heropa battles the annoying robots, part only

[harryingjet]

WHO: open!
WHERE: A junkyard on Wednesday, the Porter building on Thursday
WHEN: the evening of Wednesday June 25th and the morning/early afternoon of Thursday June 26th.
WHAT: Step one, investigate an explosion. Step two, PUNCH ROBOTS IN THE FACE.
WARNINGS: Violence, in the form of punching robots, exploding robots, shooting robots, and decapitating robots.

Wednesday evening
On Wednesday evening, an explosion rocks the local Heropa junkyard. The firefighters eventually get it under control, but any sort of help would be appreciated! Examining the rubble of the explosion finds that it originated from a disused storage building...which totally shows signs of being used for mad scientisting (discarded electronics, tools 'liberated' from hardware stores and the junkyard itself, etc. etc.)

Starscream, on the other hand? Totally m.i.a.

Thursday morning
Starscream soon found out that the problem with using fragments of the plot device All-Spark stuck in his noggin to bring to life his Cybertronian army was that the Cybertronian army (all two of them) tended to act like him. Which meant that Starscream spent the wee hours of the morning arguing with his new robot underlings and lamenting the fact that this place was so backwards and the technology so primitive that he could hardly get what he wanted. And even then, these robots were a poor excuse for actual Decepticons.

After Starscream makes his...quite frankly a bit over the top post, it's go time. Floating in front of the Porter building, Starscream smirked, obviously proud of himself and obviously confident that his plan would succeed. "Decepticons!" he yells, floating in midair, looking down at what passes for his Decepticon army. "Transform and rise--" Oh. Wait. One of them couldn't fly, how exactly could he rise up? There was a pause, while Starscream frantically tried to save face. "--ah, transform and attack!"

Not exactly the best battle cry, but it would do in a pinch. Transforming into his harrier jet alt mode, Starscream flew towards the Porter complex, firing his purple laser weapons at the building itself, hoping to send out a trail of destruction as he made his way to the Porter. The other two robots soon followed suit.

[ ooc: feel free to godmod the bootleg Decepticons in threads! they're pretty much focused on attacking the porter building but they will fight back against people attacking them. for reference, one can fly and the other can't--both are about seven feet tall and EXCEEDINGLY punchable. I'll soon toss up Starscream's evil gloating network post as well as a thread where people can beat him up specifically. ]

Comments

open to anyone who wants to beat up Starscream

[harryingjet]

Throughout the battle, Starscream's focused mostly on one thing: trying to find where exactly in the building the Porter was. So, he's zipping around the top of the Porter complex, occasionally blowing holes in the roofs of buildings, trying to find where that stupid machine was.

He has no doubt in his mind that he can work the Porter (because Starscream is a raging egomaniac and thinks humans are stupid). And he has no doubt in his mind that he could manage to somehow make it so the porter could target his universe and bring in the Decepticons he wants (again, raging egomaniac). He...has some doubts about whether or not they'll actually listen. The Decepticons he knows from home range from fanatically loyal to Megatron to downright unstable. Megatron himself is not an option, of course.

Still, Starscream has faith. Or, more precisely, he has a massive ego. Pointing his lasers at an already weakened roof, Starscream aimed and fired.

[ironbuttmonkey]

Alright, he'll admit that Starscream is far more impressive as a robot. Not out loud of course, but he could seriously cause a lot of damage like this, so he's more than just a lot of whiny yelling. As far as Sanageyama is concerned, this is an enemy he can't just let go now.

So outfitted in his armor, out of control hair included, he's forced to find higher ground by dashing up the side of a building to reach the roof, then make his way from rooftop to rooftop in order to catch up. His speed had always been his greatest strength so it doesn't take long before he's caught up.

And then without so much as a word to announce himself he leaps from the rooftop closest to Starscream and throws himself forward, aiming to dropkick him right in the face. He might be far smaller than the guy now, but he's hoping his uniform will provide him with enough strength to fight him effectively.

[harryingjet]

Still firing at the buildings, Starscream pays little to no attention to Sanageyama...until the other man jumps off a rooftop and kicks him in the face. It's surprisingly effective, and Starscream's attention is diverted perfectly to Sanageyama, letting out a yelp and a scowl.

"Oh, you human will come to regret that." Flying backwards, Starscream attempted to shoot a few laser blasts in Sanageyama's general direction.

