Flash - It's The End of the World as They Know It

[Deleted]

Beneath her narrow hiding place the voices coming up the tunnel were growing louder. Soon she would be able to hear the sound of footsteps as well, feet stomping through the concrete and metal debris. Whoever was coming towards her was not bothering to be quiet about it. It was likely they believed their prey was dead - and alone.

The ceiling was riddled with holes. Rusted cabling knit through the gap. This honeycomb offered a cassette many beautiful positions to fire down from, not to mention excellent cover from any return fire from below. Scraps of light from the jury-rigged lamps shone up through the holes, illuminating the dust and smoke that hung in the air in a choking miasma. Down in the tunnel, one such lamp was moving.

Louder and louder came the voices. And then, visible through a hole ahead of her, the dancing shadows on the walls shrank into figures.

Three fliers tromped down the tunnel.

They were... mostly black in colour. Here and there a scrap of blue plating had been messily soldered onto them, or a dented tail fin, or maybe a red arm with an Autobot sigil on it. One of them had two mismatched wings. Another had an entire Seeker-class cockpit wired onto his head like a crash helmet. They clanked noisily as they walked. Judging from the patchwork condition of their armour they had been scrounging what they could from the bodies lying buried in the ruins. And given the motley assortment of weaponry they carried - an assault rifle here, a null ray there - there was a fair chance that some of those bodies had still been moving at the time.

One of the scavengers had a harpoon gun resting on his shoulder. He was practically skipping.

"Did you see that shot, Pike?" he said. "Pow! Right in the kisser! And with a seventy degree crosswind? Did you see the deflection on that shot? Bang!"

"Yes, very nice," the scavenger named Pike growled.

"Spinefoot, if we get to this guy and he's still alive and you launch a spear into his head like that last one, I swear to god I will punch your head up your aft, which I will also punch," said the third scavenger testily. "You do not shoot valuable quarries in the face when you're getting paid a premium to harvest brain cores. Not even when they try to run away. That's what Primus made KNEES FOR."

"Look, I already said I was sorry about that last guy."

"'I'm sorry' won't bring us his brain core back, will it?"

"Glitches, you shut up now!" hollered Pike. He massaged the sides of his helm. "God! You two are giving me tunnel vision. I can't hear myself think. Spinefoot! When we get to our corpse I want you to decapitate him. And when I say 'decapitate' I mean carefully, like surgery, not an axe bonanza. We'll get good money for his intact braincase. Stickleback, you're gonna patch into his t-cog and get him folded back into his alternate mode. Redtail is paying us a thousand shanix for every Seeker-class jet we can wire outta the sky. A thousand! He's making a mint reforging them into escape pods. So really, everyone wins. Except the dead guy, and nobody cares about him. Got it?"

"Got it, boss."

"Like surgery!"

They were almost directly beneath Fairwinds now. Despite the smoke drifting in the air she would have a near perfect shot down upon all three of them.

[Deleted]

There was an old holovid show that Fairwinds had been a devout fan of, and still retained (in both hard copy and processor space) all eighteen hundred and forty four episodes and specials of. Cyber Ninja Verse! was about a group of Ninja mercs who stole from and sabotaged the rich and corrupt, and usually gave to the poor and downtrodden. She'd queued for breems to get the whole team to sign her vidchips and absolute favourite holocube of them doing their patented Hook, Line and Sinker move. It had been The Group to play at with her fellow cassettes back when Switchback had first onlined them, though Fairwinds was the only one who hoarded merchandise.

It was a famously, fantastically awful show. Megatron said it would corrupt her processor - and that it had already done some damage. It had the most obnoxiously bouncy, 'if lasers were music' theme tune of all time, which when played at maximum volume in a destroyed tunnel on their dying and war-wrecked world took 'surprise attack' into a different dimension.

Fairwinds dived onto the nape plates of who she'd determined to be the stupidest of the lot on the opening chords, singing/screaming the lyrics as she latched on with talons and mag-clamps.

