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Leaving Sector 7 - Neutral Ground
The drones carrying her battered form understood the orders Megatron gave, and so did she.
They headed there, and she couldn't help but look forward to getting repairs, then ripping apart more autobot scum.

(OOC: Moving Discord to Kolkular in Kaon.)

Sector 7 - Neutral Ground

"Yeah," Sunstreaker smiled weakly as his surface-to-air missile struck home, causing visible damage to Scourge. Whatever elation he felt at striking his opponent vanished, however, as he looked across the broken terrain of the moon to where Sideswipe had landed. Slowly, he began walking toward his fallen twin as best he could, his actuators crackling and straining with the effort. C'mon, slaggit. No time to seize up and fall down. You did enough falling for one day, Sunstreaker.

As he made his ragged progress toward where Sideswipe had plummeted from the sky, the former gladiator was also heading to where Optimus Prime stood, clearly damaged from his battle with Megatron.

"Looks like we should've followed orders on this one, huh?" he called to the Autobot supreme commander. "Might not've taken Decepticon flying lessons if we'd sat at home."

The words came out bitterly. Sunstreaker was not sure he was mad at Prime, really. He and Sideswipe had made the choice to violate the orders to remain at Autobase, not to mention they broke the promise that Prime had made to bring only one Autobot with him. Of course, Megatron had broken that same promise in grand fashion. Still, they had disobeyed orders. It was, in some way, the twins' own fault that they had been damaged so badly in the battle. Normally this wouldn't have mattered a bit to either one. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker spent as much time on the repair table as any Autobots, and getting patched up after a battle was hardly a new thing to either brother.

This was different, though. Sunstreaker had seen his twin get hurt, of course, but never had he seen him go down with such...finality. Sideswipe's taken some big hits in his day...but nothing like this.

Angry, and burning to kill the Transformer that had done this, Sunstreaker continued his wounded trudge toward his fallen brother.

Leaving Sector 7--Neutral Ground

As the last of the Casseticons had returned in dutiful fashion to Soundwave's chest cavity, the optics of the Communications mech carefully scan the surrounding battlefield. Optimus Prime, the lowly archivist with delusions of grandeur, had been fortuitous enough to receive a sudden boost of reenforcements in the form of the Dinobots. The Decepticons own serendipitous additions...the Insecticons...could hardly be considered a factor that would do anything to tip the balance of power in their favor.

Megatron's order to fall back was a natural extension of the circumstances that they now found themselves in. The Autobots could revel in this victory as much as they liked. Such times would grow fewer and fewer as time went on. Soundwave was confidant in that.

Saying nothing, Soundwave turns in the air and flies off after the Decepticon Leader as commanded. The recordings gained from this battle could prove to be more useful than any of them originally imagined.

Sector 7 - Neutral Ground

Torment growled as the autobot took a shot at his leader. He sped up to fly at Scourge's right side. The second formation of drone behind him. Torment could not do much as he was stuck in alt-mode in order to keep to the sky. When they landed he would need repairs, and then would be the appropreate time to speak to Scourge.

Sector 7 - Neutral Ground – Crashed shuttle

Sludge waded through the wreckage, shifting the pieces of their broken transport aside as if they were but idle bits of tossed paper, such was the strength of the Brachio-Bot.

"Oh.. That's bad.." rasped Sludge in response to Grimlock his voice like that of a human child's that had been ravaged by habit of chain-smoking. He turned his docile features to the Insecticons.. weren't they supposed to be tied up in the hold?

Turning his attention back to the ship, Sludge saw the hull ruptured over the hull.. how'd that happen..oh yeah, the crash... He was certain he had tied the cables tightly.. maybe the petrol rabbit was supposed to run the other way around the ears.. He could never remember.

There was weapon fire, He couldn't bring himself to getting riled however, they were home and he was genuinely happy. other things were going on.. but he could only turn his attention to home in the distance, a hand reached out towards it as if he could take hold, "Home close now.."

