The Energon Pub

Autobase Nu – Hangar Bay

"Come on then Snarl, before we lose track of him! Although, judging from the temper he was in, that may prove difficult..." Ironhide replied to Snarl as he exited the hangar bay, looking for where Slag had gone. After a while of wondering, Ironhide noticed the Medbay, now with its somewhat larger door.

"Ah, what the frag has he done this time?" Ironhide wondered aloud. "Guess we'd better go and find out, right Snarl?" Ironhide said as he headed towards the medbay

Maximus Line~Crash Site-

WheelBar halted as the Decepticon lifted off the ground. So much for attacking him from behind... he thought to himself. WheelBar could only watch as the flying one-con army took out who he could guess was Topspin and streaked over his head, comming toward Springer. Shots fired as the bot hit the ground, transforming into vehicle mode at the last nano-click.

"Ah, slaggit!" He muttered to himself as he ran over to cover Topspin, who was already transforming back into his robot mode.

"Are you alright?" WheelBar asked. He knew the answer but he felt he should ask anyways. WheelBar drew his gun out of the console in is left arm, "How do you suppose we stop that monster of a con?"

Autobase Nu – Corridor, near the Medbay

"Right, Ironhide," Snarl agreed, and started towards the Medbay, as well. The Dinobot reached the doorway first and peered upwards at the two deep furrows. "Yep, Slag was here, me thinks," Snarl said, looking over at Ironhide. The Dinobot then turned his attention back to the Medbay and walked through the entrance way without a second thought. The sound of more scrapping metal quickly followed as Snarl's two rather large, horn-like wings dug a pair of new trenches on either side of the door! Snarl looked back over his shoulder at the brand new damage he had just added. "Oops! Sorry!" He said to Ironhide. "Me, Snarl, still getting used to new form!"

The Dinobot then turned back around and looked at the stunned Autobots in the Medbay. "So, anyone seen Slag?"

Autobase Nu - Corridors

Slag stomped. He growled. He gnashed his teeth. But for all this show of rage, fortune saw that Slag's rage was not unleashed on any unfortunates. His own unwillingness to speed up left those that encountered him plenty of time to get out of his way, and the neat, clear corridors of the base had nothing for him to break. Thus, without a target to unleash them on, the flames of Slag's rage subsided and he became merely grumpy again.
His single-mindedness, however, had led him onward aimlessly, where he took the path which required the least effort to stomp forward. Thus instead of turning inward towards the command centre, Slag had by this stage stomped all along the main ring corridor of the base, and come back practically where he started!

Ah well, he figured, saves having to walk back the same way.

Landing pad

Slag tromped back out of the base, mere kliks after Snarl and Ironhide went to fetch him, and walked past Inferno and Smokescreen without so much as a nod. Back on the thermocrete, he walked to the shuttle, directing his attention at Swoop.
"Kup not here, we wasting time. We should just take off and come back for him after war over."

Autobase Nu - Command Center

Though the majority of Prowl's considerable processing power had been devoted to the ongoing fight against the Decepticon Prototype near the border with Polyhex, he had not been completely oblivious to the arrival of Grimlock and his team. He had not seen any great need to authorize their landing clearance personally, largely because any interaction with the Dynobot Commander--even over a comm channel--tended to result in severe stress to his primary behavioral protocols and to his cerebro-circuitry in general. To say that the maverick officer's arrival had been ill-timed would have been a profound understatement.

Still, there was a high probability that Grimlock was on his way to the Command Center now, though what he might possibly want was anybody's guess. Probably to offer a tirade against Prowl's mismanagement of Nova Cronum, Prime's mismanagement of the war, and his general dissatisfaction with anything outside his direct control, in that exasperating, broken idiom of his. Whatever the case, the analyst steeled himself for what he hoped would be an only vaguely unpleasant encounter.

Unaccountable variable though he could be, there was no denying the former gladiator's value to the Autobots. For that reason alone, Prowl was willing to endure whatever scathing commentary might come his way. It was the only way to deal with Grimlock, really; like the infrequent acid rains that scored the surface of Cybertron, his ire had to simply be weathered. There was little chance of him undergoing any significant improvement in temperament anytime in the foreseeable future.

For a moment, Prowl fervently wished that he had gone along with Kup's field team, or Springer's reinforcements. At least he'd have been able to shoot at the Decepticon.

