The Last Spark - One

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Obsessive Readers, Laurel

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Beta(s) :

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Requested By : Gib

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Cinder Fall sat with her legs draped over the outer edges of Argas' walls as, in the distance, silvery shapes began to appear, one after another, on the horizon. In the distance behind her she could hear the sounds of combat. Explosions, gunfire, the odd 'thooms' and other sounds their Cybertronian weapons, wielded by their mechanical friends as well as the large mobile-units Menagerie had sent them only a day or so ago, complete with pilots and weapons. Which had been as lucky of a break as her being sent here when she had been, along with dozens of other Hunters, their Cybetronian partners, and the better part of Mistral's standing defence force.

"Cinder…" Her own partner sighed, perched on the wall beside her. Toxin was just as ready as she was, curled up on the edge of the weathered stone-work in his massive, black Lancer form, wings flicking agitatedly at every crack and echo of gunfire. "You're brooding."

"I am not brooding." She frowned, "I am thinking."

"Ah, but you just happen to look like you're brooding, hm?" She shot a glare he didn't even turn to see, laughing as he always did when she pursed her lips and sighed. She didn't argue though, and he went on, "Forty or so ships out there, from what I can see. Grimm on our flank. What do you think is going on?"

"Something foolish. And wasteful, I'm certain.." Cinder shrugged, tugging her black robes tighter and checking the tie at her waist. And her Dust supply.

"You know," Toxin sighed, "and Energon cannon would be-"

"Heavy, loud and not very useful for my Semblance." She cut in, running a finger along the weaving red flame patterns sewn and pressed into her robes, lighting them up faintly and using the inlaid Dust to flash-forge some of the dirt and sand around her into a long, thin arrow. "See? I don't need Energon."

"Can it explode?"

"You know it can."

"Yes," Toxin nodded, "if you interlace Fire Dust. Which is expensive, so why not-"

He cut off and straightened, rising to his full twenty or so feet, and she frowned, "What is it?"

"The ships are taking formation." He answered, "And I can see weapons orienting. We need to move in."

"Right." She nodded, stepping off the wall as Toxin slipped over the edge. She landed at the bend of his neck, just above his wings and called on her bow, opening her robe enough to draw out the Fire Dust there and lace it into the glass-work. As Toxin angled out, toward the ships, she sighed, "Let's get this over with, then…"

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"I-I hate to rush it, it's not really ready yet, but the Grimm are pressing Menagerie City harder than we'd expected." Juryrig explained as her Piloting Core, the little box that she rode in to pilot her Unit, burst to life and she settled in, feeling the old, familiar feeling of cool connection as she pulled on the helmet and guiding the plug-ins to the implants on her hips and shoulders. While she worked, Juryrig did, too, rambling as usual, "The legs haven't been stress-tested to my liking, and its armor hasn't been fully replaced with the updated variants, but-"

"Juryrig." She cut him off scolding him and turning to meet his gaze as her second, larger head came to life and she turned to stare at him with its felid face, metal fangs bared in a tiger's smile. "It will be just fine. Get me up and running."

"R-Right." He nodded, waving her off with an anxious gesture, like he was tossing something over a shoulder. "Whatever you like."

Unlike the other Units preparing to move out across Menagerie to help face the Grimm pushing in at their shores, hers was custom. The only custom Mobile Unit, in fact.

Hers was leaner, more lightly armored while they waited on new plating to be manufactured to replace the heavier armor she'd had removed. Its head was also elongated, just a bit, and fitted with the snarling visage of her animal heritage. The only exceptions were her forearms, where heavy, blocky additions had been wrapped around them, fitted with blades to either side that could protrude a mechanized hand's length past her unit's closed fist. In between the blades were little metal spikes, the only hint of the long electro wire she'd had developed and installed to replace her own whip when she needed to pilot - and a weapon she could even funnel her Semblance through, if the need arose.

Her fingers were also clawed, now. Which worked well with the claws on the fronts of her feet, which would let her climb and grapple with ease. Mountains, Grimm, even buildings - they worked on them all, she knew from extensive testing out in the unsettled lands of Mistral and Menagerie alike, where Grimm were freer to congregate. The exterior had been painted as a last step, with a dark base to match her skin and long, winding black stripes.

