Day/Video/Not Deaging
[On the peak of Demonreach, an island off the coast of the City, there's a visible plume of smoke curling up from the even further decimated ruins of the lighthouse and the completely wrecked splinters of the hut. Just visible over the edge of the cliff, the crumbled form of a Decepticon is laying eerily still.
Harry's face swings into view.]
I... ( Read more... )
Harry's face swings into view.]
I... ( Read more... )
Or would it be more accurate to say he's been moved? There's another squishy on the scene, one Knock Out had missed or overlooked in his initial hasty scan of the situation, one that seems to have just grappled Rinzler out of the way of Knock Out's attack.
He compensates his trajectory midair, one hand impacting with the ground on the far side of the supine Soundwave from where Knock Out launched. One neat handspring and a twist of his body later and Knock Out's landed on his feet. He scans the scene again-- two skin jobs, one malicious program, and Soundwave-- and makes a show of raising both his hands, the crackling tip of his prod pointing into the sky.
He smiles.]
Well. This is the quite the little mess, isn't it?
[His voice is light, reassuring, almost sleazily ingratiating, but his red and black optics are still blazing bright and fixed on Rinzler.
Don't think he hasn't marked the new and newly bleeding gouge in Soundwave's armor, program.]
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She doesn't waste her breath swearing, instead focusing on trying to keep Rinzler in place. That disk is a weapon, that's clear enough, and if it can slice through the metal hide of a Decepticon, she doesn't want to know what it will do to her. One hand darts out, still Haste-induced, to try and grab at the wrist of Rinzler's disk-hand. She's strong, for a 28-year-old human woman, and while it might not show the rest of the time, it shows in combat; she has training, she exercises every day, and the city has only improved her physical condition.
Rebecca ignores Knock Out for now, instead trying to twist to get Rinzler on the ground. She's fully ready to electrocute him if she has to. ]
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Well Self, we seem to have a Mexican Standoff of one (still)wrecked robot that I nearly turned into a paperweight, Raver Latex Boy, another robot who seems to only be able to process the painfully obvious and my girlfriend who is restraining said Raver Latex Boy. And part of my creepy island has been demolished. That's about how it stands.
What will you do, Harry?
What I do best - make my displeasure known.]
Okay, enough! [He's pointing his blasting rod - a thumb wide stick - at the tableau] I will Hexus first and ask questions later if everyone doesn't take a step back and SIT DOWN.
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Only right now? Not so much.
The program's not attending to the mech. He's not even particularly focused on the wizard, despite the high threat level he'd already assigned to that opponent. All of his attention is on the slim, fast user trying to pin him to the ground. He doesn't know where the spike of panic comes from, why his code shivers with error, familiarity. This hasn't happened before. This can't happen.
A hand lights on his wrist. Grasp quick, strength unexpected as she twists it aside, forcing the disk down, away. NO. The ticking rattle sharpens, grinds out loud, uneven, erratic. He doesn't know how she's this fast-it's far past what users should be capable of. But she knows what she's doing, and if the motions aren't as forceful as others he's fought, she makes up for it with speed and skill. She's good. Very good.
But Rinzler isn't human. And he doesn't play by the rules, either.
He falls under her twist, follows the motion around-and grabbed arm braced against the ground, he stabs up with his second disk. The motion's a blur, his own speed and energy redirected to flash across the short distance, driving towards the user's center. The program's other arm jerks aside from her grip, strength forcing well past what a human could manage as he pulls free, twists out from under her, making to roll back, away.]
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Or, well. A stick. But he's not willing to underestimate anyone right now, so he retracts his prod with a flick of his wrist and tucks the short staff up and away behind him. Still keeping his hands showing, he steps back over Soundwave's still form, away from the other two, and drops down into a wary crouch. No way he's going to sit, so he's hoping that this will be close enough.
He knows he should be examining Soundwave, but not yet. The other Decepticon might be unconscious, but Knock Out's not picking up any of the signs that would indicate imminent terminal systems failure; it seems safe enough to wait until this little situation has resolved itself before he turns his attention to the other mech.
So he waits, and he watches, diving his attention-- more specifically, the attention of his perceptive arrays-- between the all three of the non-Cybertronians.]
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Rebecca's trained for this, though. Pain is shoved elsewhere, everything is action: make the threat stop being a threat so she can get a good look at what he's done to her. Electricity crackles over her fingers as she crouches, part of her arm pressed over her wound, keeping pressure on it even as she calls up Thundaga. Lightning flashes down from the sky in multiple, powerful bolts toward Rinzler, and damn anyone who gets in the way. ]
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He clicks the safety off an aims it right at Rinzler.]
I said sit the hell down! Rebecca, you okay?
[Then to Knock Out.]
Big guy a friend of yours?
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...She's-
He freezes, steps back as her arm crackles with bright energy, subroutines alert to move, evade. But that's not the source.
The first bolt cracks down just to his left, power slamming against his sensors. His side goes numb, prickling sharpnes edging through his unsteady circuits. Rinzler's just quick enough to catch the second building surge, jerk back in time as power courses down in front, overloading visuals with searing white.