"Cyber Ninjas! Whragh-oh! Cyber Ninjas! Whragh-aaaahow!"

Her hapless victim spun wildly, simultaneously trying to snatch her off and shoot her. Fairwinds forced her beak between his plates and split the protective sheath of a data node. Her tongue lashed out, splintered apart and wove in to hack his trigger happy finger into spasm. Tiny hack, one motor relay. Hell of a mess in a closed space, though.

Hunkered down flush to the scavenger's neck and shoulder plates, Fairwinds trilled to see how much damage and maiming she could get this moron to do before she set about sniping optics. Because no one could have Air Raid's brain except her, and it looked like these guys were wearing enough parts to repair her Autobot ride.

"Cyber Ninjas! They're gonna take on all the 'verse! Cyber Ninjas! Gonna bring on all the hur-URT!"

[Deleted]

For an instant the other two scavengers could only stand and gape in slack-jawed astonishment as, by all appearances, Spinefoot went berserk. With musical accompaniment.

"Get it off!" he shrieked as he hopped in place and flailed at the back of his neck. "It's got me! Get it off me!"

"Spinefoot?" said Stickleback in bewilderment. "Are you singing?"

The leader Pike recovered first. His shock boiled into fury in a heartbeat.

"You moron!" he bellowed. "What the slag is wrong with you?!"

"It's got my brain! It's got my brain!"

Spinefoot grabbed the harpoon gun from his shoulder and levelled it at Pike. The boss gawked down the weapon's barrel.

With a ringing TWANG and a blast of pressurized air a harpoon launched. Pike ducked, and the ugly spear smashed through the Seeker cockpit strapped to his head and pinned it neatly to the wall behind him. Broken glass splashed everywhere.

"Sorry, boss!" wailed Spinefoot as he reloaded another harpoon. "Holy slag, that was a sweet shot! Did you see that?! Pow! Sorry, boss!"

Flat on his face with his hands clutched over his head, Pike screamed into the ground, "Stickleback! Take that idiot out now!"

Evidently a little brighter than either of his comrades, Stickleback had already raised his weapon, what appeared to be a rather ugly attempt to weld together a tactical scatter blaster and some kind of powered medical saw. He fired off a wild shot as Spinefoot wheeled on him, the harpoon gun glinting in the lantern light.

"Sorry, Stickleback! Haha! Watch this, little brain glitch, I'm gonna totally hit him in the throat. Kapow! Sorry, SB!"

With another explosion of smoke the harpoon gun fired. Stickleback dropped his gun and tried to prance out of the way. The harpoon hit him squarely in the shoulder and hurled him violently backwards until it struck a wall and embedded there, sending dust and shrapnel flying.

The scavenger grabbed at the harpoon in his shoulder and thrashed. It did not budge an inch.

"Boss!" he howled. "He's been hacked! It's a cassette! A cassette's got Spinefoot! It's hacked his neural net!"

"WHAT?!

Incandescent with rage, Pike spat out dirt and scrabbled to his feet. "Are you slagging kidding me?! I'll murder the little bastard! And then I'll wear him as a tie!"

[Deleted]

Fairwinds had disconnected by the time Pike fully rose, scrabbling down Spinefoot's backplates and the mess of slapped-on and strung together parts he had adorned himself with. She came about his hip when he turned with a flail, reaching to snatch at the still-burning contact point at the base of his helm, optics meeting those of Pike's with a cheery sort of glower. Her beak transformed when he lunged for her, ducking back and down. When he saw the cassette again, it was only her inverted helm on an outstretched neck from between Spinefoot's legs.

The low angle and close proximity gave Fairwinds a sweet shot at the little-exposed hydraulics in the mech's knee, two blaster shots scorching the surrounding plates but one obliterating the lines of the joint. From the sound he made, she'd gotten a neural bundle as well.

