Kitai sped out of the smoke like a bullet,rapidly approaching the mech.
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OOC: I edited my last post in the signup thread to give names to some of the enemies. Again, your characters probably won’t know these names unless they interrogate the bad guys or whatever, but we can use them when writing for the sake of convenience.
IC:
Phantom Malevolent continues at top speed, rapidly closing the distance between it and Firestorm. Just when it seems like the mech, Firestorm, and Kitai will collide in mid-air, however, the machine passes through Firestorm and his swords like a ghost. Now above its opponents, Phantom Malevolent’s lights turn blue again and the mech launches another missile at Firestorm and Kitai.
Hammer narrowly evades Defender’s shot as he transforms; the shell whizzes over the brute’s head as he lowers himself to the ground and assumes the form of a wide cybertronian tank. Ferrex’s plasma bolts harmlessly splash against its hull as its main turret swivels to line up a shot on the feline mech. There is a loud crack like a thunderclap as Hammer fires an explosive shell at Ferrex.
The quintesson shrieks and launches itself forward, twisting its body to spin through the air and evade the twin beams from Gungnir’s cannons. The creature hits the blasted earth and quickly slithers toward Axis, raking its four arms through the dirt to propel itself even faster. As the quintesson charges, the plasma cannon on its back fires three shots at the Prime in rapid succession.
Erinyix, the corrupted Knight, sprints into the fray, shots from Razor’s blaster occasionally nicking her calves but inflicting minimal damage to her armor. Sunlight gleams off the blade of her axe as she raises it high above her head, then swings it down at Razor.
Chaingang, the combiner, spins his chain through the air above his head like a rotor blade. The oil coating the silver-colored links bursts into bright flames, and sparks fly from the chain like a hellish rainfall. The combiner suddenly thrusts out his arm, and the chain surges toward Oreo like a whip.
The cyborgs throw black canisters onto the ground in front of them. Panels on their sides split open, and a crimson hard-light barrier materializes in front of the soldiers. They crouch behind the shield, which absorbs Defender’s salvo, and then pop back up to lay down covering fire for their cybertronian allies. Behind our heroes, Salvage, Trenchfoot, and the marines hunker down and return fire on the cyborgs, taking cover behind mounds of upturned earth. There is a sudden flash of light from behind a scorched tree trunk, and a laser beam punches through the head of one marine, killing her before her body even hits the ground.
Around the island, Excalibur II and the quintesson ship chase each other between the relay towers hovering above the ocean. Redshift pushes the frigate to her structural limits, executing tight turns around the monoliths that would seem more appropriate for a fightercraft. The quintesson ship wraps its tentacles around the towers and swings itself after its prey, and the two vessels exchange bursts of gunfire as they dance.
Talon awkwardly wraps a foreleg around Honeycomb, doing his best to return the hug as best as his beast mode would allow.
“You be careful too, kid,” he says.
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Kitai stops his body from colliding with Firestorm, and cranes his neck upwards toward the mech. He shoots back upwards, attempting to dodge the middle whilst also trying to lock with the Phantom.
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“He has Phase Shifter tech!” Firestorm yells as he fires a barrage of cannon fire to not only intercept the missiles but also try to hit the phantom.
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“What does that mean?!” Kitai asked while flying towards his target.
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Ferrex swerved to the left as the shell flew past it. Continuing his charge forward, Niko lunged at the tank with claws outstretched, hoping to land on the traitor cybertronian and tear into his armor.
Axis raised her shield to block all three plasma blasts. Once all three hit she quickly leveled the shield, pointing it towards the charging beast. This also finally gave Nova a better look at the horrid monster that sped towards them. A sense of pure terror struck through her heart.
“MOTHER-” Kra-BOOM! Two shells fired from the assault shield’s cannon barrels, hoping to tear though hideous thing before her.
“Vámr! Skítur! Tíkar sonur! Megi tröllin taka þig!” Nova frantically shouted at the horrible creature, having lost almost any sense of composure she had a moment ago.
“I will. I promise.” Honeycomb stayed for just a few moments longer, before reluctantly letting go. She then transformed into her beast mode and followed Lunawing out the door.
Maximus also changed into his beast form and flew out from the hive, making sure Gyro and Talon were behind him before taking off and leaving the Below.
