OLD PROMPT 5 Jan 2011 Running out of time
Title: Chapter twenty-seven of For a Few Upgrades More
Warnings/content advice: Actiony, bomb threat stuff
Rating: Pg-13
Continuity: Transformers Animated
Characters: Lockdown, Slipstream, Soundwave, with supporting Laserbeak and Ratbat
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro et al, not to me
Prompt: 5 Jan 2011. Running out of time. With inspiration from Jennifer Saunders - Holding Out For A Hero
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lockdown screeches around a corner, trying to keep Prowl in sight as he and Jazz approach the two Lugnut Supremes, one high one low. "Oh, that's not going to work," he says even as Prowl attacks the torso of one of the ridiculously big robots.
"Slaggin' aim for the legs!" A shrill voice calls and whether he heard it too, or not, Jazz leaps up onto the foot of one Supreme and strikes it with his energy-chucks.
Something thuds against Lockdown's roof. He can feel the little feet on him. "By Jove, if these Goliaths are yet set on breaching the tower ramparts, then we must need unhorse them!" Lockdown sees the magnetic grappling lines launch toward a lampost. Whether Lockdown wants to help or not, he's got to get out of the way, so he drops the emergency break to spin 90 degrees, then accelerates toward a side street.
As soon as he's clear, Lockdown transforms, and turns about to see the unfazed, squishy archer tie-off his line atop another lamppost, then drop to the ground. The enormous stabilizing servo catches on the line. It goes taught with an audible twang, but ultimately the weakest link is the lampposts' alloy, which allows them to bend with the direction of the Supreme's movement. It slows, but does not fall.
"We shall press them to the lists yet!"
Laserbeak screeches overhead and Lockdown scans the area to see Prowl and Jazz now retreating toward Sumdac Tower. Lockdown folds back into his altform and gives chase, making sure to tail them from a parallel avenue, so as to avoid the Supremes.
~~~~~~~~~~~
"We're finito, kaput, done for if we stay here any longer," Samantha reminds her boyfriend.
"I know," Nino says, "But we can't go out in those jumpsuits." He comes from behind a rack of clothing attired in street clothes, accessorized by a long duster and goggles. "I'm not sorry to see the suit go, but I rather liked the goggles.
"They look smashing, Dear, stylish and functional both, especially if we're to get through this veritable war zone! All these giant robots fighting each other, who's left to save Earth and mankind?"
"Hey, I like the sound of that: Save The Earth And Mankind: STEAM."
"A real snappy slogan, but let's vamoose, split, get outta Dodge. Time's a ticking!" Samantha points to her newly appropriated collection of watches.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Slipstream here," She stalks after the Supreme's with her gunblade drawn, watching for an opening to attack one in the heel, hopefully without being noticed by Megatron or any Autobots.
"Control signal: no longer transmitted."
"Excellent." But, then, why were they still moving? She heard the too-familiar voice. "No!"
"Commander?"
She can hear the voice, see Megatron turn in the air, and then Slipstream becomes aware of the regularly timed beeps of a countdown. "The fragger!" She cuts her comm and rages, "STAAARSCREEEAM!" but he doesn't seem to actually be here. Slipstream rises up on her thrusters to get an unobstructed view. Megatron: he's not doing anything about the rigged Supremes. He's just fighting the little Prime.
"Soundwave. Not sure how, but Starscream rigged these cloned Supremes with time bombs, and it looks like they are operating independently with his personality. They will destroy the city."
"Can jam signals to prevent premature remote detonation. Options: limited."
"Not sure how much time we have, but it's running out."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"This is why I hate machines!" Carmine lifts his megaphone, which seems to want to jump out of his hand. "OK, people, listen up, these things are still coming closer, so lets start moving to bomb shelters, just as a precaution." Frustrated, he throws down the megaphone automaton and speaks into his police radio.
"Fanzone here. We just got word that these things are carryin' bombs, now, so go to emergency plan Omega."
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lockdown hasn't been able to follow Prowl into the tower, so he's climbed up a neighboring building and out onto a billboard to see if he can sight activity in or atop the tower. There. The ninja's are up near the space bridge. Doesn't look like they're activating the bridge; just sitting down.
"What are you playing at?" Lockdown asks aloud.
It looks like they're meditating. What would be the point of that?
A glint of reflected light catches Lockdown's optics and he sees a sliver of crystal float by. Then, another. "P over M. Over this distance? Impressive." Lockdown can spot the points of light that are so many shards floating toward the tower. "Pull the AllSpark back together? But then-" any bots powered by those shards could go offline.
