CYBERNETIC | Wings of Fire RP

[broner]

Rift | 17 | SeaWing | Eyeless Cave, City | tags: Temper
So, it had been a weird couple of days for Rift. The SeaWing, who had been jumping town for as long as he could remember and avoiding the City like the plague, stood now in a dank bar called the Eyeless Cave, filled with restless energy. The tender had given him a bored, unimpressed look when he'd mentioned his encounter with the envoy and passed him a folded note. Please find the Engineer and free us at last. Don't get him wrong, Rift always loved helping others--but what in the three moons' high tides did that mean?
He rubbed his temples with his webbed claws, nursing a club soda in the corner. The note refused to lay flat, as though it had been folded for a very long time. It sounded like there were supposed to be others, but for the life of him he couldn't figure out who they might be, and the dragon at the bar was no help. Rift wasn't known for being particularly smart, but getting snagged so early was... a little pathetic, right?
The door jingled, and Rift looked up. A SkyWing, tall, without cybernetics entered. That was uncommon. He couldn't help but squint, frowning. Given the tiny number of other dragons in the bar, this all-to-confident SkyWing drew a bit too much attention.

Sleet | 14 | Ice/Sea/Sky | Backstreets, City | tags: open
A string of curses and a loosened plate later, Sleet's latest attempt at a game he liked to call gaming food so I don't starve to death and my chrome gets pried from my corpse was a decided failure. He knew he was an urchin; that was kind of his thing. Getting called one by the soldiers was a bit of a badge of honor. He'd even preened at it once before getting cracked in the head with a boulder-like mechanized tail.
Still, this particular defeat left him a week out from eating, injured, and with a pack of soldiers hot on his trail. Sleet did what he knew best and slid into the gaps between buildings, holding his shoulder where the plate had come loose. A shrimp like him wasn't uncommon to see, but he was fairly distinctive; he hoped the shadows hid him well enough.

[crowface]

Leo | 11 | Rain/Sand | Backstreets, City | tags: Sleet

Leo shrieked a laugh over his shoulder as he barreled down alleyways, throwing soldiers off his trail one by one. His cybernetic claws helped him get traction as he bounced from wall to wall to disorient his opponents. One more jump and he--
A soldier grabbed him by his tail and slammed him into the ground. The guard hissed something unintelligible, and Leo attempted to switch his tail on only to find the guard had his foot placed firmly on the barb to prevent movement.
A flash of scales caught his eye, and he saw a dragon standing in the shadows. Trying not to make it obvious, he flicked his wing in the dragon's direction in hope for back up.

[AGGUA!]

Temper | 13 | SkyWing | Eyeless Cave, City | Tags: Rift

Temper had never been to the City. She'd been born far on the outskirts and didn't know much about it; questions being shot down by her parents many a time before. It seemed a sore topic for the family. She knew they'd gone from riches to rags in a matter of days, long before she'd hatched, but the details were elusive other than the fact that cybernetics were at the core of the whole affair.
And holy smokes, there was a lot of that in the City. Nearly every dragon was equipped with some sort of implant, whether it be an eye or an entire limb. The dystopian-ness of seeing a SeaWing with enormous robotic wings or a MudWing brandishing retractable metal spines was frightening. In actuality, she was the one out of place here for having nothing to her name. It drew attention, being wholly flesh and blood.
The Eyeless Cave was a dank hovel nestled deep in the seedy alleys of the City. It was unassuming and easy to miss, the type of place where strangers didn't ask or care to know your business. But she did, sadly, stick out like a sore thumb, and even the scattering of patrons were eyeing her up warily when she entered. Brushing off their gawking, Temper surveyed the stained tables and grumpy bartender. There--a SeaWing, hunched over a piece of parchment and sipping from a glass. She didn't clock him as having any mods, and while he was doing a much better job blending in, she had a feeling this was intended to be one of her newfound allies. Head held high so as not to betray her unease, Temper slithered over and took a seat at the stool directly next to him. Maybe that wasn't the smartest thing, she noted absently, but her ass was already sat and getting up now would look even worse. She blatantly didn't look over at him, instead inspecting the array of beverages holed up on the shelves behind the bar. The grumpy tender asked if she wanted anything, to which she said no--then, realizing how suspicious that looked, she instead changed her mind and asked for something non-alcoholic. "Surprise me."
Nothing happened for several minutes. A glass was placed in front of her, but when she took a sip it tasted downright awful. Putting that idea to bed quickly--she really wasn't doing a good job, here--she cleared her throat. "Are we being watched?" she asked. She still wasn't making eye contact with the SeaWing, but the question was directed at him. Even in a place like this, it wouldn't be stupid to assume that somebody was keeping tabs. The A.I. had eyes everywhere.

