The Energon Pub

Outside Autobase Tau

Jedishen didn't know Stormfire all that well, in fact he didn't know many of the Autobots stationed at the base all that well, just a by product of his reserved nature, but by using simple logic, it was clear to the Scout that this wasn't Stormfire. What wasn't clear however, was just exactly who or what this... thing, standing in front of him, brandishing a rather large light sabre sword, was.

Regardless, it's intentions were all too clear, and with the talking method obviously not working, Jedishen knew he had little other choice than to defend himself. In one fluid motion, the Scout had grabbed the Energon sabre his right hand had been hovering over, and activated it, bringing it round in front of him in a defensive stance. Even though he was functioning on what amounted to one leg, and with significant damage to both his armor and some of his internal systems, Jedishen wasn't about to back down. Steadying himself, the Scout gestured for Stormfire to have the first attack.

Outside Autobase Tau

(The programming flaw is making him crazy and see imaginary things)

Jedishen signalled, condescendingly granting it the first attack. It knew precisely what it was going to do, this bot was being held up by one leg and a simple move to alter his balance would send him to the ground. It was committed; it dashed forwards but instead of attacking Jedishen directly, launched himself over the top of the mech, into a simple fly twist, whilst bringing his own blade across in a sweeping arc. This manoeuvre presented Jedishen with two choices, either duck out of the way and risk losing his footing, or to bring his own weapon up in an attempt to block the decapitating strike. It was hoping for the latter as from there it would be simple to kill this bot.

Yet as it sailed through the air It saw movement, at once recognition it him, this weak bot was bait whilst the real threat attempted to surround and trap him. It adjusted its plans, the bot now far down his list of targets even as he began his descent.

Outside Autobase Tau

The attack came, instant in it's speed, as Jedishen watched Stormfire sail over his head. The Scout had dealt with this kind of attack countless times in training simulations, the difference this time being that he couldn't disable Stormfire in the same way he disabled the simulated Decepticons, even if he wanted too, Jedishen wasn't sure he could in his current state.

With little time available too him, the Scout had to make a decision and make it fast. Shifting his weight as Stormfire's sword closed in on him, Jedishen dropped his damaged leg down to it's knee and attempted to roll through to avoid the incoming attack, but all he ended up doing was falling onto his side and rolling over "Oh, that was fantastic, couldn't have done any better" He sarcastically commented to himself, while struggling to get himself into some sort of defensive stance, not yet knowing that Stormfire was already lining up new targets.

Outside Autobase Tau

Afterburner hurt, systems were reporting malfunctions left and right, his armor was cracked and shattered in several places, the Cons had alread run away but now some jackaft had to go and make the fight a bit more personal

"Don't sparking care what's wrong with him, the techs can fix it when they're putting him back t'gether!" snarled Afterburner as he got to his feet and brought up his sonic blaster once more. "Keep 'em out of trouble, Lightspeed!" barked Afterburner as he charged off into the frey once more, leaving his pals to find a good spot to take cover.

Finding a good spot, Afterburner hefted his pistol and took aim, he settled for Stormfire's general direction, this was noise after all, he didn't have to aim it like a laser. Afterburner opened up, sonic bursts sent ripping through the air, their reverb rattling him as kickback, shaking diods and seting circuit boards to tremble, Afterburner just suffered through, gritting his teeth as a optic shield begain to crack.

Autobase Tau

From his hidden position, Mirage smiled grimly. This Decepticon has all the bravado and none of the brains, he thought. Reminds of a typical Autobot, actually...

As the missile shot toward Ultra Magnus, Mirage was already in motion to deal with Skyjack. He was not particularly concerned with the missile or what Magnus would do to protect himself from the Decepticon's little assault. If the big blue Autobot was worth his reputation and his energon, he would find a way to evade or neutralize the predictable attack. If not...Well, then he's not worth his reputation or his energon.

Mirage watched as Skyjack rocketed backward down the hallway. Leaping forward and transforming into racer mode, he was now in pursuit of the Decepticon saboteur. Looking ahead of Skyjack down the hallway, he smiled inwardly.

The Decepticon could only run for so long.

