The Minicon blasted forward, approaching an injured who couldn’t stand. If allowed, he would hook up to their back.
“We’re gonna die!” Blight cried. “I can’t die yet! There are so many medical texts I have yet to skim!” @ProfSrlojohn
Juliana sighed. “Then come on and don’t panic! This is not the time!” She yelled at him, trying drag him under cover.
GC was circling above Nova, as he and Zepar had planned.
Epsilon carefully boarded Facelift and held on tightly, “Thanks.” He said.
Zepar began to pick up speed when he heard Nova’s engine. His rage and hatred rising again as his eyes glowed violet and the Dark Energon Saber began to almost appear as if it were engulfed in a pale purple flame.
A wounded bot offers no resistance as Pixel attaches to his back. Likely, he was still dazed from the explosion that had knocked him off his feet.
By now, more than half of the pilgrim’s city had been destroyed- reduced to smoldering heaps of rubble under clouds of ash. It seemed as though the Heretics did not intend to stop until the entire city- perhaps even the island as a whole- was wiped off the face of Planet Omega.
More ordnance rains down all around Juliana and Blight, blasting black craters in the roads, turning sand to glass, and causing buildings to crumble.
Seeing that he had enemies fast approaching, Nova transforms to robot mode, kicking up dirt and small biomechanical plants as he skids to a halt in a crouch. He unfolds his metal wings as he reaches over his shoulder to draw a fusion rifle- a weapon not entirely dissimilar to the formidable cannon that Megatron himself bore on his right arm.
“Don’t mention it,” Facelift replies as he begins to roll out.
Zepar called this out to GC and Shockwave, knowing how powerful such a weapon can be from accounts of Megatron’s own battles.
Epsilon hung on tightly, keeping an eye out for anything dangerous.
GC Responds by going into a dive, dropping all of his ordinance on Nova, including all 5 of his sidewinders, 3 2000 lb bombs, 2 500lb bombs, and as many 30mm rounds as he could sling before he had to pull up.
“Zepar! Now’s your chance!” He called over the commlink.
“He’s mine! Where is he?”
“Not the time for jokes!” she said, turning to robot mode.
Once he arrived there, he bumped heads into Arion.
“Sir!” Gronius said in his dragon mode.
“No time! Get inside!”
Redstocker was in the prison tower, hoping that the structure would be resistant enough to protect him.
Spectrum looks at Topside.
“@re we g0-o-o-ing to help?”
Vigor chuckles.
“Yeah, he’s still as fat as he was. That’s amazing. Ever heard of exercise?”
Thrust took note of the shiny armor.
“I think you’ve got some dirt on your shoulderplate.” He said, pointing. “A little black smudge, right there.”
Nova Prime disappears within tremendous ball of flame as Gatecrasher’s ordnance falls around him, blowing techno-organic trees out of the ground and most assuredly blasting the disgraced Prime to pieces- for a moment, at least. Unfortunately, depending on their proximity to Nova, Zepar, Wildsong, and anyone else too close to the blast zone (@BlackBeltGamer98 @Toa_Vladin).
Shockwave, for one, was sent back, rolling along the ground as he instinctively reverts to robot mode. As was characteristic of the cyclops, he doesn’t even curse as he rises to reveal blackened and slightly warped armor plating on his legs and torso.
“For future engagements, more advance warning of bombing runs would be appreciated,” he deadpans over the comms.
Sprocket, safe from the explosions in the air, sends a few missiles of his own into the flames for good measure. A green-blue light shines through the fire, however, as a stream of bullets shoots up and strike the scientist along the fuselage of his helicopter mode. Sprocket cries out in pain and surprise as he spirals down toward the ground.
“I reckon we are, naturally,” Topside confirms.
Banzaitron’s face twists into the closest thing to a scowl as its structure would allow.
Thunderblast’s grin softens into more of a smirk.
“Oh, well…” she sighs. “I imagine I’ll have more than dirt to clean off my armor soon enough.”
With that, the two Heretics spring into action. Thunderblast fires a blast from her cannon, sending four rockets, weaving around each other in a double-helix pattern, streaking toward Thrust.
