A sweltering detonation of heat shone forth from Don Isaac's lance as it
plunged through the Jaeger's nuclear core, a sight both enthralling and terrible. Crimson sparks blazed with a fiery vengeance, cutting through the titan's chest and showering a resplendent panorama of destruction across the skies— a raging tempest of ash, flames, and molten steel lighting up the dark clouds above and the ruined towers below.
The silhouette of the massive titan was lost in the curtain of explosive damage that unfurled from its chest, spreading like a gluttonous inferno that dulled the wicked shade of the heavens overhead. An unearthly shriek rang out, Skywarp's audials
squealing beneath the sheer decibels as the mechanized colossus failed to maintain its footing and toppled backwards, obliterating skyscrapers in its catastrophic descent to the ground.
Skywarp stared, transfixed, as Don Isaac de Metralla plummeted to his doom through the fetid air, the wreckage of the nobleman's mech descending in a furling spume of brackish smoke and ragged debris, reduced to a sinuous wisp of black against the backdrop of a diseased sky.
Snapping out of his daze, the seeker shot through the air like an obsidian arrow, his jets pulsing at full burn until his turbines
howled in protest, limbs unfurling from his jet form like a flower in bloom and grinding with each rotation, his optics blazing bright with scarlet dread— his body lunging, servos stretched out to catch the mangled silver mech.
"I've gotcha, Isaac!" Warp shouted in desperation, his vocalizer shrieking with static, reaching out, straining like a catcher sliding to defend home plate. "I've gotcha—"
The scarred mech tumbled from the apex of the sky and punched Skywarp square in the chest, a hellish cacophony reverberating through the air as metal collided with metal— the seeker's plating clanging and squealing under the pressure.
Despite bracing himself for impact, Skywarp had the wind knocked out of him, and the two spun crazily through the air, their forms indistinct and blurred in their spiraling descent. The seeker's limbs rag-dolled briefly as his claw-tipped servos dug into the other mech's scarred fuselage, clinging to the craft's hull in a desperate attempt to break their downward plunge.
His wings snapped out, black as night and dazzling in the glittering firmament, doing their utmost to quell their terrifying velocity. Myriad warning signals broke through the darkness, blaring red lights on the seeker's HUD, while the thrusters at his heels roared and howled in defiance.
Anguish pulsed bright in Skywarp's mind, near crippling in its intensity; the agony of a flyer robbed of their aerial supremacy. His metallic plating began to shudder as the lightning emanating from his body in shades of purple intensified, his thoughts growing ever more frantic and frenzied. His Warp Drive engaged with a mechanical hum as he surveyed the city beneath him— his CPU making whirlwind calculations of distance and speed.
With an ear-piercing
crack that burned with ozone, they were gone, leaving nothing but a pulsing gash in reality's fabric.
Unfortunately, Skywarp's Warp Drive was powerless to check their staggering momentum— it could only provide him the means to decide
where they would crash-land.
They hit the ground like the detonation of a bomb, Skywarp's obsidian mass snatching the falling Isaac from his plummet, the seeker tumbling helm over tailfins as he smashed against the dirt. Dust and debris flew in all directions as his obsidian frame scraped harshly over the dry earth, yet Skywarp still cradled the tattered silver mech protectively, his arms embracing it close to his chest.
The duo skidded to a jarring halt, clouds of smoke billowing from their damage-scorched chassis and deep furrows carved in the earth behind them. Skywarp painfully rose from the rubble, his battle-worn armor groaning under the strain, and surveyed their resting place: a public park reduced to mere fragments of flora and foliage, a broken street stretching lifelessly alongside it.
Illuminated by the weak glow of a nearby lamppost, a bronze statue of a human figure perched atop a chair in the center of the park. Skywarp peered at it sharply, his ruby optics whirring and spinning to make out the name etched onto the monument:
Hazen S. Pingree. A gallant soldier, an enterprising and successful citizen—
A sudden groan rent the air, jolting Skywarp out of his reading and yanking his gaze downward.
Don Isaac's mech was a mess of scarred steel, the remnants blackened and scarred, partly melted after his little dip inside the Jaeger's super-heated turbine. Skywarp's tanks churned in revulsion at the sight, deeply unsettled by the patchwork of char and soot; he couldn't even tell what the damage was, but it
looked bad.
Recollection struck the seeker like a thunderbolt— that what lay cradled in his arms was
not Isaac's actual body, but a mechanized shell. His optics darted to the cockpit, where the man inside was ensconced, their glow casting a glare of crimson over the bloodied Don.