Not missing a beat, she fired a barrage towards the faceplates of the unfortunate scavenger held pinned to the wall before ducking back out of immediate sight. Her helm was small and pointed enough to get between Spinefoot's armour, making shooting up his internals and downing the mech for good easy.


<<OOC: SHORT tag back for a damage report!

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For just an instant, Pike met Fairwinds' cheerful gaze. He gaped at her in shock and froze in mid-lunge, his hand poised over the evil looking pistol mag-clipped to the side of his hip-

It was a beautiful shot.

Her blaster tore into his knee and out the other side, taking most of the inner hydraulics with it in a explosive spray of metal shreds and red fluid. It spattered across the ground as the mech lurched and staggered down hard on his other knee, yelping in pain. He dropped his pistol, which went skittering across the rubble before fetching up on some nearby debris.

Pinned to the wall, Stickleback was not quite so lucky.

He saw the blast coming, and his optics went round. He tried to dodge, then made a futile attempt to backflip around the harpoon lodged in his shoulder to get out of the way. It failed rather spectacularly, and the manouvre cost him most of the back of his head when the the blast hit him squarely and smashed his helm into the wall in a burst of sparks and char. Stickleback went limp, his blackened helm smoking.

A moment later Spinefoot also crashed to his knees, smoke boiling up from the gaps in his armour as his internals merrily burned. His expression was dreamy as he collapsed forward and hit the ground flat on his face.

Silence filled the pause that followed.

Stunned, Pike knelt in the rubble and took in the damage wrought by Fairwinds' magnificent reign of terror.

"Holy hell," he said in a voice of awe. Then he snapped out of his daze and hastily threw both hands up into the air like a hostage. "Whoa! Whoa! I call a time-out! I surrender! You're crazy! Don't kill me! God, my creator always told me I should stick to being a lawyer. 'Don't rebel against the Functionists!' he said! 'Don't take up a life of crime!' he said. 'You'll get arrested!' I'll get SHOT is more like it! Don't kill me, you maniac! I don't wanna end up like those aftwipes!"

[Deleted]

Fairwinds emerged from the haze of incinerated and still-burning circuitry in a slow, predatory stalk, body long and low as she kept one critical optic on Pike whilst the other swivelled to confirm the kills. Satisfied that the immediate threats (structural integrity of their surroundings aside) had been neutralised, the cassette straightened up. Transformed away her blaster.

And strut.

“Alright, Chuckles. Here’s how it’s gonna go,” she began, pacing with far more stability than her systems were pointing out that she ought towards the trembling survivor. “I just took out your buddies half-busted and slagged, and the only reason you’re not spark-snuffed along with’em is cuz you fragged my ride.”

She jerked her helm towards the raw, circuit-sparking strip on her chassis where her wing was missing. Her vocaliser turned low and dark. “You know how fliers get when their wings get scratched, yeah?”

A gyro-spinning u-turn in pitch and stance, and she beamed up at her wide-opticed servant. “So now, you’re gonna put those nifty strip-and-‘stall skills of yours to good use, take what I need off your friends to get my pet Arielbot back in the air, and then you’re gonna go for a walk.” Her tiny helm tipped ninety degrees to the left. “Else, I’m gonna eat your face.”

A quick databurst listing the damaged parts she’d catalogued scanning Air Raid was blipped out. Fairwinds settled her remaining wing against her chassis in a prim little shuffle. “There’s your list. I’ll split you some of the energon from their tanks if you’re quick about it.”

[Deleted]

Pike's optics popped.

He gaped as she laid out her terms before him in crisp, neat terms. His optics bulged even wider when she described her Aerialbot. Pet Aerialbot? Pet Aerialbot? A tiny cassette had managed to capture and subdue an Autobot flier? Holy slag.

The look that came over the scavenger's face suggested that he was suddenly grateful that this terrible Decepticon had only chosen to slay his two companions. To hell with Stickleback and Spinefoot! The beast could have her fill of them!