Outside Autobase Tau

The blast from Afterburner, was poorly aimed, but it still knocked him down, causing intense vibrations throughout it’s body. It picked itself up, furious that he’d been so easily tricked. It saw Jedishen pathetically attempt to form some semblance of a defence, it didn’t care though, It was to Afterburner that it now turned it’s attention, it ran across the battlefield firing it’s laser rifle whilst performing a system check for any damage caused by Afterburners blast. The blast had shaken something loose, but it was not something physical, Deep within the cortex, Stormfire stirred.

Outside Autobase Tau

"S'slaggin, faulty.. s'scrappit." cursed Afterburner, barely still on his feet. His vision was marred, blurred and fringed with static, he still stood though, lowering his weapon, holstering it at his hip as he weaved almost drunkenly, staggering, fighting to keewp upright, "You still.. want some of me, huh?" he asked, seeing Stormfire come charging.

He wasn't feeling well enough to meet the charge, he figured to let his enemy/ally do all the work. Some of the laser fire went wide, crashing and bursting into the ground around him, others were true, finding the brick like transformer, hammering and batteirng his already damaged frame, smoking holes forming over his chasis as he strugled to protect his shoulders.. vital points odly enough. in the mean time he reached over and wrenched a hefty pipe from the Cybertronian terrain, lifting it up and at the ready, not unlike a baseball bat, "A'right slag for chips, let's see what you got." muttered Afterburner, waiting

Outside Autobase Tau

Whatever it was, seemed to no longer deem him a threat, and that just rubbed Jedishen the wrong way, whoever his opponent was, and there was no way he was leaving things at that. Watching as Stormfire made a beeline for Afterburner, the Scout transformed and spun his tires before setting off after the malfunctioning flyer, his intention: To end whatever was going on before anyone else ended up in stasis lock.

His damaged systems restricted his top speed, but it was still more than enough to close the gap between him and Stormfire, and as he got close enough, Jedishen knew he had to do something, and quickly. With Afterburner looking ready to knock Stormfire somewhere into Polyhex, and wahtever was controlling Stormfire ready to obliterate the Technobot in a hail of laser fire, the Scout decided to do the smart thing and put himself in between the 2 of them, or maybe that was the dumb thing... He couldn't quite decide, as he transformed and launched himself towards Stormfire, intending to take him down before he came within reach of Afterburner and his make-shift weapon.

----------------------------------
Autobase Tau ~ Medbay

It seemed he wasn't the first visitor to the Medbay, there were several injured 'Bots already receiving emergency work at the hands of the Medbay personnel, and Roadbuster knew he'd be someway down the list of priorities. As he looked over the patients, he noted Blackstreak in one of the CR chambers, as well as the 'Bot who was thought to have had a weapon malfunction earlier. He got the report, but at the time, he was too busy trying to deal with the Decepticon assualt, but now the realisation hit the Wrecker that he was another victim of the 'Con infiltrator.

As he dropped Straightline onto another table to allow the medics to work on him, Roadbuster took a seat out of the way, and sat in silence, going over recent events in his head. Everything that had happened had happened under his Command: The Decepticon attack and the massive damage caused to the refinery district, the multiple casualties, the infiltration and destruction of the power generators, all were, to him, his fault, and he couldn't help but feel responsible.

Out in the field, he was at home and knew what was going on and what to do in practically any situation, stuck in a command center watching things on monitors? He hated it before, and now the Wrecker loathed it with a passion. As one of the medbay drones began work on some of his minor injuries, Roadbuster launched himself back to his feet, knocking the drone over in the process, too much had happened, and there was nothing he could do about it.

He couldn't fix the injuries of the casualties here, he couldn't repair the damage to the power generators or the refineries, he couldn't even catch the infiltrator. Marching out of the Medbay, brushing medics aside as they tried to stop him, and almost knocking Inferno over on his way out, Roadbuster picked up the pace. He was in no mood to slow down, he wanted that infiltrator to pay, and he wasn't about to be stopped, not by Ultra Magnus or anyone else.