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“Oh boy… just when I needed more impacts,” Oreo says.
Moments before the chain would come into contact with him, he fired both his weapons at the combiner, a blast from the Overcharger and a burst from his machine gun. Then the whip struck his bumper, wrapping around it like a rope forged of liquid steel. Oreo could feel its heat, melting through his bumper slowly, but surely.
Razor throws herself towards the Knight’s legs, firing wildly as she jumps. The Mini-Con seems to be frozen in time, everything moving in slow-motion as the Knight’s axe moves down, down, down, cleaving through the air as though an inevitable fate…
“I see you’re smart,” Defender says. “Let’s see how you handle this!”
He rolls forwards at top speed (about 30 km/h), intending to ram the cyborgs and their shields. At the same time, he fires a high-explosive shell at the base of the shield barrier, hoping for the blast to remove the ground beneath it.
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The missile explodes harmlessly above Firestorm, and Phantom Malevolent throws up its right arm at Kitai as he charges into the mech. Firestorm’s shots hit Malevolent’s legs and send the grappling duo into a tumble, and as they roll across the sky, Malevolent stabs at Kitai’s abdomen with the blade on its left arm. The lights in the mech’s hull turn green once again.
Hammer’s turret splits in two, and a massive arm reaches out to seize Ferrex by the throat. The enormous cybertronian resumes his robot mode, lifting the mech off the ground. Beady red eyes glare into the cameras in Niko’s mech.
“Hammer pulverize cat-bot!” the brute snarls. “Hammer smash!”
Hammer curls his free hand into a fist, and a shell of black metal from his wrist rises around it. The brute roars and throws a punch at Ferrex’s underside.
The quintesson jerks to the side, and the shells strike the earth beside it, sending the beast reeling back in a shower of dirt and grass. Raising its torso off the ground, the creature’s mouth opens again, and the flesh within retracts to reveal a black metallic orb with a holographic eye in its center. With a hiss, the quintesson lunges to Axis’s lefthand side, while one of its tendrils swings low in an effort to sweep the Prime’s legs out from under her.
The blast from the Overcharger strikes Chain-gang square in the chest, blowing apart the chains layered over his armor. The combiner staggers back, pulling on the flaming chain to drag Oreo across the ground with him. Taking one hand of the chain, Chain-gang reforms his right forearm into a plasma cannon and fires a blast of energy at Oreo.
The axe buries itself in the dirt, missing Razor by a hair. Erinyix growls in frustration and circles around to face her quarry again. Ripping her weapon free, she transforms: her body seems to blow apart, and black tendrils inside the blast rearrange the pieces into the form of a fearsome bipedal, twin-tailed, three-headed dragon. Erinyix snaps her three jaws, and spits a stream of acidic bile from the center head at Razor.
The shell strikes the shield, destroying one of the emitters sustaining it and creating a hole in the hard-light barricade. The explosion also shreds two of the cyborg soldiers and sends a third flying onto its back. Three other cyborgs peek out from behind their cover and retrain their plasma rifles on Defender, trying to shoot out his treads.
To the right of the charging tank, there is another flash of light from between two boulders, and a laser beam streaks through the air toward Defender’s treads.
Gyro and Talon follow Maximus up to the surface. The predacon glides on the mid-day air, while trails of plasma exhaust stream of Gyro’s engines. Below, Quickdraw and Avalanche are still on the landing pad, making repairs to their vessel. They stop briefly to watch the flyers surface, and Quickdraw gives them a friendly wave.
The flight to the Steel Shard Mountains takes Maximus and company inland over familiar swaths of jungle dotted with ancient stone structures built by the early Golden Age colonists. Occasionally, a Eukarian native can be seen darting through the lush canopy, or skittering among the foliage closer to the ground, or swimming through the rivers cutting through the land. Most roam through the jungle in their beast modes, living among the indigenous animal life of the planet. Their electronic calls and whistles compliment the natural symphony of Eukaris, as opposed to overpowering it.