Crash Site

What the Pit did he just say? Kup had not heard all of Nova Strike's barked commands over the din of weapons fire and heavy propulsion systems, but what he had deciphered was some string of meaningless numbers. The young Autobot followed his oration by dropping smoke bombs on the ground for some unknown reason.

That's why, back in my mega-cycle, we kept the rookies in the Academy for more than the fifteen astroseconds they keep 'em in training these days...can't even communicate without going into a string of new-fangled tac jargon, consarnit... 'Consarnit' probably wasn't a strong enough word to convey Kup's feelings at being bossed around by an Autobot one-one-hundredth his age and experience, not to mention half his rank. Still, the middle of a battle like this was no time to express his sentiments on the matter. The Autobots on the scene had bigger things to worry about than the chain of command.

Kup saw the Decepticon knock Springer out of the sky and then send Topspin into a world of hurt. Looks like he's not afraid of numbers. Fan-slagging-tastic. At least, up above, the Aerialbots moved into view. A little air support never hurt anyone. Zeroing down on Sixshot with his musket laser, Kup began laying down distracting fire to aid Springer in some way and hopefully to prevent the Decepticon from being too prepared for an Aerialbot attack.

Meanwhile, from a moderately high altitude, Skydive had already turned his radar and other sensors on Sixshot and was calculating a myriad of potential attack vectors and the possible responses from the Decepticon. As second-in-command of the Aerialbots, it was his frequent and highly unpleasant duty to deal with Slingshot's tremendous ego. However, he knew that to simply order him to be quiet and maintain radio discipline would cause more trouble than it would prevent, and so Skydive decided to keep him busy instead.

>>"Slingshot, achieve target locks on his main joints," Skydive told his sharpshooting colleague. "But do not fire until given the mark."<<

Crash Site

Sixshot grunted as the shots from Springer struck him. The damage he was taking was beginning to add up. He had little desire to abandon the battlefield but it seemed that additional Autobots were on their way. They were already nearly in weapons range. While he could take on numerous Autobots at once, he could not take on seemingly all of them at once. A good warrior knew when it was time to withdraw and fight another day. The sixchanger shifted to his space fighter mode and rocketed back towards Polyhex.

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Autobase Nu - Command Center

“Hnn, there you are Prowl. Me wondering why we not get much help from here. Now me know why, you too busy watching others fight.” Grimlock made his entrance and his disdain for Prowl boldly and loudly, as was his nature. The Dinobot commander strolled across the command center until he stood in front of the base’s current commander. He towered over the military strategist. He wasn’t in a particularly good mood, but that was typically the case anytime he had to talk with Prowl. This time though he was in an especially foul one. He had seen more action on that mudball then he had seen since getting back on Cybertron, the center of the war. He needed to get on the frontlines and soon.

Grimlock glared at Prowl for a second before turning to look at the sensor readings coming from the battle just outside the city state. “That many Autobots for one Decepticon? You definitely needed me back. You must all forget how to fight while me gone.” His impression of the Autobots left on Cybertron was continuing to drop. He needed to get the LSC up and running again to try and turn this war around before Autobots like Prowl and Prime led them to ruin. He glanced back at Prowl. "Where Kup at?"

Autobase Nu ~ Hallways

"Hey, if any of us could figure out what's running through Grimlock's thought processors, I think Cybertron would probably implode on itself in a nano second.." Inferno joked in reply to Smokescreen as they walked along the quite sparsely populated corridors of Autobase Nu "..My best guess is it won't be much in the way of base preparation and defensive measures once we arrive in Uraya. I figure we'll get the bare essentials setup, and then he'll turn his attention to retaliating against the 'Cons.." The S&R Specialist spoke with a shrug of his shoulders "..I don't suppose you've got any ideas as to what we should do?" Inferno asked Smokscreen, purely rhetorically, as he already figured the diversionary tactician probably had something planned.

--------------------------------
Crash Site

>>Fine, fine, just let me know when I can end this..<< Slingshot replied to Skydive as his targeting systems began working on achieving locks on Sixshot's various 'Weak' spots >>..There's little that a few well placed mortar wounds can't... Hey wait, where's the slagger running off to?<< the VTOL jet continued, quite annoyed that Sixshot seemed to be beating a hasty retreat, he'd been looking forward to getting a little bit of action after an extended break >>..Slag it<< Slingshot commented as he fired 2 shots at the half targeted Sixchanger.

