The Energon Pub

Defensive Breach

Shockwave's sensory was running at maximum capacity, short from bursting out. He was forced to divide his attention to prioritize multiple threats and deal with them after one another, to avoid suffering more damage than he already had.

Operational Status:
...
...
...
Armor Integrity: 36.712456%
Internal Reactor Shielding: 79.146735%
Weapon Systems: 64.124756%

The internal diagnostics read on the Military Operation Commander's heads-up diplay screen, scrolling downwards. One or two of the percentages visible decreased even more, as the purple frame moved to avoid the enemy fire that was sent at him, but was unable to fully dodge the blasts.

Bolts of bright blue made contact with Shockwave's structure, slowed his motion somewhat, but fortunately, did not cause any critical damage, nor did they hit any of his open wounds. Fortress Maximus did unleash a good portion of his firepower on Shockwave, but he was more focused on getting his main weapon back. The battle would end in range then.

Then came another attack from a different direction, in the form of a missile burst followed by a series of laser blasts, forcing the Military Operations Commander to move faster, despite him being temporary disoriented by the ion fire from Fortress Maximus.

Though the two attacks came quickly after each other, Shockwave managed to escape the majority of their destructive power. As the last of the ion bolts hit him, he took high into the air, pushing his anti-grav systems to the maximum. The missiles that had been fired on him struck into the ground where he stood a moment ago, and igniting a firey sphere of red, tore a deep crater in the metal surface. The laser rounds were harder to dodge, but those that did hit, did only superficial damage to Shockwaves armor.

"Illogical, Maximus," Shockwave said aloud towards his opponent, and his form slowly and shakily from the damage he took, but began to transform. "Your choice is always given: obey logic and surrender, or be destroyed!"

As the sentence was finished, Shockwave levitated above the ground in his giant gun mode again, small discharges running across his frame from the massive power build-up in his internal reactor - and his injuries. The lower part of the gunbarrel was basically torn open at the wounded shoulder joint, and several other parts were melted, scarred or cracked.

Still, the sizzlilng noise the gun made increased to a sharp, high pitched electric scream, then burst out in a loud, deep boom, and the gun sent another destructive gamma ray blast towards Fortress Maximus.

Defensive breach

"Some choice that was, Shockwave!" Fortress Maximus retorted, his remaining optic keeping watch of any developments. Sure enough, whilst he was able to take up his photon rifle once again, Shockwave was able to transform into his alt. mode, and then fired another gamma ray towards him. Based on his HUD, barely readable from all the damage he had recieved, another blast would certainly puncture through his armour and straight into his internals.

Diving to the side, he was able to barely avoid the blast, but his lack of a functional left arm left him slamming into the ground. However, to compensate, before he landed, he carefully aimed with his photon cannon, and fired, hoping to finish Shockwave or at least disable him. If it didn't, well, he wouldn't have the mobility to get up before Shockwave fired again.

It was make or break time.

Defensive Breach

As the last current of the blast left Shockwave's gunbarrel, he began to charge up for another strike, while he was operational enough to do so. Even if the burst hit, the Military Operations Commander calculated a high probability that Fortress Maximus would still be able to retaliate. Which, combined with his own limited maneuverability in gun mode, made a considerable threat.

It indeed happened.

The blasts from Maximus' photon cannon sent waves of pain across his whole frame, as they peeled even more armor off, deepened some of his already serious wounds, making his combat effectiveness drop tens of percentages on his HUD.

The gun hovering in the air began to shake and drift sidewards, its barrel still sizzling from another power build-up. As the result of Shockwave's efforts to maintain balance over himself, it halted for a brief micron, only enough to take aim and discharge the powerful gamma ray at Fortress Maximus, although not as precisely as the Military Operations Commander would have, had he been fully functional.

As the gun released the bright beam of violet and white, it began to loose altitude, and reverted back to Shockwave's mechanical form. The purple shape hit the ground with a metallic thud, falling on his side.

After a few astroseconds of struggle againts his own weakened structure, Shockwave began to push himself up. His HUD was a little more than scattered images and static, his internal diagnostics read critical conditions in nearly all of his systems. Still, he needed to get up and see whether Fortress Maximus could continue the fight or not.

Evaluation of the situation and determining the outcome of their duel was of top priority. Especially, since Shockwave calculated a very low probability that he himself would be capable of continuing a fight of that magnitude.

