Firefly
Designated Decoy
We Can't All be Heroes...[A1i:3]
Posts: 63
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Post by Firefly on Dec 19, 2011 20:31:45 GMT -5
She had never seen Cybertron, but it sounded almost better than Paradron did. Well, except for the whole ruins part. That sucks. But still. She remained attentive as the little bot's weaponry seemed to be prepped again, but spoke once more.
"I lived on a refugee planet, off of Cybertron. I grew up entirely unknowing of the war, having met only a small handful of Seekers. Most of them joined the Decepticons early on, and Paradron was a planet peaceful bots had fled to at the beginning of the war. Most of them were Autobot-leaning, but none of them liked to fight. My trine was born after settlement on the planet started." She let out the best Cybertronian equivalent she had to a sigh, before activating her holoform over to the side and picking up a short, but pointed, stick, drawing in the dirt with precise movements, translating what she knew from art and painting to the stick and dirt sketch she was now making. It was a very precise sketch, and would take a moment. However, she watched her holoform carefully. If the bot went for it, she would stop him.
"There weren't a lot of people, in comparison to a whole settled planet, but we were there. My home town... It was living, moving artwork. There was one humongous building in the middle, with other buildings arcing toward it, meeting it at the same point, careful mathematical calculations going into the aesthetic appeal. A very intricate web work of roads link the buildings in various parts, and the light effects... Oh, the light effects... I can't draw the light effects. The bridges and road surfaces were all covered in a reflective type substance that magnified the light, and the effect was vaguely similar to your aurora lights, up in the arctic - just, intentional."
As her holoform labored away on the drawing, Firefly shifted her weight ever so slightly toward it, prepared to bat smaller bots away. "My holoform is currently sketching a picture of it, but it won't be nearly as nice two-dimensionally and without the light. Still, it's a basic appearance." Her wings twitched a little bit on her back. If she were human, she would cry. If she was more focused on her holoform right now, she also would, but her attention on the holoform was limited to the picture. This was a city she would likely never see again. Her spark went out to the war-going bots who had once had a city at least as good.
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Post by Jessica Ross on Dec 19, 2011 20:45:43 GMT -5
Jessica had never been involved in a war. She just knew her brother was....well, she knew he chose a life of war and fighting and death, for some reason that she could never fully understand. Except in the way his eyes would light up when reciting the Ranger's Creed to her, as if it was his very pulse and in those moments, she got it, but not before and not later. She looked up at Whiplash and wondered, privately, if he wished that the war hadn't happened or that it happened differently.
If there hadn't been a war, if Cybertron hadn't been destroyed. If cultures hadn't crashed and crumbled beneath the all encompassing weight of war.
"That's sad. That it was lost," she commented softly, not expecting a response from either of them on it.
She had a feeling that Whiplash would probably comment on her comment however.
He couldn't seem to help himself, but that didn't mean that Jessica expected an answer. So, she was surprised, and intrigued, when a person appeared and began to draw in the dirt. Jessica immediately shifted forward and began to, carefully, drag herself over to look at the drawing.
It would take awhile, but she would get there. Unless, of course, Whiplash grabbed her and pulled her back.
"It sounds pretty. I've never seen the Aurora Borealis, but I've heard it is something someone should see before they die," she answered softly, still trying to get to the drawing.
She could imagine the lights. She had seen pictures of the arctic lights, she knew what to imagine and shift into place, if need be.
To her, it was something she needed to see.
Unless, of course, Whiplash stopped her.
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Post by whiplash on Dec 19, 2011 21:01:33 GMT -5
Whiplash stared up at Firefly as she spoke. His mask hid his face, and he kept his EM field tightly coiled around himself, betraying no emotion. Underneath his visor, unseen, his eyes were hard and pitiless. If the story of such beauty being lost touched him, he gave absolutely no outward sign. “They didn’t like to fight, so they ran? Must be nice to have the privilege of flight,” he spat. “Guess it didn’t do ‘em much good in the end. That’s the way it always is--it always comes down to the fight. The struggle. Every time.”
It was unknown just what Whiplash thought of the war, thought of his place in it. If his attitude was any indication, it made him angry, but everything made him angry, so it probably wasn’t. At any rate, he offered no story of his own, despite the fact that it would have probably been the polite thing to do. Information for information and sympathy for sympathy... but Whiplash probably hadn’t been taught that.