[ironbuttmonkey]

Without any stable footing to land on, Sanageyama begins his descent towards the street below him. As Starscream fires his first few shots, he ends up having to rely on his blade to deflect the shots, the first and then the second-- but then the third hits him directly and his landing becoming far less graceful than he'd wanted it to be, due to the force of the shot blasting him into the ground.

But although it hurt like hell, he's up and ready to keep attacking in no time. He just charges straight towards Starscream, blade in hand.

[mercyisweakness]

And there is Crematia, on top of another building in her human form, wearing her typical red gown, with her red hair wild in the wind. She claps her approval, but in the end it will be false flattery.

At the end of the day, it will not be Starscream the people here will take note.

"Your boast says the truth."

[harryingjet]

As he swaps from jet mode to his typical Cybertronian mode, Starscream smirks at Crematia. He honestly has no idea why she's standing there, on top of the building, in danger of getting shot at. Humans. They were so overconfident and so dumb. "Of course it does," Starscream responds, smirk planted firmly on his face.

"Now let me show you the true might of a Decepticon." Pointing his wrists at Crematia, he fired his lasers in her general direction.

[mercyisweakness]

At the moment he raises his wrists, Crematia dodges and runs to the side. The heated lights destroyed the spot where she once stood, pelting her with heated peices of concrete. She runs, away from Starscreams aim and she jumps over the ledge, her small body falling toward the ruined street below.

As she falls, her body twists and morphs, the human flesh turning into blood-red scales and hair disappearing entirely. When she lands, Crematia is in her true form: a 120 foot long dragon, red from snout to tail, wings as big as an airplane itself.

She sees the giant - no more a giant to her now in her dragon body - and roars, relishing how the air shakes in her presence.

And after that roar, a massive cone of fire comes spewing out of her maw, a raging tornado made out of fire.

[caladrius]

For his part, Hope has been doing pretty well against the robots, especially considering the electromagnetic device in his boomerang and his magic, but he's not interested in removing them from the scene as he is in removing the mastermind. He's aching, sporting a cut to the temple and other assorted places, starting to tire, and definitely going to be sore tomorrow, but he's not about to stop now.

He sends a simple Thunder spell at the robot, just a single lightning bolt, to get his attention, before putting his casting hand to his chest to put some strengthening and defensive spells on himself. He also manages to sneak in a Cure, just to close the wounds on himself.

[harryingjet]

Starscream doesn't notice the lightning bolt until it's almost on top of him. Still, a quick dodge to the left meant that he was able to zip out of the way...but now to deal with Hope. Frowning at the man, he pointed his wrists at Hope, shooting laser after laser in his general direction.

[lyingheart]

Annie's only interested when the immortal moron is back to human form, not intending to get caught up in the antics his Cybertronian form would require for her to keep her own version of cover intact. Most of her time and energy is spent assisting with evacuations and damage control, keeping the people who aren't meant to fight moving and out of the way of the inept, explosive "Cybertronian" forces.

But she listens while she works, no whistling necessary, and when the word is that the target's been grounded and is still on the move, Annie leaves off where she is to move on her best approximation of an intercept course. Her gear is enough to get her topside of a building, scanning all the signs of destruction and fighting between Starscream's stupidity and the people responding to him.

If she sees an opening, she'll take a chance to pay Starscream a little visit of her own, before he was apprehended and taken into custody. What a moron.

The porters can help nullify things. He came far too close. Now, he'd pay, and it grated most that she'd ever bothered herself to do this idiot any sort of favor - why the hell had he wanted to stay in that house if he'd been intending to be this stupid all along?

"Starscream..."

[harryingjet]

After getting killed multiple times and probably getting his head lopped off once, Starscream was now sitting on the ground, fully human, looking like death warmed over. He was bruised and beaten and not in handcuffs yet...though based on how beat-up he looked, he wasn't going to make an escape any time soon.

And then he saw Annie out of the corner of his eye, looking angry at him. Ah. Whoops.

"It seems you'll have to find a new guardian," he said, as if that explained everything.

presumably before Annie's thread!

[shutterbugged]

...Ah. Well. Spider-Man made a note to himself: the commnicator video feeds had what could be only be described as a size distortion effect.

There were giant robots, and then there were giant robots.