Banzaitron, meanwhile, charges, firing a crackling bolt of explosive plasma from his rifle at Lightshift, while firing a shot from each of the ion blasters on his shoulder at Vigor.
“Well, what can we do?!” Salvo retorts. “That barrage is gonna turn us all into slag at this rate!”
“A few flyers have tried to take the fight to 'em up in the air, but most get shot down before they get anywhere close!” a Decepticon laments.
The ancient buildings were indeed fairing far better than the city below them. Now, only a few of the pilgrims’ turrets poked out of the fiery ruins, sending an occasional rocket or laser beam screaming up at the Heretic fleet, ultimately becoming lost in the barrage.
“Sorry!” he calls.
GC banked hard, and tried to get underneath him as he fell.
Sprocket transforms to robot mode as he falls on top of Gatecrasher.
A hideous figure staggers out of the fire below: Nova Prime had not perished (for long, anyway), but he had most certainly not come out of the bombing unscathed. His wings had been completely destroyed, and energon and cybermatter poured from jagged wounds torn into his armor all over his body. His mouthplate had been obliterated, revealing a skull-like maw that grimaced as the Emberstone shard’s energies washed over his body, working to mend these otherwise-fatal injuries.
Nova held a rifle in each hand as, hunched over, he scans the area for his foes.
“Not bad…” he chokes out, coughing up red cybermatter.
“A million years ago, that’d’ve killed me pretty definitively. But, uh… as you can see, I’m not quite the same bot I was back then…”
GC struggled weight, then stabilized. He tried to find an open place to land.
Meanwhile, Laslow had driven near where Nova was located. He transformed, and climbed into a tree.
He pulled out his rifle, and sat down. He tried to line up a shot at the emberstone shard, to try and break it.
(OOC: I’ll let you decide if you think he could get a decent shot.)
Gatecrasher’s bombing had cleared away much of the surrounding jungle; there was no shortage of open space around Nova.
Through a hole in Nova’s chest, the Prime’s spark could be seen pulsing through a ruptured sparkchamber. Inside it floated the glowing yellow shard.
Laslow carefully lined up a shot, and fired, straight at the shard, though Nova could dodge it, If he happens to notice the glint of his scope just before he fired.
Gatecrahser carefully put down, letting Sprocket get off carefully before TFing.
The shot tears through Nova’s exposed spark… but simply glances off the Emberstone shard. Laslow’s rifle couldn’t destroy a relic of the Thirteen.
Nonetheless, Nova shrieks and coughs up energon as he doubles over. Demigod or no, a shot through the heart was painful for most everybody.
Sprocket rolls off of Gatecrasher with a groan, rising to his feet on the burnt soil.
“Slag!” Laslow exclaimed, and jumped out of the tree. He began to run, hoping Nova would track down his location.
“You alright?” GC asked.
Indeed, Nova’s head snaps to the side as his ice-blue optics fix themselves upon Laslow. The fusion rifle in his right hand whines as he charges a shot, and the Prime lifts himself off the ground, gliding toward the bot.
“Yeah,” Sprocket says, deploying his plasma cannon. He looked a little banged up, but nothing serious.
“Who in the Pit is this guy?” he asks, referring to Nova.
Laslow TF’d, and tore through the jungle, trying to shake Nova.
“The infamous Nova Prime. Unfortunately made immortal by the emberstone. Which we need to eliminate.”
Spectrum nods.
Thrust quickly aims and fires a shot from his sniper rifle, before drawing his katana and attempting to cut the missiles out of the air.
Lightshift leaps to the side, landing in a roll to distance himself from the plasma. Taking a knee, he carefully aims his assault rifle and fires several shots at the Heretic.
Vigor crouched and rolled forwards, going beneath the shots. He pops up and fires his handcannon (I think that’s an appropriate name for a large pistol) at Banzaitron.
“Then I’ll rip your Spark out of your chest.” Zepar said as he landed nearby with a thud before charging at the villain, both Greatswords in hand and looking hungry for blood.
Epsilon kept quiet the whole trip.