He turned his attention to her holoform, but didn’t attack it. He had not relaxed his stance, not since the Seeker landed, however, so that didn’t necessarily mean he couldn’t strike at it, should he need to. It reminded him of his own holoform, and how he’d need to wait a while before the battered thing rebuilt itself. Then Jessica was trying to make her way over to the drawing.
He huffed air out of his vents and immediately shifted his position, stopping down and simply scooping her up. He held her under her arms, his long, wickedly-sharp talons wrapped around her chest with surprising delicacy, and his thumbs spanning the full width of her back. He held her over the drawing, his body hunched in readiness to dodge out of the way in case Firefly or her holoform tried anything funny.
It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but he wasn’t hurting her. Of course, nobody could fault Jessica if she protested to the particular portion of her anatomy his fingers were squashing.
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Firefly
Designated Decoy
We Can't All be Heroes...[A1i:3]
Posts: 63
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Post by Firefly on Dec 20, 2011 17:53:44 GMT -5
Firefly sighed as the city floated through her mind's eye, the lights themselves hovering in the air. Her holoform finished the picture in the dirt before getting up to inspect the wheelchair. She had noticed it, but hadn't given it much thought. Now, she realized, the human needed it to move effectively. It may be pretty badly damaged, but she might be able to fix it up.
Gathering both the wheel and the chair, she inspected the damage, and determined that it could be temporarily patched. If she had her tools from back home, it would be fairly easy to reshaped, possibly even improve, the design. Unfortunately, she didn't have them, and as such, she was forced to deal with what she could find. Her holoform stopped investigating while she herself, in a swift, fluid motion, she whipped out a sword and stabbed it into the center of a piece of the old sidewalk, creating sparks, and effectively shattering shards of the ground. At the same time, she leaned over the guard the other two from flying pieces, taking a nice chunk to the side herself. It didn't feel great.
Hopefully the youngling didn't take this opportunity to attack, because that wasn't exactly a pleasant feeling either, and she did now have a very large-to-him blade sticking out of the ground, and was in a much less defensive position.
However, the second the sword hit the sidewalk her holoform walked briskly over the the shards to search for a few strong, straight pieces that she might be able to use to wedge inside of the metal bars to fix it for a short while. This placed her behind her bot form - assuming her holoform got there before Whiplash attacked it. Again, she wasn't one for subtlety. [/size]
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Post by Jessica Ross on Dec 20, 2011 18:32:25 GMT -5
Jessica let out a startled sound as Whiplash picked her up. She grabbed at his fingers startled and then let out an 'oh' sound as he held her over the dirt drawing. She looked down at it and she shifted uncomfortably before she flushed. Oh, right...well, if Firefly was the 'female' version of Transformers...then, oh....they wouldn't understand this.
Especially not Whiplash. "Um, Whiplash, first, thanks. Second, can you lower one of your fingers from off my chest please and to where my lower ribs are," she asked softly, trying to, carefully, push his finger down off her being squished chest area.
Small as it was, it was still uncomfortable.
However, that didn't stop her from staring at the dirt picture. If she twitched her head just so, she could almost see the way it could have been. Bright and shining, glimmering in that way that everything seemed to do when it reflected that odd light. She blinked and, so, didn't see the drawing of the sword.
She was too busy staring at the picture.
She did notice the crash into the ground however and let out a strangled screech of surprise, flinching away from the sound. And, of course, she would have noticed something off of Whiplash's reactions to the sword being drawn, if he reacted at all, but either way she would not have noticed the sword being pulled out by Firefly.
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Post by whiplash on Dec 21, 2011 2:30:50 GMT -5
Whiplash felt Jessica wriggling, and when she requested her hold her differently, he blinked, nonplussed, but complied, carefully shifting his grip on her. Maybe the squishy bits were important? He would need to be careful if it was that easy to damage her vital organs. Humans were so ridiculous.
He glanced down at the drawing, his expression unreadable. It was a mystery what he thought of it. He said nothing, merely held Jessica silently while Firefly made her decision to jam her sword suddenly and loudly into the ground.
Immediately Whiplash reacted. He crouched, holding Jessica underneath him. The stance was meant to do two things--it shielded Jessica from possible attack, and it made Whiplash’s shoulders the highest points on his body, therefore giving his tentacles a wider range of attack. When Firefly moved to shield them from the shards thrown off by her sword, she brought herself within Whiplash’s reach, and he reacted accordingly.