Reaper | 18 | Night/Ice/Sand | Barracks, City | Tags: Okapi
Another day, another outbreak of street urchins causing trouble in the slums. Ordinarily, Reaper was too high of station to bother dealing with it, but the civil unrest had been growing more rampant in the past years, and now it had become something of his job to tend to the masses. Why citizens couldn't just shut up and behave was beyond him. You could have everything you ever wanted, here, and it still wasn't enough for them.
"Okapi," he called, entering their shared bunk. "We're being sent out again." Reaper liked Okapi. The two jived from the get-go and complemented each other well, the SandWing's cybernetic eye good for sending and receiving messages from home base. It meant they were often paired up in the field, which Reaper didn't mind. Reaching up on the shelf adjacent to his bed, Reaper scanned the labeled vials and selected a mild paralytic. He usually didn't need anything deadly when dealing with civilians. Inserting his cybernetic stinger through the cap, he drew the liquid out like a syringe before returning it to the shelf. "Something about hybrids causing a stir in the slums."

[crowface]

Okapi | 15 | SandWing | Barracks, City | Tags: Reaper

Okapi tucked his head further into his folded wings and let out a poignant "mmmrrrph." The love he had for the city was vast, but the love he had for proper R&R was quite a bit larger. He had recently been released from the infirmary for burns following a prior hybrid slum incident, and was not exactly jumping for joy at the thought of another one.
Even so, he moved one of his wings to peek at Reaper and saw his coworker loading a vial into his stinger. Okapi had been happy to trade his organic tail for his transformative barb-to-stinger since he never had venom in the first place; a recessive gene left over from his alleged distant IceWing ancestry. The scythe was for show, mostly, because killing other dragons was not something he looked forward to.
"Let's hope there's not another hotshot making a scene," he remarked. "There's only so much aloe I can slather on before it gets annoying. Are we flying or terrestrial?"

[broner]

Rift | 17 | SeaWing | Eyeless Cave, City | tags: Temper
Rift was surprised when the SkyWing who'd attracted all the attention sat down right next to him instead of... anywhere else. She said she didn't want anything, then changed her mind and told the bartender "surprise me." Like she wasn't conspicuous enough.
"Uh," the SeaWing said in response, quirking a brow at her resolute lack of eye contact. He thought it would have been easier to pretend to flirt or something, but his dad always did call him a tail-chaser. He frowned and stared down at his drink. "Dunno. S'pose you're here 'cause of some dragon on the outside?" Rift didn't brandish the page or anything, but he toyed with the corner a bit. His nerves, or maybe more accurately his instincts, were jangling like nothing else. Maybe we should get out of here, Rift mused, gills prickling with cigarette smoke and intuition.

Sleet | 14 | Ice/Sea/Sky | Backstreets, City | tags: Leo
Well, this couldn't have gone worse. Sleet knew this dragon--of course he knew this dragon. The flashy hybrid who flaunted his frilly head everywhere he went, being generally annoying and attracting the attention of the soldiers at a time when they seemed all too happy to use far more force than was necessary. The idiot. He briefly considered ignoring him, but with a motormouth like that, he knew that it was only a matter of time until he was exposed. Best to get the drop on the guard while he still could.
Sleet scowled at the other hybrid with distaste, then bunched his legs and arced silently upward, tail poised as he hooked serrated claws into the rotting wood of a windowsill high above--a sure marker of poverty in this city. The guard was huge, even when most other dragons were huge in comparison to him. He heard a quiet hiss of metal and clapped his shoulder back into place, praying that it hadn't been heard.

[ItsAsher0]

Noctis | 7 1/2 | Ice/Night | Barracks, City | Tags: Reaper, Okapi

Noctis watched with a solemn gaze, as he contemplated his thoughts. His tail lay flicking behind him, a clear display of his frustration. He wanted to talk to the soldiers, but he felt himself held back by his own aggressive personality. A sign of his young age, no doubt. He reminded himself to watch his tongue, and his temper. Because when he let it get the best of him, nothing good followed. He wouldn't let that happen, especially if it could concern his rank as a soldier. He attempted to call himself down as he adjusted his stature and took a deep breath, awaiting any plans.

[AGGUA!]

Temper | 13 | SkyWing | Eyeless Cave, City | Tags: Rift

Temper flicked her gaze briefly to the other SeaWing, then back down to the unappealing liquid in her glass. She'd catalogued the slip of parchment worrying between his talons, which confirmed that this was, indeed, meant to be a contact of hers. "Maybe," Temper replied vaguely. Her scales were crawling, just as his likely were. The bar had already been quiet when they'd walked in, and now it felt like they were the only two talking. Tapping a talon on the lacquered wood, Temper raised her head and cocked it to look at one of the other patrons, only to find he was already staring at her. Eyes narrowed, she let out a snort, blue sparks springing up her nostrils and adding smoke to the already murky bar. The other dragon's eyes widened, if only marginally, but then he shuffled and went back to looking at the cards on the table and taking another drag from a fat-butted cigar.
While the SkyWing possessed no chrome herself, she had been born with a mean blue fire in her eyes and down her throat. Unfortunately, her brother had no fire-breathing ability of his own, so she suspected that she'd probably robbed him in the egg--but regardless, she hoped the abnormality made it seem like she belonged, if only slightly. "Not from around here. Used to live in one of the ritzier parts of the City." A complete lie. Her ancestors, sure, but not Temper herself. It was probably in their best interest to get the hell out, seeing as she'd already horribly botched her entrance, but that was equally suspicious at best and invited conflict with the seedy patrons at worst. She'd been given pretty strict instruction not to trust anybody.

