Salvation: Part II

Community Role Playing
11816

The pilot of the second walker backs the machine away from the insecticon/terrorcon mob, but the swarm doesn’t relent. The push forward, eventually shoving the mech over the side of the ring. Unlike the snipers, the mech couldn’t fly, and thus was in for a rough fall.

Facelift, Thrift, Shockwave, Halfrunner, and DJ join our heroes by the spherical hatch that marked the entrance to the door. In its center was a glyph resembling a jagged lightning bolt, surrounded by arrow-shaped markings that pointed diagonally to the left. This glyph was inside a triangle made from three thin keyholes.

An Autobot gunship rises from the side, its troop bay opening to allow Salvo, Topside, and Shatterpoint to disembark and join our heroes on the ring. All three bore dirt and scorch marks upon their dented armor, having spent the last hour or so in grueling combat. Still, from their posture and faces it was clear they had fight in them yet.

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11817

Zepar calls for a ground bridge to the Conflux.

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11818

“Y’all ready?” Sidestep asked.

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11819

Topside was already on it.

“Sprocket!” he calls into his commlink. “We’re at the tower, but it looks like we’ll need the Omega Keys to get inside.”

“On it!” Sprocket immediately replies, so loud at Topside winces. “Just a second, cap; we’ll be right with ya!”

Our heroes’ allies gather around the entrance to the tower, each with their weapons locked and loaded.

“We can hold the entrance, while you go inside,” Shatterpoint says to SideStep, Zepar, and the rest of our heroes gathered before him. “Salvation’s giving him hell, but he won’t be so preoccupied with her so as to let us take the key without a fight.”

“News flash, captain,” Thrift sighs, exhausted as a machine could be, “we’ve been fighting!”

“And we’re not done yet,” Shatterpoint insists. “We’ve come this far, haven’t we?”

“Aye, true enough!” Halfrunner says with pride. “A fine bunch, we are, aren’t we lads? No better crew of bots to have savin’ the world with, is there?”

“That was the point of the mission, yes,” Shockwave bluntly replies.

“Y’know,” Facelift sniffs, as if he was about to weep, “it’s nice to be a part of something again. Maybe the real Omega Lock was the friends we made along the way, eh?”

DJ squints behind his visor and gives the mad doctor a sidelong glance. “What,” he mouths.

Lurch and Spook race toward Engineering, taking advantage of Spook’s phase shifter and the crew’s focus on the battle outside to evade security patrols, checkpoints, and other defenses. They emerge through a wall and step onto a catwalk eye-level with Salvation’s main reactor, roaring like a furnace as it supplied power to the Fleetcarrier’s weapons. Below, Greasemonkey had his arms buried elbow-deep in holographic controls, working frantically to coax Salvation’s systems to there very limits as the fight dragged on, muttering encouraging words to her to keep up whatever spirit the good ship may or may not have. He hadn’t noticed the two spies arrival, and Lurch and Spook were content to keep it that way… at least for now…

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SideStep chuckles. “Sounds good to me.” He holstered his pistol and turned to the door, ready to go in.

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@ValkyriePrimal @meepinater @BlackBeltGamer98

The sun began to creep closer toward the horizon, dipping behind the mountains. Its rays shone through the peeks in deep orange curtains the painted stripes over the valley, the robots fighting within it, and the immense ships trading salvos above them. They gleamed off the tower’s bronze surface, and washed over the armor of our heroes and their allies. Salvation and the New Decepticon fleet were now locked in a stalemate, with Bludgeon’s remaining ships evading her fire while also unable to pierce her energy shields.

Another ground bridge portal opens in front of the doorway to the tower, and through it, Sprocket comes running with the Atlantean, Hyperborean, and Dark Omega Keys tucked into one elbow. Grommet isn’t far behind, jogging after his counterpart and coming to a stop with him before our heroes.

“I got 'em,” Sprocket pants. He looks over to the door, and its three keyholes around the enigmatic glyph in its center.

