[Original RPG] Shadow War: Heaven is Falling (Iacon, Part Two)

[Warcry]

Continuing the action from the first Iacon thread.

Optimus Prime is still missing, and in his absence Ultra Magnus and his officers struggle to keep things from falling apart. However, things haven't been easy. Organized crime is running rampant through the Autobot capital, as the Space Mafia and Governor's crew continue to slaughter one another. Less-organized gangs are also a problem, as evidenced by a recent bank robbery. Tensions with the Decepticons are still high, as yet another small assault party tries to breach the city's defences. And Quintesson terrorists are a constant threat lingering on the horizon.

However, the most terrifying threat of all might be none other than the Iacon news media.

[optimusskids]

Iacon Saving and Loan

Daylight dropped lower as he spotted a red shape winging it's way from an alleyway.

~*~

The new arrival spoke to Burnout.

"Your information is a little biased Ma'am , we are in the throes of setting up a fledgling Justice and legal system , we have been experiencing a period of relative stability which has allowed us to start reintroducing some of the nicities of civilian government."

The new arrival perched on a stanchion

"I would be happy to use my client's case as a test example in one of the fledgling law courts, we could even broadcast it as an educational example i'm sure my client's employer would be happy to donate some resources to that end. My name is Counsellor Foxbat by the way, legal representatve of the CBC what is your designation?"

[zigzagger]

The City-State Entrance.

Earlier…

Inferno and Streetwise, who had been left on standby since Prowl’s shuttle returned from Valvolux, were quickly dispatched to investigate what had been reported as a disturbance in “sector 47”, near the city-state entrance.

Utilizing his vast knowledge of the city-state’s topographical lay out, Streetwise found the appropriate cover from the neighboring structures, keeping them concealed. From their position, it didn’t take long for the two covert ISS officers to find a lead on the report.

(spoken in silent communication)

“<I count five Decepticon operatives,>” Streetwise streamed to Inferno. A Level 2 diagnostic scan suggests gestalt technology, and the ID’s match the make-up. It’s definitely the self designated unit…>”

“<...The Stunticons. Ah know, Ah know,>” Inferno said. “<Not too many ‘Con units would be this reckless, let ‘lone stupid, to just trudge into Iaconian territory, clumsily tripin’ Autobase security and puttin’ everyone in ah scare than the Stunticons. Stealth an' strategy ain’t their thing.>”

“<Question is, Inferno, what are they doing here, and what purpose would an attack, if that is there objective, serve? I can’t imagine Decepticon High Command would sanction such a maneuver. Though, there is a possibility that they are not alone.>”

“<Possibly.>”

As the two officers continued to observe from afar, the five Stunticons eventually made their move, transforming into their respective vehicle modes, and speeding off towards the inner city-state.

“<That’s our cue! Let’s move,>” Inferno signaled to Streetwise.

“<Got it. Just remember to maintain a safe distance from us and the target. We don’t need to be spotted until reinforcements arrive.>”

~Present~

En route to Iacon Security Services

Following his last conversation with Prowl, Red Alert left Autobase and headed back to the ISS. Hot Spot accompanied him. As they traveled down a fairly busy highway back towards the ISS, the two discussed the ISS’s next course of action.

“I’m afraid to ask, but what do you intend to do once we return to ISS?” Hot Spot inquired. “Prowl asked you not to follow up on Tygun Span case, and I know that is where your mind is at.”

“It’s the principle of the matter, Hot Spot,” Red Alert told him. “Putting our house in order is certainly on the 'do' list.”

“Excuse me, sir,” an ISS operator commed. “We’ve just been streamed a report marked urgent from Autobase Security that requires your immediate attention.”

“Alright. Transmit me andHot Spot the details,” Red Alert replied.

“Yes, sir.”

“Menasor?” Hot Spot said as he read the report out loud. “Unit has been reported as hostile…No fatalities reported thus far...Oh, for the love of Primus. Another rogue Gestalt?!”

“Four rogue Decepticon units reported as hostile near Autobase,” Red Alert continued the other half of the report.
"Right."

“What’s the course of action?”

Red Alert quickly assessed the reports, taking into consideration Autobase’s own forces, before coming to what he felt was an appropriate response to the situation.