Skies above the killzone

"Your orders Sky Commander? Come in Starscream..." nothing. He had tried to hail the leader but the com was quite distorted.
Nightraid spoke over the intercom "To any Decepticon seeker out there. Reform and stop your solo-dogfights" he said seeing the chaotic mess that had erupted.
"Reform in squadrons" he said "Let us fight as one and drive back this Autobot-scum!" the tactician said.
He had begun to smoke but luckily the damage was not that great and of a more superficial kind.
Some seekers had joined in and he hoped a more common front could be forged in the air. As things were, the unorganized run of the Seekers and a lack of orders from Starscream could become quite dangerous.
Slowly more Seekers regathered but Nightraid had no way of decently knowing who was hearing him, who wasn't, who ignored him and who was unable to reform. This battle was going for the worst. He'd have to make sure that what got here wouldn't get eradicated.
"We shall proceed with an Alpha 9 flightpattern agreed?" he said.
"Roger" came the reply from a handful of seekers. Many of them were scorched and damaged. Testimony of what a lack of coordination, orders but also misfortune could cause to a Skywarrior.

Defensive breach

Fortress Maximus slowly shifted, moving into a sitting position using his remaining good arm, though hindered by it holding his photon rifle, only to be struck by Shockwave's second gamma ray. He screamed in agony as the energy incinerated his chest, torching through his armour and reaching his internal componants. Servos melted, neural circuits fried, lubricant burned..

But remarkably, his damaged armour had managed to keep him alive, but like SHockwave, barely functioning. His entire frame was a wreck, and slowly, and with gritted teeth, he slowly rose.

He realised that Shockwave too was badly damaged, though probably only marginally so. That left him with one last trick up his sleeve, as well as allowing his main form to make general repairs.

BUt first, he checked on the status of his remaining Autobots. They were holding, abet shakily in the former decepticon fortifications. A few of the larger ones were outside, struggling with the decepticons. The fight had certainly reduced in verocity, as tired mech fought tired much, their injuries hindering them like his and Shockwaves were hindering their own. A victory against Shockwave may well be the final push the remaining Autobots needed.

A victory he would win, and now he knew it was close.

Stepping back, Maximus grunted as his damaged form undergone it's transformation sequence, his form and mass expanding rapidly as he took the form of his formidable battlestation mode, as badly damaged as he was, but still well armoured in comparision. His entire arsenal went online, and then opened fire, straffing the assaulting decepticons with punishing force. It was the only way they would be able to be defeated.

As it did so, a small hatch opened, and from it the forms of Casket and Grommel ejected from it, before transforming and merging to the form Cog. Landing, he made a b-line towards SHockwave, materialising his laser blaster and aiming for as many of the decepticons damaged componants as possible.

"Let's end this, once and for all.." Maximus, through Cog said, Cog's optics gleaming in near bloodlust.

Polyhex Line ~ The Breach

Recieving the question from Skywatch, Silverbolt took a short moment to come to his first command decision of the battle before giving his answer "We only withdraw when Commander Maximus gives the order Skywatch..." Silverbolt replied to the airspace control 'Bot "...Until then, send any and all available units to assist in holding the breach, I'm in position to begin my attack now, Silverbolt out"

With the battle below within range, Silverbolt's targeting systems locked onto the Decepticon forces below, marking the Terrorcons as priority one. "Fireflight, begin your run on the Decpeticon forces, target the Terrorcons, and be sure to avoid collateral damage as much as possible, go!" The Aerialbot Commander ordered, preparing himself for a follow up attack of his own.

Fireflight descended quickly, and when 2 more of his firefog missiles had clicked into position, the Aerialbot Scout pulled the trigger and the missiles ignited and sped off towards their target: Just behind the 2 Terrorcons Rippersnapper and Sinnertwin. On a slightly different attack path, Silverbolt lined up the other 2 Terrorcons, Cutthroat and Hun-Grrr, and let loose several electro static energy blasts in their direction.

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Skies Over The Killzone

Air Raid had been silent for a while, partly due to the Autobot Communication Satellites being put out of commision, and partly due to the damage he'd recieved at the elbow of Quantum, culminating in him not being able to recieve or send out any messages through his commlink, or at least none that could reach Silverbolt. He had managed to avoid crashing after his encounter with Quantum, but it had left him distanced from the fighting.