"Slipstream." He tries her comm, but she's obviously still upset with him. "Wave," he tries.
"Here."
"Listen. Get Trix on the comm. Tell her to get away from the city. Now. Her and your pets, if they want to keep their shards."
"Understood." Lockdown has seen enough, and starts his descent to street level.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Starscream!" It's really him this time, and looking somewhat worse for wear. Slipstream transforms and moves to intercept. Soundwave's now pinging her comm as well as Lockdown, but all she sees is Starscream.
She realizes Ratbat is clinging to her dorsal side, just behind her cockpit. "Somewhere after midnight~ A total eclipse of the heart~"
"What?" Slipstream banks away from her pursuit course. She sees it then. She'd been too compromised by emotional subroutines to see her own mistake. Starscream isn't gloating or attacking. He is inexplicably moving opposite direction of thrust and firing blasters at Sumdac tower. She feels it then, and from Ratbat's trill, he does too. "Link-up. Quick." She opens the panel near axillary fuel intake to allow Ratbat to make a hardline connection. It also enables the little bat's claws to hold onto the edge of the opening; this was how they'd flown to and from Grand Central.
Slipstream is already moving toward water, and only accelerates as she feels Ratbat link. "Where's Laserbeak?"
Ratbat sends coorinates.
Laserbeak is already flying away from Sumdac Tower, but Slipstream knows she can move faster. She flips open her canopy as she puts herself just beneath the condor's tail; she scoops the bird into her cockpit. She's accelerating again as soon as the cockpit is sealed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Down on the streets, a certain member of the public sanitation committee slides forward, drawn by unseen force toward Sumdac Tower. "I'm a city employee!" He protests. Wreck-gar reaches into his pack and draws out a rubber duck. No. He tosses that aside. Magnetic grappling lines he found littering a street with vandalized lampposts? He throws and misses. An anchor?
Wreck-gar lifts the anchor overhead and slams it into the street. It holds, for a while, but the pull starts to lift him off his feet. "This hero needs a hero~" Wreck-gar tries to hold onto his anchor, but his servos are straining, and the anchor starts to give way.
Lockdown drives around the corner, sees the trash-bot floating away, and nearly hits the anchor. He saves his grill with a quick transformation. Suddenly, he's not sure Prowl in conscious of where all the shards are coming from. Lockdown can understand him wanting the Decepticons off-line, but this bot's a civilian if Lockdown ever saw one.
"Slag me," he says, "better appreciate me saving you from murdering a bot." He spots the grappling lines. No time to consider if they are the same from before, or how he might use them to upgrade himself. Lockdown grabs the lines and starts spinning the magnetic end as he runs after Wreck-gar.
Capturing bots is what he's good at, right? Lockdown launches the lines up. They lock. Then he starts to slide. Lockdown uses the momentum to get ahead of the bot. He bounds from car roofs, walls, and traffic signs, looking for a place to secure them both.
A souped-up black wagon speeds beneath them, then transforms.
"Catch," Lockdown calls.
Soundwave catches the loose end of one of the two lines. He ties-off the end on a fire hydrant, then slowly pulls on the line. Overhead, Lockdown leaps from window ledge to the top of an abandoned box truck. He catches Wreck-gar in his arms and pushes him down. Soundwave takes up the slack and uses it to wrap Wreck-gar's torso.
"Nice roping," Lockdown says.
"Saw it in movies," Soundwave admits.
"Let's all go to the movies~" Wreck-gar sings.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Is big purple robot offline?" Grimlock asks.
"Do you want it to be?" Slipstream asks. The pull seems weak enough here and she's keeping parts of the downed Omega Sentinel between her and the city.
"Flying robots bad."
"It's not really as simple as that," Slipstream tires, but these bots seem kinda dim. "But, I do know there's a bomb inside this one, so you should stay away."
"Me Grimlock say Girly-bot should stay away also."
