by O.G. » Mon Mar 06, 2017 6:40 am
Whiteout was a little alarmed when the female did not take his offering but dared to traverse his ice alone. His hand hovered around her in an almost paranoid fashion. "You are most welcome," he purred in a most gentlemanly fashion despite his fear that this human was going to slip and break something. Luckily, she used his protective hand for balance just enough to not slip and potentially kill her valuable self. He breathed an internal sigh of relief once she was finally back on the traction of the dirt. He rose back to his full height then, paving himself a short path of ice so that he could casually glide back to her side as she introduced herself. My, how could have he forgotten his manners?
"Ah, yes, your designation. My designation is Whiteout, pardon the delay of the introduction," he begged, offering her one of his more winsome grins. No sooner than did he do this however, than did the energy surge shooting into the sky create a literal and rather violent storm, and an appendage came flying out of nowhere. Whiteout dodged it cleanly by merely rolling a shoulder back and spinning ninety degrees on his ice, watching as the apparent arm landed squarely on his old landing strip and corroded it most repulsively. He grimaced slightly. "Right." He swiveled on his ice back to face the small female Kat, as she had introduced herself. "About getting you out of here--" For what felt like the millionth time today, Without was cut off, this time by a sudden, overwhelming surge of energy signatures igniting one distant corner of his radars. Whiteout turned his head in the direction, adjusting his sights to peer over the horizon and glimpse a rather formidable fleet of Insecticons. Earth was more populated with other planetary life forms than he had originally anticipated. His options were weighed quickly in his mind. He could take the female Kat and flee, or he could take her, hide her away, and return to fight beside this strange bot and see if he could not earn himself a less than hostile audience with the conspicuous stranger. He quite liked the second option; it offered so much more thrill.
"I do not mean to alarm you, but there is a particularly large fleet of hostile creatures approaching from the east. I feel I must assist our strange friend over here," he jabbed a chrome thumb in the direction of the mech responsible for blowing their cover, "in suppressing them. Excuse me for this rash action," he stooped down and took Kat gently in one hand before standing back up, "but I must get you to an area of safety immediately." Without another word, Whiteout activated his thrusters and lifted from the ground, easily overcoming the obstacle that Kat had seen as impossible to pass and just barely missing the sudden energy pulse that surged below from the mech's legs below. Though this took little time, the Insecticons were already nearly within blasting distance. Scrap. He looked around, left and right, forward and back. The Insecticons blocked the surest path the the sturdy buildings of the city, and everything else was empty space, save for a dilapidated tin shed, leaning slightly to the left, a short distance off from the junkyard. It would have to do. At a speed hopefully not too overwhelming to Kat, Whiteout jaunted over to the shed and made a rare landing on terrain other than his own ice. He set her down on the ground gently. "Hide in there until I come back for you. Really, please do wait for me. I already find your company most stimulating." Leaving her with a flash of a grin, Whiteout launched himself into a midair transformation and bolted off to the junkyard, occasionally digging a bolt of lightning.
"Hey, sparky!" he called down once he found himself in the periphery of the mech. "It looks like your sparkle party over here has attracted some hostile attention. I know the bugs aren't yours!" His voice was raised to a shout out of necessity. The crackling of thunder and energy was almost deafening up close. "I'll lend a hand in turn for a friendly audience!" he offered, smoothly dodging the first blast of the Insecticon just fast enough to lead the oncoming swarm.
It did not bypass Shockwave's attention that Nightshade shook her hand at the end of the reasoning he had to offer her, though he did not react in the slightest. He simply kept himself to the repairs at hand, systematically addressing the damage from the innermost components outward. He did not pause, though he swore he felt a part of his processor's circuitry falter for less than a nanoklik of time. Had she not just heard Pharma inform them that he had been unsuccessful in previous scouting missions? He was clearly unfit for the task, though Shockwave supposed he could reasonably supply the coordinates to his nearby lab and simply instruct him as to where the needed part could be located. However, before he could succumb to the logical solution, a low rumbling began to barely tease at the fringes of his audio range, and soon the ceiling above them and the floor below them began to tremble over so slightly. Shockwave hesitated in his work, a more delicate operation, before the tremors could cause his steady hand to falter in its task and looked up just in time for the page on his computer's display screen to be interrupted by a flashing radar image which revealed a massive curtain of Insecticon energy signals flying straight overhead of the base. Shockwave tilted his helm so that his one optic could stare at Nightshade since her dismissal of his logic had so quickly proven to be folly. They were not as alone as she had suspected, though he did not speak a word over the matter. To seek for validation was illogical when he had all along understood his reasoning.