Autobase Nu - Command Center

It took all of Prowl's considerable self-control to resist the urge to roll his optics heavenward at Grimlock's typically contentious opening remarks. There was little point in arguing with him, however; piranacons had to swim, shrikebats had to fly. And the Dynobot leader had to be a disruptive thug.

"Delighted to see you, too, Grimlock," the analyst replied dryly, only glancing up from his console for a moment to meet the fiery red gaze of the larger Autobot. "I'll be with you in half a klik." Contrary to whatever he might think, Prowl was not simply going to drop everything he was working on whenever hyperaggressive former pit fighters came barging into his command center and started barking demands.

Of far greater concern than the bad attitudes of some of his fellow soldiers was that Decepticon prototype that had mauled Kup's patrol on the border. Preliminary sensor data was sketchy at best, but when combined with the reports and the combat logs of the teams that had actually fought the Primus-cursed thing, hopefully they would have sufficient intelligence to gain a reasonable assessment of its capabilities--and possible weaknesses.

Which would be vital, if and when they encountered it again. "When" looking to be the more probable of the two possibilities. The Decepticons rarely failed to press an advantage.

With the data properly collated for future analysis and reference, Prowl looked up again, recalling the last question Grimlock had posed. "Kup? He's presently out in the field. Now that the Decepticon seems to have withdrawn, I expect he and his team will be returning to Nu presently." He gave a brittle smile. "In the meantime, feel free to offer a few more of those illuminating insights into our present military situation. I find them fascinating, in a 'look what my protoform can do' sort of way."

(OOC: Hey all, I'm back online. I probably should have posted that I was off on vacation again. I did notice that this thread got started over again after the board got wiped.)

As the Aerialbots approached the location, Silverbolt noticed that the Con transformed and jetted out at a very high rate of speed. Silverbolt saw that Slingshot tried to take a shot at him but figured that with the high rate of speed that Slingshot would actually miss this time.

Air Space
"Do not pursue the Con, Aerialbots. We need to hook up with Kup and the rest of the group to see about damages. However, do keep your sensors peeled to the direction that Con went just in case he decides to come back for more. We don't need to be caught by suprise."

"Kup, this is Silverbolt. How is your team doing? The Con decided to fly out of here and hopefully for good. We are coming in to see about any damage."

Autobase Nu - Command Center

Grimlock took a seat in the command chair of the base. Seeing as how it was big enough to seat Fortress Maximus the Dinobot commander was able to fit in it quite comfortably. “Me not want to take anymore of your important ‘staring at consoles while other Autobots fight’ time Prowl. Me know how much you like to watch. Most of what me have to say probably go over your head anyway.” Yes, Prowl hadn’t changed over all of that time. He still though he was smarter than everyone else and he still preferred to lead from as far from the frontlines as he could.

If he wanted to get out of here without tearing the strategist’s head off then he needed Kup to get back to the base quickly. He tapped a few controls on the command chair, opening a line to the old timer. >>”Kup, this Grimlock. If you done playing out there come back to base so we can get moving. Maybe you can tell me what so special about this one Decepticon that it take a small army to drive him away.”<<

Autobase Nu - Landing Pad

A klik of Swoop fussing over the shuttle in ignorance of Slag's bold re-entrance was about as much as he could stand. He was half tempted to give the shuttle a kick to get his attention, but he didn't want to sent his transportation half a mile out into the city in pieces, and Swoop was one of the few entities that Slag was willing to accept this kind of reception from.
Oh, and there were people on the shuttle too that could get hurt. That was another reason not to, he guessed.

Now bored with the empty landing pad, Slag walked back into the shuttle, and saw Wheeljack, Cliffjumper, and Sludge were still inside. "Huh. Were everyone else go? They think can find old Kup quicker than me?"

Crash Site

The sickening sound of gears grinding together echoed over the landscape while a solitude green mobile tank was on the move. The possibility of dangerous fire being exchanged was what Hardhead lived for, having just returned from guarding the far corners of Nova Cronum. A massive laser-guided cannon adjusted to acquire proper distance to targets while the armored ground assault tank pushed forward.

Hardhead had been listening to the transmissions generated from the point of conflict. Gears twisted and turned as the massive tank came to a complete right turn and powered its way towards the last known point of origin. “All of the loose bolted things. They started the party with out me!” Hardhead grumbled to himself as the experienced war veteran produced a dust cloud behind his trail.