“The situation near the city-state entrance is our primary concern. Luckily, thanks to Prowl’s earlier intervention, Streetwise and Inferno are already following up on case with the Stunitcons. No doubt Autobase has responded as well. Nevertheless, this situation must be quickly quashed before it escalates.”

Red Alert then opened a transmission frequency on an ISS channel. “Attention all available officers. This is Red Alert. All available squadrons respond to these coordinates. Officers Streetwise and Inferno are currently in pursuit, but may require additional backup. Your job is to contain. Subdue rogue unit with necessary means, but not at the risk of civilians.”

[Warit00]

-----------Med Bay----------

"Finally." Rosdos relieved after several hours of rebuilding his new arm. Hoist walked toward Rosdos twisted severed arm which
still has a gladius stuck on it. He then pulled the gladius with force ,tore the arm apart into several pieces. "Thank I guess."
The cyan Autobot then took his gladius back and rushed to the city entrance.

----------Somewhere in Iacon-----------

As Two Stroke driving through the street with speed Warpath drove out from the alley and join the chase. "Don't worry baby! This thing fast enough!"

[Mechafox]

Fullfang watched the recording, thought for a moment, then looked at the drone.

'Thaks for that, but you're still not coming, you don't know your way around like i do'

And with that the wolf was off, rapidly disappearing into the corridors. Curiously no one saw him, some were walking away, others just turning a corner, but no one actually seemed to notice the wolf bot walking about.

Two more turns and he arrived at a door. Prowl's Office. Foot steps showed two bots rounding a corner, moving away from him and clearly in a hurry. The door was beginning to close. Moving as a blur he dashed inside. There was Prowl, slightly distracted, yelling into the Comm. Choosing to remain in wolf mode, he sat at semi attention, his gaze difting across the items on Prowl's desk.

[optimusskids]

The Busted Flush

The ship picked up speed . In fact it was safer while traveling at spped as the Hydrofoils lifted the hull out of the water. Should it have to settle back in the water, the holes would swiftly fill with (um) rust and the ship would sink. filled with holes from the missile impacts.

~*~

On the Port aft gun position Quickfire waited patiently as the angle opened up and the gun barrel bore on the assailants. He caressed the trigger slowly waiting patiently.

As soon as he had a target he jerked on the trigger mechanism and the 8 barrels of the pom-pom sent a stream of bullets out towards Blue Bachus.



Iacon


Caper transformed and staggered through the shelves of the hardware store heading for the stock room and the rear entrance. Limping on his injured leg.


~*~

Two Stroke continued to plunge through buildings heading diagonally across Iacon emerging from one building only to plunge into the next one.

~*~


Hubcap's pile of Rubble

Airplay nodded slowly

"I'll need the transcript and the recording, i've already got a statement identifying a one eyed blue mech at the scene and I also wish to investigate how Hubcap eneded up in Autobot custody. Do you have a Business card Mr Switchboard."


~*~

Doublecross flapped after Crosshairs heading for the source of the attack.

[Chip1123]

"Well..." Highbrow began, "What would you two like to do?" indicating Topspin and Crosshairs.

"I'm ready to kick some decepti-tail!" Topspin yelled as the 2 bots caught up with Crosshairs.

*Prowl's radio transmission comes in*

"Well, that answers that then- Prowl ordered us to go take them out!" Topspin said, eagerly craving battle.

" I think you are misinterpreting what that communication said, but he did say reinforcements should be coming... " Highbrow said.

"How about you Crosshairs ? Do you want to wait for reinforcements, or go ahead and engage?" Highbrow asked.

[Heinrad]

The Chase:


Ironhide: -increasing speed, engine and turbines roaring as he continues after Two Stroke, activating his commlink- "Smokescreen! See if ya c'n get somebody in front'a us! An' lets get that idjit reporter doin' somethin' usefull. Get' him ta get these buildin's cleared out'r something. If he don't lahke it, poor ratin's're gonna be th' least'a his worries!"

[Skidmark]

(OCC:the Clones were there to find information about the whereabouts of Bumblebee.)

