The Energon Pub

Outside Autobase Tau

Strafe smiled slightly "Thanks Lightspeed; heh guess I should have made myself clearer." He did appreciate his fellow technobot helping him out and he did want to help get to the bottom of this whole thing; his own paraoid mind was already creating scenario after scenario in his mind as to what had happened. Still for once he refused to listen to them.

The two made their way over Strafe stumbling a little "I...I don't think the whole thing was entirely his fault; in fact I'm not sure Stormfire had anything to do with it" Strafe spoke up as soon as they were close enough to the main group to be heard. "Sir" the damaged Technobot half-ish and painfully saluted Mirage. Hitting the ground had seriously dislodged a lot of his more minor systems so while in pain he was still functioning.

Strafe winced slightly at the sight of Stormfire's own blade through his had; yes he was sure that really had to hurt. "You okay?" he asked Stormfire.

Keeping mindful of Afterburner while he spoke; he did worry about his team-mate sometimes especially his rashness and his general gun-ho nature. Still he hoped for once things would calm down quickly and without too much violence.

Outside Autobase Tau

His bludgeon sheared into threes, Afterburner watched it fall away, that heated stub resting in his hand.

Bitterly, Afterburner tossed it aside befor he turned his attention to Jedishen, his fists balling nd lips working into a sneer, the scout was about to get a faceplate full of Technobot, that's when someone stepped in, thankfully.

He hated that tone, the one on Mirage's vocalizer, that 'I'm better then you so do what I say' tone. Were he in better shape he would have turned the brunt of his ire upone the blue and white spy master that instant.

Things being as they were however, Afterburner new he stood little chance of doing enough damage to satisfy himself. So muttering a curse, Afterburner spat once more, giving the situation up as he made his way towards a entrance, steps uneasy and short.

Outside Autobase Tau

"You wrecked yourself again," Remington shook her head as dragged the other femme mech with herself back towards the base entrance.

The Decepticons had made quite a swift and devastating strike. One would have thought the Tagan Heights were a low priority target in the Decepticon strategic plans, due to its defenses and the fact that basically it was the only fully functional resource extraction site on the whole planet.

But it would appear that the conclusion was wrong.

A Decepticon flyer assault unit stormed the heights in a surprise attack and unleashed all their fury upon the energon mine district, doing a fair amount of damage to the infrastructure and the personnel stationed there.

Remington and Beretta had also been a part of that damage dealt.

"Knock it off, Remy," Beretta complained at her comradine's remark. "I took a bang to my cranials from some explosion before I could activate that friggin' anti-air battery."

Beretta's steps were visibly shaky and uncertain as she leant over Remington's shoulder, her frame was full of smaller cracks and burns. But her internal systems also seemed to have suffered injuries. Moreover, she being knocked unconscious at the beginning of a battle wasn't really her preference.

"Sure, sure..." Remington gave up and continued to drag her along.

Arriving at the entrance doors of the Autobase, a strange scene unfolded before their optics. A group of Autobots were there, accompanied by Ultra Magnus and Mirage, some of them looking confused and irritated.

Stopping by the small crowd beside Wheeljack, the two femmes looked around, their glances wandering from face to face.

"What's going on?" Remington asked silently, from noone in particular, her optics settling on Magnus first, then on Mirage and Wheeljack.

Outside Autobase Tau

"That, my dear," Mirage told Remington, "seems to be the question of the cycle." In answering her, he did not take his optics off of the prone Stormfire. Finally, he turned to Wheeljack.

"I'm no scientist, but I suggest we place Stormfire under observation and that you examine his systems very thoroughly." He had caught Jedishen's slip, some mention of an 'internal' problem. We don't want this 'internal' problem causing another incident like this.

Speaking more quietly now, so that only Wheeljack could hear him, he finished. "And we had best place him under some sort of guard or perhaps immobilization. His comrades seem content to let him roam free, but that's simply not a good idea considering he just injured several of his fellow Autobots."

Stepping toward Stormfire, he addressed the Autobot warrior.

"Well? What in the name of Alpha Trion happened?"

Outside Autobase Tau

"We had a problem with a little...guest," Magnus responded to Mirage's question, giving him, Remington and Wheeljack each a look. "I think you can agree that it's not really worth discussing at the moment when we have more important things to take care of."