"Please God above, don't eat my face!" he said. Pike flapped his hands in a warding gesture and backed away a step. "I need it! It's a load bearing structure! Oh god! Hell yeah I'll help you strip apart my friends to pimp out your Aerialbot ride! You want a bit off the top of Stickleback's cranial case? I always hated that supercilious a-hole! I'll carve out his whole brain core and hang it in your Aerialbot's cockpit on a gold chain! You want a partially used supercharger? Maybe a new radio? 'Cos you know who's got one? Spinefoot! That's right! And energon too! He's got all the energon! Lemme get my tools and I'll get right on that!"

The scavenger backed away another step, motioning frantically to show her where a metal kit on a strap had been dropped into the rubble. He picked it up and opened it to show her that it was indeed filled with nothing more than tools - nasty serrated cutters, laser scalpels and arc welders. He sidled towards the still-smoking robot pinned to the wall and, throwing Fairwinds a big thumbs-up, said, "I'll carve this guy up pronto! What do you need outta him? You got a list or something?"

[Deleted]

"Aarh, a supercharger would be sweet," Fairwinds groaned, optics brightening with the prospect of Air Raid doing those exhilarating acrobatic stunts at even greater speed. Her beak fell open a little when her processor pointed out that such tech would even better serve Megatron. Not that it was likely to fit in her subspace. Enough shanx could cover luggage on a transport, however, whoever the owner was...

"Brain core sounds good, too." They sold for a lot on the black market now that the medical centers were a thing of the past. Medics in both factions had taken to reformatting brain modules from the dead after battles to supply vital parts to their damaged warriors. There wasn't always a ready supply, however, and Neutrals were becoming adept at possessing things in short supply that either army was welcome to purchase.

Fairwinds peered at Pike's bag of grizzly tools and reviewed Air Raid's damage report. There was a fair bit of debris between them and the downed Autobot - too much for removing the required parts and carrying them in piles to be efficient. Pike still hadn't moved, terrified and awaiting instruction.

"New plan, Chuckles," she announced, hopping about to look between Pike and the frames still heavy with the ozone-burn of spent sparks. "We're gonna take his canopy and all of Spinefoot with us to the wreck, then you can chop'n'change as my Arielbot needs to get him flying again. M'list isn't, y'know, comprehensive cuz someone was crashing around looking for our parts. So you can find what needs fixing whilst you fix." Alighting onto the scavenger's shoulder plates, Fairwinds nodded with a cheery smile and bright EM flash of firm encouragement towards the bodies. "Off we go."

Pike didn't react immediately, which with Air Raid potentially leaking out and fritzing into uselessness was too damn long. Urging him on, Fairwinds chirped a pip pip and tightened the grip of her claws.

[Deleted]

Pike yelped when he claws dug in. He resisted the urge to look around at her with his most frazzled glare. She was perched right on his shoulder, in a perfect position to launch a devastating assault at his optics. This was not a good time to be grouchy.

"Yes, ma'am," he said. It was quite possibly the politest thing he had said in over a millennium.

With Fairwinds there to provide a proper incentive, the scavenger went to work. For all of his grumbling and ill-tempered frustration, Pike did at least seem to be competent at his barbaric trade. He lashed Spinefoot's wrists and ankles with stripped wire to keep the limbs from flopping around and then hoisted him over his shoulder, grunting as the weight settled.

With a corpse on one shoulder and Fairwinds on the other, Pike staggered back to the place where Air Raid had crashed. The Aerialbot still lay partially buried beneath a pile of rubble. With his blue optics offlined he looked quite peaceful. There was a piece of him over there. And there was another piece of him over there...

Pike heaved the body off his shoulder. Spinefoot hit the dirt beside Air Raid.

"Let's see here," said Pike. He rubbed his hands together and looked around for a light. A jury-rigged lamp was cobbled to the tunnel wall nearby and he stomped over to pull it closer. Wiring tore from the wall as he dragged the light source over to his makeshift work space, illuminating a patch of ground around the unconscious mech. "Ah ha!"