The jungle eventually gives way to immense mountains of grey rock, their peaks dusted with snow. The sunlight gleams off the mountainsides as it might the shards of a great blade, shattered and strewn about the face of the world. In the valleys between the Steel Shard Mountains, more stone buildings can be seen, though these have been maintained and converted into homes, stores, municipal facilities, and temples. The greatest of these is hewn from the side of Mount Axalon: a titanic statue of Onyx Prime, standing tall on his four legs, looking out upon Eukaris with his Triptych Mask in the Farsight configuration. The Lord of Beasts holds out his arms as if offering the rich bounties of this world to his descendants; the orange sun currently hovers above his right hand, and water falls between the fingers of his left hand into a river in the valley below. At the feet of this statue, built into the base of Mount Axalon, is a grand temple in which Onyx’s remains are interred, and laid into the mountain’s peak is the old colony ship that first brought his disciples to Eukaris.
Meanwhile, Lunawing follows Honeycomb into the deepest caverns of the Below, from which queen Pterygota reigns over the undergound. The walls here are completely covered in biotech, and through these tunnels creep the oldest and strangest-looking insecticons on Eukaris- ones that defied all earthly comparison. In a cavernous space so far down that it might feel like the very bottom of the world, Pterygota herself- a gargantuan creature of a thousand metal limbs all clinging to spires of rock, anchoring herself in mid-air in the center of her chamber- her dozens of black glassy eyes staring through the darkness.
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Kitai attempts to take hold of the blade, whilst trying to take hold of another part of the mech, and trying to drain the mechs energy.
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Defender stops his right tracks, trying to dodge, but the laser strikes the main cog for the track, causing him to spin. He stops at a 30° angle to the cyborgs, his turret turning slowly towards them.
“I need a bit of help here, guys! My right track is disabled.”
Razor scrambles to her feet, her right hand changing into the blowtorch and circular saw device from earlier. As the acid strikes the ground beside her, she ignites the blowtorch, a small jet of blue flame striking the stream of corrosive liquid.
“I hope you aren’t too concerned about your safety,” Razor says. “That acid certainly can’t be good for you either.”
Oreo deploys his wrist blade from his left arm, but Chain-gang’s pull on the chain slams him face-first into the ground. He fires a burst from his machine gun at the combiner, as he begins hacking at the chain with his left arm. Then a shattering explosion strikes his blade as he pulls his arm back. Oreo is launched leftwards, a trail of sparks and steam bursting from his left forearm. The wrist blade, along with several pieces of armor, lies on the ground, crumpled and burned by the plasma.
“Aaaargh!! What did you have to do that for?!”
Oreo fires a second shot from the Overcharger, this time aiming for the combiner’s neck.
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Firestorm tries to look for any tells on when the target was tangible.
Seraphicon rushes to aid Axis Prime, his greatsword out and ready to cut down some cosmic horrors.
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Metal crunches and bends as Hammer’s fist leaves a massive impact-dent in Ferrex’s underside. The machine let out a ferocious roar and swiped its forelegs forward, trying to claw at Hammer’s face. Meanwhile Ferrex’s tail whipped around and tried to stab hammer in the gut with its bladed end.
Axis swiftly leaped into the air and backflipped away, just as the beast’s tendrils swept under her. Nova momentarily fell off the gun backpack as Axis flipped through the air. But through quick thinking she used her grappling hook to latch on to the backpack, maintaining her alignment with the Prime and touching down moments after Axis did.
Having gained a momentary distance Axis fired two more shells at the quintesson, while Nova took another shot with the cannons.
“Contact!” CHOOM!
Even under such dire circumstances, Maximus couldn’t help but feel a sense of peace from his surroundings. The lush greens and vibrant sounds of the jungle, the regal peaks of his old mountain home, even the feeling of fresh air under his wings. He wanted nothing more than to revel in that feeling. To take it in and savor it all for as long as he could. But there were more important things at stake, and he couldn’t lose sight of that.
Descending into the high mountains, Maximus searched for Carrion’s home. He knew he wouldn’t appreciate the abrupt visit, but there wasn’t time for the proper formalities.
Honeycomb was mostly silent on the journey downwards. It was a nervous silence. So much on her mind, so much to worry about, but the last thing she wanted was to worry her friend more than she no doubt already was.