"Hey," Skywarp hissed, straining to peer into the nobleman's cockpit. His voice was a rasp, the dark metal of his arms still clasping the twisted wreckage of his ally's steed. "I suppose it's not the time or place for this, but at the edge of oblivion, all bets are off, eh? Why not, here at the end of it all? This might be our
last chance to talk things out—"
Isaac expelled a harsh breath. His reply was jagged, like the remnants of his mech.
"I do
not," the man ground out between gritted teeth, spitting blood. "Wish to speak of it. Not
now."
Skywarp rose unsteadily, gently dislodging Don Isaac's mount from where it sprawled across his chassis. He turned his gaze upward, but he didn't see their foe looming above the buildings in the distance, stalking towards them... not yet. Only thin streams of dark smoke wisping high into the air, bright embers fluttering on the breeze...
He clenched his servos in aggravation, wings jutting up sharply from his back. He began to pace, throwing the occasional glance in that direction, on high alert.
"Oh, come
on," he wheedled. "We're in the middle of a full-blown battle for our lives here! A battle we're almost certainly gonna lose. And what are we doing while we wait for our inevitable demise?
Avoiding each other! It's
ridiculous."
"Skywarp," Don Isaac intoned in a low voice. His usual vibrant spirit had departed from him, leaving in its wake a mortal man dulled from weariness. "You deceived me. You presented yourself as something you were not. There is no hope of mending the damage which has been done."
"Look, Isaac," Skywarp insisted, still pacing, churning up grass under his giant metal feet. "
Look. I admit, I pretended to be someone I'm not to get close to you. I did it for a cheap laugh... at least, initially. Cybertronians like me, we can live practically
forever. We look at you flesh-creatures with your tiny little brains and your goopy little bodies and see an infant species. An
inferior species... an amusement at best!
Pests in need of extermination, at worst."
The seeker halted in his pacing, gritting his dentae in frustration.
"But you, you brilliant little
gnat, with your lifespan that's shorter than that of an
astro tick to me... you proved me wrong! You proved all my negative assumptions about organics
wrong. That not all organics are the simple, disposable creatures I took them to be. That their short lives and tiny size when compared to mine don't make them any less
valuable. They matter!
You matter to me."
Skywarp shook his helm, turning his face away.
"What a
revelation you've been."
He seemed almost disgusted with himself, a sneer pulling at his lip-plates as his optics dulled, flickering to black.
"A
revelation," Don Isaac spat in mockery, his radium-green eyes blazing. "And yet you deceived me with lies to sate your own desires. Your heart may be colder than steel, yet colder still are the acts you have committed in service of your twisted amusement. Racker warned me,
time and time again... I should have heeded him!"
Agitated beyond belief and quite through with his ally's dramatics, the nobleman's fingers flew across the instruments in his biplane's cabin, trying to force the propeller to turn and surge with life. With one last tug, it whirred into motion... then spun, spluttered, and died.
Grounded.
Isaac ground his teeth together in frustration, slumping in his seat. His head struck the velvet pillow behind his head with a muted
thump.
"All those moments together. Our repartee... our
dance," he muttered, voice tinged with bitterness. "It was all a lie. A construct, little more than gimmickry and pretense. You were never
there. Not really."
A distant crash echoed through the hollow night, shaking the very ground beneath their feet. The light of a nearby streetlamp flickered uncertainly, and continued to do so as the reverberations of giant footsteps boomed closer... closer...
closer...
Their heads snapped up at the thunderous clanking. Peering through the ruins, they saw their metallic nemesis, its bulky form casting a looming silhouette against the polluted sky. Its helm was split down the middle, practically concave, the bleeding internals illuminated by the expanse of moonlight above.
The mutilated reactor upon its chest guttered and sparked intermittently, like the contour of a great eye... scanning for them among the rubble.
Skywarp growled in exasperation, listening with half an audial as Isaac cursed, feuding once more with his biplane's antiquated mechanisms.
Time was running short.
"
Isaac," the seeker persisted, his tone very nearly pleading. "When we danced together, when we talked... that
was me! Not
just an avatar— me! When you step out of your mech there, you're still the same person, right? That's exactly what happens when I activate my holomatter form. It's just as much me as my real body!"
From within his cockpit, Isaac's eyes flashed with ire, still fixed upon his task.
"You mistake me, then," he declared. "Unlike yourself, what I present to others is not a facade. It is
my body,
my voice,
my nature. The truth of me is written upon my form, armored or otherwise. My emotions are
genuine, and yours are but the fantasies of an automaton, a
machine!"
