blasters carried out, ammunition for the Steelhammers loaded into her backpack, her wounds healed and her body fighting fit. She was ready for a battle, even if she wasn’t seeking one. But any day was a good day to wreck some Decepticons.

Now all that remained was waiting for her buddy, a femme named Avalanche. Hellion had done a little research in advance, glancing through the roster to find out what she could on the femme and reading up on what was available to someone with her clearance. A seemingly no-nonsense soldier, at least from what Hellion could ascertain from the records. A commander too, someone with the sensibilities of a leader. All good traits in Hellion’s eyes, even more so for someone she’d have to spend a patrol with.

[Avalanche]

As ever, Avalanche's presence could be felt before she was seen, her heavy footsteps thrumming through the concrete underfoot like the approach of a large Cretaceous carnivore. Bulky, scarred and battleworn, there was a blunt, brutal simplicity to her design that betrayed her brawler nature. Orange optics with ring-pupils and black sclera glowed brightly from beneath heavy brow plates, the twin spiked rows of knuckle dusters hinged back over the back of her armoured hands.

"Helion," she greeted as she stepped into the command centre. "Commander Avalanche." Her voice was a deep, feminine rumble, firm and to the point. There were officers who'd make small talk at this point, asking how she was finding her bunk and so on. Avalanche was not one of those officers. She paused, gaze moving over the small femme, taking in the chunky broadness of her design, and the probable weapon loadout she was equipped with. Then, after a long moment of that measuring gaze, she nodded. Some measure of approval there, at least.

"We'll be patrolling the nearby territory. Getting you familiar with the terrain, the driving patterns of the natives. As we go, I'll talk through your capabilities and effective roles." She crossed her thick arms over her chest, the underslung piledriver pistons gleaming silver in her forearms. "Questions. Anything you want to bring to my attention before we head out."

It was always useful to get a sense of a new mecha's persona when they were assigned to you. Her facial design was concealing, and Avalanche watched assessingly to see how how much the femme conveyed her emotions through chassis language and tone.

[Hellion]

It was the sound of footsteps that caught Hellion’s attention. She hadn’t exactly been standing at alert, but she hadn’t been slacking off either. She didn’t have anywhere to be but there was also nothing else to do, and it wasn’t like she was standing guard, given that she was in a secret base unknown to the enemy. But when she heard the sound of approaching footsteps, echoing towards her, that was when Hellion turned her gaze.

These footsteps were loud, the kind that heralded an approach long before you could even see the bot. For someone of Hellion’s stature, her footsteps were fairly audible, given the mass she was lugging about, but these steps? It almost felt like the Earth was shaking. They were the kind of footsteps that intimidated, the kind that belonged only to the larger class of bots. But that only meant one thing to Hellion.

This was going to involve a lot of looking upwards.

From a cursory glance at the approaching femme, Hellion could at least draw a few conclusions. Though Avalanche evidently towered over her, likely even twice as much, the two at least bore similar, bulky builds. Yet Hellion couldn’t make out any kind of ranged weaponry on her person. Perhaps Avalanche, like many Cybertronians, carried the kind of concealed weaponry that once activated, transformed out of the arm itself, but Hellion got the feeling that wasn’t the case. The spiked knuckles and reinforced fists indicated that perhaps that was all Avalanche had and needed. Hellion could respect that, but felt a slight degree of disappointment. The femme was a gunsmith by trade, punches and kicks would never be enough for her.

Hellion noted that there was a rumble to Avalanche’s voice as she spoke, much as how her booming footsteps resonated in the air. It seemed everything about this femme carried some kind of gravitas, the kind that commanded respect... but Hellion’s respect was not so freely given. Though the way that Avalanche carried herself - firm, succinct and to the point - at least meant that she was further along to earning it than so many others. She returned the officer’s approving nod with one of her own.

The femme maintained an unwavering gaze as Avalanche explained the mission, the patrol route and what to expect, speaking up only to answer with an “Affirmative.” once the officer had finished speaking. Hellion’s tone was flat, betraying little of any kind of emotion, given that there wasn’t any necessary in this kind of exchange. “No questions.” Even her body language was stoic, moving little as she spoke. Her battlemask, permanently raised and affixed to her face hid much of her facial expression by design, and the way that she carried herself only further demonstrated that kind of guarded ideology. Hellion was a femme that seemingly didn’t feel, or at the least, had taken great effort to appear that way.

[Avalanche]

Even by Avalanche's own taciturn standards, the shorter femme was keeping it brief and to the point. Three words, no inflections, no emotional overtones radiating from a field that was tucked tight against Hellion's hull. Barely a shift of her chassis. To be that inexpressive, either the femme barely had emotional processors, or – more likely – she'd cultivated a lack of expression purposefully.