Though that brave face could only last for so long. At the precipice of the cavern, Honeycomb hesitated. She stopped just shy of the tunnel’s exit and took a couple cautious steps back. For all her time in the Below, she had never once seen her queen with her own two optics. Pterygota’s appearance was intimidating to say the least, and she was suddenly second guessing her enthusiasm to see her.
“Hey Lunawing, have you ever spoken directly to Queen Pterygota before? Because I… Well I haven’t. I’m not really sure what to expect.” Honeycomb nervously whispered.
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Kitai manages to grab hold of Malevolent’s arm before its blade can hit its mark, but the mech’s phase-shifter then activates. It passes through Kitai, flying out of his back and twisting around as a machine gun extends over its right hand.
Firestorm would see that Malevolent’s hull lights shift back from green to blue right before the mech shoots at Kitai’s wings with its wrist-gun, aiming to swat the hybrid out of the sky (@MakutaOisli).
There is another flash of light from beside the charred boulder, but this time, a beam of plasma shoots down from the sky and bores a hole in the ground by the rock. Hearing Defender’s call for aid, Beta Maxx swoops down and fires another beam from the weapon in his jet mode’s nosecone.
“Ask and you shall receive, my friend!” the chronicler says over the commlink.
Briefly, the air around the space ripples, and the figure of Nail, the slender rifle-wielding cyebrtronian, can be seen as if through a haze. The sniper jumps away from his perch and transforms into a hover-bike, driving away as he fades from view again.
One of the cyborgs targeting Defender raises its right hand, and a launcher flips out from beneath the armor plating over its back. The soldier trains the weapon on the motionless tank, and shoots a black magnetic capsule at him. Should it find its mark, a colony of self-replicating nanomachines will spread out from the device to rapidly form a web-like structure around Defender, similar to the contraption currently imprisoning the pink man by Liege Maximo’s hut.
The acid stream catches fire, and Erinyix jumps back as the flames engulf her central head, which shrieks from pain. The dragon lunges at Razor, whipping her body around to lash at the smaller woman with its barbed tails.
Chain-gang raises his left arm to protect its head; the shot from the Overcharger destroys the chains wrapped around the limb, exposing the armor plating beneath. The combiner snarls and splits into his three components; Slurry, Ingot, and Smelter run at Oreo and each throw a chain at the man, trying to tie him up by his arms and legs.
Hammer howls and releases Ferrex from his grasp as he staggers backward, clutching his face, energon dripping from between his fat fingers. The blue life-blood also streams from the puncture wound in his midsection, courtesy of the mech’s tail-blade.
The giant thrusts out his free hand, and it transforms into a massive gatling gun, with belts of ammunition winding through Hammer’s left bicep like veins. The weapon whines as its motor comes to life, and then it lets loose a torrent of lead at Ferrex.
The quintesson contorts its body again, but this time the shells strike it square in the torso, blowing through its armor plating, and a beam from Gungnir’s cannons shears off its lower right arm at the elbow. The holographic iris inside its serpentine mouth turns an angry red, and the creature surges forward to close the distance between it and its quarry again. It lashes out with two of its tentacles to try and rip the shield off Axis’s arm, while two more reach out to wrap around the shoulder cannons and wrench them off her back.
As Seraphicon rushes to join the fight, the quintesson’s plasma cannon swivels around and fires three quick blasts at the oncoming Angelicon (@BlackBeltGamer98).
From within Liege Maximo’s hut, four of the six cyborgs sent to capture the Prime of Lies can be seen through the flames. They shoot at something obscured by the burning wreckage, and four silver darts fly out in response and pierce through their torsos. The darts inject a potent acid into their marks, and the cyborgs scream as they are boiled alive from the inside out. Liege Maximo then jumps into view, his deep-green armor marred with scorch marks and his black cape singed and shot with holes. He surveys the battle raging around his home, and his narrow face takes on a look of pleasant surprise as he sees some familiar faces fighting his would-be captors.
Carrion can be found within the old colony ship, which has been used as a meeting place for the many tribes of Eukaris for eons now. The ship consists of a central spire encircled by a thick ring connected by four spokes emerging from about three-fourths of the way up the spire’s length. Thick vines and moss cover most of the ship’s surface, and a few trees even grow on the top of the ring. Beneath the spire, the glow from a well of sparks illuminates the ancient metal.