“Oh, so you literally need the keys to unlock the door,” he remarks. He chuckles softly, the lights on his cheeks flickering like candles. “That’s actually pretty funny.”

Beside him, Grommet rolls his eyes. “Yes, yes,” he sighs. “Now give them over so we can get the next one and be out of here.”

“Alright, alright,” Sprocket groans. “I thought it was good to keep a sense of humor in the middle of a battle for the fate of the galaxy, but since I’m the only one who realizes that…”

Sprocket offers to hand off the Omega Keys to our heroes.

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SideStep takes one of the keys, and approaches the door to put it in its corresponding keyhole.

11823

A flight of New Decepticon dropships descends from a carrier, and start to dive down toward the tower. Topside and Shatterpoint look at each other and share a nod, before raising their guns. Shockwave, Facelift, Thrift, Halfrunner, and DJ do the same, while Salvo transforms her mech into its assault walker form.

“You two techheads staying?” she asks Sprocket and Grommet. “Wouldn’t turn down the extra firepower.”

Grommet shifts his arms into their slime cannon forms, and nods back at the quartermaster.

“I’m staying for as long as it takes for them to get the key,” he affirms. He looks over at Sprocket. “What about you?”

Sprocket shrugs. “Eh, well I guess if you’re staying…”

The Key clicks into place, and a ripple of blue energy rolls over the door.

“Alright!” Sprocket exclaims. “Hopefully there’s no convoluted tests or illusion tech this time to-”

CRACK!

Sprocket’s chest explodes as a superheated bullet blows through his back

11824

Zepar roars to the hive: Split up to help get the Key, keep the New Decepticons from getting any of the Keys and protect Salvation’s troops.

11825

(Music: "The Key to Coexistence/Goodbye Old Friend, by Bear McCreary from the Godzilla: King of the Monsters OST)

A flight of New Decepticon dropships descends from a carrier, and start to dive down toward the tower. Topside and Shatterpoint look at each other and share a nod, before raising their guns. Shockwave, Facelift, Thrift, Halfrunner, and DJ do the same, while Salvo transforms her mech into its assault walker form.

“You two techheads staying?” she asks Sprocket and Grommet. “Wouldn’t turn down the extra firepower.”

Grommet shifts his arms into their slime cannon forms, and nods back at the quartermaster.

“I’m staying for as long as it takes for them to get the key,” he affirms. He looks over at Sprocket. “What about you?”

Sprocket shrugs. “Eh, well I guess if you’re staying…”

Bombshock and the hive take flight, spreading out around the tower’s ring to intercept the incoming dropships.

The Key clicks into place, and a ripple of blue energy rolls over the door.

“Alright!” Sprocket exclaims. “Hopefully there’s no convoluted tests or illusion tech this time to-”

CRACK!

Sprocket’s chest explodes as a superheated bullet blows through his back, and embeds itself in the metal between his feet. He falls over, a hand reflexively shooting up to the jagged, smoldering hole, and energon begins to spill out from the wound.

“Sprocket!” Grommet immediately stows his cannons and runs over to his counterparts side, dropping onto one knee. His hands hover above Sprocket as he frantically assesses the severity of the wound- though it wouldn’t take a professional to see that the Autobot archaeo-technologist’s condition was dire.

Topside looks up for the origin of the shot, to see a sniper crouched in the open troop bay of one of the approaching dropships with smoke rising from the barrel of his rifle. The captain scowls, raises his own rifle, and nails the New Decepticon in the chest and neck a burst of hard light. The sniper falls over, and slides out of the dropship.

“Go!” Shatterpoint says, turning to our heroes. There was a desperation to his voice our heroes hadn’t heard before- he was almost begging them to hurry. “We can hold them off. Quickly”

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11826

Zepar has his CLUTCH drone stay behind to help heal Sprocket.