OOC: NPCing Optimus Prime for now

Sector 7 - Neutral Ground – Crashed shuttle

“Mmm, that something at least,” Grimlock muttered as he took the boxes from Swoop. In all honesty he wasn’t sure whether the devices would be worth anything really. Old information that had been sitting around that mudball for Primus knows how long. Still, it was better than nothing at all. “Fly around if you want Swoop, but me already see something me want to check out.” With that he turned and began making his way over the Optimus Prime.

Prime stood up from his kneeling position. Between his fight with Megatron and the abrupt arrival of Grimlock’s shuttle he had been thrown around and beaten up fairly badly. He was definitely going to need a trip to the repair bay to get back to 100%. Still, the battle could have gone a lot worse. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe had arrived, making sure that he and Jazz weren’t simply overrun at the start of the battle. Grimlock’s arrival had tipped things over to their side. It didn’t feel much like a victory though. He needed to get back to Iacon to see what Megatron had set into motion while he had been kept occupied on the moon.

He looked over at Sunstreaker as he made some comments towards him in anger and frustration. He knew that the other Autobot was upset about his performance in the battle and worried about his brother’s condition. Still, Prime felt like he deserved some of that. It had been perhaps a bit too much to expect Megatron to actually agree to his offer, to not have set this up as an ambush. If the others hadn’t arrived when they did, his mistake would have proven very costly.

“Me see you still losing this war.”

Prime sighed. He expected this the instant he saw Grimlock climb out of the shuttle wreckage. Apparently the time away hadn’t changed his attitude or his speech patterns. “It’s good to see you too Grimlock. Where have you and your crew been all of this time?”

“Been taking a nap on stupid mudball world we sent to. Ship crashed, barely got it fixed and made it here. Glad to be back. Earth too cold and soggy. Me guessing war not going too well. Me hope you got way off of here. Our ship not in good shape.”

“I’m not sure if my shuttle made it out of the fight intact. Hopefully someone is coming from Cybertron to pick us up. I can’t imagine this battle going unnoticed.”

Sector 7 - Neutral Ground

Turning from Grimlock to survey the patch of blasted wasteland that had been turned into a battleground, Optimus Prime suppressed a second sigh, feeling his internal mechanisms shift and spasm as he did so. His injuries were not insignificant, but his concern lay with the others, as it always did. His optics scanned the rubble and wreckage, settling finally on Sideswipe.

The Autobot supreme commander walked toward the fallen warrior, kneeling down beside him. Once again you've sacrificed your well-being to this War of ours, he thought bitterly as he moved Sideswipe's limbs into a more stable position. The red Autobot was in stasis lock, but Optimus had seen worse. He'd even seen Sideswipe himself in worse condition. Still, stasis lock was nothing to play with, especially when internal damage could be present.

As Sunstreaker arrived, limping and barely mobile, Optimus looked up. He knew the golden warrior needed some sort of reassurance, even as cold-blooded and vicious as he was. Sideswipe was his brother, after all. Prime understood this. Had his own brother fallen in battle as Sideswipe had, he likely would have experienced the same horrible kaleidoscope of emotions that Sunstreaker had experienced just moments ago.

His height formidable even whilst kneeling, Optimus put one hand on Sunstreaker's shoulder plate, as much to keep the badly wounded warrior upright as to console him.

"Your brother is one of a kind," he told Sunstreaker. "And he needs you as much as you need him. He'll pull through, and you'll focus on getting repaired as well, for his sake."

Sunstreaker's vocalizer tightened up, as if he were about to speak, but he said nothing. Slowly, he lowered himself to the ground next to Sideswipe, to await the arrival of the medics and evacuation team. Optimus stood once more, and walked back to where Grimlock stood. His sensors had detected an Autobot shuttle signal approaching.

"One of our shuttles is on the way," he told the Dynobot. Looking Grimlock squarely in his visor-like optics, Optimus spoke again after a moment.

"Megatron doesn't think small. If he struck at us here, he's struck at us somewhere else. Once we're back in Iacon, I'm going to need your logic center focused on the problem."