“Back off!” He yowled, lashing out with a single tentacle. Once again, the Seeker would have to be quick to dodge the sting, but it was possible. If it connected, the familiar disconnected feeling would jar through her sensor net. He didn’t attack her with the other sting--not yet. If she was unable to dodge, it would be the third hit that she’d taken. Whiplash crouched, watching her, ready to react in an instant. The next sign of aggression would earn her an attack, after which he would flee.
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Firefly
Designated Decoy
We Can't All be Heroes...[A1i:3]
Posts: 63
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Post by Firefly on Dec 21, 2011 15:30:12 GMT -5
She had been expecting this whip, and did dodge mostly out of the way. However, she was still caught on the edge of a wing, and, seeing as that was a very sensitive part on her, she cringed. The manner of her dodging was a fairly simple one. From her postition, she pushed hard with one arm, pushing her body to about a forty five degree angle with the ground, before coming down on the other side, not facing the two. Her wing, however, felt very, very odd. She gave a faint grimace as sensation in the appendage fled, and the sensors on the edge of the lost feeling cried. She did not, however, say anything, despite the new stinging sensation from the rock in the shoulder and the tingling of the stinger itself. Still, she was focused on something.
Her holoform picked up a couple of appropriate pieces of the shattered walkway, measuring them in her hands and making sure they were sturdy enough to create a good base support, before heading back to the wheelchair and, essentially, jamming them into place to make the supports hold together again. It was a very, very rough fix, and the wheelchair looked pretty sad, but, hopefully, it would support weight. The holoform looked at Jessica and smiled faintly, hesitantly, while her real form took up the same defensive position as earlier - just in a different location.
Her holoform chose this moment to test the fixes out, sitting, carefully, in the rigged-up wheelchair. She eased into it, finally giving her whole holoform weight... And falling as a support snapped. After a frustrated curse, she hoisted the sore form up to inspect and re-collect. That particular piece had, apparently been weak. It was a good thing she hadn't presented it to Jess without trying it first. That would be... well, bad.
She didn't say anything. She had a task to perform, despite having overheard the human's question to the youngling before the whip. So humans were sensitive on the chest too... Even if for a different reason. They didn't exactly have a Spark. Huh. It was a very momentary curiosity, though, and a bit belated in the thinking.
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Post by Jessica Ross on Dec 21, 2011 15:48:51 GMT -5
Jessica murmurred her thanks to Whiplash and went back to staring. She really wasn't expecting Whiplash's sudden reaction and gripped talon-like finger, carefully, as she was suddenly moved. That didn't help with the sudden, strangled, sound she made as the sword was smacked into the ground. Her eyes widened and she flinched away from Whiplash's yowl to 'back off'.
She clung a little tighter to the hand that was holding her and raised an eyebrow at the holoform. She immediatly groaned and smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand. "Is it a terminal illness of all Transformers or something to just do something without explaining what is being done first?" she questioned, before she sighed and continued to hold on.
Her heart was pounding and she couldn't really blame it.
Insane seeker, she was as bad as Whiplash in the whole 'working to get self killed' thing.
Not that she was particularly upset at this thought, even if she was trying to fix the wheelchair.
Whiplash did do a pretty number on it.
"Um...thanks, but I don't think you can fix it. It was pretty badly wrecked," Jessica called out, even as she practically clung to Whiplash's hand.
Well, what she could reach of Whiplash's hand.
Considering that Firefly had just jumped into fixing something without telling anyway, and did it in a way that made Jessica flinch, she wasn't sure if it was going to be safe with the Seeker around.
Strange, considering the Seeker was one of the good-guys, but then again, Whiplash made his intentions pretty clear.
Firefly hadn't.
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Post by whiplash on Dec 22, 2011 2:27:20 GMT -5
Whiplash held his position, his back arched like an angry cat’s. Firefly’s lack of acknowledgement of his attack puzzled him a bit, and he regarded her warily, not losing an inch of his tenseness. His mind was already working overtime, concocting dozens of ways that Firefly could turn this innocuous situation into a messy end for him and his human. He had nothing to say on Jessica's despair at he and Firefly's lack of forthrightness. Either he was too focused on the fight (that was mostly in his head) or he sim didn't care what she thought.
Instead, she went and fixed the chair. Or, well... almost fixed it.