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Sprocket draws a ragged, barely-audible breath as the drone’s repair ray plays across his back, the metal around the gaping hole slowly beginning to rebuild itself. Grommet hurriedly turns him over, energon tricking onto his arms as he did so.

“That’s it, Sprocket- that’s it!” he says pleadingly. “Stay with us now!”

Sprocket’s optics flicker dangerously, and the lights on his cheeks sputter as if he was trying to say something to his friend, but no words came from his synthesizer.

The dropships swoop down to the far end of the bridge, lowering themselves and opening their doors to allow their troops to disembark. Our heroes’ allies aim their weapons down the walkway, forming up in front of the scientists to give them cover.

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SideStep snarls in anger.
“You best take care of yerself, captain.” He said, turning to the door. “Let’s get this done quickly.”

11829

Epsilon and the Angelicons begin to head into the tower.

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Topside looks back at SideStep, and solemnly nods his head.

“I’d tell you to do me proud, SideStep; but you’ve already done that, far as I’m concerned.”

Shatterpoint sockets the last two keys into place for our heroes, with corresponding waves of purple and green light rippling across the doors surface with each. The keys sink into the door, which breaks apart and disappears into the aperture around it. A long walkway lay beyond, running through a vast, cavernous space light by a deep red glow coming from somewhere deep below.

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Zepar tries to grab the keys as they enter the structure.

11832

The three keys had vanished, hopefully taken somewhere else within the tower when the door had opened.

Lining the walkway, grey statues of cybertronian knights knelt on half-circle plinths on the sides of the bridge, facing toward the center, holding their swords blade-down before them. As our heroes entered the tower, the first pair of these knights slowly brought themselves upright, creaking and groaning as they brandished their weapons and pointed them out toward the high, domed ceiling.

11833

Epsilon and the Angelicons try their best to move as quickly as they can towards the red light in the hopes it was the resting place of the Red Key.

OOC: my plan is basically as follows: “Skip the fights as much as possible, run as fast as my legs can carry me and find the Red Key ASAP! “

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11834

“I’ll do my best, Captain.” SideStep replied, saluting.
He followed Zepar into the building.

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11835

OOC: @ValkyriePrimal Here could be a good point to hop in. Read from here down to present.

IC:

(Music: “Goodbye Old Friend”, by Bear McCreary from the Godzilla: King of the Monsters OST)

The whole tower suddenly shook, as its exterior bridges began to retract from the mountains around it. The rumbling caused both our heroes’ allies and the small New Decepticon army bearing down on them to falter, before a cacophony of gunfire erupted behind our heroes.

KRAK-BOOM!

A flash of white briefly engulfs the valley as an enormous blast thunders from above. Overhead, Salvation screams as fire rolls across her aft, and one of her engines fails in a second explosion that strips away her energy shields. The crewmembers on the ground look up in horror as the Armageddon and the other New Decepticon ships quickly move into position around the Fleetcarrier, their weapons glowing white-hot.

…

“Destroy it.”

Bludgeon’s command, uttered in a low, tranquil tone that did nothing to conceal his fury, left a dead silence on the Armageddon’s bridge. Via hologram, Thunderblast steps back in shock.

“But, my lord-” she says, hesitant. “All this time, our objective has been to capture the Salvation, hasn’t it?”

“It is useless to us now,” Bludgeon growls. “We will retrieve the Omega Keys from the wreckage afterward- all the more reason to leave as little remaining of this unsightly vessel, hm? To give our soldiers less to dig though.”

Without a word, Thunderblast’s hologram disappears. Bludgeon had lost his patience and his sanity was soon to follow, if that hadn’t already gone with the former. You didn’t object to the likes of that- not in her current situation, at least.

“All ships, fire at will!” she commands from the Vigilant. “Destroy the Salvation!”

A cascade of deafening gunfire erupts from the New Decepticon ships, as Salvation is engulfed in fire and plasma, followed by the awful sound of her hull melting and breaking apart from the onslaught.

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