"They overpassed us." Though he was unclear as to why, for Insecticons had superior tracking skills to most Cybertronian life. Perhaps the Insecticons had, indeed, detected their presence but were otherwise engaged. But how had they returned to Earth when they, along with Arachnid, had been disposed of into deep space by Soundwave some time ago? He found it unlikely that she had found a means of transportation strong enough to return her back to Earth, though now he was subject to entertain the improbable. "I doubt that we remain undetected," he voiced, knowing very well the superior tracking skills of Insecticons. "Pharma is ill equipped to search outside of the lab with their presence imminent. I will retrieve the part; its location is known to me," he informed Nightshade, finishing up his delicate repair work on one of the generator's conversion terminals before rising to his full height and setting his tools aside. "I installed a defense system to deter any Autobot invasions from the outside before the war's end." He then approached the computer console without asking Nightshade to move, accessing his laboratory's defense system and readying it. "I advise you to activate it should the Insecticons return. Pharma, you may finish the repairs on the generator while I am gone." It may have seemed foolish to wish to cloak an already discovered position, but this was Shockwave's largest lab and he intended on convincing Nightshade that it was only one of few, for logical reasons. Insecticons were notorious for their rudimentary battle skills and could likely be easily brought to extinction on Earth, leaving no enemies left to be aware of their location before his generator was in working order once more. He stepped back from the console, awaiting Nightshade's approval as his temporary leader.
Hijack landed immediately after Arachnid, keeping to his alternate form so that he could navigate just as easily over the jagged terrain, his optics flickering about so that he could memorize the pathway leading to the entrance of his new lab. He was, however, unprepared for the pouring sensation of awe and ecstasy when he made his way inside behind his queen. His optics took in every surface, every device, ever panel of the walls and floor. He did not realize the small size of the lab, nor did he care that it was incomplete. All he could see before him was dazzling potential, a tangible chance to serve his queen to the very extremes of his ability. His wings shuddered once more as he carefully followed his queen on his pinprick legs as though he thought this was a fantasy on the brink of shattering away. He stopped when his queen did, some several strides away from her location at the terminal, and looked around curiously, already weighing himself with the task of familiarizing himself with his new workspace. He broke off quite readily, however, from his thoughtful staring when Arachnid's silken voice echoed to him in the empty room and paid her his immediate, full attention.
He bowed his head to her in concurrence with her wishes, his wings giving another small, perceivable shudder at her promise, for her effect upon him was strong whether she was sincere or distant of mind. He could tell no difference. He transformed back into bi-pedal mode then, folding his wings diligently behind him, and turned to begin collecting some useful looking items and beginning to build himself a station at a place obviously intended to be used as such. He could only hope that the soldiers send out to find the necessary ingredients for his acids would arrive in all swiftness, for he did not wish for his queen to be kept waiting. Quite fortunately, however, those sent off to retrieve his desired ingredients returned in under a cycle, and he thanked them all rather politely and began to undertake the concocting process. It required none of the fancy machinery he had station at his new workspace for other compounds he hoped to create in time, for the acid relied solely upon the chemical reactions of its raw, unaltered ingredients. Admittedly, it was one of his more rudimentary "potions", even so potent as the acid was, but what was he to do? Before now, he had lacked access to proper laboratory equipment, and, for now, he had only been asked to recreate the acid from before. Besides, he could have never anticipated a laboratory with such complex, promising technology now at his disposal. He would make his queen proud, and the thought had him daring to crack the slightest of grins as his compounding came to a close.
Mods, please don't ban us! Me and Chibby-dono are siblings and we sometimes trade unfairly.
Formerly called I-am-CC.