As he came around once more, his bent nosecone leading the way, Air Raid's commlink started crakling into life, first with mostly static, but as he continued, something started to filter through the static, the sound of... laughter? Though difficult to hear, the laugh did sound somewhat familiar to the black Aerialbot, and the voice that broke through the laughter was definitely familiar.

"I like your new look 'Raid, it's definitely an improvement over before" The voice mocked, getting clearer as it appeared to get closer "Slingshot, you slagging waste of fuel!" Air Raid shouted back as his fellow Aerialbot flew up alongside him, looking a bit worse for wears himself after getting patched up from his earlier battles "Oh come now Air raid, it was a compliment, I meant it from the bottom of my spark" Slingshot replied, still trying to hold his laughter back, Air Raid chose to ignore the comment, knowing that now wasn't the time to get into one of his arguments with Slingshot.

"Whatever 'Shot, we've got more important things to be concerning ourselves with at the moment, those damn Seekers still have us outnumbered" Air Raid replied, trying to redirect their conversation back to the matter at hand "Like that matters.." Slingshot derisively replied "..We're the Aerialbots, we're the best, and I'm the best of the best, end of discussion. Now let's go show those 'Cons how to do it" The VTOL jet finished off, and even Air Raid couldn't really argue with what he said, well, maybe that bit about Slingshot being the best, but he thought he'd let it slide just this once.

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The Killzone

While Orpheus hadn't hit his target with his 2 shots, it had at least forced Rampage onto the defensive, and more importantly, well out of close combat range. Predictably though, the young warrior was caught in the shockwave from the blast impact, and even though he tried to protect himself from any damage, from his slumped position on one knee, he was blown backwards onto his back, his leg trapped underneath him.

"Get up!!" A little voice screamed inside Orpheus "Don't give in" The voice continued, pushing him to slowly work his way back up to some kind of attacking position, pushing himself up to a sitting position, and then back to a kneeling position, freeing his trapped leg. Resting both arms on his knee, Orpheus looked over to where Rampage was laying after evading the attack. This fight had taken Orpheus further and deeper than he had ever been before, usually by now his physical advantages had already overwhelmed his opponent, but for the first time, he'd have to come up with another way of winning this fight.

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Polyhex Line

"Charge in place!" A voice shouted "Ready to breach the door" Another followed, and all optics rested on Havok, waiting for his confirmation. The Corrupticon and his followers had broken away from the main melee battle to hunt down those Autobots who had seeked refuge in nearby Decepticon bunkers, and their first target was a locked bunker. Nodding his head, Havok gave the go ahead for his team to blow the door off the bunker "FIRE IN THE HOLE!!" One of the Mechs shouted has he detonated the explosives and blew a hole in the door, an action that was quickly followed by 2 ion grenades being thrown through the smoke into the bunker.

One of the young grunts went to dash in soon after, but was grabbed back by a large hand on his shoulder belonging to Havok "Follow me in" The Corrupticon ordered, the mech silently accepted the order and waited for the grey and purple mech to lead the way. The 4 Autobots that had taken refuge in the bunker had been rendered immobile by the 2 grenades, and they watched on in fear as 2 dark purple optics shone through the smoke and dust, bearing down on them. Valiant to the end, all 4 Autobot's opened fire on Havok, causing damage to the former gladiator's exterior armor, but ultimately, not enough to prevent him from entering the bunker.

Pulling his railgun out of subspace with his right hand, the Corrupticon took aim and put slugs through 2 of the Autobots heads, but missing with his 3rd shot. Annoyed with himself for missing what amounted to a stationary target, the dark grey Mech growled, before dropping his railgun to the ground and grabbing the Autobot he missed, lifting him off the floor of the bunker and proceeded to launch him headfirst through the front of the bunker, back out into the Killzone. Turning back to deal with the final 'Bot, Havok discovered his team had already taken care of that tiny problem for him and were standing around waiting for him, one of them holding the Corrupticon's railgun, amazed at the fact that Havok could shoot this with one arm.

Grabbing his gun and putting another clip into it, Havok returned it to subspace once more before marching out of the bunker, already on his way to the next Autobot graveyard.

Skies above the killzone

Quantum had managed to destroy a few of the incoming missiles, but not all of them. Two were too close for firearms now and Quantum opened a wormhole in sheer desperation and fled into it. Without focus, he had simply opened up a wormhole without specific destination, which could be fatal. Luckily the destination was not far away, near the defensewall of Polyhex. The bad thing was, though, that the missile had been so close it had continued flying forwards and into the hole as well. The targetless missiles flew past him and rammed into the wall, creating a minor, but violent explosion that sent Quantum hurling through the air. The explosion had marked the black and white seeker with scratches on his hole chest, with an open wound on his right shoulder. The underlaying wires were mostly burned and slightly melted, but other than that it was not serious.