The third catches him directly.
Electricity courses down the arch of his back, wrecks through circuits and systems as the program locks up. All energy regulation destroyed, power surging erratically from disk dock to limbs, processing scrambled to useless loops, divergent commands for motion, reaction, thought all terminating early, incomplete, ineffective.
Noise breaks with a sharp electronic hiss as Rinzler falls, sharp lightning crackles rippling across his outer code, jumping connections inside and out. He can't process, can't react-can't see or hear or think, curled form twitching with feeble spasms around his disks as rigid grips clench hard enough to injure. He fights it, tries to uncurl, stand, move-do something.
He can't.]
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And then the bolts fall, and it's unexpected enough that he jerks back with a startled cry, falling flat to his aft and not even caring about the dirt that's going to get into his seams.
It takes him a moment to shut down the errant panic routines that booted automatically in his processor and collect himself; when he does, he draws his feet back under his sprawled body and it's totally a coincidence that the maneuver ends with him crouching a bit further away than he was before. Totally. No, really.
He smiles, bright and brittle, showing incongruously human-like dentals, and forces his attention back to the skin job with the gun.]
Is he a friend of mine? [No way in the pit, not this creepy slagger.] Absolutely~.
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She has to pull her arm away to check on her wound, and she keeps her jaw set, trying not to let on that she's in pain to the two who are left standing. Instead of lightning, there's a green glow around her hands this time; a Cure spell to fix up the worst of it, if nothing else. ]
I'm fine. My shirt isn't. [ Her insides are still inside. There's a nod toward Rinzler. ] Don't think he's feeling so great, though.
[ She sounds more smug about this than anything. ]
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Still, Harry keeps the blasting rod, smouldering red along the runes in warning, trained on him and the gun trained on Rinzler twitching in apoplexy on the ground, ringed in the scorch marks Rebecca's spell left. A little bit of pride creeped into his smile at that.]
Good, if he moves again, keep him down.
[Then to Knock Out.]
Then take your friend and go. No reason for there to be more blows traded. Right?
[By "blows traded", he means "reducing your functions to that of a toaster". Capice?]
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Comprehension wasn't really an option right now.
Neither was hearing. Or sight. His circuitry was burning, sharp loops of energy crackling, buzzing quick and harsh through his code. Internal/external, functions and processing and sensory were a flood of junk data, cohesive lines split and broken by edged impulse, random firing responses aborted, restarted. Nothing was working. He needed to stop it, break it, discharge, but this wasn't the Grid-nothing to access, no flow to tap into.
He couldn't work. He couldn't think, awareness limited to bright agony, the sharp tang of electrical override, and a vague sense-memory?- of threat, danger, other. There were threats. He had to move-get away, get back-he had been trying. Sensation fluctuated with useless proximity and he seized at jerking limbs, tried to push up-his disks, he was holding them, that mattered-fell back again, unable to control it. Hard surface impacted his shoulder, pressed against the black shell of his mask-there was the ground. He tried to push back, curl in, twist away, but he couldn't move and he couldn't find himself and he was useless. Weak.]
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We'll be gone as soon as my ride arrives.
[His optics flick between the two humans before settling on the still-twitching form of Rinzler. He flicks long fingers at the program, and actually manages to conceal the less-than-altruistic intent in his voice when he speaks.]
What about him, hm?
[The transport-- a metal platform floating (Cybertronian) knee-height about the ground on anti-grav lifters-- arrives and nudges at him from behind. He dutifully maneuvers Soundwave's unresponsive form onto it, but keeps his motions slow and controlled and his attention on the unquantifiably dangerous little skin jobs while he does it.]
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At Knock Out's question, however, she looks up. ]
I'll deal with him.
[ She's earned that much, and if Knock Out wants to argue, there's more Thundaga where that first one came from. ]
Tell Soundwave that I want to talk to him once he's feeling better, would you?
[ She's not waiting for a no, so she looks at Harry instead. ]
Give me and our fried acquaintance a lift? I'll toss a Cure at him; if that doesn't work enough to get him back on his feet, I'll hand him over to someone, and then we're going back to your place.
[ No, you really don't get a say in this. ]
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Sure a trip like that wont make him short out?
[Cause, still magic, Rebecca, and taking a potential bomb with them through the Vortex is not Harry's idea of safe traveling. Definitely in violation of SOME...dimensional warping commission or something.]
I'd rather take a boat in that case, to be honest.
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Try something new.
The struggles to stand die away entirely, leaving only faint spasms of motion as electricity still sparks across the limp form. Rinzler internalizes. Starts with a branch, works upward, spreads out, sectioning off data. From elements to functions to process. Thought. He can't discharge, can't control the overload trying to burn him out. But he can compartmentalize. Somewhat.
Audio comes back online to the sound of his own uneven rattling. The noise is quiet, jagged, more static gasps than smooth ticking. Visuals are harder, but proximity flickers active. Everything's lagging, uneven, connections distorted and broken as surplus power wrecks between the encapsulated partitions. He doesn't know if he'll be able to move, even if he can lock off the needed subroutines. But Rinzler will try.
He has to.]
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