Outside Autobase Tau

‘I don’t know Strafe, the cons left next thing I remember is stopping it from killing Jedishen.’ Stormfire looked towards his crippled comrade, and a horrible feeling came upon him.
'I did that to you didn't I?' his feeling of self loating was cut short by Mirage's question.

Stormfire looked up at Mirage, wondering best how to answer the question. He thought it unlikely that Mirage would accept that Stormfire was in this situation for the first time as well.
‘How high is your security clearance?’
Stormfire asked the bot.
‘Cause I think it will make more sense if I show you, although this time it’s not been quite the same.’
With that Stormfire called both his Blades and his rifle out of subspace and held them out towards Mirage.
‘Take these, it’ll be safer for you this way.’

Outside Autobase Tau

"Well I'm just glad to know you're back to normal." he replied to Stormfire wincing "Heh; could have been worse. Though I'd suggest you keep away from Afterburner for a while. If he hadn't caught me I doubt I'd be standing here right now....As it is the only reason I'm actually standing is becuase Lightspeed's holding me up" Strafe kinda half smiled.

Though he did keep out of Mirage's way Strafe was more than aware that this whole escapade gave them a very serious problem. He wanted to help he really did; something about this whole thing just didn't set right in his processors.

(OOC - Read the thread, Skyjack's player posted again quite recently. I don't recall when Magnus ran outside, though.) IC -

Outside Autobase Tau

Taking the weapons slowly from Stormfire's hands, Mirage passed them to Jedishen. "Put them somewhere safe," he told the Autobot scout warrior. His optics never once left Stormfire. It was quite true that Mirage did not believe this was the first time Stormfire had this sort of dangerous episode.

"My security clearance is Prime-Omega Level," he stated coolly, indicating the highest possible level of clearance that an Autobot might hold. It did not count for nothing, being arguably the finest spy in the Autobot ranks. "But we had best have this conversation in a less public setting."

Mirage began walking toward the Autobase entrance, indicating that Stormfire should walk a few steps in front of him. Whatever Stormfire had to say, it would be said better in a briefing room rather than in the Autobot's front yard.

Outside Autobase Tau

Remington's glance still wandered across the faces around her, but she couldn't really say she had her question answered. Some of the mechs got ugly with each other, that was for sure, but how it started, noone seemed to be able to explain. Blinking in confusion, she watched as the mech named Stormfire handed over his weapons to his mates, then as he was called aside by the spymaster, Mirage.

"We there yet?" Beretta's weakening voice then reached her, shaking her back from her confused thoughts. As she realized Beretta talked to her, she suddenly felt the femme leaning across her back growing heavier.

"Just a little more," She replied hastily as she broke off from the group, grabbed her comradine tighter and continued to drag her into the Autobase, heading for the CR chambers. Shambling slowly and wearily along the corridor, their feet gave dull metallic thuds.

Despite all the recklessness and gasconade Beretta used to show, Remington could not bring herself to detest or despise her for it. Her behavior was more like a way to vent the excess electric charges in her head than a real reflection of what was transpiring in her spark. And it gave her a "never-back-off, never-let-down" attitude that, Remington had to admit, gave her strength many times when they were in a hard situation.

As they arrived and crossed the entrance of the medbay, Remington allowed herself a slight smile. She dragged Beretta across the last short distance to the nearest CR chamber, and as she tapped a few buttons on the control panel, the cover hatch of the recharge tank silently slid open, revealing the light blue liquid inside which contained the nanomachines that played essential part in enhancing and focusing a mechanoid's self-repair systems, while they were inside the chamber.

Remington carefully laid Beretta into the tank, and after having her secured onto the holding pad, set some parameters on the console, then closed the hatch.

"Dunno what I'd do without you, Remy..." Beretta muttered slowly, just before the hatch slid entirely back to place.

"You could say that more often," Remington answered, but Beretta was already falling into deep blackout behind the transparent polymer hatch to hear it. The last thing she saw from inside the chamber was a smile that was so characteristic of her friend.

Outside Autobase Tau

Wheeljack nodded at Mirage's suggestion. "Let me know whatever you find in the debriefing, I'll see what I can do".

He then turned around to the gathered crowd. "All right if everyone who was wounded would kindly make their way to the med-bay, I'll get to work fixing you up. Are there any other wounded out there?"