The implicit message was clear enough: now was not the time for struggles over leadership and who got to call the shots. Optimus knew that Grimlock would read the entire situation on Moon Alpha as nothing but more proof of Optimus' own weakness. He would not even put it past Grimlock - if the Dynobot leader were in rare, especially bad form - to try physically to take command from him.

For Primus' sake, Grimlock...I hope you're not as bad as we all think you are.

Sector 7 - Neutral Ground

Grimlock watched silently as Prime checked on Sideswipe and Sunstreaker. He was doing his ‘reassure the troops that everything will be ok’ routine. It was something that he wasn’t particularly skilled at himself. His idea of reassuring the troops was leading them to victory in battle. Expressing sympathy after a loss wasn’t something he ever wanted to do, since it would require him losing and then trying to share feelings with someone. Those were two things he hated.

Then Prime turned back to him and spoke again. Grimlock’s face, as always, was expressionless. Lacking a mouth and having a visor for eyes he was naturally not very expressive. Despite his outward appearance, he was considering Prime’s words. He needed Grimlock’s help, like he always did. He had made a mess of things, again, and he wanted him to help bail him out. Apparently things hadn’t changed much on Cybertron.

The Dinobot commander also picked up on the other meaning behind Prime’s words. He wanted more than Grimlock’s help, he wanted his cooperation. He had always been vocal with his desire to command the Autobots and his disapproval of Prime’s leadership and methods. Prime wanted to head off a power struggle between the two of them before it even began. It was a clever move on his part, he had to admit. From what he had seen so far, he still thought he would be a better commander, but he wasn’t aware of the bigger picture. He wasn’t going to start anything until he knew what the whole picture was.

“Fine. Me see what shape Megatron put Cybertron in and try to fix it. Me hope he not take the entire planet why we standing around on moon. Hopefully you leave someone better than Prowl in charge or we all doomed.”

Sector 7 – Neutral Ground

Once Elita was in the outer atmosphere she opened a comm link with Sureshot. She had forgotten that the mech wanted to accompany her to help out on the Moon.

>>”Sureshot, when we get to the Moon I want you to develop a holding pattern above Optimus Prime and Jazz’s location.”<<

Elita closed the link and began to ponder what had gone wrong. How could they have been so naïve to think Megatron would uphold his end of the deal?

Anger began to creep upon her as she thought on the subject. Slamming her fist upon the navigation system, Elita cursed the Slag Maker to the Inferno.

She began to calm as she piloted her shuttle to a landing location close to Optimus and Jazz. One look at the scared, barren surface of the Moon, Elita sighed. It pained her to see her home world and its satellites fall under the tremendous weight of their war. It would have to end soon.

The shuttle finished its landing sequence and Elita rushed out onto the ramp. She expected only Prime and Jazz, but to her surprise the Dinobots, Sunstreaker, and Sideswipe were all present. How in the Pit? She shook off her awe and made her way to Optimus Prime. A slight smile crossed her lips as she thanked Primus that he was alright. She looked to Grimlock and nodded at the larger mech. They could use his help.

“Let’s get you boys home.”

Sector 7 – Neutral Ground

Sureshot’s face was a large grin as he took the shuttle beyond the planet’s outer atmosphere. As he did Elita’s voice came over his communicator.

>>Will do Boss Lady, Mam.<<

The yellow and red autobot swung his craft around pinpointing Prime and Jazz. Setting the panel for low level flight he came in over them. Putting the craft in hover. He couldn’t help it his cocky nature got the better of him and he was actually excited to see them alive he opened a link to his superiors.

>>Hey Prime, Jazz, its Sureshot, looks like things didn’t work out so good. Thank Primus your still functioning……..<<

That’s when Sureshot noticed the Dinobots and the mess of a ship that remained of their vessel.

>>Slag am I seeing things or is that Grimlock? It’s been a wile since I set optics on that brute. Wow that’s totally unexpected.<<

Sureshot turned his ship to get a better view and that’s when he saw the twins Sunstreaker and Sideswipe. They looked to be in very bad shape His first though was to rush them back to base but he figured Elita would want to look at how bad they were hurt. He remained where he was and figured if she wanted him to escort the two back in his smaller faster craft he could do that while she dealt with the Dinobots and Prime. Obviously the cons were gone and the sharpshooter had nothing to shoot at.