It didn't change the game plan. Spider-Man had fought his share of oversized tin cans before. Admittedly, during the most notable of those instances he'd had the cosmic powers of Captain Universe, but every adversary had their weak point. Thanks to his conversation on the network, he already had three: Wings. Thrusters. Most importantly, ego.

The first two he couldn't use yet, though he was already gauging the distances between Starscream and the nearest power lines. But the priority was to distract him from innocent civilians and the Porter, and Spider-Man had just the ticket.

"HEY, UGLY!"

[harryingjet]

As he hears someone yell at him, Starscream spins around, eyes narrowing as he spotted Spider-Man. Oh. It was him. That obnoxious little pest who continued to bug him during the post he made.

He would take great pleasure in dispatching this human.

"My name is STARSCREAM!" he yelled, firing off a couple of lasers in Spider-Man's general direction.

late to this party

[screenplays]

There's very little Thundercracker cares about. Living in peace is up there, along with his television screens. Buster counts, but his dog is (luckily) not in this universe. And when someone comes along to ruin everything that he'd managed to build up?

Well, Bumblebee was right in that some days he can't just sit by and let things happen. There are some days when it just feels right and highly appealing to punch any universe's Starscream.

So it's with an earth shattering sonic boom that announces Thundercracker's presence, transforming and landing in front of the other Seeker.

"Starscream!"

[harryingjet]

Ohhhhh slag.

Out of all the buildings he could attack to make a point, of course he would attack Thundercracker's. It was just his luck. Nothing was turning out well for Starscream back home, and nothing was turning out well for him here.

"If you want to try and stop me, you'll have to do better than that!" he yelled, firing his lasers in Thundercracker's general direction.

[heralding]

On Lightning's part, she doesn't bother with ceremony unless she's speaking to herself these days. While she's learning to fight alongside Hope again, the act doesn't come naturally, and she doesn't want to get caught up if this is a hard battle. Some part of her knows that she isn't entirely truthful about her abilities. Granted with boosts from gods, Lightning has been careful not to overpower others here, knowing that her strength could end up getting others hurt or killed simply because of how unwieldy it happens to be at all times. But she still reached that point because of her humanity, and it's her humanity that makes her frustrated with Starscream.

That she had been sympathetic to his adjustment irritates her. Why had she even bothered?

The moment she spots him aiming for a roof, she doesn't hesitate, jumping up with her blade in hand to cut through them and land cleanly. The lasers do little to her sword, and it makes sense: she's fought worse. She's fought a god and come out the victor. Lasers don't do much. After she recovers, she rises up, pointing her sword at Starscream. "Is that all you've got?"

[Winry Rockbell+Any appearing on the scene - Thursday

[hands4healing]

Seeing the video, Winry has to see these beings up close and in action. Armor? Or were they completely metal beings? What could she possibly learn from them? She sends a video out to Edward and Alphonse that she's going, figuring they'd meet her somewhere along the way. She decided to invite Elsa, too; the other girl might enjoy seeing this.

She hurried along the streets, making her way toward the Porter building.

[braided_icarus]

Of course Ed is well aware of how damned giddy his childhood friend would be at these metal things from this Cybertron place. He just had hoped in vain it would take longer for her to discover them. As such, it is inevitable that he is also dragged along to meet this particular one, somehow or rather. Because of course Winry would bring him along and squee, even if he is nowhere near quite as enamored with the idea as she is.

"So, why do I have to be here, exactly? You met one of....Metalhawk's friends or something?"

He half grumbles as he follows, jogging behind her as she rushes along.

[hands4healing]

"Ah, I think I insulted him!" Winry calls over her shoulder. "But he seems so amazing, Ed!"

Her enthusiasm is far greater than Ed's obviously, but Winry figured either he or Al would yell at her if she tried to get a good look at Starscream and his...attack...on the Porter building.

Probably just like they'd yelled at her to get out of the alley where they faced Scar. Though Winry shivered a bit at that particular memory.

[willthaw]

Anna received Winry's text shortly after it was sent. She didn't know what to expect since she only sort of followed what automail was in their last conversation. Still! It sounded like it had to be fascinating. Anyways, Anna hardly slept any more since her solar absorption power left her with an abundance of energy. An early morning adventure sounded fun!

After sending the other girl a text of Meet you there! Anna snagged her bike from the porch and headed for the Porter building.

"Winry?" she wondered once she was close, looking for the blonde-haired girl among the small crowd.