Autobase Tau

‘It doesn’t really matter who sees this or not, I’m sure this will soon be public knowledge’ Stormfire replied to Mirage’s statement
Stormfire walked in front of Mirage as indicated, moving through the Autobase to a briefing room. Upon arrival he activated the terminal. As he expected when he requested files of his personal history in the Autobot forces the computer demanded his password, which he willingly gave, the computer then requested authorization to look at the files
‘This is where you come in Mirage, once the files are opened I should be able to show you what you need. Whilst it’s loading I can start tying to explain everyting.’

Message from Optimus Prime to Ultra Magnus

A touch of annoyance could be detected in Prime’s voice. >>”Magnus, get a handle on the situation as soon as possible. I am going to meet up with Megatron to possibly negotiate an end to the war very shortly. I don’t want to go to that meeting not knowing what has happened and what the status of the Tagan Heights is. I have no troops from Iacon or Nova Cronum available due to the recent battle. You will have to make due with what you have.”<<

Outside Autobase Tau

"Roger that," Magnus said in reply to both of Prime's wishes before shutting off the comlink. "What we've got here isn't enough, and that's barely enough to deal with the situation as it is. Only one person knows what's going on."

"Roadbuster, try and get a fix on Skyjack's position. I'm going after him."

Outside Autobase Tau

It seemed his part in this incident was finished, his presence no longer required, and that suited him perfectly. Jedishen felt that he had done what he had intended to do, not quite the way he planned it, but nobody else was being taken back to base by a recovery team, and he knew that he'd played a part in that. As he took the weapons from Mirage, the Scout said nothing, just clipped the 2 sabers to his legs and held the rifle in his hands, and began to head for his rarely used quarters, overhearing Wheeljack offering repairs to the wounded as he went.

After a short trip, Jedishen tapped in the code to gain access to his quarters, and proceeded to enter the small room and head for the locker at the back of the room, enetering yet another security code before it opened, allowing the Scout to place Stormfire's weapons inside, along with his own, as he did so, noticing that some of them had been damaged in the attack. Making a mental note to get them fixed asap, Jedishen closed the locker, before exiting his quarters once more, and headed for the Medbay.

--------------------------------
Corridors of Autobase Tau

Roadbuster had been charging through the corridors, picking up directions as he went, convinced that he'd soon have his hands around the throat of the infiltrator. Several times, he'd find that he'd taken a wrong turn and had to backtrack and take another direction, costing him valuable time, but the Wrecker kept on going, fuelled by the desire to squash the Decepticon's little head, or rather interrogate him first... Then squash his little head.

Several times, as he stopped to ask various 'Bots if they'd seen anything, he'd get very strange looks as most would stare open mouthed at the piece of shrapnel that was still sticking out the optic of Roadbuster from his earlier encounter with Skyjack, but a quick slap on their heads would quickly result in an answer to his question, and the Wrecker would head off again on his hunt.

As he proceeded down one particularly long corridor, Roadbuster hit yet another dead end in his search as nobody he asked had seen the 'Con go past them. Cursing to himself as he backtracked, Roadbuster realised the the infiltrator must have come at least part of the way down this corridor as further back, he'd got directions from someone who said he saw him take this path. Now in Roadbuster's experience, 'Cons don't just disapear, at least this one didn't, or he would have done it before now, and so he began looking for another way out of the corridor.

After slowing down his pace and carefully looking over the corridor, Roadbuster's damaged optic fell upon some sort of access hatch in the wall. He had no idea what it was for, or where it lead to, but it looked to be the only other way out of this corridor. Openeing a line up to the Command Center, Roadbuster once again contacted his new found info center.

"Uplink? You there?" "Yes Roadbuster Sir, what's wrong?" Uplink replied "I need you to find out where this access hatch leads to and is it the only other exit from this corridor, zero in on my location and match it up to the schematics of the base, and make it quick" Roadbuster ordered, he almost knew that this had to be where the Decepticon had gone, but he had to get confirmation that this was indeed the only other exit from the corridor before he followed up on it "It's a maintinence shaft for one of the communication arrays, it has another access hatch at the other end that leads to the outside of the base, and before you ask, I'm already sending you the location of that hatch..." Uplink replied after a short delay, before adding "..Oh, and yes, it is the only other exit from your current location"

That was what the Wrecker wanted to hear, and quickly thanked his increasingly useful watcher, before heading off towards his next location, already realising that with the headstart the infiltrator had, he must be nearly to the outside of the base, if not already out of the base. As he dashed along the corridor, Roadbuster's commlink crackled with the voice of Ultra Magnus, as the City Commander joined the hunt for Skyjack

"Ah, so that's the little slaghead's name, always good to know.." Roadbuster joked in his initial response "...It seems our little visitor has made a break for freedom through one of the maintinence shafts that leads to the outside of the base, here, I'll send you the coordinates and meet you there, but with the headstart he's got over us, it's unlikely that he'll just climb out the other end straight into our hands Magnus, I hope you're up for a bit of a chase, Roadbuster out"

Autobase Tau

"Chase never seemed to bother me all that much," Magnus replied. And then he smirked. "And if I recall, it always seemed to bring out the best in you, too."