Hardhead transformed while still moving across the terrain, allowing massive robotic knee’s to form and slide across the ground while a pair of blasters where ejected from his armored core. Hardhead came to a stop to catch his weapons and then ran on foot towards the crash site once he was in range.

Air Space Over Crash Site

>>"Acknowledged," Skydive transmitted back to Silverbolt. He quickly did his executive officer's duties by comming his fellow Aerialbots. "Air Raid, Fireflight, tight perimeter patrol at five thousand meters altitude. Slingshot, on Silverbolt's wing."<<

Orders issued, Skydive followed his commander's lead as he decreased altitude to rendezvous with the Autobot ground-pounders.



Crash Site

Receiving Silverbolt's query, Kup sent a quick response. >>"Minimal casualties. Dings and dents, except for Topspin and Springer. We're gonna secure a ground perimeter. See you in a kilk."<<

Looking back to the other Autobots on the ground, Kup quickly took stock of the situation. Damage had not been too bad, with the exceptions he had mentioned to Silverbolt. Still, there was no telling if Sixshot was coming back or not. Or if that big multi-mode slag-wagon was just on a probing mission. Could be more 'Cons coming in his wake.

"Quit standin' around like you won somethin'!" Kup barked in his best drill instructor's voice at the Autobots in the area. "Unless you're named 'Topspin' or 'Springer,' get back on your guard and form a tight perimeter 'til we get the wounded out. The mission ain't over 'til you're back in Nu sippin' a high-grade!"

As he attempted to get the troops back in order, Kup was surprised by another comm message, this one from Grimlock. He had spoken briefly to the Dynobot leader earlier, but had yet to see him. The old vet sent a response in short order.

>>"We're moving our wounded back to Nu," he told the Dynobot. "Should be there shortly. Pit, for once, you're probably the one with the stories to tell. Kup out."<<

Crash site

Topspin was outraged when the Decepticon decided to leave, Topspin yelled his frustration at the retreating form before refocusing on the situation at hand, Kup was right there could be far more cons on the way. As much as Topspin wanted to wait around to dish out some payback he knew that he should head back for repairs, that didn’t make admitting it any easier though. Topspin put his rifle back into sub space and walked over to Springer. As he approached the green mech he noticed that Springer had taken quite a nasty hit.

‘Well Springer I suppose we’d better get back to Nu, hopefully we’ll be up and about before anything exciting happens. We’d better go and find Kup and see about transport, my engines are wrecked.’


Autobase Nu - Command Centre


‘I’ve got a couple of ideas brewing up Inferno, but I fear they’ll be a bit to subtle for our exalted commander.’ Smokescreen replied to the bot’s question. ‘Of course I can’t really plan anything in much detail until I know our operation parameters but hopefully Grimlock will give us a bit of leeway once he gets over his initial urge to smash some cons.’

The conversation had carried the two mechs to the command centre. Smokescreen walked through the door and saw Grimlock and Prowl, the former receiving a reply from Kup. Smokescreen was more interested in what was on the monitors Prowl was looking at. Smokescreen had never seen anything like it. He decided that the matter warranted serious attention and so addressed Prowl.

‘Prowl I don’t suppose you feel like sharing the cause of all that data with me do you?’

Crash Site
Springer was kneeling in robot mode the hit he had taken made it uncomfortable to move in this alt too. He sighed a weary sigh as he stood slowly and looked around. Wheelbar looked to be fine. The Lead wrecker turned as Topspin approached him. The bot didn’t look too bad his damage was repairable but still, Springer felt sorry that his fellow bot had taken any damage at all.

“Yeah, I definitely can’t take to the air right now and I’m not thinking transforming a smart move at the moment.”

Springer looked down at his rotors. His optics dulled with the prospect of spending more time in medbay. He straightened up and patted Topspin on the back.

“You had the right idea though; too bad we didn’t get a chance to take him on as a unit. Though I can’t help but be impressed by all those alt-modes. And I thought 3 was nothing to sneeze at. “

The green mech walked alongside topspin as they made their way back to Kup.