[hands4healing]

Hearing her voice, Winry stood on her toes and waved. She wasn't very tall, despite how leggy she was, waving hands always showed up over a crowd. "Over here, Anna!"

She grinned tightly as Anna approached. "I was talking to him," she pointed toward Starscream, "last night. He said he was going to take control of the Porter building!" And the Porter itself, but that should've been understood, right?

Crematia + Open

[mercyisweakness]

She have seen the ruins of a junkyard, hovering above the burning metal in her dragon form, invisible. She have been curious, in an idle sense, but not in any means interested. Her mind is more preoccupied, such as when will be the time to get rid of the gangleader who had allowed her to join ranks to be part of the criminal underworld.

When she sees the message of this Cybertronian, the gangleader is no longer in her thoughts. She makes her message known to the giant and heads straight toward the cured Porter. Not wanting to waste any spells, she flies as a vulture, incognito, eventually landing on the rooftop of a building near the Porter. She mulls over her words to the giant. If his strength exceeds his words, what then? Should she align with him? Be an ally? She despises the idea of allying those strong as her, especially when it takes one glance and see this giant's treachery.

But there's another anxiety she has - she really really wants to fight. Any enemy. This arrival is literally advocating to show off her strength. Defeat him, and there will be those who will see her talents and give her the enemies she wants to defeat - or, even better, those who fear her and will rise up against her, replacing Starscream as her strongest enemy.

With that thought, she changes in her original form, revealing in all of her crimson glory. The concrete of the rooftop buckled under her weight. She scans the sky and land, looking, waiting, muscles coiled and tense.

There! At last, she sees the smaller two giants, Starscream's servants, firing hot-red flashes of light, creating destruction everywhere and coming closer to her perch, but failing to see her until it is too late. Wings spread and a shift in her steps, and she dives off her rooftop, gliding toward one of the smaller, ramshackle metal giants. It turns and before it could react, she collided with it, her jaws clamping over its shoulder, iron claws tearing and warping, sparks of light coming out of its chest.

Best be out of her way, or otherwise her flames might catch you aflame.

[ ooc: want to help Crematia out or hide before you become collateral damage? you decide! ]

open

[lyingheart]

Starscream's brilliance was only overshadowed by his inability to figure out that his theatrics were better than his ability to produce results. Now, acts of chaos and destruction are simple enough, and Annie arrives not intending to fight either of his robotic creations, or even Starscream himself. Others were. Others will. It's a preoccupation with the "heroic" population.

No, Annie is helping out with evacuation and reporting duty on the damages done. Fires caused, directing traffic on base, and listening to the orders being handed out to the soldiers here.

They're not part of any squad she's ever been on, but she knows how to listen, and how to react, with a bit of direction. There's no one to guide her to do this, but she wants the focus when Starscream's idiocy gives her a pounding headache.

"You," she says, trying to grab the attention of the nearest person who didn't look directly involved with the various actions going on. "We have two technicians still MIA in this building. The roof's unstable, there are fires burning on the far side, and we'll need to be in and out in fifteen minutes. Ready?"

She could ask if they want to go, but she doesn't really want to hear she has to go in alone. Even fully outfitted in her 3DMG, Annie knows she can't handle more than one person at a time, should either technician be unconscious or confused, let alone combative.

Re: open

[hands4healing]

Winry blinked at being singled out, almost pointing at her chest. "Uh. Yes?" she said, wondering if she could go into a burning building. But if people needed help, well. Snatching a pen out of a man's hand, she promised to return it, but used it to twist her long hair up into a knot she fixed to the back of her neck. The less loose hair blowing around in a place on fire, the better.

"Ready!"

YOU CAN IGNORE THIS I FAILED LIFE IN JULY

[lyingheart]

Annie nodded ot the woman, starting off at a job towrad the door without smoke billowing out.

"Here, try not to breathe in the smoke." She handed over a dripping handkerchief, pushing through the door and tying one over her own lower face as she trotted down the hall.

"Yellow paper squares on a door means it's been marked as cleared. We're looking for one without a square."

The first three doors they passed all had the post-it note in place, as she'd said. It was the fourth, where the door was hot, and smoke from the burning sections of the building further on crawled across the ceiling, that Annie motioned to stop.

"We'll check in here. In, out, and then out of the building. If they're not here, they're further in. The smoke would have gotten them by now."

If they waited, it'd be the same for the both of them.