Sector Seven - Neutral Ground

Swoop flew over the area, surveying the sad condition of the ships present. They were almost as bad off as the junkpile that had brought him and his fellow Dinobots here. And that was saying something. It had taken Swoop and Jetfire almost an unath to get that poor excuse for a starship in the air. That the shuttles here were so mangled spoke volumes as to the intensity of the brief battle. The bombardier was impressed. "Looks like Me Swoop missed the big show!"

The Dinobot was considering checking the wrecks for salvage when the Autobot shuttle arrived. "Alright!" the excitable pilot shouted to no one. "We going home! Slag the salvage. It still be here later." Activating his afterburners, the mechanical pterodactyl headed back towards the others.

Sector 7 - Neutral Ground

"That's the best idea I've heard in a long, long time, Elita."

A very welcome interruption, smiled Optimus Prime inwardly as Elita-1 and Sureshot arrived with their shuttles. He looked back to Grimlock.

"There'll be plenty of time for an update once we get back to Autobase Prime and square away the wounded," he told the Dynobot.

Transforming into pursuit vehicle mode, the Autobot leader rumbled over to where Sideswipe and Sunstreaker rested. The trailer section of the Cybertronian vehicle split open and manipulator arms carefully moved the two wounded warriors up onto the vehicle's cargo area. The trailer closed once more, and Optimus began to roll up the ramp into Elita's shuttle.

"Autobots...roll out."

Sector 7 - Neutral Ground

Grimlock grunted in reply to Elita’s nod. Prime’s girlfriend was alive, not too much of a surprise there. That brought the number of Autobots still alive on Cybertron up to at least 5. Hopefully some of the better Autobots were still around, the ones who had been a part of his group before. They, along with his Dinobots, had been some of the hardest fighters the Autobots had. If things were as bad as they seemed, he might have to put the group back together.

He gave another grunt in reply to Prime’s words. Somehow he didn’t think they had ‘plenty of time’ for anything. From the looks of the Autobots they had found on the moon, it looked like the war wasn’t going in their favor. Every second they wasted was another second Megatron and his cronies could move against them. They were going to have to move fast and strike hard to shift momentum back their way. They needed to get back to Cybertron so he could see the planetary situation and make plans.

“Dinobots, into shuttle!” He barked the order out to his team before he marched into the shuttle himself. It was time to see how badly Optimus had run the war while he was gone.

Sector 7 - Neutral Ground

"Uuu... ugh" His vocal processor was finally back on-line, Jazz was just starting to get up. All he remembered was that it happened too fast he managed to get off a few shots before a rather large piece of debris slammed into his cranial unit. He saw as Prime rushed out in front of him to protect him from the Decepticon incoming fire, had he not done that Jazz would have been torn apart by the barrage, he was unable to move at that moment.

Afterward, he was able to drag himself to some cover, but with his optics flickering making images distorted, and a buzzing in his optics... he was left useless in the short battle. At least the others could see he was still online so they wouldn't have to worry too much. The order was given to board the shuttle and finally leave this place, so Jazz made his way up and stumbled a bit on his first step. He rubbed his head and groaned. "Uhh, those Decepticons are a major headache."

He passed Grimlock on the way to the shuttle, "Glad to see you can make it to the party." He had more wisecracks in mind... but his head simply hurt too much for it. He just stepped into the shuttle and found a place to sit down. "I'm going to be feeling this one for a bit..."

Sector 7 - Neutral Ground

With the Autobots on board, the doors of the shuttle closed and the auto-pilot systems engaged. Once off the blasted, rubble-strewn surface of the moon, the shuttle gained altitude and the main engines ignited, rocketing the craft back toward Iacon. Sureshot's escort craft followed close behind as well.

Soon the Autobots and their leader - battered, bloodied, but sure as Pit not beaten - would be back home.

OOC - Back to Iacon we go, folks. Everyone's next post shall be there.