Carrion is currently on the vessel’s old bridge, hunched over a console as he sifts through holographic panels bombarding him with communiques from Eukaris’s chieftans.
“Oh, she’s not so bad, really,” Lunawing assures her. “Just pick an eye or two to look her in while you’re talking, use ‘ma’am’, and ‘your highness’ a lot, and this should go smoothly.”
A chorus of low rumbling sounds and metallic ticking, like the turning of old clockwork, fills the cavern. Honeycomb’s commlink translates the noise into speech:
“Who is it that comes before me?” Pterygota asks. The use of singular pronouns is most unusual for an insecticon queen- fitting, perhaps, for a most unusual specimen.
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Kitai is slightly grazed at the wings, as the bullets
fly towards him, the majority of them hitting his shoulders. He flies quickly over towards Firestorm. “Well? Any ideas on how to fight this thing?” @BlackBeltGamer98
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“Blue is tangible.” Firestorm says on a private channel with him so as to not be heard.
OOC: is that right, Chrome?
—————
“Orders, Prime?” Seraphicon asks Axis, ready to defend her.
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Ferrex crashes on to the ground on its side and slowly gets back to its feet. His first track coming to an end, Niko could finally hear the world around him. The thunder of gunfire and the shouting cries of battle.
As Hammer’s arm transformed and aimed itself towards Ferrex, and Niko stared down the barrels of the gun, time itself seemed to slow to a crawl. The world outside, for a moment so horribly loud once again fell silent. Now all the boy could hear were his own breaths and his heart beating in his chest.
Never before had Niko ever felt so scared, so entirely out of his depths. Every fiber of his being wanted to scream and run in a thousand different directions. But running wasn’t an option. Panicking wasn’t an option. In that moment there was only one Niko could do. In that moment, he did what he does best.
His fingers moved like lightning and music erupted from his machine like thunder! Ferrex bellowed the courageous roar of a lion and charged ahead! Bullet’s hailed against the machine-beast’s face, covering its surface in dents and holes, even shattering one of its eyes. But in Niko’s blind and metal fueled determination he wouldn’t be slowed down! Ferrex once again pounced upon Hammer, attempting to pin him down and dig its claws into his shoulders.
The quintesson was successful in grabbing hold of Axis’ weaponry, but the Prime’s grip was tighter than the beast would bargain for. She held her ground, her heels digging into the ground as she refused to move even an inch under the monster’s strength.
“Oh don’t you even think about touching my guns!” Nova shouted furiously. With Axis keeping the creature steady she quickly got to her feet and fired her grappling hook, hitting her mark on the beast’s false face. Zipping between the two giants, she pulled out sidearm and fired at the monster, trying her best to shoot it in the face within its face.
If able to complete her path without interruption, Nova would land on and cling to the front of the creature’s outer face.
Maximus entered the ancient colony ship and navigated to the bridge, making sure the other two kept with him.
“Carrion! I have urgent news from Axis Prime.” Maximus exclaimed as he walked in.
“Eep!” Honeycomb momentarily backed away from the cavern entrance, though quickly realized it was far too late to hide.
She hesitantly flew out into the open, showing herself to Queen Pterygota and hoping that Lunawing would stay close to her.
“Hello your highness! M-my name is Honeycomb, and this is my friend Lunawing. We’ve come delivering urgent news from ambassador Maximus.” The young insecticon nervously said to the queen.
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Razor fires back with her blaster, aiming for the eyes on the remaining heads. As the dragon charges forwards, she starts her saw, and attempts to block one of the tails with its blade.
Oreo grabs one of the chains and dodges to one side, hoping to pull its owner off-balance. At the same time, he fires his machine gun at the other two, aiming for the joints and limbs.
Defender fires his machine gun at the cyborg, and begins transforming into robot mode, but as he does, something strikes his hull. As he stands up, he sees a black, shiny web of tendrils binding his right leg to the ground, and slowly snaking upwards. The stuff is also spreading across the ground towards his right foot, like a digital ooze.
“Beta Maxx! Hold them off! I’m stuck in some kind of net here!”