As he prepared to demand that he would be the one to interrogate the 'Con, a fleeing Autobot ran smack into Roadbuster and promptly bounced off him onto the floor. Stopping briefly to pull him back to his feet, the Wrecker gave him a look that could have killed "S-s-sorry Sir, I d-d-didn't mean to, i-it's just that 'Con just attacked Ultra Magnus and looked to be heading towards me, and I didn't want to get in his way and.." The young 'Bot stammered in his reply, but was cut off as Roadbuster dashed off, his mood picking up slightly, maybe there was something he could do after all.

From Communications Tower in Iacon to Ultra Magnus

>>

Approaching Autobase Tau

The three Throttlebots rumbled down the road. Chase was in the lead as usual acting as scout though that was because he was simple too impatient to stay with his team mates. Searchlight and Freeway were about a half mile behind him. Freeway was being unusually polite and considerate to Searchlight. It occurred to Searchlight that Freeway might be planning to do some horrid joke to him.

Outside Autobase Tau

Strafe whimpered again this wasn't going well at all. Stormfire wasn't normally like this and Afterburner was being reckless as well. His own paranoia wasn't helping matters; the nervous flier couldn't help but wonder if some kind of control device had been planted on Stormfire to make him act this way.

Meanwhile Strafe realised that Afterburner was in a lot of pain after all he himself had just crashed on him. So he was privately hoping his loudmouthed team-mate would be alright.

Autobase Tau

Coming up from behind Magnus, Monco watched the quick display and dived to the side out from behind the city commander with his revolver up in one hand, successfully firing two shots towards the missle before he slammed into the ground; dislodging his right rotator gear.

Outside Autobase Tau

Afterburner was doomed; he was in no condition to survive melee combat. It grinned relishing this moment. Movement form behind him instinctively drove it to the left, it stared back up at Jedishen, now blocking the path between it and his prey. No matter, it deliberately aimed his laser rifle, a quick burst would finish the troublesome machine, but it couldn’t pull the trigger, It raged against this new confrontation it’s control and awareness dimming…

Stormfire had been watching the proceedings in a kind of trance, oddly disconnected from what was happening, he had by no means been idle, he knew what was going on, and he knew he had to stop it before it killed again, as he became more and more conscious, he began to test his control, preparing to regain control of his body. But fate forced his hand, as Jedishen moved into the firing line. Stormfire didn’t think for a nanosecond, he just acted; he refused to allow it to pull the trigger, whilst at the same time re asserting himself in his main cortex. To those watching, Stormfire had frozen, the one eye had returned to it’s characteristic blue hue. Stormfire wasn’t strong enough, he couldn’t win. With all his might, he turned towards Jedishen. He spoke, his voice a mere whisper
‘Help me’.

Outside Autobase Tau

Survive? Maybe so, maybe not. Survival was a secondary directive for the technobot, right below the 'Take as many slag heaps with me as I can' listing. Battered, broken, but not destroyed, Afterburner yet stood, pipe held high ready for it's chance.

Jedishen, his likly savior was greeted with a vicious scowl and a vulger snarl, "Outta' the way, Clanker!" he barked, sweeping a gauntlet throught the air, the pipe dropping fown to his side, that home-run slugger stance abandodned, \the weapon was still in his hand, "Don't you by his waste, this slagger's gone 'con on us!" he snarled, a finger thrust towards Stormfire.

Afterburner could hardly hear it when Stormfire spoke, his angry, hateful snarl giving way to a lookof confusion for a moment, "Help you!?" he retorted, "Yeah, I'll help you, help you get that ugly rust spot of a head offa yer shoulders!!" he bellowed befor storming fdorth, trying to barge right by Jedishen.

Outside Autobase Tau

His plan, as always, hadn't quite gone as he envisioned it. Regardless though, he had ended up in between his 2 fellow Autobots, and both of them had refocused their attention onto him rather than each other, which could be taken as a sort of success. Staring down the barrel of Stormfire's gun, and beyond into the single, crimson hued optic, Jedishen remained unmoved, and even as he heard the characteristicaly insulting shouts from Afterburner behind him to get out of the way, the Scout remained motionless, choosing to ignore the Technobot's 'Request'.

He was waiting for Stormfire to attack, the weapon had been aimed at him for several seconds "He shouldn't need this long to take aim" The Scout thought to himself, his attention only broken as another comment from Afterburner caught his audio sensors. Jedishen had had enough of the irrelevant rants emanating from the Technobot, and was about to shout back to Afterburner, but the Scout's reply was cut off as he noticed Stormfire's optic soften back into a blue color, and then he heard the Flyer speak, almost without sound, asking for help.