Maccadams
The Clones,having forgotten why they where there,finding themselves completely drunk.-"Why are we *hic* here,Cloudraker?"-Fastlane said-"What?I can't *hic* hear you.The music's too *hic* loud."-cloudraker said drunkly.Fastlane points at a bartender-"Hey beertender,I mean bartander.Give me and my bro a 50 pounder....Hard."-The bartender makes up their drinks and brings it to them-"Won't we be *hic* ionized?"-Cloudraker said-"Not if we drink it slow enough."-Fastlane replied.
Meanwhile Skidmark walks in and grabs a drink.

[optimusskids]

The Chase

Two Stroke began to worry about the next bit of his plan.He could continue to plow through buildings all day but the Autobots would be in hot pursuit.

Crashing out of a building he spotted the entrance to an underground parking structure and clattered through the entrance taking the height restriction sign with him as he barely scraped through.

[Clogs]

Kalis, warehouse

Enkryption walked between Nightbeat and Tracks in the semi-gloom, assessing the possible weak-spots on the detective's back where he might fatally insert one point of Glyph's archaeological toolkit. It was idle speculation for amusement's sake; he was genuinely worried that he was merrily putting their neck into a very, very tight energo-noose.

He had been here several times when Spinnet was in residence, which he clearly could not be now, and there had been guards along this passageway. Oh, and an assortment of laser barrage units, just in case. So he told Nightbeat, just in case...

[Sociopathic Autobot]

