1195/Border Skirmish: Ibex

**Blurr has posed:**
    Ibex, forever in turmoil! At least it seems to be fated so, given the way things have been for what seems like forever. Its citizens have only been granted a brief lull over the past metacycle or so, with no end in sight.

    Missiles and artillery shells are constantly getting lobbed back and forth across the borders between the southern and central sectors of the major city-state, with pockets of outposts and forward bases belonging to either faction littering the perimeter where most of the pushing back and forth is happening.

    As for Blurr, he's currently darting in and out of enemy territory, trying to get a glimpse of Decepticon movements to report to the commander-on-site in his sector so that the Bots could predict their next move and therefore stay one step ahead of the game.

**Scrapper has posed:**
Ibex was still a hotbed of activity as both factions were constantly poking the cyberhornet nest of the other side in an effort to increase how much of the city-state they hold sway over. This meant a lot of things, but at this point in time the only important one is that there was plenty of cleaning up to do. Busted barricades, broken gun placements, and the occasional corpse amongst all that. Most would consider it a boring, tedious job to do.

But Scrapper, the hard working mech that he is, thought more about how important to holding onto as much control of Ibex as the Decepticons could. As such the payloader chugged along to scoop up a bunch of the debris and clear it out of the way so new blockades could be erected. Then rolled over, raised the shovel and dumped out the wreckage into a pile to be sorted for reusable materials later. As he's doing so a few body parts clatter out of the mess, including some generic Seeker head that clinks and clanks down the rubble to the foot of the pile. "Well now, what's this?" Scrapper transforms and kneels down to pick the cranial unit up. "Some mech that died for the cause?" He holds it up at arms length to admire the dead unlit optics. "Alas, poor--" He stops, squinting an optics "--Actually I have no idea who this was, or really care." As he stands and turns away he tosses the dead head back onto the pile. "Maybe I'll stake it out on a barricade as a warning later, though."

**Starlock has posed:**
     Starlock is also on sight, as a medic is needed on sight for things like this at times, She'd been hard at work tending to the injured, and keeping her communlink open as the soldiers went about doing what they did. "<<Report, and, just finished taking care of those down here at the west sector.>>"

**Onslaught has posed:**
Onslaught is a Combaticon, so of course he's been sent to a combat zone. He stands, surveying the battle grounds, considering how he would defend this beknighted territory. He sees Scrapper soliliquizing and chuckles to himself. At least the Constructicon isn't doing a puppet show.

**Blurr has posed:**
    As it would happen, Blurr whizzes by Scrapper cleaning up the wreckage from a recent skirmish, and Onslaught...well, not doing really anything, it seems. Hmm...if he taunts them right, he can draw them out--trick them into over-extending. He does spot that severed head that gets tossed into a pile. "No respect for the dead, huh? Figures." he says with a smirk as he abruptly stops moving. "Even if they died for nothing. Oh well." A mock-sigh, and a smirk. "Long time no talk, Scrapper."

**Scrapper has posed:**
"The dead only have so much usefulne--" Scrapper stops, optics flicker-blinking as he realizes that wasn't Onslaught or some other Decepticon trooper speaking. "Oh." He turns his head just enough to look over. "It's the obnoxious speedster. What, Optimus finally get too sympathetic to send more -real- soldiers over?"

**Onslaught has posed:**
Onslaught turns his attention to Scrapper and Blurr. "Now, now, Scrapper, isn't 'obnoxious speedster' a redundancy?" he says, hand moving toward his sidearm. "To be fair to Prime, better to waste an ornament than expend a real troop."

**Blurr has posed:**
    "Aww, I can tell you're just saying that to make yourself feel better about the -last- time you went up against me around these parts, because ever since then you've been stuck on -cleanup- duty." Blurr sneers, pointing at the pile of rubble Scrapper had been shoveling. "That being, the time you got your -aft- kicked." He turns to Onslaught. "Remember that? Were you there? Maybe not." he smirks. "Hey, aren't you the Combaticon boss? Isn't one of your guys like obsessed with beating me?" he laughs.

**Scrapper has posed:**
Scrapper holds a digit up to Onslaught. "Emphasis." He'd probably be smirking under his mouthplate, if it wasn't for Blurr continuing to be.. Blurr. He shakes his head. "You try to claim one small victory means something, while standing in middle of the equivilent of two turbowolf packs bickering over the same meal." He gives it a dismissive wave as he turns back to his pile of scrap. "Go play your pale attempts at diatribe with someone that actually cares about what sputters out of your vocalizer. I have more important things to do." Yes, he's calling the heap of trash more important that Blurr.

**Onslaught has posed:**
Onslaught considers. "I know Blast Off finds you to be an irritation, but I'm sure that hardly makes him unique," Onslaught says, then bows his head in acknowledgement to Scrapper. "ahhh, yes, yes, I see. Rather like a double negative can be used in a similar fashion."

**Starlock has posed:**
     Starlock would frown as she got nothing back and vented a huff. She'd make her way through the area, keeping her optics opened for those in need, before catching the obnoxious, ego filled vocal patterns of a familiar blue bot.. She'd then also catch the sound of two others.