Magnus knew he was goading the other Autobot, but he knew that Roadbuster would take it. If there was one thing he enjoyed more than anything in life, it was taking down an enemy.

No Sigs in RPG forums please -Devastron

Autobase Tau

As luck would have it, Skyjack managed to reach the end of the shaft to find, much to his relief, that the earlier attack had not blocked it off. He got another lucky break, as the access hatch security codes had not been changed, so the codes he had opened it without any problems. At long last, Skyjack had clear Cybertronian skies overhead. It was so very tempting to just transform right here and fly off into those skies, but this close to the Autobase, it would only take one Autobot looking up at the right time to get an awful lot of firepower pointed in his direction. He would be better off it if stayed on foot for a while longer, and put some more distance between himself and the base before going airborne.

He doubted his luck would hold, though. If he had judged Roadbuster as well as he thought he had, the Autobot would give up the chase so easily, and may even now be moving in. Skyjack didn’t doubt he would have another fight on his hands before he managed to get out of this. He would have to deal with that when it happened though, and focus on gaining ground for now.

Autobase Tau - Briefing Room

Making sure the door was secured, Mirage went to the terminal into which Stormfire had input his own personal authorization. He did not double-lock the door to keep Stormfire in, but rather to keep others out. Whatever was so important to require use of Mirage's highest-level security clearance was no business of anyone else in the base...not even Stormfire himself.

"Look away, please," Mirage told him before entering his security code.

"CIRCUITRY ANALYSIS, PLEASE," the terminal demanded in cold monotone. Mirage took hold of his left thumb and twisted it to the left before pulling it back, revealing a slender data line that automatically plugged into the terminal. "ANALYZING. CONFIRMED."

The terminal began transmitting the data to Mirage.

(OOC - You wanna pick it up from here?

Autobase Tau - Briefing room

Stormfire moved towards the Terminal control. And began pulling up various files.
‘I have no record of when I was created or what I did before being posted at Nova Cronum a few cycles back, mo one has ever been able to look at any of my files previously, either because it doesn’t exist, or someone right at the top has put them so far out of reach no-one can get them. I personally have no memory before this point either, I woke up on a med bay table, without a clue of what I’d done before hand. Anyway, I served in the Frontline and on various guerrilla raids until this point when a particularly heavy Decepticon assault had inflicted heavy casualties.’
At this point Stormfire played the recording of the video file, three seekers were attacking Stormfire whilst he attempted to lead them away from Autobot wounded. nothing seemed wrong and then Stormfire froze in mid-battle.
‘At this point my memory goes blank, but the recorder shows what happened next’


Most noticeable was the change in eye hue, from blue to red, but soon it became apparent that other changes had taken place, Stormfire seemed to have lost the power of speech, his battle style had shifted considerably, and most importantly he was attacking friend and foe alike. Stormfire turned away from the monitor, preferring not to see what he had done next; he knew Mirage was watching him stab wounded bots whilst they were totally defenceless.

‘I only stopped once I ran out of power. Naturally I was confined and experimented upon, the opened up my cortex and found there was something else there, not just me. They found that during a battle my consciousness would disappear and this other thing would take it’s place, it’s not so much another personality as a flaw in my battle programme. They tried everything, a personality control matrix, they rewrote my battle programming computer, and once even replaced it entirely, but it never did any good, the only thing the found that worked was my own mental discipline in battle, as long I controlled my emotions during a battle, I’d remain in charge. But sometimes-even that wasn’t enough. They found no consistency to the pattern, they tested me under severe conditions, sometimes I’d snap, and sometimes I wouldn’t. so in the end they reposted me, and eventually the same thing happened again, and again and again, always the same, I’d snap they’d do extensive tests and then I’d be reposted. The odd thing is this problem doesn’t occur at any other time than in a real battle, it never occurred in training or sparring, only when my spark was in serious threat. This bring us to today’s problem, I snapped, then I snapped back, whilst this other thing was controlling me, I think it must have been something to do with Afterburner’s sonic boom rifle. Anyway, the other thing and I had a fight for control, and then it spoke, it’s never done that before, but then it’s never been awake when I have before, anyway it agreed to surrender but it’s still awake. Normally I run out of power and it falls asleep or stops or what ever. So that brings us to here’
Stormfire looked at Mirage and then cautiously asked.
‘Do you want to try to talk to it?’