Maximus Line: Crashsite

Nova Strike's thumb hovered just over the switch that would have completed his daring challenge to Sixshot's supremacy. It barly touched the switches surface, his thumb coiled to flick it into activation. But it was a scheme that would not come to fluition. Sixshot had grown perhaps for a lack of a better term bored with the fight and had ran off back across the border south to the tower. The switch upon his own blaster remained in the off position, one flick would have caused the weapon to overload... and with the magnetic smoke grenade, it would have made a most threatening menace to the multiformer.

But now Nova Strike pulled off the switch and recovered the panels as he disconnected the grenade allowing it to clip back onto the magstrip across his scarred chest plate. "Fracking...." He wanted to finish the statement, he wanted to curse for being robbed of the chance to beat that bastard back. But he could not. No, he was in no condition to do anything but slump to one knee and clasp at his shreded right arm. He couldn't have noticed earlier, the surge of energy had preempted any sort of registration of critical fluid loss. But there at the base of his knee, a pool of hydrolic fluid and swirls of energon bore evidence.

His mind now tuned off Kup's barking of orders as his internal systems redirected priorities from weapons and motorfunctions to repair the damage and reroute power and signals. The right arm no longer accepted any signals, and he was losing energon at a moderate rate.

Shuttle Dauntless

Wheeljack let loose his little Sky Spy and let it hover on its own once more. With almost everyone off of the shuttle, it provided the inventor with the prime opportunaty to finally give his little satellite some test time. "Alright Sky Spy... Do a scan of the shuttle port and report back all data for analysis." He pressed the communicator control activater and let the little spy float down the hatch and out the door after Grimlock and the other Dynobots.

Crash Site

Silverbolt approached the spot where the others were standing. He then transforms and lands next to Kup signaling Skydive and Slingshot to do the same. Silverbolt looks around and sees Topspin, Springer, and Nova Strike all with injuries.

"It looks like you survived another round Kup but it looks like we also took a pounding. We've got Air Raid and Fireflight doing an aerial patrol just in case whoever you was fighting would decide to return and attempt to finish the job. Hopefully Minvera will be up to putting you all back together again. We would be willing to make things easier on you to get back and less stress on your already fractured structures. I'm just thankful that we didn't lose anybody to that thing. He had some serious speed leaving this area. It will be interesting to read your report whenever I get the chance."

Silverbolt quickly turned to his side and flipped open his communicator.

"Air Raid and Fireflight, let us know the moment that Con even hints at heading back this direction. We won't even think about what would happen if he caught us by surprise."

Silverbolt then turned back to Kup with a slight concern look on his face. Even with the Aerialbots here, the ground units took enough damage that if whoever that thing was came back, it would be a tough fight if he was able to take on this many Autobots.

Shuttle Dauntless

"ARRRRRRRHHHH!"

Swoop screamed in frustration as he crawled his way out of the shuttle's maintenance crawlspace. It had been no mean feat to fit his taller than the average Bot frame into the narrow corridor in the first place, and getting out had proven even more troublesome. Making his way to his feet, the grime-covered pilot punctuated his outburst by hurling a spanner to the floor.

"Me hate rain," he grumbled. "Oh, hi Slag. Remember when it just rained water on that dirtball? That was cool. But now we back home. And Just to remind us of that, we had to run into a fraggin storm!"

Sitting down on the floor, he continued to complain about the state of their transportation. "The paint's ruined. The hull's scored with acids burns. That's all surface stuff. No problem. But the pit-spawned intakes for the atmospheric thrusters were clogged with that nasty dreg. Me Swoop just spent two and a half breems diggin it all out." He looked down forlornly at his dirty frame. "Me think it eating my plating," he said plaintively.

"Me Swoop gotta wash this mess off," He said to the occupants of the Dauntless. "Any word from Grimlock or Kup?"

Autobase Nu - Landing Pad

The appearence of the Sky Spy was a little disconcerting to Slag, mostly because he couldn't figure out what it was. It wasn't an Autobot or a Decepticon, yet it moved around and it had eyes of some sort. As it flew past him coming out of the shuttle, the confused Dynobot tried to swat it away, and missed horribly. It took him several astroseconds to calm himself and figure out it was just a drone.
He turned back into the shuttle and pointing an irate finger at Wheeljack. "You Wheeljack keep your pitspawned gizmoids out of Me Slag's face!!! Me know the slag you build always blow up or go on fire or shoot electricity or something, Me Slag want none of it near me!"
He then turned to Swoop as his fellow Dynobot came out from under the Shuttle. "You Swoop look like something Cybermoose vomit up." was his only response to the flier's condition. "Prowl send Kup off on mission, probably to other side of planet. Probably did it just to frag with us. We be here cycles, and there nothing to do to keep us busy, 'cause of course Prowl's base so tidy there nothing to break. Ugh. Me Slag come with you to maintenance, maybe they have lube to keep me siezing up from all this...this order."