"Systems are reading green." She grunted, raising her hands curling and uncurling them, looking at the interlocking plates and hinges as her arm and fingers stretched. She flicked out the blades and recalled them, too, before stepping forward and off the maintenance dock.

Around her were rows of maintenance docks, tall and rectangular with Mobile Units being quickly armed and armored as best they could be while pilots slid in. Cybetronian and organic Techs worked all across the noisy bay, but she paid them no mind as her own Tech came up, looking at readings scattered across the numerous displays along his arms.

"Everything looks fine." Juryrig rattled out, scratching anxiously at the side of his head as the Dark Mountain Foundry shook around them. Pointing up, he grunted, "Except that. That looks bad."

"What was it?"

"Defense cannon frty-seven, destroyed in totality by a wyvern suicide ram." Two more shudders echoed throughout the foundations and he frowned, "That's two more… This is being coordinated, Councilor Khan."

"Sienna." She snapped the correction, sighing and turning to reach for the blocky bullpup auto-rifle in the dock beside her maintenance dock.

It was a simple design, with a smooth surface that fully enclosed it and a shape like a common PDW, but the rounds were the size of one of her organic legs and laced in Energon so they would detonate - HE-Anti-Infantry, Juryrig had called them. At the end of the top rail was a simple circular holosight that connected to her control system and automatically slid to the standard range she had ingrained into her machine, right near the front end. They worked wonders on Leviathan-class Grimm, the heavy rounds punching into them and ripping out chunks, and they worked just as well on smaller ones, the explosions and heat more or less melting them outright.

It'd do - even if she preferred closing to melee by a Mistrali mile.

"We need to get out there." She snapped, using her MU's head and chest mounted audio projectors to broadcast her voice, boosted to cut through the racket so she could get the other operators' attention. "If you can move, grab a weapon."

"The others are still undergoing final fittings for-"

"They have armor, and limbs." She cut Juryrig off, stepping around him as other MUs stepped out of their docks and grabbed their own rifles.

A few of them had additional rocket launchers on their wrists, housed in little blocks behind their wrists like her own but chunkier with three holes for each missile, but the rest were only rifle-armed. Aside from their fists, at least, though at their size those were weapons unto themselves. She could see their lacking pieces, though. Especially with her armor's sensor systems. Most of their bodies were armored, of course, but they were all lacking some plating, usually along their forearms and lower legs. But nothing that would really compromise them.

It wasn't like a few plates of cyber-titanium would stop a Leviathan's claws if they got hit, after all…

"But, Sienna, without complete defensive packages the over-all units' survivability falls by six percent due to-"

"They're fine." She finally repeated, cutting the 'Bot off and turning to step onto the low platform that lead up to the top of the mountain foundry, right above their ready-room. The others followed and she met Juryrig's worried gaze, "The Grimm aren't polite enough to wait, so we have to do what we have to do for our home. You understand?"

"I…" He sighed and nodded, turning to work on his screens again. "Fine. I'm coordinating with reinforcements coming from-" More tremors rocked the mountain and he frowned, flicking across his screens and shaking his head, "Quakes…? The fault line in the badlands isn't meant to be active… What rotten…"

"Focus." She grunted, turning his attention back on her. "Send us up, and coordinate incoming reinforcements."

"Aye." He nodded, pressing a button on a screen that sent their lift shuddering and trembling upwards. Quietly, he added, "Good luck…"

As soon as the hatch opened to the surface, her audio-receivers were awash in howling wind, echoing gunfire and roaring Grimm. A dozen Gryphons threw themselves at her thrown together little group before they even made it up, spewing fire - which was new - as they raised their rifles and blew them to pieces. But all killing them did was alert every living thing further out and around them that they were there.

And, as a shadow passed over them, she realized that had not been a good thing…

"Wyvern!" She bellowed as the huge drake turned, landing amongst her men with a thunderous crash as they tried to throw themselves away.

Most made it, but two were caught under its claws, screaming in terror as it crushed their MU's midsections and moved on to crush their cockpits. Her surviving unit scattered, peppering it in fire, but the whiskered monster just bellowed, scorching one of the closer ones in more fire while Sienna grit her teeth and dropped her rifle. Her men scattered further around her, and she let them, focusing her attention on the Wyvern.