He received the almost desperate orders from Nightraid. The tactician was trying to gather the air forces to strike at their foes as a single unit.

>


Killzone - Black Death's Playground

They had been told that it was Shockwave who was in command of the defenses. Bane didn't believe it one astrosecond. For a battle of this magnitude, it was more than unlikely that their fearless leader would not be present somewhere. Anyway, noone was answering and that meant that the Corrupticons were on their own against a horde of Autobots. The only reason they had not fallen yet was the fact that they had risen a wall of the corpses of killed Autobots. Ironically the dead of their enemies would be the ones that might save their lifes.

Dogfight was persistent and kept attacking only to be dodged and played with like a cat plays with a mouse. Without warning, for both of them, shots was fired at them. Nullray beams hit Dogfight on his shoulder, forcing him to duck in agony. The fliers sudden move, exposed Bane and also he was hit. The beam had done very little exterior damage. It was merely a small crack, if not just a scratch. But exterior damage was not the strenght of Null-ray. No the true strenght of those weapons laid in the fact that they disrupted the electricity flow of the area of impact. The effect was brief, but not as brief as Bane would wish. His upper arm was affected and made it difficult for him to wield his sword with the same proficient as before. But that didn't make him less dangerous. On the contrary. Like a wounded predator, his senses were now all almost exclusively focused on retaliation. He looked at who had shot and saw a female Autobot with a crazed glare.

At the same moment Juggernaut was once again assaulted by the stubborn little Corrupticon. In his first try Thrall had been in his minotaur-mode, now he attacked in his robot-mode. This made him slightly more fragile, but also more agile and faster. Jugger parried the first strike, feeling the force of his smaller opponent. Thrall may not seem like much compared to the giant Autobot, but he was just as strong and knew how to channel the strenght at the right moments. Jugger saw his old friend Dogfight being hit and falling to the ground. A feeling of concern struck him, followed by a feeling of anger. He tried so good he could to see who had shot his friend and was slightly terrified to see Forte standing there in what seemed to be a berserker-rage.

He opened a channel to Brewer:

>

Killzone - Black Death's Playground

He wanted to stop her; he wanted to hold her down and make everything all right again. Watching his friend go on her rampage made Brewer feel sick for not trying to keep Forte calm. The channel from Juggernaught comm.ed in, and he didn't sound very happy. Watching, the defenseless autobot - Dogfight - fall to the ground from his sudden shock was a trigger to get Brewer standing from his secure area, though.

And he would have to try hard to calm Forte's insane berserker mode. But first, he needed to get Dogfight out of the way. Maybe, if he left Forte in there a little longer, the femme would get rid of a few Corrupticons. And so, Brewer carefully, but quickly, made his way to the injured Autobot, trying not to be hit or noticed by Forte. When he looked, he found the fembot had stopped in her tracks, only to stare down, or in her case, stare up Bane in complete rage.

Finally reaching Dogfight, Brewer made a quick scan to assess the situation that he needed to take over. "A pretty good wound on the shoulder. Seems the circuitry took more of a hit than the average weapon's programming," he mumbled to himself, "figures...Let's get you out of the way." Brewer transformed to his jeep mode and used the grapples from his open trunk to lift and set his patient in the back. "Hang on," he drove off, not far though, for he knew that he had to keep watch of Forte at the same time. Brewer only made his distance so that he and the other Autobot wouldn't get into any more trouble.

As for Forte, she felt like waiting. Did she want to play? Apparently, she wanted to toy with Bane just as he did when he tossed the Autobot head to her. Forte would never forgive him for it, and the wall of Autobot corpses continued to push her anger further.

Black Death's Playground

Bane stared at Forte. A moment of complete silence between the two. His sensors were still aware of the surroundings, but his focus was almost fully on the femmebot now. To decrease the effect of his damage on his arm, he transformed to his two-headed cat-mode and began slowly walking back and forth with his 4 green burning optics locked on Forte, like a predator waiting for the right moment to strike.

With a loud whisper he spoke to her with an eerie, ghostly voice "Autobots are known for loosing their heads in combat. Now you will loose yours a second time" Bane laughed, but it tangled with a growl which just made it more creepy.