"Wow," he added as he looked down at Air Raid. "You know, that really was a good shot. Uh. I mean - a tragedy. Just terrible. So sad. All righty. I guess we'd better drag your Aerialbot outta the mess here and then I'll get to work. You wanna customize him at all while I've got him here? Throw on some extra fins, maybe run some pipes outta his engine cowling? Airbrush some flames on his fuselage? Now's the time to put in any requests."

[Deleted]

Fairwinds clamped her beak shut - it looked like deliberation, but in actuality it was restraint. Having a flame and fin festooned Arielbot, whilst looking awesome, would serve neither to expedite her pursuit of the Nemesis nor help to maintain a low, not-get-shot-at-again profile whilst they got to the medical camp and her new wing. The little Masterly part of her processor knew this, and was being quite stubborn about it.

... Bet Air Raid would love some-

"Just make'im fly good again," she snapped out, glowering with a sulk as she was deprived (by herself) of the chance to pimp her ride.

Her talons dug in, firmly securing her on Pike's shoulder as he began the slow process of digging out the Aerialbot.

[Deleted]

Pike sniggered.

"Can do," he said with a smirk.

It was an arduous chore, but with a lot of digging and the use of some metal rebar as a makeshift pry, the scavenger managed to callously drag the Aerialbot out of the rubble by his legs. Air Raid did not look well. His white armour, already scorched and dented, was now blackened with char. Rents in the plating openly sparked, while a nasty sludge that was partly fuel and partly energon seeped from ruptured lines. A severed hydraulic line leaked red fluid from his shoulder down his flank, further smearing him with soot and dust.

He still alive however; his field pulsed strong and his plating shifted restlessly, still automatically resettling itself in an attempt to vent cool air through his systems. Pike shook his head in disgust when he saw it.

"Even when they're offline, these Aerials don't hold still," he grumbled. He kicked open his kit with one foot and squatted down beside the injured mech. "All right. Time to get to work, chop chop. That was a little scavenger humour there."

And with that, time passed.

Despite his grousing, Pike worked swiftly. Most scavengers learned the hard way to strip a carcass fast and then scram before the victim's squad mates arrived. Now it was Spinefoot who was gutted and meshed into the Aerialbot - a split fuel line here, a scrap of torn plating there. Slowly Air Raid began to look a little less battered, his white armour irregularly patched and crudely seamed with weld. He did not look pretty, but at least he had stopped oozing.

The replacement canopy was installed at the end, Pike unconcernedly bashing it into place with one fist. And last but not least, despite the fact that Fairwinds had declined any custom body work, the scavenger used a fine laser scalpel to etch onto the small of the Aerialbot's back a tiny image of a fierce looking bird of prey in flight, its talons extended. So now Air Raid had a tramp stamp as well.

Pike cackled as he brushed off his handiwork. Perhaps lurking beneath his bitter exterior was the spark of an artist. Or he was just an asshole.

"All right, let's see if Twitchy will boot up now that he's more or less back in one piece," he said. "Too bad about his pretty white plating. Hope you can love him for his mind."

He nudged Air Raid's head with his foot. "Oi! Aerial! Time to rise and shine."

Blue light flickered behind the Aerialbot's optics. Something in his chassis came to life with a soft whir. His fingers clutched at the rubble beneath him.

"Ugh," said Air Raid. He moved sluggishly, his wings jerking. "Ugh. Agh. What - oh god. Primus. What hit me? Fairwinds...?"

[Deleted]

Fairwinds almost missed Air Raid’s life-affirming vocalisation, having abandoned Pike’s shoulder to perch over and grin at the gnarly decoration now etched into the mech’s plating.