He would have preferred a bit more time to take all this in, but Jedishen wasn't afforded any at all as Afterburner made another instant decision to meet Stormfire's request for help with more aggression, and quickly proceeded to barge past the Scout. This had gone far enough in Jedishen's estimation, and it was going to stop right now. As Afterburner moved past him, the Scout noticed the pipe he was carrying beside him, and quickly moved to remove it from the equation. Moving as quickly as his systems could cope with, Jedishen activated one of his Saber Blades and lunged forward, swiping at the pipe, slicing it into several pieces, leaving only a tiny stump in Afterburner's grip.

Replacing the Saber back to it's mountings, Jedishen put an arm across Afterburner's chest, before giving him a cold stare "Knock it off slag for smarts, none of us quite know what's going on here, but beating each other senseless isn't going to get us anywhere.." The Scout stepped directly in front of Afterburner before finishing off "..So why don't you just stand there and shutup while I have an intelligent little talk with Stormfire here"

Turning back to Stormfire, not waiting for the expected terse reply from the Technobot, Jedishen looked at the still frozen 'Bot with a mixture of confusion and apprehension. He wanted to help him, but the Scout didn't have the first clue what he could do, other than talk, so he went with his only option "Just what in Primus' name is going on with you Stormfire?.." Jedishen began, slowly walking towards Stormfire "..On second thought, scratch that, what can we do to help, and where has that thing gone?"

Outside Autobase Tau

Strafe looked on in confusion; he didn' understand what was going on and what was even more annoying was that no one was helping him get closer to try to help. So Strafe was stuck at a distance observing and occassionally making a pained whimper whenever he moved.

He could see everything but he couldn't do very much which drove him up the proverbial wall. Still Strafe kept twitching nervously wondering on the outcome of these events.

Autobase Tau

Mirage had had enough of the cat-and-mousedroid game being played in the corridors of the backup generator areas of Autobase Tau. Slamming on his brakes as he threw himself into a controlled ninety-kilometers-per-hour drift down a side corridor, he was already en route outside of the base. If Ultra Magnus, Roadbuster, and the other more gung-ho Autobots could not capture or kill a single Decepticon trapped in the Autobase, then the little bugger deserved to get away. Another security issue had caught the spymaster's attention as he monitored the comm channels of Autobase Tau.

A pair of hidden doors swung open as Mirage flashed his top-level clearance code, allowing him immediate egress to the exterior grounds of Autobase Tau. The scene with which he found himself presented was indeed a strange one, even in light of the security camera footage he had already accessed on his way. That Stormfire fighting the others...and now he stands there, like a statue?

Transforming into robot mode as he pulled up near Afterburner, Strafe, and Jedishen, Mirage had an even more unpleasant than usual frown on his faceplate and his hunting rifle in his hand. The spy rarely used - or cared to use - his rank to issue direct orders, but this was one occasion that seemed to require exercise of authority.

"Stand down, Afterburner," he commanded in his typically sharp tone. "What in the name of Primus is going on here?"

One would not have seen it in Mirage's posture or bearing, but he was already using his exquisitely tuned combat logic center and eagle-optics to calculate where he would need to shoot to immobilize the seemingly insane Stormfire, should the Autobot begin to move once more. One hopes this paralysis is more than temporary, though...

Autobase Tau

Ultra Magnus cursed as Mirage made his unexpected appearance. "Perhaps you could actually be of more use to us by actually doing something about the problem instead of complaining about it."

He then opened his comlink to the frequency Blaster had indicated. "Yes, Prime?"

Outside Autobase Tau

Chase had arrived to see an interesting confrontation between a group of Autobot, some of whom appeared to be worse for wear. He half thought of joining in the fun but then he didn't really know whose side to dive in on, "Hey guys, there's some fun up ahead. A bit of a Bot on Bot fight," he radioed to his colleagues who were as ever playing catch up
"Who is involved?" asked Searchlight.
"Couple of Technobots, including Afterburner," Chase said.
"That explains it," Freeway said, "He probably pissed someone off too much,"
"You would know about that," muttered Searchlight.