The Corrupticon awaited her respons and hoped for an opportunity he could take advantage of.

Black Death's playground

Thrall noticed that Juggernaught had temperarily had his mind on other things, no doubt some sort of communication, and through his bloodlust his mind quickly constructed the best method of seizing an advantage from this. Ducking underneath the ponderous bot's awesome weapon, he rolled past him with expert ease, getting up just behind him. As he did so, holding his axe in both hands, he roared and took a swing at the servos behind Juggernaught's kneejoint, intending to hamstring him.

Once done, he'd have a bit more moving space to finish the mech off. He'd taken down bigger buggers than this piece of Autoslag and Thrall knew the old phrase: The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

No-Bot's Land

Skywatch was already well on his way when Ramjet's cluster bomb went off around him.
He had managed to not be in the middle of the affected area..but not in the middle didn't mean 'not affected'

The good thing about area-of-effect weapons like this was the simple fact that they didn't have a lot of "punch", so the overall damage was lower.
The bad thing was...you can't really dodge an area-of-effect weapon. Not easily. Certainly not this time.

Bomblets went off on and around the autobot. Sharp explosions and shrapnel roared and rang about, slapping him all which way but silly. Immediately all telemetry feeds went offline as his backup antennae were shorn. That left his internal antenna for local communications, but with the command arrays gone, that meant an immediate loss to the fine coordination Skywatch was providing.

As he zipped out of the explosions, damage controls were already displaying what the cost was. His vehicle form was likely the least helpful element. Dish sized craters pockmarked his slablike form. One of his pods was offline, though clearly repairable. None of the remaining missiles had sympathetically detonated, thank Primus. All external antenna gone. Motive systems operational.

Seeing Ramjet make his way down, Skywatch opted to not stick around for this fight, and continued to move on. He slowed for a moment to make a turn back towards Autobot lines and accelerated away. His use in this fight was done until repairs were made.

The Skies above the killzone

Quantum's voice came over the comlink albeit quite distorted.
"Affirmative. Good luck!" Nightraid said. Thankfully at least someone out there had his wits about him and was showing initiative instead of just running loops with the Autobots hoping to shoot down before being blown up.
Slowly he and the others around him began to 'clear' an area in the skies above this killzone. He just hoped enough Seekers and aerial warriors of the Decepticon Airforce would be able to home in on him and the others.
To turn the tide or at least give the Autobots a well deserved crippling blow he needed manpower.
Nightraid unleashed a volley at a trio of passing Autobots who had moved in to engage a fellow seeker only to be taken in the flanky by Nightraid and four fellow Seekers. The result was quite explosive... .
And where had Skycommander Starscream dissapeared to?

Killzone - Black Death's Playground

This two-headed, robotic feline was quite the talker. Forte wanted to post a smug grin on her face just for what Bane had said, but she was still far too angry with him to do that. "Go slag yourself, you sick fuzzball!" The fembot activated her grenade launcher and fired one dead at the enemy. While that was still flying through the air, Forte held her launcher in one hand, and her rifle in the other, running straight for Bane to blast and physically attack the frag out of him.

The killzone

Rampage was in alt-mode lying on his back looking a tad confused. Since when do autobots do that kind of manuver. He knew they were self-sacrificing idiots half the time; but that...that; was just stupid. Rolling on to all fours the cybertronian tiger growled at Orpheus. Oooooh this autobot was going to pay even if he had to tear him apart with tooth and claw. Slowly and predatroially Rampage began to circle his prey. Well he was at least a challenge I suppose he thought to himself; holding those primal urges back for the moment as he prepared to do away or at the least cause the autobot to fall back. To be truthful he was beginning to tire of this battle. He'd almost worn the autobot to the ground; there was very little left that Rampage felt he could get out of him.

Facing his opponent he acivates the guns ports on his legs and takes aim at Orpheus before shooting him. If the autobot moves well that's all and good for him but if he doesn't this should soften him up a little so Rampage can make the kill.

Above Breach

Stormrune made another hard turn as he sent several bombs into a series of fixed Decepticon defence installations. He had ignored the second part of his orders, as he knew that he would be far more useful in the air then on the ground. That was the role he had geared himself up for and it was making a difference as he destroyed the emplacements which had the Autobot soldiers below in a hellish crossfire.

‘ Though it’s not the safest place to be right now.’ The large bomber thought as another laser blast scored his flank adding to the scorch mark on his nosecone and the small holes in his wing, souvenirs of the turrets he had managed to destroy.