He straightened somewhat, still holding Jessica, his head tilted in mild curiosity. He gave a low chuckle when Firefly’s holoform was sent sprawling. After Jessica delivered her diagnosis of her chair, he added, “Yeah, that thing’s beat up.” Of course, that was Whiplash’s fault, but he didn’t bring that up. “Your little patch job ain’t gonna get it rollin’ again, and I ain’t lettin’ her take it.” He looked at Firefly as he said this, ignoring her holoform. It made more sense to keep his eyes on the real threat.
He was testing the waters here, seeing how Firefly would react when he subtly tried to assert his dominance over the situation. “So you’re wastin’ your time with it.”
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Firefly
Designated Decoy
We Can't All be Heroes...[A1i:3]
Posts: 63
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Post by Firefly on Dec 22, 2011 12:05:33 GMT -5
The doubt was tangible. Her holoform's pace turned into a determined pace, as she grabbed at the next possible stone to jam in place. She herself, however, chose this moment to stand up and pull her sword out of it's jam in the ground. Whiplash barely came up past her knee. She didn't choose an aggressive stance - at least, not any more aggressive than this particular stance was - but she did stand there, like that, no longer trying for a friendly posture.
"You expect me to stand by while you take this crippled human to yourself, like some toy, fling her through the air like a rag doll, and ruin her mode of transportation, then? Once again, I point out, I'm an Autobot." [/color] With a sadistic grin, she added, "We're supposed to take offense at this kind of stuff, remember? Besides. This will be a very temporary fix. It I get it working, and I won't give up until I do, it will need replaced as soon as possible anyway. I'm hoping I can get it to the point that a wheel jam is more likely than the frame collapsing, so that when the wheel does jam, it doesn't dump her at the same time. Besides. How do you think you're going to get her anywhere, youngling? You really ought to think your plans out a bit more."[/color] With a huff, her holoform jammed the stone into the place of the broken stone, making sure, this time, that the strong point of the thing was in the middle, where the most pressure was being applied on the break. She made sure the other stones were in the same such position, checking the joint around the wheel to make sure it itself was fairly stable, if not a bit too stable, possibly requiring a bit more effort to move it. If it worked, then she'd be happy. She tested the seat again, and, while it didn't immediately collapse, it did wilt a bit. She'd need some strong tape to finish this. With a glance over her shoulder, her holoform spoke now, almost as though a separate entity. "Now, I love a tense drama as much as anybody else, but... I don't suppose anybody's got some duct tape? Oh, or a welder, I can use that!"[/color] She had to admit, she was a bit excited to we working with earth metals. She'd worked with metals from Paradron, but none from earth. Even if it wasn't art, it was metal.[/blockquote][/size]
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Post by Jessica Ross on Dec 23, 2011 18:29:32 GMT -5
Jessica sighed as she looked between the two. It seemed they were just not going to be getting along, at all. Not that she was expecting it, but now Firefly seemed to have just given up trying not to be confrontational. Actually, she was pretty sure this was going to get very violent very soon and the entire thing worried her actually.
She sighed as Firefly brought up the transport thing and she looked up at Whiplash, resisting the urge to wince. She then glared at Firefly. "He's never flung me through the air like some ragdoll!" she retorted in Whiplash's defense, though didn't really defend him on any other point.
"And how do you know he damaged my wheelchair?" she added, realizing she should probably defend him on that or there might be a fight.
Of course, there might be a fight anyway, but she was hoping not to get caught in the middle of it.
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Post by whiplash on Dec 23, 2011 18:46:05 GMT -5
Whiplash narrowed his optics behind his visor as Firefly spoke. He’d pushed her, and she’d pushed back. He lashed his stings, one of them recharging, one of them still sparking, unspent, in the air above him. “It ain’t your business what I do with the human. And I ain’t hurtin’ her. Don't got no reason to,” he pointed out, “and if you think being an Autobot means you get to go around tellin’ other people what to do, then you got another thing comin’. It's not like she's your human.”
He was about to further elaborate when Jessica spoke up on his behalf, startling him. He blinked down at her, his expression unreadable behind the mask, and then looked back up to Firefly, radiating smugness. Ha! Stupid nosy Autobot Seeker. He was liking this pathetic human more and more. “And I can get her home. I just gotta hold her in place while I drive. It shouldn’t be too hard.” It would have been much easier if he’d had his holoform to rely on, he couldn’t help but think.
He watched her holoform struggle with the wheelchair, and debated whether or not he should just take the thing and wreck it beyond repair to halt the argument once and for all. Hmm. No, he’d have to leave Jessica unattended to do so, and he was pretty sure that if he did, Firefly would use the opportunity to steal her from him. “I told you, she’s not goin’ on that chair,” he reiterated crossly.