Defender directs a burst of bullets towards the tendrils that are reaching across the ground, hoping to shoot them apart. And still, the nanomachines are reaching towards his waist…
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Phantom Malevolent streaks toward the pair, firing a burst from its machine gun at Kitai’s wings again and slashing at Firestorm’s throat with its blade.
Clinging to the quintesson’s outer jaws, Nova lands several shots on the creature’s inner face. The holographic eye flickers out as the projector behind it shatters, and the quintesson squeals and clamps its outer mouth shut to protect itself (and perhaps take a bite out of Nova in the process) It continues to grapple with Axis Prime, tugging at her weapons with its tentacles, while its three remaining arms claw at her torso in an attempt to carve her open and steal the Matrix of Leadership.
As Seraphicon enters the fray, the quintesson fires its cannon at the ground in front of him to keep him back before whipping one of its free tendrils at the Angelicon, its drill bit tip aimed right at his sparkchamber (@BlackBeltGamer98)
Ferrex finds purchase on Hammer’s upper arms and waist, but the giant remains on his feet. As the feline mech rips into his armor, Hammer retracts his gun and claws at his opponent, trying to tear the mech loose.
Razor shoots out an eye on the dragon’s left head, and the clash of the minicon’s blade against Erinyix’s tail rings like a smith’s forge. The fallen Knight hisses and withdraws, transforming back to robot mode, smoke billowing from her internal mechanisms as the burning remains of her center dragon head are drawn inside her. Her axe folds over her right arm, combining with mechanisms in the limb to form a shotgun, and she blasts a spray of pellets at Razor.
Oreo is able to yank Smelter off his feet, and the bot falls face-first into the dirt. Slurry and Ingot stagger back as machine gun fire peppers the mechanisms in-between their armor plating.
The cyborg who had ensnared Defender pays for it with its life, as Defender’s machine gun fire rips through its torso. At Defender’s direction, Beta Maxx swoops down upon the other two and transforms, seizing both by the throat and slamming them onto the ground.
The tendrils wrapping around Defender’s body crumble under the Autobot’s fire, but more nanobots are pouring forth from the capsule attached to his leg, replacing the damaged limbs like the heads of a hydra. They creep up his waist and start to reach for his arms.
Meanwhile, Liege Maximo runs over to the ruins of his gardens to free the pink-armored man from his trap. He tugs at the tendrils holding the man in place, and also uses one of his darts as an impromptu knife to stab at them.
“Oh, what now?” Carrion groans, looking up from the holo-screens. The beleaguered Eukarian’s deep-set eyes are narrowed from stress, and his voice is similarly strained. “Is Unicron coming back, too?”
“What news does he dispatch you to bring, one called Honeycomb?” Pterygota inquires. “I have recently been appraised of a dire threat by his conjux, the Prime; might this news pertain, perhaps, to the return of the quintesson invaders?”
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The beast manages to bite down on Nova’s lower leg as she clung to its face. The girl let out a long blood curdling shriek of agony as she felt her shin snap like a twig.
“You stupid FREAK! You think I haven’t dealt with worse!” She sceeamed. With her free hand she grabbed her combat knife and reached around the monster’s head. She tried to stab it in the eye, or as close to the eye as she could get.
“NO!” Axis shouted. She continued to struggle against the abomination’s pull, firmly standing her ground. With her one free hand she summoned the Star Callibur and slashed at the on-coming tendrils. At the very least blocking them from striking her in that moment, if not hopefully cutting them all clean.
“SERAPHICON! Cut these tendrils and get the girl to safety!” She shouted to the angelcon. @BlackBeltGamer98
Ferrex’s claws dug in deep. The more Hammer would try to pull it off the more it would only cause him pain. The machine beast opened its jaws and tried to sink its teeth into the robot’s neck.
“No, but it might be just as bad. I don’t know how much Axis has told everyone, but I have reason to believe quintessons are getting involved. Eukaris needs a defeanse force. I want our home to be as well protected as possible in case they ever try to come here.” Maximus replied.
“Oh! Yes, that’s exactly what it was. Maximus made it sound like Axis Prime would have said as little as possible.” Honeycomb said, surprised that her urgent message had apparently already been delivered.
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Kitai eyed the lights, whilst attempting to dodge the bullets. He then made a feint blow at the machine, hoping to catch it off guard, whilst readying a real blow when it became solid.
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