As he inverted in order to dodge a missile the aerial Autobot saw a group of Decepticon walking out a Bunker that had previously been an Ad-hoc Autobot fortification. Aligning toward his new targets the blue bomber took careful aim and snapped off a laser blast follow by 2 missiles at Havok and his comrades.

Being careful to maintain a certain altitude he advanced on the enemy.

Defensive Breach

“Yes Maximus, lets end this.” A massive blast came from the direction of the voice, fired directly at Fortress Maximus. As the flash and haze from the blast cleared, a multi cannon tank could be seen. The tank shifted form, transforming, until Megatron, the Slagmaker himself, stood on the battlefield. He had observed the battle sliding out of control from Shockwave’s tower. He knew Prime must be on his way, so there was no need to delay his arrival on the battlefield any further.

“You will not win this day Autobots!” he roared as he charged into the thick of the battle. Laser blasts began to hit him, but he shrugged them off like a mild rain. A blast from his fusion cannon obliterated a squad of Autobots. A punch drove through the chest of another Autobot, whose body was sent hurtling into another Autobot. Another shot from his fusion canon blew up a bunker the Autobots had captured. Megatron, by himself was beginning to turn the tide of the battle through sheer power, ruthlessness and force of will.

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The missiles detonated near Rippersnapper and Sinnertwin. It did some damage to the two, more to Rippersnapper than Sinnertwin since the latter had fire based weapons of his own and was better shielded against their effects, but no debilitating damage was taken by either. The attack did serve to enrage Rippersnapper however. “Slagging Aerialbots, think just cause they can fly real good makes them better than me! Too bad for them one of my specialties is taking down fliers!” The Terrorcon fired off two ground to air voice guided missiles up at Fireflight. Sinnertwin just kept fighting the ground forces.

Hun-grrr gritted his teeth as Silverbolt’s blasts impacted him. He took some mild damage, but not enough to stop him from retaliating against the Aerialbot commander. He turned both of his heads towards him and began spitting out a barrage of his improvised projectiles, hoping to maybe knock him down to the ground where he would be easy pickings, and a nice meal.

Skies above the killzone

Starscream heard the first transmission. Nightraid seemed to have a good plan. It was the fact that his formation split up that forced him to try avoid the fire he was under. He still wanted to wait a bit, to make it seem like he was not in a rush to do anything, which was really the case anyway. It would be a good enough excuse if he said he was spending this time thinking of a strategy, which meant that he had to just get back to it. He switched into jet mode and sent a transmission.

>>"Starscream to Nightraid. I was away getting cover so I can think of a brilliant plan. Get all the Seekers together, and we'll pick off the ground anti-air units first. We need to reform first though!"<<

Of course it was Nightraid's idea to reform the Seekers into squads again, but Starscream was going to start taking credit for it.

Polyhex, the breach

Maximus, having been directing Cog in fighting Shockwave, had barely heard those words, but he certainly felt what came afterwards. Cog's form, midcharge suddenly doubled up and collapsed as the blast ripped through Maximus's immense battlestation mode, sending it rocking backwards and devastating it's innards in a flash of purple light. Cog, getting up slightly, then suddenly fell apart back into it's constituant componants, which then powered down.

'No... i.... i....' Maximus thought, darkness seeming to swallow him whole as his systems struggled to engage stasis lock. With the last of his strength, he made his final order.

>>>All....zz...units...zzkk....withdraw....<<<

And at that, the behemoth fell into stasis lock, the AUtobot commander being downed in the most spectacular fashion

The killzone

As Razorclaw was distracted, Hardhead's systems slowly began to power back up, having been temperarily disoriented and damaged by the accurate head shot. His face was a complete mess, his optics both completely shattered, his audial receptos completely wrecked. He was blind, deaf and probably mute.

He had lost, and resigned, slumped back down, waiting for some decepticon to finish him off. His systems were completely shot, he could no longer fight.

The skies over the killzone

"Sky Commander?" Nightraid exclaimed. A mixture of surprise and a certain contentness at his survival.
"As you wish. I'm working on it as we speak..." he said to Starscream than returned to coordinating the reform.
Reforming the Seekers, a part of the battlefield's sky became 'Decepticon' territory through the use of combined attacks. Slowly more and more seekers got back in differents shapes, forms and statusses going from nearly wrecked to tip-top in shape.