Reaper | 18 | Night/Ice/Sand | Barracks, City | Tags: Okapi, Noctis

Reaper chuckled as Okapi got to his feet. "Believe me, I get it. I'd rather not deal either, but here we are. Bastards are always so damn ungrateful." Sensing eyes on him, Reaper glanced at the other NightWing hybrid lounging in the corner. Noctis. He was one of the newer soldiers and had a horrid attitude about him, which unfortunately meant the two butted heads from time to time. But Reaper really did do his best to serve as a good coworker; the younger dragon reminded him of himself, too, when he was new to the barracks and had something to prove. His own anger issues had lessened over the years as he'd comfortably found his niche. Hopefully, he could help Noctis do the same.
"Eh." Reaper shrugged. "Didn't sound super urgent. If you fancy a stroll that's fine by me, but I'll always advocate for going airborn." Scratching at the chrome wreath of spines adorning his neck, Reaper turned to address Noctis, bulldozing over his apparent irritation. "You're coming too. Get some more experience in the field that way."

[broner]

Rift | 17 | SeaWing | Eyeless Cave, City | tags: Temper
"That so? Can't say the same for myself," Rift replied, knocking back the last of his drink and tilting the streaky glass in the low light. The SkyWing was posturing like she didn't know the meaning of fear--or maybe just when to back down. Part of growing up a vagrant was knowing when to get the hell out of dodge, and there was always one maneuver in his arsenal that never failed. Sorry about this, he thought to himself, before folding the note into his pouch and sliding a talon over to bump against the SkyWing's. He was always a pretty nice-looking dragon, and had no issue pulling nearly anyone under the moons in the past; even if his end goal was different this time, the experience transferred, right? In his best low rumble, he said, "What say you we get out of here and get to know each other a little better, then?"

[crowface]

Leo | 11 | Rain/Sand | Backstreets, City | tags: Sleet

Leo cringed as one of Sleet's outdated plates made a slight hissing noise. The guard jerked his head toward the void the ice dragon was hiding in and, in doing so, let a small bit of pressure off of Leo's tail. In a flash, Leo ripped his tail out from under the guard and jabbed the side of his thigh. He didn't care to monitor the amount of venom administered or what kind. The guard's eyes rolled back into his head, and he fell unceremoniously on top of Leo. Ugh, trapped in a new way. Sleet always caught him at his worst moments.
"Could I get a little help here?" He tried to speak through a mouth of scales.

Okapi | 15 | Sandwing | Barracks, City | tags: Reaper, Noctis

Okapi attempted to wipe the confusion off his face, but by then it was too late. He was never good at controlling his face, nor was he any good at training and tempering new recruits. This one in particular had a bad attitude, according to many of his dragons-in-arms, and Okapi had no idea how to deal with that in an appropriate way. He supposed they both needed training, albeit in different ways. He tried to steel himself and puff his chest out to look intimidating, then realized he probably looked stupid. "Sounds good. Air travel works for me; I need to see if those hybrids did anything to my thrusters."

[AGGUA!]

Temper | 13 | SkyWing | Eyeless Cave, City | Tags: Rift

Temper shrugged. "That's alright. I did say I 'used to,' dunno if that implies anything." Keeping a wary eye on some of the stragglers, Temper narrowly missed when the SeaWing nudged her hand with a talon. But the presence was insistent and definitely there, and she instinctively jumped at the touch. Swiveling her head to look at him, she gaped in surprise when he hit her with a one-liner. Woah. Her entrance hadn't been the most subtle, either, but this was laying it on thick. Shooting him a confused look, she pressed her mouth into a thin line. Her brain sluggishly clocked this as an escape attempt, probably. She'd made a mess of things and the SeaWing was trying to clean it up. A brazen display of flirtation was a quick way to make other people uncomfortable and ward off nosy opposition.
Motives settled, Temper cleared her throat, attempting to smooth over her initial shock. Even so, things like this were not her strong suit, whereas the SeaWing next to her seemed well-versed. He was... Charming. If not goofily out-of-pocket. Dipping her snout and betraying a hint of a smile, Temper let out a soft laugh. She pushed her glass to the side--still nearly full, she'd barely touched the damn thing--slapping a few dirty gold coins on the bar for the dragon behind the counter. Might as well pay the man now if they'd be leaving soon anyway. "I could be persuaded, if you'll tell me your name," Temper purred.