Maximus Line: Crash Site

Devcon snatched the cylinder Nova Strike tossed him out of the air, but before he could do anything with it, the ’Con finished mauling Springer and dashed back across the border in cruiser mode.

Lowering his arm back down, Devcon, eyed the retreating con before turning back to the gathered Autobots.

Kup started barking orders as Devcon watched Nova drop to his knees ending his headlong charge. The other two wounded, Springer and Topspin, were stumbling to their feet as he watched.

Nova looks like he needs the most help at the moment, Dev thought to himself, as soon as I get him taken care of, I will go and help Kup keep an optic on the surrounding area while we evacuate.

Striding over to where Nova was kneeling on the debris strewn ground, Devcon paused to bend over and scoop up the canister meant for Kup to use. Arriving astroseconds later next to Nova, Devcon switched both containers to his right hand and offered his left to Nova Strike.

“Do you need some help getting up?”

Crash Site

Hardhead reached the crash site. It would appear the Autobots where victorious in repelling the Decepticon attack force, unless his optics betrayed him. The hulking figure glanced around; taking in damage that had been accumulated to friendly targets.

“Hey Kup! Sorry I am late for the show! Hahah.” Hardhead went on to explain while he started to carry out the orders he was assigned to. “Guard duty, my specialty.” Hardhead would express while he had a vast amount of years under his belt when it comes to guard duty.

Hardhead transformed into his tank mode, forming a massive green tank with a mounted cannon in the center. Red Autobot insignia’s shined on multiple portions of his hull. Hardhead would take his position in the defensive perimeter until they returned to base.

Autobase Nu - Command Center

"I appreciate the consideration, Grimlock," Prowl returned evenly. His conversation with the Dynobot Commander was going about as well as he had expected it would. On the plus side, the towering Autobot hadn't smashed anything important in the course of his scathing reply, at least. Maybe he had learned to rein in his temper a little during his long absence.

Internally, the strategist was kicking himself for letting the big lug get under his plating. As a general rule, Prowl never allowed his personal feelings to interfere with the execution of his duties. But he and Grimlock were as diametrically opposed in their outlooks and methods as any two mechanoids could be while retaining the same allegiance.

However he might disapprove of him, there was no questioning that Grimlock was valuable to the Autobot cause. That was reason enough to maintain his professional stance. Regardless of how difficult it might occasionally be.

Prowl glanced at Smokescreen as the latter requested access to the information Nu's sensors had logged regarding the battle with the Decepticon prototype. It wasn't exactly standard procedure to allow that information to be disseminated before it had been processed, but there wasn't much harm in it, either. On the off chance Smokescreen happened to run into the monster at some point in the near future, it might give him an edge.

"I'm still collating the data," Prowl said distractedly. "But if you don't mind reviewing it in its raw form, then you can access it over at that secondary command station." He waved a hand absently in the direction of one of the other consoles, then returned to his work. It only belatedly dawned on him why Grimlock might be travelling with the longtime diversionary tactician.

Tilting his head slightly to take in the spectacle of Grimlock seated on what to any mech smaller than Fortress Maximus could have been considered a throne (and Primus, he hoped the Dynobot didn't make himself too comfortable in the Big Chair), he ventured, "Putting the LSC back together?" That seemed a safe enough topic of conversation. Though Prowl couldn't help but feel some small trepidation as he wondered just what Grimlock and his former attack unit might get up to in the near future.

Crash Site

Moving to his assigned position on his leader's wing, Slingshot was still annoyed that he missed the fleeing Decepticon, though he wasn't about to let the others know anytime soon. As they all descended down to meet up with Kup and the remnants of the ground patrol, the VTOL jet adhered to Silverbolt's gesture and transformed into his robot mode as they touched down, taking in the scene as the various mauled team of groundpounders struggled back to their feet.