Ramjet watched Skywatch retreat back toward the Autobot lines, and considered going after him. He decided against it, as he was more concerned about getting more kills in the air. He tried to reactivate his thrusters again, and this time his efforts were rewarded as his turbines whirred back to life.

The thrusters in his feet lit up as they pushed him up from the ground. Clear of the surface, his components shifted around as he transformed back into his alternate mode. As he gained altitude, he could see that the chaotic dogfight seemed to be taking on a more orderly condition as the Decepticon squadrons began reforming. Listening to the comm. chatter, it sounded like Nightraid was organizing the air forces for a new attack.

Pulling up into the Seeker formations, Ramjet sent a comm. signal to Nightraid. >>Sounds kinda like you’re in charge up here, now. Did Starscream get his tail roasted?<<

The skies over the killzone

"Ramjet?" the noble tactician seemed genuinely pleased.
"Good to see you made it. As for the Sky Commander he seems... occupied" he said a bit troubled "But alive" he said. "What's your status?" Nightraid asked.

The Killzone

It was all getting too much for Orpheus to deal with. As he crouched, with both arms still resting on his knee, the young Warrior tried to find the energy to get back up and continue taking the fight to Rampage, but he was struggling to find it, most of it had seeped out of one of the multiple gashes that covered his body. It was all well and good that his little inner voice kept telling him to keep going, his body wasn't listening though.

As he continued the fight to make the move back up to a standing position, Orpheus caught sight of Hardhead laying slumped on his back, his face a complete wreck, hardly recognisable from earlier. His attentions now fully on the fallen Autobot, Orpheus had almost forgotten about the slightly pissed off Predacon hunting him down "Hardhead Sir!!" Orpheus shouted, not aware that his call was falling on deaf receptors "Sir are yo..." His second attempt to get the attention of Hardhead was cut short as Rampage's attack found it's mark.

Light machine gun rounds buffeted Orpheus, several hitting already open wounds, resulting in shouts of pain from the young 'Bot as he collapsed over onto his side and into a shell crater, clutching at his shoulder as he fell. Things had spiralled out of control far quicker than Orpheus could have imagined, and it seemed as though his situation wasn't an isolated one. As he lay in the crater, trying to ignore the various pains that were shooting through his body, the black Warrior's commlink recieved the retreat order from the frontlines.

Now, processing information wasn't the best asset that Orpheus possessed, but even he knew that a retreat order came above pretty much everything else. "I gotta get outta here, and I gotta take Hardhead with me" Orpheus said to himself as he managed to roll over and began crawling towards his target, thinking that his battle with Rampage was over...

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The Breach

The next bunker was in sight for Havok, he was already relishing the thought of extinguishing yet more Autobot sparks, and had already decided upon his next method of entry when he was interrupted by Stormrune's attack. 3 of his 4 'Con entourage met their end at the hands of this attack, and the Corrupticon himself was blown backwards about 20 feet through a damaged wall, the remaining follower had avoided the attack thanks to being left behind in the previous bunker.

Watching on in horror as the realisation that it could have been him getting blown to pieces, the young Decepticon's attention was drawn to the pile of rubble which covered Havok. Slowly, bits started to fall off and the pile moved as a low growling sound could be heard from somewhere underneath the crumbled concrete. Moments later, a rather battered and fluid covered Havok emerged in his Cerberus alt mode, each of his 3 heads readying an attack.

Ideally, the pitiful Aerial Autobot would be on the ground so Havok could slice him limb from limb, but this was not the case, and it wasn't in the Corrupticon's nature to just let someone take a free shot at him. Taking a few slow, measured steps towards Stormrune, Havok set himself before firing several balls of plasma in the direction of his airborne attacker. It was unlikely that any of them would hit their intended target, but it was better than letting him go free.

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Skies Over The Breach

"Uh oh.." Fireflight mumbled to himself as his systems registered 2 missiles homing in on him at quite a pace. It seemed that his attack had done little more than annoy his targets, especially Rippersnapper, who had sent the missiles on their way.

As he swerved and banked, trying desperately to shake off the missiles, Fireflight recieved the retreat order from Fortress Maximus. Taking his attention away from his attempted escape momentarily, the Aerialbot Scout lost his battle with the missiles as one impacted on his right side, blowing a pretty big hole in his wing, and sending him careering towards the ground battle below.