At last, his biplane's propeller began to sing its mechanized hymn— a low, rumbling drone that reverberated up and down the barren street. Its battered silver wings trembled and shuddered as if they too could sense the looming behemoth of metal and corruption that was slowly creeping closer, accompanied by the whirring of its own hydraulics.
The man's chest heaved with a shuddering breath of relief as he made ready to hoist his steed into the sky. But the winged shape of Skywarp stepped into his path, helm tilted in expectation, ruby optics intent upon his face.
For a wild moment, the Don considered if he might simply... vault his mount into the heavens over the seeker's helm. He soon dismissed this idea as somewhat lacking in decorum; besides, the blasted creature would undoubtedly give chase.
"Perhaps you relished playing the part of Lady Watari, but all the same, you knew it was false," the man said at last, meeting the seeker's burning crimson glare with his own stare. "And all of a sudden I realize that I have been foolish..."
Skywarp ex-vented a profound sigh, the lethargy of his despair evident in the droop of his wings. But then something stirred within him, and he met Don Isaac de Metralla's gaze with a glint of unwavering resolve gleaming in his optics.
"I promise you, I
will make it up to you," he stated firmly, bringing one servo up to pound it against his chest-plating. "Seeker's honor."
And at that very moment, the Jaeger lumbered around the corner of a building... turning onto the unassuming street they stood upon.
The moment it appeared, its immense figure cast a towering shadow over the street. Its battered frame gleamed under the dim industrial lamps, glistening with dark ooze. It stood like a marionette poised at the end of its strings, silent and utterly unmoving, frame tilted crookedly to one side, parabolic helm and chest
dripping with brackish gore.
There was a lengthy pause. The pair of flyers regarded the titan in turn, similarly inert.
Suddenly, everything happened all at once, the street erupting into a chaotic surge of action.
Don Isaac's biplane lurched unsteadily into the air.
The Jaeger raised its armament towards the aircraft, an electric stream sizzling along the length of its arm as it began to charge its lethal plasma cannon. A glimmering aura illuminated the internals of the metal appendage—
And Skywarp lunged for the Hazen S. Pingree statue, snatching up the solid bronze figure and
hurling it with all his might towards the Jaeger's fractured braincase.
CLANG! Sparks flew as the two collided, further denting the monstrosity's helm.
The shattered visor of the creature glinted in the dim light, swinging towards Skywarp with a screeching sound that
definitely didn't sound all that healthy.
Its plasma cannon whirred, targeting systems locking unerringly onto his form.
With a bloodcurdling shriek, the Jaeger retaliated by unleashing a deadly volley of fire from its plasma cannon. Fierce sparks of eye-searing flame illuminated the night sky as it unleashed its wrath, hurtling towards Skywarp in a violent shower of destruction.
Warp didn't hesitate— he dove for cover behind the nearest wall, trusting in his reflexes to save him. He skidded over the asphalt, sliding into the cover of an alleyway, his body clanking and crunching with the very beginnings of transformation; shifting and contorting, folding in on itself as he collapsed into his jet form within that cramped darkness.
He could hear the earth-shaking footfalls of the Jaeger pounding closer, and the seeker's partially-transformed body performed a rotation within the narrow alley that would have been simply
impossible for any man-made craft to accomplish. With a roar of his thrusters, he burst straight upward, wings scraping and tearing at the cramped walls as he soared above the rooftops, scarring the sky like a phoenix born from fire.
The Jaeger lunged at Skywarp, its fingers outstretched like talons to snatch him from the sky. Still only partially transformed, Skywarp revved up his heel thruster— and plunged the fiery, sharp stiletto straight downwards, as if driving a hot branding iron.
It struck the infernal creature's grasping metal hand, blasting it aside with a scorching
hiss and leaving its azure coat singed. Cackling, Skywarp hurtled away at breakneck speed— a hail of super-heated plasma fire chasing at his tailfins.
He soon rejoined Don Isaac's battered biplane in the sky, the pair swerving in a broad arc, serpentining away from the beast's desperate shots as they rolled and crested through the clouds.
"
One last dance, eh?" Skywarp's voice crackled over the comms as they began to curve back around, a strained and unnatural cheeriness coating his words.
"Alas," came the dry reply.
INDIV WORDCOUNT: 2,544 Words
TOTAL WORDCOUNT: 6,669/3,500 Words (Nice) (I am sorry Alex, I needed to cover for Thundercracker leaving the fight)
Skywarp is using another application of Focus, queuing it up for the resolution of this conflict (THAT IS 2 FOCUS USED FOR THIS SCENE). 1 OUT OF 5 FOCUS REMAINING.