"Lets say I'm familiar with the work of the one who made this. It wasn't able to activate when the others did, so maybe I can disarm it." Not to do them a favor, but one large chunk of the island has already gone missing, and besides a working Omega Sentinel could be really useful.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Soundwave watches the gold and red Supreme kick the purple one. It seems to disable the bomb, as Soundwave's within sight and still standing. That leaves one, still advancing, and very close to both Megatron and the flying Prime. Whatever the Autobots hope to accomplish with the AllSpark, they better do it soon. The tower forcefield is already failing, and Soundwave can hear the beeps of the time bomb continuing to count down.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Warnings/content advice: Actiony, bomb threat stuff
Rating: Pg-13
Continuity: Transformers Animated
Characters: Lockdown, Slipstream, Soundwave, with supporting Laserbeak and Ratbat
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro et al, not to me
Prompt: 5 Jan 2011. Running out of time. With inspiration from Jennifer Saunders - Holding Out For A Hero
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lockdown screeches around a corner, trying to keep Prowl in sight as he and Jazz approach the two Lugnut Supremes, one high one low. "Oh, that's not going to work," he says even as Prowl attacks the torso of one of the ridiculously big robots.
"Slaggin' aim for the legs!" A shrill voice calls and whether he heard it too, or not, Jazz leaps up onto the foot of one Supreme and strikes it with his energy-chucks.
Something thuds against Lockdown's roof. He can feel the little feet on him. "By Jove, if these Goliaths are yet set on breaching the tower ramparts, then we must need unhorse them!" Lockdown sees the magnetic grappling lines launch toward a lampost. Whether Lockdown wants to help or not, he's got to get out of the way, so he drops the emergency break to spin 90 degrees, then accelerates toward a side street.
As soon as he's clear, Lockdown transforms, and turns about to see the unfazed, squishy archer tie-off his line atop another lamppost, then drop to the ground. The enormous stabilizing servo catches on the line. It goes taught with an audible twang, but ultimately the weakest link is the lampposts' alloy, which allows them to bend with the direction of the Supreme's movement. It slows, but does not fall.
"We shall press them to the lists yet!"
Laserbeak screeches overhead and Lockdown scans the area to see Prowl and Jazz now retreating toward Sumdac Tower. Lockdown folds back into his altform and gives chase, making sure to tail them from a parallel avenue, so as to avoid the Supremes.
~~~~~~~~~~~
"We're finito, kaput, done for if we stay here any longer," Samantha reminds her boyfriend.
"I know," Nino says, "But we can't go out in those jumpsuits." He comes from behind a rack of clothing attired in street clothes, accessorized by a long duster and goggles. "I'm not sorry to see the suit go, but I rather liked the goggles.
"They look smashing, Dear, stylish and functional both, especially if we're to get through this veritable war zone! All these giant robots fighting each other, who's left to save Earth and mankind?"
"Hey, I like the sound of that: Save The Earth And Mankind: STEAM."
"A real snappy slogan, but let's vamoose, split, get outta Dodge. Time's a ticking!" Samantha points to her newly appropriated collection of watches.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Slipstream here," She stalks after the Supreme's with her gunblade drawn, watching for an opening to attack one in the heel, hopefully without being noticed by Megatron or any Autobots.
"Control signal: no longer transmitted."
"Excellent." But, then, why were they still moving? She heard the too-familiar voice. "No!"
"Commander?"
She can hear the voice, see Megatron turn in the air, and then Slipstream becomes aware of the regularly timed beeps of a countdown. "The fragger!" She cuts her comm and rages, "STAAARSCREEEAM!" but he doesn't seem to actually be here. Slipstream rises up on her thrusters to get an unobstructed view. Megatron: he's not doing anything about the rigged Supremes. He's just fighting the little Prime.
"Soundwave. Not sure how, but Starscream rigged these cloned Supremes with time bombs, and it looks like they are operating independently with his personality. They will destroy the city."
"Can jam signals to prevent premature remote detonation. Options: limited."
"Not sure how much time we have, but it's running out."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"This is why I hate machines!" Carmine lifts his megaphone, which seems to want to jump out of his hand. "OK, people, listen up, these things are still coming closer, so lets start moving to bomb shelters, just as a precaution." Frustrated, he throws down the megaphone automaton and speaks into his police radio.
"Fanzone here. We just got word that these things are carryin' bombs, now, so go to emergency plan Omega."
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lockdown hasn't been able to follow Prowl into the tower, so he's climbed up a neighboring building and out onto a billboard to see if he can sight activity in or atop the tower. There. The ninja's are up near the space bridge. Doesn't look like they're activating the bridge; just sitting down.
"What are you playing at?" Lockdown asks aloud.
It looks like they're meditating. What would be the point of that?
A glint of reflected light catches Lockdown's optics and he sees a sliver of crystal float by. Then, another. "P over M. Over this distance? Impressive." Lockdown can spot the points of light that are so many shards floating toward the tower. "Pull the AllSpark back together? But then-" any bots powered by those shards could go offline.