Looking over to Skydive, Slingshot smiled smugly before speaking "Well, it's a good job we got here when we did eh Skydive?.." The Aerialbot began, loud enough for everyone to hear "..I mean, look at the state of these guys, any longer against one single 'Con and we may have been scraping them off the landscape"

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Autobase Nu ~ Command Center

As he and Smokescreen walked into the command center, Inferno just grinned at the diversionary specialist's comments, regardless if they were intended to be humorous or not. Looking up as Smokescreen began talking to Prowl, the S&R Specialist noticed Grimlock looking well at home sitting in Fortress Maximus' seat, though it didn't really seem like the Dynobot Commander's style if Inferno was being honest.

Nodding in greeting to Prowl, making sure not to interrupt his reply to Smokescreen's inquiry, Inferno moved over to a nearby console to grab a seat. With not much else to do, the fire truck decided to just take a quiet moment to relax and put his feet up, literally, on the nearby console. Waiting; It wasn't exactly Inferno's best attribute.

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Autobase Nu ~ Medbay

After just avoiding becoming a innocent victim of Slag's little temper tantrum, Archangel had finally got round to paying a visit to Omega Supreme and the immense job of returning the Guardian to full functionality after his 'little' enagagement in Polyhex.

Returning back to the Medbay, a bit more tired and exhausted than he thought he would be, the young Medic was thankful that there was nothing left for him to do. All Casualties had been taken care of, the medbay itself was empty, and there was no word of any impending wounded incoming "I should be in charge of things more often if this is the effect I have" He thought to himself as he laid back on one of the tables for a little rest "Might as well enjoy it while I can, Minerva will be back up and about soon, and then I'll be bac..."

His musings where cut short as he felt a large shadow fall over him, a very familiar shadow "Arch? Hey Arch?" The voice said, a slight tone of worry evident "Yes Orph?" The Medic replied, knowing full well his protector was back on his feet after time in CR "I'm fine, just taking a little break. You feeling good?" Smiling in relief, Orpheus stood to attention as he replied "Yup, you did good as you always do, I feel great, thanks Arch" Chuckling softly at his friend's customary butchering of words, Archangel removed his hand from over his optics and looked up to the red optics peering down at him "You can head off and find something to do now, I'm quite alright here.." The young Medic 'ordered' before cutting off the inevitable reply "..And yes of course, if I need you, I'll contact you, now off you go"

Patting Archangel on his chest, Orpheus began to walk towards the Medbay exit where Broadside and Sub-Zero were stood talking. The young 'Bot recognised the Wrecker, and to a lesser extent, the Wolf-Bot as well, not registering the fact that they may already be deep in a conversation of their own, interrupted them "Hey, um.. I'm kinda bored, anyone want to come to the sim battle place with me?" Orpheus asked, the 'Sim Battle Place' being the Training Facilities' Holo simulation rooms.

Autobase Nu - Command Centre

Smokescreen barely waited until the words were out of Prowl’s mouthpiece before he had sat himself down and activated the monitor, brining up all the data that Prowl had accumulated, even a quick glance told Smokescreen that this was unlike anything that they had ever encountered before, the speed at which the con changed forms, his strength and accuracy… he was indeed a truly dangerous machine. Smokescreen was fully aware of what a risk this con could pose to an operation alone, as part of a group this con could potentially force the LSC out of action. Smokescreen was burning with questions; was there any evidence of more mechs like this one? What kind of breakthrough could make this possible? More importantly he had to get Grimlock to understand the nature of this threat, if even half of the data he was seeing was accurate then the new con was a threat that couldn’t be brushed off. Fortunately Smokescreen knew an almost sure fire way to get the Dinobot’s attention.

‘Hey Grimlock this guy look’s like he’d give you a run for your money in a fight’

Smokescreen was well prepared to risk the Dinobot’s wrath if that was what was needed to get him to understand just what this new con implied.

Crash Site

Topspin approached Kup, with nothing to distract him anymore, Topspin was really beginning to feel what the con had done to him.

‘Kup, any chance of getting some transport in from Nu to take us home? My alt mode engines are busted and it looks like Nova Strike can’t stand without help. Oh yeah Springer doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere fast.’ Topspin flashed a brief grin at his long time friend.

Medbay

‘Sure thing I was getting bored of standing around here to.’

Broadside replied to Orpheus’ question. Broadside had been standing around for quite a while now, Minerva could surely take care of herself once she woke up there really was no reason to hang around the medbay any more

‘What about you then Zero? you going to come? Broadside asked the smaller mech.