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Firefly
Designated Decoy
We Can't All be Heroes...[A1i:3]
Posts: 63
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Post by Firefly on Dec 23, 2011 20:10:11 GMT -5
She would leave. She would. But the sweet, sweet irony was that the youngling had made it nearly impossible. She couldn't walk out, and flight would be very difficult if she couldn't feel her wing. He had essentially grounded her. And now he was trying to provoke her. Oh, how good it would feel to shoot his sorry little aft to the moon right now, but the human was stuck in the middle. That poor thing. So she retaliated as best she could, defending herself, her British accent sharper in her anger. The sound of her voice would be almost humorous to somebody on the outside.
"She is not your human, and she is not my [/u] human. Jessica is her own person, with her own life. I don't expect you to let her have her chair back, little scraplet, but understand that I want to fix it. And yeah. I know you broke it. This thing was ripped apart. I work with metal. I know the damage. My sister's a medic, too, and while that doesn't qualify my knowledge, understand that, in human terms, a picture is worth a thousand words."[/color][/b] She had just referenced her bond amongst the trine, but she didn't necessarily expect him to get the reference. She didn't, at the moment, care. She couldn't attack. But she could get pretty aggressive without causing injury. She now understood, slightly better, the Autobot point of view. With the sword she was now holding, she launched herself in the air, taking into account the feeling of imbalance caused by the lost feeling in her wing, stabbing the sword into the ground right in front of the young bot, flipping herself to land behind him, so that her hands were on the blade in front, her body looming behind. "I've killed people more important to me than either of you before. Do not think that, if pushed, I will not kill again. You are nothing to me, scraplet. Jessica... I barely know her, but at this point, your precious human would be little more than a casualty of war."[/color] She was slightly off balance, what with her numb leg and wing, although the feeling in her leg was beginning to return - albeit painfully. Blessing and a curse, the extra sensors were. Blessing and a curse.[/size][/blockquote]
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Post by Jessica Ross on Dec 23, 2011 20:33:52 GMT -5
Jessica resisted the urge the bang her head against his hand. Yeah, she really wasn't going to call him out on the whole 'I'm not a possession you moron!' to Whiplash, mostly because she was at his mercy in his hands. However, the understanding that she knew the metal had been ripped apart made her shoot a look up at Whiplash.
"I told you not to yank," she commented lightly. She figured bringing it up again wasn't the best idea she had, considering that she was being held by him, but she figured she had worse ideas before.
Without thinking about it, she covered her head as Firefly suddenly flipped over them. She looked up and let out a low whimper as she saw the sword slammed into the ground in front of them. Her heart rate exploded and she clung to Whiplash's hand again, slowly beginning to hyperventilate.
It didn't help that she didn't hear Firefly's next words, her mind reversing to five years ago.
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Post by whiplash on Dec 23, 2011 21:15:35 GMT -5
Whiplash’s reaction to Jessica’s calmly-delivered advice was not what she was probably expecting. He did not growl, or shake her, or even huff his vents in a sigh. He simply gave a low chuckle. His response to Firefly’s scathing speech about his supposed ownership of Jessica was something that was probably expected out of Whiplash’s mouth by now. His tone was deadpan as he said, “No. She’s mine. End of story.”
When Firefly jammed the sword into the ground, Whiplash hunched over Jessica once more, his engine roaring a growl of warning. As Firefly loomed over him from behind, he lashed out with his live sting, aiming to jolt Firefly on whatever was closest to him, though he would more likely have gone for her arm to disrupt its grip on the sword.
He felt Jessica curl up underneath him, felt her fragile fingers gripping his hand as hard as she could. He set her on the ground, but didn’t force her to let go of him. “You’re scarin’ her, you fraggin’ glitch!” He roared angrily. He twisted to present Firefly with his profile, giving her less of a target should she decide to start firing, without moving from where he stood protectively over Jessica.
He regarded her askance through his visor. “I didn’t think you’d give a frag whether I lived or died. Why the Pit would you? But I thought you’d be more careful with the human. Should’ve figured you’d be a hypocrite. So that’s how you Autobots really feel, huh? All that slag about protectin’ humans goes out the window when you lose your temper?” Whiplash’s tone of voice wasn’t taunting; it was just angry. He genuinely believed what he was saying. It was startling, and a little sad, to hear such earnest ruthlessness from someone so young.
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