The barbed head of her whips bit into the monster's neck and anchored there, earning a pain and fury-filled roar as she retracted the whips and leapt, letting them pull her to the monster. Just before she landed she yanked her hands to either side, freeing her weapons and extending her claws. They bit deep as the Grimm leapt up and tried to fly away, tossing its head to try and shake her. But she held fast, scaling it like the training walls she'd spent days and days practicing with her MU on. Finally, as they roared higher and higher until the Foundry was but a scar of grey and smoke far below, she reached the base of its skull.

And dug in, ripping and tearing, savaging the Wyvern's head and jugular until it tried to flame her and fire sprayed out of the holes she'd torn. She let it go then, falling away with her arms and legs spread and blackened by inky Grimm ichor. Above her, the Grimm's throat melted away and it fell, spinning and smoking through the air as she turned.

Her whip-heads bit into another Wyvern as she turned and angled herself down onto it, landing right between its wings where she could rip into its spine and wing-joints, her Semblance burning, making the pain and wounds drag on the beast all the more. Until she'd ripped away both wings and dug down, into its chest, and it collapsed.

Rolling off it, she landed in a crouch, looking for her next mark like a tiger on the hunt and smiling in her piloting seat.

"Now this is what I've been looking for…"

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Shockwave turned, arcing through the silent void of space over distant Mantle, and asked, "Soundwave, have you infiltrated?"

"Laserbeak is prepared to make his move once you supply a distraction." Soundwave reported quietly, distractedly. No doubt paying attention to a dozen or more conflicts raging across Remnant right now as this 'Salem' and her forces made their play. And as they made their counters, too, of course. "Once you deploy, he will do the same."

"Acknowledged." He rumbled, trying to contain a more pressing anxiety. And failing. "How goes the rest?"

"Sienna Khan leads the defence of the Foundry, and is alive." He answered quickly, "Kali leads in Menagerie City, and is alive. Beacon holds. Argus holds. Casualties mounting across all fronts, but none amongst those you care about."

"Percentages?"

"Mounting towards a twenty percent average loss rate." Soundwave answered, "We predict a thirty to forty percent average loss of material and manpower, to injuries and death."

"I see…" It was a steep rate of attrition, and in fights involving the Grimm 'wounded' wasn't going to be a very large statistic in any universe. They didn't tend to leave people behind to move on to other objectives - or have 'objectives' in the first - so a wounded fighter was a dead one.

Setting the worries aside, he sighed, "Preparing to deploy."

"Acknowledged."

Turning, he shot down towards Mantle and prepared himself to play his role. As Mantle approached, he turned and opened fire, spraying particle blasts along the great drydocks and shipyards they had found weeks ago. Quiet now, with their fleet away, they were mostly empty. So the fires he lit would rage as the nearby settlements panicked and rushed to fight them - and worried over him. He turned, drawing a lazy circle around those towns as he bellowed across every available frequency.

"I believed Atlas had learned its lesson." He said, playing the villain they all believed him to be as he came around and transformed, landing near one of the garrison emplacements scattered further along the coast. They held only a skeleton crew, and he could detect their panicked transmissions as he annihilated any defences that could have threatened him and went on dramatically, "It appears I was incorrect. It appears you demand another lesson.

"And," he finished in a deep voice, "I am a patient teacher."

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Laserbeak watched the air forces remaining in Mantle lift off and move away - along with no small number of Grimm in the air trailing along, far out to the flanks - before he lifted up from the treeline and rose rapidly. Circling over Mantle, he kept an eye out for a few minutes until he saw a trace of neon-green curve up, moving gently after the formation in an obvious movement to join them. He trailed it, far above and behind, and reached out across their cyber-psionic connection.

"Polendina."

"Laserbeak?"

"I have come for you." He answered, designating an open patch of tundra ahead and explaining. "I will down you there. Soundwave will come via Spacebridge with your sarcophagus."

"Alright…"

He fell in behind and above her, like a bird of prey on the hunt, and waited until she was in the prime spot for him to bear her down. Then he dove, claws spread ahead of him like a hawk, and slammed down into her with enough force it would at least look like he'd shattered parts of her. But he spread his wings just before the hit, cushioning it as they came down and he pitched her away, into the snow, so that she would not be crushed under his weight.