"Slipstream." He tries her comm, but she's obviously still upset with him. "Wave," he tries.
"Here."
"Listen. Get Trix on the comm. Tell her to get away from the city. Now. Her and your pets, if they want to keep their shards."
"Understood." Lockdown has seen enough, and starts his descent to street level.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Starscream!" It's really him this time, and looking somewhat worse for wear. Slipstream transforms and moves to intercept. Soundwave's now pinging her comm as well as Lockdown, but all she sees is Starscream.
She realizes Ratbat is clinging to her dorsal side, just behind her cockpit. "Somewhere after midnight~ A total eclipse of the heart~"
"What?" Slipstream banks away from her pursuit course. She sees it then. She'd been too compromised by emotional subroutines to see her own mistake. Starscream isn't gloating or attacking. He is inexplicably moving opposite direction of thrust and firing blasters at Sumdac tower. She feels it then, and from Ratbat's trill, he does too. "Link-up. Quick." She opens the panel near axillary fuel intake to allow Ratbat to make a hardline connection. It also enables the little bat's claws to hold onto the edge of the opening; this was how they'd flown to and from Grand Central.
Slipstream is already moving toward water, and only accelerates as she feels Ratbat link. "Where's Laserbeak?"
Ratbat sends coorinates.
Laserbeak is already flying away from Sumdac Tower, but Slipstream knows she can move faster. She flips open her canopy as she puts herself just beneath the condor's tail; she scoops the bird into her cockpit. She's accelerating again as soon as the cockpit is sealed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Down on the streets, a certain member of the public sanitation committee slides forward, drawn by unseen force toward Sumdac Tower. "I'm a city employee!" He protests. Wreck-gar reaches into his pack and draws out a rubber duck. No. He tosses that aside. Magnetic grappling lines he found littering a street with vandalized lampposts? He throws and misses. An anchor?
Wreck-gar lifts the anchor overhead and slams it into the street. It holds, for a while, but the pull starts to lift him off his feet. "This hero needs a hero~" Wreck-gar tries to hold onto his anchor, but his servos are straining, and the anchor starts to give way.
Lockdown drives around the corner, sees the trash-bot floating away, and nearly hits the anchor. He saves his grill with a quick transformation. Suddenly, he's not sure Prowl in conscious of where all the shards are coming from. Lockdown can understand him wanting the Decepticons off-line, but this bot's a civilian if Lockdown ever saw one.
"Slag me," he says, "better appreciate me saving you from murdering a bot." He spots the grappling lines. No time to consider if they are the same from before, or how he might use them to upgrade himself. Lockdown grabs the lines and starts spinning the magnetic end as he runs after Wreck-gar.
Capturing bots is what he's good at, right? Lockdown launches the lines up. They lock. Then he starts to slide. Lockdown uses the momentum to get ahead of the bot. He bounds from car roofs, walls, and traffic signs, looking for a place to secure them both.
A souped-up black wagon speeds beneath them, then transforms.
"Catch," Lockdown calls.
Soundwave catches the loose end of one of the two lines. He ties-off the end on a fire hydrant, then slowly pulls on the line. Overhead, Lockdown leaps from window ledge to the top of an abandoned box truck. He catches Wreck-gar in his arms and pushes him down. Soundwave takes up the slack and uses it to wrap Wreck-gar's torso.
"Nice roping," Lockdown says.
"Saw it in movies," Soundwave admits.
"Let's all go to the movies~" Wreck-gar sings.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Is big purple robot offline?" Grimlock asks.
"Do you want it to be?" Slipstream asks. The pull seems weak enough here and she's keeping parts of the downed Omega Sentinel between her and the city.
"Flying robots bad."
"It's not really as simple as that," Slipstream tires, but these bots seem kinda dim. "But, I do know there's a bomb inside this one, so you should stay away."
"Me Grimlock say Girly-bot should stay away also."
"Lets say I'm familiar with the work of the one who made this. It wasn't able to activate when the others did, so maybe I can disarm it." Not to do them a favor, but one large chunk of the island has already gone missing, and besides a working Omega Sentinel could be really useful.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Soundwave watches the gold and red Supreme kick the purple one. It seems to disable the bomb, as Soundwave's within sight and still standing. That leaves one, still advancing, and very close to both Megatron and the flying Prime. Whatever the Autobots hope to accomplish with the AllSpark, they better do it soon. The tower forcefield is already failing, and Soundwave can hear the beeps of the time bomb continuing to count down.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~