He had been in a similar situation before, albeit without the hole in his wing and the plumes of smoke billowing out, nevertheless, heading towards the ground at high speed was something Fireflight was used to and he had worked out a good way of making it to the ground without smashing into it nose first. Engaging his reverse thrusters, and pulling his nose up as much as he could with what manouverability he had left, Fireflight waited until the last possible moment before transforming into his robot mode before he hit the ground. The impact wasn't pretty, as he landed and rolled along the ground, picking up multiple dents, scrapes and knocks to his armor as he went, but as he came to a stop, Fireflight thanked Primus he'd survived, and quickly set about helping any Autobots in his vicinity to retreat safely.

Elsewhere, Silverbolt wasn't faring any better. Not only had he also been forced to land thanks to Hun-grrr's retaliatory attack, but he now had to assume that he was in command of the retreat with Fortress Maximus' participation the this battle over. Down on the ground, Electro Static Rifle in hand, the Aerialbot Commander was nursing several injuries of his own, the most recent of which came at the hands of one of the improvised missiles spat at him by Hun-grrr.

"All Autobots retreat, abandon all defensive positions along the Polyhex lines, disengage from any fighting and retreat back to Nova Cronum and the Maximus Line.." Silverbolt began, broadcasting orders over a general commlink, hoping that it made it through to as many as possible "..All Aerial units provide cover for the retreating ground forces, Skydive, assume command over the Aerial forces, make sure they're in position to assist" Silverbolt stood waving Autobots back out of the breach and away from the Decepticon forces. The attack had failed, and Silverbolt wasn't about to let it turn into a massacre while he was in command.

Killzone

Rampage couldn't believe that the autobot had been so stupid as to take his optic off of him; nevertheless the tiger was greatful that Orpheus's stupidity saved him from getting even more beaten up. Still he suppressed a cry of satisfaction at seeing his quarry fall; the anticipation of the kill manifestied itself in his mind. Stalking forward ever so slowly Rampage moved in for the kill. Moderately impressed that Orpheus was trying to get to his injured comrade; even if to Rampage it was sheer foolery. Still a live autobot was an annoying autobot. Reaching him Rampage transformed, bringing out his sword once more, he made to end this particular autobots life.

Defensive Breach

A familiar voice crackled over the Autobot radios in response to Silverbolt’s last command. >>”Autobots, belay that last order!”<< The familiar sound of a laser cannon rifle firing echoed across the battlefield. The blast hit the already wounded Shockwave square in the chest, sending him collapsing to the ground and stasis lock.

From the smoke and haze of combat, Optimus Prime came charging into the battle, a Decepticon falling with each blast of his rifle. Behind him came the last reserves from Iacon. "Counterattack!" he yelled, leading the reinforcements into the heaviest fighting. At the sight of their leader leading the charge of fresh, fully charged soldiers, the battle worn Autobots began to pick themselves up and rejoin the battle. At the same time, exhausted Decepticons found themselves hesitating to keep fighting. They were low on energon and the last of their reserves had been put into the battle. They had little left to throw into the battle.

As Prime lead the charge, he saw with some dismay how many Autobots had already fallen. He had feared that he would be leading the reserves into the battle too late, but they needed to wait until the sensor jammer was ready and the Decepticons had committed everything to this battle. If they could beat everything the Decepticons could throw at them, then they would have half of the planet or more out from under Decepticon control. Bottled up, the Decepticons would have little recourse than to begin negotiations.

That would all have to wait though, there was still a battle to win here, and one last trump card he could play if necessary. At last report Megatron had been in the thick of the battle, which was where he moved to. He doubted it would take much effort to locate the Decepticon supreme commander. The two of them would forever be linked, and always sought each other out in battle.

The Killzone

The fall of Fortress Maximus was a sad sight to see, for Brewer, but he kept his focus as best he could. The sight of Megatron forced out his hatred, and the green Autobot had an urge to jump out and kill the Commander for his dastardly deed. A communication link cut through Brewer's in the voice of Maximus as his last words: All....zz...units...zzkk....withdraw....

"What? No," Brewer looked to the Commander, who was a good distance away, thinking that it was going to be a tough job taking care of three bots at once. His current client was nearly finished, Forte was going to be a hassle, and as for the big fortress... Brewer was going to need back-up.

Then, another link came through - Optimus Prime - countering the previous command with an order to counterattack. A new light formed within Brewer, and he felt that he was going to make it through this harsh time. It was strange how the Autobot leader could do that, but he was glad that he could.