"Are you alright?" He asked as soon as he landed and the energy coalescence of the Spacebridge boomed to life a few yards away, allowing Soundwave to trundle through.

"I am fine." She murmured as the larger mechanical being reach her and knelt, letting the sarcophagus hiss open with a blast of pressurized air. She laid a hand on it and frowned, anxiety rippling out from her. "So this will… Protect me?"

"Quantum storage." Soundwave explained quickly, "The moment you step in is the same as the moment you step out, for you. And you exist locked in a temporal plane. The intricacies are complex, but Shockwave has worked with such sciences before and assures us that it will function.

"Alright, then." She sighed, letting Soundwave nudge her inside while they watched. It was when it hissed closed, sealing her within that Soundwave stiffened.

The artillery shell struck right behind him, ripping into his back and wings with a feeling like fire that roared through him. He was thrown to the ground and rolled over, leaking Energon, to watch the airships coming down towards them. Some, though not all, of the same ones he'd watched lift off not long ago. They must have seen his attack and turned to help Penny - a mistake on his part.

"Soundwave-"

"Quiet." He snapped, setting the sarcophagus beside him and bending over them as more artillery rained down, ripping apart the armor all along the ancient spymasters' back in a spray of Energon and pain that radiated across their connection. Finally the Spacebridge opened, swallowing them and dropping them all in the Spacebridge bay.

Soundwave collapsed to the side as Laserbeak pushed himself up, aware of the others coming to help as he opened a comm-line, "Shockwave, Soundwave is wounded.

"Can you move away from the Bridge?"

"No." He answered, "He is unconscious."

"I am en route." Shockwave reported, "Five minutes to arrival."

Laserbeak could only hope it would be enough as he himself collapsed, joining his friend in unconsciousness as dozens of his systems finally, truly failed.

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Highroad turned, veering around the huge rock in his way as he ferried his passengers towards the medical center at Harmonex while the nurse in the back cursed at him, doing her best to keep the young Faunus she was tending to from bleeding out in his bay. He let it go - they were all stressed right now, for obvious reasons - and instead kept his attention on his nav-systems. The area here was clear but, as another shockwave rippled through the land under him,.

"Since when do we get quakes?!" He snapped, fighting the loss of friction to keep as straight and steady as he could. "Damn it! What next?"

'What next', as it turned out, was a sudden rupture ahead of him, hurling rock and rubble high as a strange, inky substance sprayed out. He slammed on the brakes and turned, only just managing to stop ahead of the dark pool. Whatever it was, he elected to ignore it, revving his engine to keep on-

Before a hand suddenly snapped out of the inky darkness and landed in front of him, joined by another that grabbed onto him as the Bot they belonged to dragged itself out of the murk.

Except it wasn't a proper bot. It was all wrong, its plates rusted and ruined and displaced by the ink. And its eyes glowed a dull violet instead of anything more normal. He was aware of more pulling themselves out around them as he burnt rubber on its palm, trying to hurt it enough to get free. But it ignored the pain, turning and hurling him into the muck beyond it as he tried to eject his passengers and transform.

All three landed in the darkness, but he lasted the longest, feeling the claws and spines that dragged him down as he struggled and fought, firing his light cannon into the ichor and swearing, "What the fu-"

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Lea :

You should know by now that I never have a war where one side is truly at a disadvantage… More tense if I don't!

Poofy Ohio :

It's simple deductive reasoning that Gandalf would send Frodo with the Ring to Mordor if we see Frodo in Mordor with the Ring. But that doesn't mean that you skip the journey, or the telling of it.

Also, the point was a solid, simple character scene for Shockwave as well. Because I needed to finalize his character heading into the final chapters, and truly demonstrate the deep change in him from where he started to where he is. In short - the scene served dual purposes, expounding on a neat subculture that Nora belongs to AND expounding on and demonstrating a character's stance on things now.

Also, an insult is not an 'agree to disagree' situation. And telling me what I wrote wasn't relevant or needing to be told is an insult… I'm assuming that isn't your intention, of course, but that is how it comes across.