Autobase Tau - Briefing Room

Taking in all that Stormfire had said, Mirage considered the Autobot's offer to speak to 'it.' And I wonder exactly what 'it' is... Already the spy's mind was churning with potential uses for such a warrior. A berserker of that sort would make a splendid distraction for a covert operative moving into enemy territory, he thought. Alas, I doubt Father Optimus would ever approve such a use of a loyal Autobot. The spymaster very nearly sighed.

"You'll pardon me if I'm a bit skeptical about the notion of talking to this...other personality, or whatever it is," Mirage told Stormfire. "What's to keep it from lashing out at me? If it's willing to tackle multiple Autobot warriors, I'm quite sure it's willing to attack a lone Transformer."

He waited to see what Stormfire had to say to this. Mirage indeed did want to speak with 'it,' but not without some sort of contingency in place.

Autobase Tau - Briefing Room

Stormfire watched Mirage taking the information in, he could guess that the spymaster was trying to find uses for his ‘talent’ he also knew that would involve going back behind enemy lines
‘I understand your concerns Mirage, and I don’t mind being put in a restraint whilst you talk to him, also I think it prudent that you have a stunner or something like that with you, I don’t know what he’s capable of.’

Outside Autobase Tau

Freeway and Searchlight rolled up to where Chase was standing, "You missed a nice fight," said Chase, "There was plenty of action in it,"
"As if I care about that," said Searchlight, "Why were they fighting?"
Chase shrugged, "Don't know. I wasn't paying attention,"
"Lets just get inside," Freeway said and led the other two inside the base.

Autobase Tau - Briefing Room

Mirage regarded Stormfire for a moment before speaking again. "Very well. We'll undertake this little experiment." The spy stood up. "Come, we'll use the Brig. It has the correct facilities and equipment to ensure the safety of both of us whilst 'it' comes out to chat for a little bit."

Exiting the Briefing Room, Mirage made his way toward the Autobase's Brig, assuming Stormfire would follow. As he did, the spy transmitted a special communique to a very special Autobot.

Autobase Tau

"Are you suggesting that I don't always give my best Magnus?..." Roadbuster replied, his tone matching that of the City Commander, knowing full well he was smiling on the other end of the commlink "..If that is the case, then you know me far too well" The Wrecker joked, the hatch that Skyjack had escaped from coming into view as he did so. Quickly surveying the area, Roadbuster cursed once more as there was no sign of the fleeing Decepticon "I'm at the hatch now Magnus, no sign of Skyjack though"

With nothing to do but wait for the City Commander to meet up with him, Roadbuster took the time to get some extra help in the search "Hey Uplink, you still there kid?" A slight pause ensued before another voice came back over the commlink "Nope, the kid has worked himself to a standstill, I've sent him to take a break, hope I can help though"

Roadbuster smiled as he recognised the voice "Hey Trailbreaker, I don't doubt that you can my friend. I need you to put out a warning to all border patrols and guard posts, that little slaghead infiltrator is making a bid for freedom, find an image from the profile he was using when he was known as Backwing and transmit it along with the warning, let me and Magnus know if you get any positive sightings back"

"You got it 'Buster, I'll let you know as soon as I get anything back, Trailbreaker out" Roadbuster acknowledged the return message, and resumed his wait for Ultra Magnus, his thoughts turning to what Skyjack's most likely destination would be.

Autobase Tau

Stormfire followed Mirage out of the briefing room and down towards the brig. He found it very hard to believe that once he was down there he would be getting out again.











Stormfire continued down the hallway.

Autobase Tau:

Wheeljack nodded at the group of bots who were still outside, then made his way to the Med-Bay. He quickly walked over to Jedishen and began runing a diagnostic to see what repairs were nessecary.

(OOC: Just how badly damaged is he?)