Hellion was entitled to that. It certainly wasn't anything Avalanche intended to pry at; it was enough to get a grip on her baseline behaviour. The massive femme nodded once. "Understood." Confirming information transactions audibly was a habit drummed into her long ago; never assume body language had been noticed in the theatre of conflict, and some habits stuck. Crossing over to the central console, her thick, blunt fingers moved over the controls with the care of someone using something delicate. A chime indicated the opening of an audio status log.

"Commander Avalanche, Hellion. Departing ground entrance, local patrol. Calling in hourly."

It was a balance. On the one hand, Avalanche disliked using the ground entrance and exit; too much traffic there was a direct betrayal of the base's location. On the other hand, the ground bridge burned energon, and using it to reach a local destination near enough to familiarise Hellion with the base's surroundings was too wasteful to be countenanced. Crossing the broad expanse of concrete, the Autobot sigil fresh and sharp beneath her feet, she moved to the base exit and set it for timed opening and closing.

"Move out." The simple, terse command given, Avalanche's transformation sequence engaged; she tilted forward, her dark body forming the underchassis of a heavy, workmanlike dump truck, her cream chest plating moving forward and reconstructing into the cab. The twin shining smokestacks flanking her back gleamed, her name written in silver down the long nose of her cab. Thick, heavy bars framed her front grille, the native sign for falling rocks fastened prominently to them. Her slablike shield folded upwards, reshaping into the deep blue bed of her altmode.

There was a moment's silence. Then, the deep, tectonic growl of her engines breaking into life rang out, a surge of smoke breaking from her stacks. There was a blunt, rough forcefulness to it that matched the heavy construction mecha's personality. The camouflaging curtain of rock ground aside, her brakes released with a hiss of pneumatics, and she slowly accelerated out into the sharp, stark sunlight. Fifteen tons of armour, pneumatics and Cybertronian steels took some torque to get moving, but once she got moving, she kept moving. Broad double-tyre tracks traced out over the dusty rock, down to the main road, turning with a flash of her blinkers towards Jasper.

Her attention was split. Part of her scoured the sky, the terrain, the EM field bands she could discern, searching for any sign of the ambush that, sooner or later, always came. What remained was focused on Hellion, watching to see how she handled the road, whether she indicated, which side of the lane markers she settled. She might not know how much the other femme had been taught about navigating the local road systems, but she'd find out soon enough.

[Hellion]

As Avalanche made preparations for their departure, Hellion made sure to pay attention to the femme’s process. Procedure and protocol were important in a military hierarchy, though even before the war had left Cybertron there had been all manner of variation amongst them, not least of which was within the Wreckers. Though that was only if you could call the system in place before Ultra Magnus’ intervention a hierarchy. Avalanche was taking care not to damage the console, keying in what was necessary to record the audio log for the duo’s departure. It seemed easy enough, stating personnel, purpose and scheduling. Hellion made sure to commit that to memory.

The femme followed in Avalanche’s stride, though trying to keep pace with a femme over double her size was a bit of a taller order. At least in her alt mode such a problem was far less likely, unless the towering commander was planning on somehow turning into a luxurious supercar. From the brief array of alternate modes she’d had to choose from, Hellion found herself doubting that.

With a nod, the femme confirmed Avalanche’s order, her chassis shifting as Hellion began to transform from a reasonably small femme to a reasonably small car. The large twin pillars that formed her backpack moved to expand and take their place as much of the vehicle’s chassis, while the wheels contained inside of her chest and legs slid into place. The form she’d scanned was a fairly average hatchback, lacking much of the flash and excitement that many of her peers had adopted, though one could argue just how ostentatious the thick yellow stripe running down its center was. Hellion allowed the Commander a few moments to roll out, then followed in suit.

Getting used to a new form could be tricky, but Hellion had had a little bit of time to adjust. She’d opted to select a mode similar to the one she’d bore on Cybertron as a way of easing the process. In her original alt-mode, the femme had practically been a master behind the proverbial wheel, countless other bots were no doubt faster, but centuries of work as a courier had given the femme plenty of experience in using all manner of driving techniques to get an edge over the competition. Hellion would have this new form under control in no time.

Traffic regulations weren’t an entirely foreign concept, but even before the war threw any sort of manners to wind, Hellion hadn’t necessarily been following every rule of the road. Where other Couriers had the advantage of speed, Hellion had to be smart with her driving lines and just a little reckless with how she achieved them. But for now, following close behind Avalanche would do.