      She'd carefully make her way over to where they were coming from, attempting not to be seen as she peeked from her hiding spot to get a look at just /whom/ Blurr was taunting... Oh.. Look, Decepticon leaders, of course.. lovely. She'd knit her ridges and cringe behind her face mask.

**Blurr has posed:**
    "Small?" Blurr laughs. "I think that would be somewhat of an exaggeration, don't you? If I recall correctly, wasn't that half of this whole city that you lost?" he points out.

    "Oh, is that so?" he smirks again at the turbowolf comment. "Well, clearly they aren't very hungry. Fine then, have it your way!"

    Now, this entire time he was standing there taunting them, he was also scoping out the area, looking for something easy enough and valuable enough to steal. By now, he has honed in on a transport that Scrapper may have been loading the salvage onto earlier. Probably not feasible to hijack the entire thing alone, but its trip computer is bound to have -something- about troop movements, especially if it's carrying any ammunition or weapons. Which he bets it does.

    Once Scrapper has turns his back, the speedster suddenly fires an EMP missile at he and Onslaught, then -bolts- toward the transport.

**Onslaught has posed:**
Onslaught swears, cursing loudly and inventively as he finds himself blinded and unable to reliably move. "Treacherous Autobot!" he says, shifting to try and maintain his balance.

**Scrapper has posed:**
The missile only detonates nearby, but that's enough to send the jolts of electromagnetic energy briefly coursing up through Scrapper's body. He shudders a bit, optics flickering; which is followed by a sigh as he slumps his tire-shoulders for a moment. "But oh, no, you had to go and actually make an annoyance of yourself..." Scrapper shakes his head as he turns, drawing his smaller weapon as he does so. "The blind bravado would be almost endearing if it wasn't such useless recklessness." He snaps off a shot in an effort to get a fix on Blurr with the gun's enhanced targetting systems until his internal hardware can recalibrate.

**Starlock has posed:**
     Starlock ducked down when Blurr's missile went off, covering her audial phones, se'd open her optics getting Blurr's communlink transmission and cringed, He wanted her to back him up, but she didn't have... Everyone got mad when she.. She'd vent a sigh and peeked back over from her hiding place, seeing Blurr get fired at, she'd take a deep vent, and spare a moment to calculate who was a bigger threat at the moment, before she came out of her hiding place.

      She transformed into her alt-mode and took aim at the two, going to attempt to soften them both up first, by cracking their armor.

**Blurr has posed:**
    "Gotcha!" Blurr taunts, laughing. Onslaught's weapon manages to graze a shoulder, but it doesn't quite cause any leaks just yet. He fires at the door to the cockpit, blasting it open and clambers inside before starting to disconnect the trip computer's databanks.

    "You know, if I'm such a good-for-nothing soldier, what does that make you when you can barely even hit me?" He chuckles, squeezing off a few one-handed potshots at them through the shattered window.

**Scrapper has posed:**
"How many times must I remind people I'm a fraggin' ENGINEER not a--AUH!" Blurr does finally hit a sore spot, and gets Scrapper's attention long enough for Starlock to pop out and blast him with some sort of armor eroding weapon. "AND YOU PEOPLE CALL OUR MEDICS INSANE AND CRUEL!" However, Starlock may not of picked the best choice to mess with. Not because he shoots her back, but because after his outburst Scrapper analyzes his armor a moment, grunts to himself, and uses his own astounding skills to isolate and remove the chunk Starlock hit before the deteroration can spread farther.

**Onslaught has posed:**
Onslaught grunts as he's struck. "It makes you lucky," he growls. "Even a broken chronometer can be right twice a cycle." He snorts at Scrapper's outburst. "Typical Autobot logic -- if they do it, it can't be wrong. They're Primus's chosen representatives in the universe."

**Starlock has posed:**
     Or perhaps Starlock chose the best, ast her weapon jams, and lets out a curse at such, least she has a moment to tend to it while Scrapper fuses with his armor, which she'd take, attempting dislodge and reload the shot she had queued up, doing her best to avoid fire, and disengaging the locks on her auxiliary tank.

**Blurr has posed:**
    This time when Onslaught fires, Blurr just ducks back down into cockpit. "That wasn't the question. We already talked about -me-, I was talking about -you-." he chuckles, still working with the databanks as it seems neither of the Cons have come in there after him. Which is perfectly fine by him...

    He pauses a moment. In fact, if that's the case, maybe he -can- actually hijack it. At this point, he starts digging in the system, at least to see what he's up against.

**Scrapper has posed:**
She's also revealed herself. "Deal with that annoyance if you would," Scrapper remarks to Onslaught, before tromping off in the opposite direction. "I shall cut off the support he loves dragging into his madcap forays." After a few steps he transforms, followed by sparks flying as he drops his shovel to the ground. It doesn't take long for enough debris to gather up, and with one upward swipe Scrapper sends it toppling over towards the fembot.