“It’s me! It’s me! Argh - it’s so awesome,” she beamed up at the scavenger-come-temporary-minion, her fearsome façade momentarily forgotten. “Nice job, slagger. Totally not gonna eviscerate you. I look so fierce on him – haha!”

With the Aerialbot moving with more obvious signs of consciousness, Fairwinds scurried around to where he was lifting his face out of the dirt and began tapping him between the optics. Her beak struck his scorched plating in between an equally rapid chant of “get up get up”, retreating with a full-body wriggle when he made a halting attempt to bat her away.

“Air Raid! Air Raid! Get up and lookit me on you! And your new canopy, and that bit where the big hole was!”

[Deleted]

Air Raid still looked rather out of it - his clumsy swat to shoo her away from his optics missed by a mile - but he came around a little more after that.

"A big hole, whaaat?" he said.

The Aerialbot staggered to his feet. He wobbled briefly before his tumbled gyros reoriented him. Dust and soot sheeted off his back as he tried to pat himself down and assess the damage. His wings shifted and resettled on his shoulders with a grinding noise. He poked at the dents in his frame and the crudely welded gashes. When he looked down at the slightly-used canopy that had replaced his old one his blue optics blinked.

"Oh, wow," he said. He prodded it. "Oh, wow! I remember now! Somebody shot me! Which normally I don't take a whole lot of offence to, because - you know, it's a war out there, it happens - but that sucker shot me with a harpoon! And that is just taking things a little too far."

Air Raid touched the side of his head and ran a self-diagnosis. Whatever report he got back was evidently sobering enough that it made him grimace.

"Eesh!" he said. "That's nasty. But Fairwinds, are you okay? Last I remember you were crashing with me. You're not damaged, are you? Is this punk giving you a hassle?"

He gave Pike a suspicious look. The scavenger merely folded his hands behind his back and whistled.

[Deleted]

Fairwinds hopped backwards as Air Raid labored himself up from the dirt, and she swung her helm to squint up at Pike as if surprised he was being pointed out as threatening. "Him? Nah - I mean, it was him and his buddies who took you down, but I killed'em and he's cool now. Ain't ya, slagflake? Yeah, he's cool."

She scampered with a lopsided lope back to Air Raid's pedes now that she was quite certain that the Aerialbot wasn't going to fall forwards and crush her (again). Her field squeaked delight: That he was conscious, that she had saved him, and that he was now being needlessly chivalrous.

"Got my wing mangled, but m'okay," Fairwinds assured, in an unusual downplaying of her injuries. She turned to bare the sealed join where the limb had been manually disengaged. "You good to fly?"

[Deleted]

Pike's optics grew wide when the Aerialbot glowered at him. He innocently pointed to his own chassis as if to say, what, me?

Air Raid glared at him.

Narrowed his optics.

Gave him a squint-eyed look of distrust.

But in the end he only settled back onto his heels when the scavenger did nothing more than look serene. Air Raid snorted and turned to Fairwinds, mollified by her assurance.

Grew horrified at the sight of her injured wing. Fussed over it.

"Don't worry, my wicked sister," he said. He stuck out his chassis and planted his knuckles on his hips and gazed off into the middle distance in a manner he hoped looked cavalier, and not at all like he was concussed. "I can still transform. I'll fly you to that medical outpost in Dead End so you can get your wing fixed faster than you can call me Slingshot. I mean, Air Raid. Air Raid!"

With a final glare he pointed one finger at his optics, and then two fingers at Pike. Then he transformed.

It was not pretty.

The young Aerialbot leapt upwards with a flicker of his heel thrusters and arched backwards, throwing off dust. In mid-leap he back-flipped into his alternate mode, plating breaking apart and grinding as it sorted itself back into the shape of a filthy white jet. It banged off the ground in an ungainly belly-flop but quickly hovered again, its anti-gravs struggling to keep it aloft. Dust eddied beneath it, gently circling.

"Hop in!" said the jet. The canopy creaked open. "The Air Raid Express is back in business!"