[Avalanche]

Watching behind her with attentive care, Avalanche made certain the concealing rock ground back into place before she relaxed a little. Their tyres didn't leave much impression on the rocky ground, and what hints of tyre treads were left in sandy patches would erode soon enough in the breeze.

On towards Jasper, then.

Hellion had chosen something unremarkable, as near as Avalanche could judge from the mixture of vehicles she'd seen on the roads. Good. The more they blended in, the better. As it was, some of the locals must have wondered why Jasper had become a pilgrimage site for expensive sports cars. In Avalanche's cab, her holoform crackled into life and solidity; a short, powerfully muscular woman with long black hair and skin the colour of milky coffee, wearing a sleeveless black tanktop, olive-green cargo pants with several pockets, and heavy, steel-toed black boots.

Priority list... ensure Hellion had a suitable avatar, check her understanding of road rules, coach her on interactions with the natives. After that, capabilities, preferred combat roles, useful skills, past experience.

In her cab, the avatar pulled down the mouthpiece of her CB radio, though when she spoke into it, the words were transmitted to Hellion on a decidedly non-native set of shifting frequencies.

"If we're stopped, refer all questions to me. Native name is Ava Larch. You're a hired driver to take 'me' back with you when I drop my truck at a worksite. Do you have a native avatar set up?"

[Hellion]

Hellion followed in Avalanche’s wake, her chosen alternate mode dwarfed by the Commander’s. For now, much of her focus was in keeping her eyes on the road. Driving and driving well was something that Hellion could do in her sleep, but Earth had its own rules. She would do well to pay attention, learning from Avalanche’s example as well as the lecture she likely had planned. All four wheels within the lines, staying to one side of what were two obvious lanes. No different from Cybertron in that regard, save for all the dust and muck.

The femme was chastened at that aspect somewhat, though it wasn’t totally unfamiliar to her. In the aftermath of the exodus, Hellion had continued to fight the war upon other worlds, in environments not dissimilar to Jasper if not more extreme. She had however hoped that those other worlds were to be the last she’d seen of sand, the last she’d felt of it clogging her intakes and pitting her armour. Clearly not.

“Understood.” The femme replied. Ava Larch, an obvious play on Avalanche’s name - Hellion was a little amused by it, as human names certainly seemed strange. At least Cybertronian names had meaning and purpose, something chosen or given to represent to whom it belonged. As far as Hellion could tell, human names didn’t reflect that at all, just combinations of syllables that sounded pleasing to the ear of whomever bore it.

“And negative, Commander.” Truth be told, Hellion wasn’t sure she was even fitted with a holomatter emitter. There’d never been much point to one, between service as a lowly courier and then as a warrior in the Wreckers. If she did have one… it certainly wasn’t configured, and moreover Hellion was loath to try and think of a way to contort her name so that she might pass it off as human in the same way that Avalanche had. At any rate, Hellion’s windows were tinted in the extreme, barring the possibility of anyone looking to see a car without a driver. It would have to do for now.

[Avalanche]

Wind whipped across the surface of the semi-desert, a faint, barely perceptible tingle of sand pinging against her thick plating. The road was deserted – part of the reason why the humans had chosen the spot for their missile base, as well as why they'd come to house vast, alien machines there. The ribbon of asphalt stretched off into the distance, shimmering with heat haze, cracked at the edges.

In the place of the natives... it wouldn't have been a stupid idea to bury one of their fusion devices in the floor before handing the base over. Some final insurance that if these strange living machines turned out to be hostile, or even simply too pressing in their demands, they could be wiped out of existence without warning in one white-hot flash of nuclear precaution.

She'd have to mention the thought to Prowl, and check beneath the base with seismics. Carefully, and quietly.

A displeased grunt escaped her at Hellion's reply. The number of ways this could go wrong had just escalated exponentially. The thought occurred to toss the smaller femme into her dump bed to keep her fully out of sight, but that would go against the entire point of the patrol.

"You aren't practised in how to drive here. Law enforcement notices that and stops you, the only options you'll have are bad ones."

The very first thing the local police did here was to flash their lights. Hellion might not understand it as a demand to pull over at first, which would only escalate things. Then they'd approach on foot, tell the supposed occupant to get out, or at least drop the window. Hellion couldn't do either. What then? Driving off without warning, leading to pursuit. The end of that was probably injured humans if she drove recklessly enough to get away, or being surrounded with guns levelled. Perhaps both.

"If you're able, choose one," Avalanche commanded. "If you aren't, your road access will be restricted. For today, I'll handle any trouble."

Her faux-military id would probably get them out of any traffic stops, though you never knew for certain.