**Onslaught has posed:**
Onslaught transforms. "Gladly," he says to Scrapper. "He's nattered on long enough." To Blurr: "It says that the tide of battle didn't go in my favor, as it sometimes doesn't. It says nothing of my skills." He prepares to fire his cannons hoping to blast Blurr once and for all.

**Starlock has posed:**
     That she had, but thankfully his attack only leaves a scratch on her, though it does leave her tires gummed up with rubble. However with her cannon unjammed she now takes aim at Onslaught, who was next on her Armor-wrecking list. "Did I hit a nerve node?" She'd chuckle.

**Blurr has posed:**
    Hmm...nope. Probably not enough time for that, even if the Cons continue to dawdle. Oh well, Blurr just goes back to the trip computer, finally managing to disconnect it without damaging the data integrity. He had just subspaced it when Onslaught just -missiles- the pilot cab, blowing it to smithereens and sending Blurr flying out. Despite this, he quickly gets back to his feet. "Primus, -finally-!" he laughs. "Guess I am worth your time -after- all, huh?" Darting sideways, he tries to flank the two of them. << Heads up Starlock, deploying another EMP. >>

**Scrapper has posed:**
Scrapper backs up just enough to transform back to root mode. "Don't flatter yourself." And then has to duck back another step to avoid getting smacked when the cannon comes out again, though this time not firing at him thankfully. "However you are making an obnoxious amount of work for me with your little toy there," the engineer mutters as he draws his rifle and holds it up. "And we can't just have that--" Again, Blurr annoyingly interrupts him with the EMP. Though he reflexively pulls the trigger anyways even as he stumbles, so it's hard to tell how this is going to turn out!

**Onslaught has posed:**
Onslaught finds himself in a rather embarassing position: he can't move. His internal diagnostics tell him that he's essentially fine but something's keeping him from making any move to defend himself. "Drat!" he says. "Scrapper! You're on your own!"

**Starlock has posed:**
     "<<Noted!>>" She'd reply, quickly backing up to get out of range.. Yes, she was driving backwards, and took aim at Scrapper once more with that armor-eating plasma cannon of hers, firing, and turning around to keep herself from getting shot or from running into someone else by mistake!

**Blurr has posed:**
    Blurr laughs when he finds Onslaught has completely frozen up. And he didn't even use his TechVolt, either! "Sorry, but it's kind of hard not to when you supposedly strong Decepticon warriors start fighting like a bunch of pathetic cannon fodder." he taunts.

    Sure, he could just take off with the databanks now, this was just too fun to simply abandon. He transforms, and just charges at Scrapper. He knows it'll hurt, but it'll hurt -him- more than anything else!

**Scrapper has posed:**
And hurt it does, as the impact sends Scrapper crashing through the side of one of the abandoned structures of the area. That didn't even SOUND pleasant. "Of all the..." Scrapper groans as he lays on his back, hard to tell if it's at the attack or at Onslaught having somehow gotten himself out of commission. Then squints at the remains of the building over him. "Well, this can't get any WORSE, so why the frag not..." The engineer gauges the structure as he gets up to pinpoint the weakest load bearing spot, pulls a device out storage and throws it to latch onto that point. And then promptly turns and runs out the backside of the building.

On the other side of the wall the only warning the Autobots get is the thunderous roar and cracks splitting through the structure's surface, followed by the blast of smoke and plumes spewing through the breaks to widen them and the entire structure coming down and crashing over into the streets in an avalanche of metal and fire!

**Starlock has posed:**
     Starlock is hit, and is hit hard, and even buried under the rubble of the collapsing building... However there is the sound of transforming, as being small has its advantages, such as squeezing herself through tight areas to get herself free. There is energon running down her helm from a open and leaking wound, but she's up, and a bit ticked.

      She'd rush her way down the pile of rubble, and pull the refueling tanks nozzle from her belt, and inject the hidden needle into one of it into her fuel lines. "<<How are you holding up Blurr, in need of anything?>>" She'd question over the communlink.

**Blurr has posed:**
    Blurr revels in the satisfying sound of the crunch and clank as Scrapper is sent barreling into all sorts of painful obstacles. But before he can get out of range again, the Construction just...blows the building. Thankfully, the speedster is fast enough to dodge enough falling debris to not to trapped, although by the time he gets out of there, he's not looking good at all. << Yeah, let's get out of here. No bonus points, but we got what we came for. >> he respond to Starlock, before zooming off back toward Autobot lines.

**Scrapper has posed:**
It's a shame that Scrapper can't stick around to see the full effect of his work. But it did work, and the exploding building seems to have kept the Autobots at bay, not even Blurr was fast enough to completely outrun the resulting collapse. The engineer will take what he can get, and after putting in a call for someone to come retrieve Onslaught (wherever he got stuck) transforms and motors off as well.

**Starlock has posed:**
     Being Left behind irritated Starlock some, but she says nothing, limping her way away from the mess she takes a moment to tend to her wounds once behind cover, she'd then transform and follow after Blurr. "<<...Understood.>>" she'd respond after a moment of silence, with a vented sigh.