Outside Autobase Tau













Stormfire desperately tried to move something, anything, to prove it wrong, hopelessly he railed against the thing in his head, the thing that not only was a merciless killer, but knew Stormfire like a book and with cold, calculated hatred had forced him into a losing situation. Despairingly Stormfire again addressed the thing in his mind.





Stormfire felt the other one leave his mind, and became aware again of his body. He fell to the ground exhausted by the effort of confronting the other, and weakly addressed Jedishen
He’s still here but he’s gone for the moment. He gave me control again I can prove it.
Stormfire activated his Light sabre-sword and drove it through his own had into the ground trapping him, and the other in place, the pain washed over him, but he refused to let it show.

Message from Optimus Prime to Ultra Magnus

>>”What is the situation over there Magnus? Last reports that came in had you under attack from unknown Decepticons. Were you able to identify them and repel their attack?”<<

Autobase Tau

"The situation's a bit confusing at the moment, Prime," Magnus had to admit. "I'm afraid I haven't been able to keep track of what's coming and going, what with the threat of the whole place coming down around us. If you can spare any backup, though, I'd greatly appreciate it."

(OOC: And that, dear people, is my excuse for not currently knowing what's going on. All I'm going on is the last thing I remember, which is Skyjack causing a fuss. Did we manage to get him? Is he our prisoner?)

Autobase Tau

Skyjack continued to flee down another hall in the Autobase, putting more distance between himself and Ultra Magnus. He had lost sight of Mirage, though if the Autobot’s cloaking abilities were as good as they were rumored to be, he could still be near. He was going to have to keep his optic open for any tell-tale signs of the invisible Autobot’s presence.

Slag it all! I still can’t believe I was stupid enough to let myself get into this situation in the first place. I’m supposed to be better than this. He was, however, getting close to one of the alternate escape routes he had worked out during his stay in the Tagan Heights.

He finally reached his destination. It was an access hatch to a maintenance shaft for the connective circuitry of one of the base’s communication arrays. He could follow the shaft all the way to the outside wall of the base. There would be another hatch on that end, but he had already learned the necessary security codes to open the external hatch. It was a bit of a tight fit inside the shaft, primarily because of his wings, but he would still be able to get through, so long as the attack hadn’t blocked off the other end.

Outside Autobase Tau

Jedishen stared intently at Stormfire, waiting for some kind of reply, or even an acknowledgment of the Scout's question, but neither was immediately forthcoming. From behind him, Jedishen heard the arrival of Mirage, as the Spy barked out an order to Afterburner, before asking in no uncertain terms the current state of affairs.

"To be honest Mirage, none of us are quite sure ourselves at the present time..." Jedishen replied, still not taking his gaze off of Stormfire "..It would seem that Stormfire here has got some intern..."

The Scout's reply was cut short as Stormfire suddenly dropped to the ground, before finally replying. "He's given me control again?" Jedishen repeated what he'd just heard from Stormfire in his head, as the exhausted flyer proved his apparent control over his form by pinning himself to the ground.

Internally, the Scout winced as he watched the blade spear through the hand of Stormfire and lodge itself in the ground, but on the outside, Jedishen calmly turned to look over his shoulder at Afterburner and Mirage "You want to ask any questions to him, I think now maybe the time to do so" The Scout commented, mainly directed at Mirage, before slowly approaching Stormfire and crouching down next to him, casting a wary optic over his injuries.

(OOC- NPC'ing Lightspeed just to help out briefly) IC

Coming up behind Strafe, Lightspeed ducked under one of his arms and put it round his shoulders, so he supported the weight of his fellow Technobot "Hey, if you wanted to get closer, you should have asked, I thought you were resting up is all"

Outside Autobase Tau

Wheeljack's optics widened as he steped outside of the base and survayed the carnage around him. The last thing he remembered he had been working in the lab area when a small explosion had startled him and caused the molecualer destabiliser he'd been working on to explode, taking him offline for a few minutes. When he'd regained conciousness he'd headed outside to see just what was going on. Spoting the crowd of Autobots gathered around Stormfire Wheeljack made his way over to them to see if he could be of help.

"What the slag happened here?"