Sunstreaker didn't spend much time on the open street, immediately ducking into an local energon establishment. He would just wait here for Sky Lynx. He'd gotten in contact with the dumb bird, and was told the credits would arrive shortly. For now, Sunstreaker could just sit and drink. He leaned back in the chair and kicked his feet up onto the table. He probably had some time to kill, and he had always been pretty damn good at killing.

~~~~

During the second great war the Autobots had built a prison deep in the center if Iacon with the intent of holding the strongest Decepticons should they be captured. It held some of the most vicious warriors known to the Autobots. Up until the Quintesson invasion it had gone into disuse, but the Quintessons saw fit to use it as a death row for captured resistance fighters. Now the rows of cells, reinforced to deal with the strongest that existed, set empty and unused, all except for one cell.

Sunstreaker hadn't seen anyone for two or three cycles. The last person he saw was Quick Switch who felt the need to verbally assault him for his actions and how if it came to execution, that Quick Switch would do it personally for what Sunstreaker had done. Sunstreaker didn't really reply for the most part, just sat in the dimly lit cell looking at the floor. Deep down, Sunstreaker knew he was probably right. He would never show it, but he did feel atleast a small portion of remorse for his actions over the past five years.

Every now and then he would hear Quick Switch checking to make sure Sunstreaker was still there, but that was it. Sunstreaker had helped guard this prison at one time, so he didn't put a lot of hope into escaping anyways. He just had to idly wait until his fate was decided. It had been six days before he finally saw anyone. Quick Switch came in and told him he had guests before leaving and Sideswipe and Trailbreaker came in. Sunstreaker nodded towards Trailbreaker "Why's he here?" He asked in a quiet tone. Trailbreaker stepped forward and smiled, "Believe it or not, I am going to defending you at the tribunal." His voice was cheery, completely opposite of Sunstreaker. "You?" Sunstreaker asked, slightly surprised. "Well yeah, I've known you longer than most and I was one of the few who'd ever done anything like that before willing to defend you." Trailbreaker smiled. "Who knew Trailbreaker was a lawyer... he always seemed like such a nice guy!" Sideswipe interjected with a grin. "What is the likely outcome of this?" Sunstreaker cut through the pleasantries to the point.

Trailbreaker sighed, "well," he paused for a moment thinking of how to word it, "It depends on how much of your story we can prove. If we can't prove any of it, probably execution." Sunstreaker nodded, "And how can we prove it?" He asked stoically. "I am gonna have Wheeljack have a look at you. If you were under control in Russia, like you said, he should find something in there." Trailbreaker continued, "That would probably save you from execution even with Red Alert on the tribunal. The other stuff gets a lot harder. If you didn't give any information to the Decepticons that would help, you'll be branded a traitor anyway, but without actually trading info it will probably lower the sentence." Trailbreaker grimaced as he got to the next part, "Your attack on Bluestreak and the human air base are pretty much open and shut... while the humans weren't killed by you, you did put them in harms way. Let me put it this way, friend. No matter what you're going to get a guilty verdict, we're just jockeying for punishment." Trailbreaker folded his arms over his chest and then looked around for a stool. He took a few steps out of Sunstreaker's line of sight and dragged a stool back and sat on it.

There was silence for a moment and then Sideswipe piped up, "Anything I can do?" he asked. Sunstreaker shook his head, "I'd say throttle Quick Switch but then we'd both be here." Sunstreaker said with a dry tone. "Yeah but atleast you'd have company," Sideswipe smirked. Sunstreaker cracked a small smile, "So what now then?" He asked, turning his attention to Trailbreaker. "Well... I was thinking we'd go over the story... from the attack on Bluestreak, onward." Sunstreaker nodded "Well...."

[Aero Blade]

Briefing Room, Autobase

"You may not invest much value in the beauracratic end of things, Grimlock, but that can get you in just as much trouble as the battlefield side of it," Magnus spoke.

"I'm not trying to change your method of fighting the war, just as much as you shouldn't be trying to change mine, but I need to be informed every once in awhile if there is a need for you to "drift" from the orders you were given at the begining of a mission. A simple, polite short call over the com of 'We shot at, we shoot back' will go quite a LONG way in avoiding this kind of situation later..."

[Warcry]

The Chase

"Wing Sabre should be enroute," Smokescreen told Ironhide, although he was speaking more from hope than from knowledge. The large airborne Autobot should have picked up the fleeing criminals by now, but he hadn't been in contact for a while.

Had he been in robot mode, he would have smirked. "I don't think the reporter's going to be in any shape to help anyone once Artfire's partner is done with him."
________________________________

Iacon Saving and Loan

Burnout glared at Foxbat with her arms crossed. She did not like lawyers. "How nice for all of you," she said sarcastically. "But when the government is an absolute monarchy ruled by Prime and his deputies and they can shut down all of your wonderful democratic reforms on a whim, they don't mean anything. And even when the civilian legal system finally gets set up, the military still has the final veto over anything and everything." She scowled. "Now both of you are interfering with official ISS business. If you want to continue this discussion later you can look my up at ISS HQ, but we're in the middle of an operation and you're hindering it. Get out of my sight before I have both of you shot."

Not even her contingent of ISS officers could tell whether she was serious or not. The look on her face suggested that even she didn't know for sure.
________________________________

Hubcap's pile of rubble

Switchblade smiled at Airplay. "Sure thing, ma'am." He extended a card to her with "SWITCHBOARD PRIVATE SECURITY", an adress and a comm frequency printed on the front. They were all valid; the Switchboard persona was just one of the fake IDs Switchblade used in his role as money launderer, PR mech and general co-ordinator for the Space Mafia's Iacon Crew.

"Contact me tonight and I'll forward those records ta youse." The data was, of course, fabricated, carefully stitched together from dozens of audio recordings of Hubcap that the Mafia had on file. His techies assured him the fraud was almost indetectable.

Of course, when somethin's almost indetectable, wese almost always get caught anyway. But if we don't, wese gonna hurt the cops a lot. And we'll have somethin' ta hold over the press, if they're printin' fake info that wese given 'em.
________________________________

The Busted Flush

Blue Bacchus scowled as a new stream of fire from the ship's aft started chewing holes in his armour. The Mafioso dove below the gun's line of fire and started spraying maser blasts and heat beams at the floating casino's portside hydrofoil.
________________________________

Outside the Gate

"We engage," Crosshairs told Highbrow. "From a distance if we can, though. If we close range with a gestalt, we'll get torn to pieces."

As the armoury officer spoke, he started methodically loading steel slugs into his magnetic accelerator sniper rifle.

Artfire was the one who was supposed to field test these things, but it should work fine. I hope.

[optimusskids]

Iacon Savings and Loan

Foxbat hung upside down from the stanchion and looked down at Burnout.

"So what your saying is we are free to go on condition that we remove ourselves from your prescence, presumably this includes our Camera mech yes?" One final point of order the CBC is a Protihex registered corporation, while we may choose to base ourselves out of Iacon, we are registered elsewhere. So you would not find it so easy to shut us down and i'm sure that you wouldn't want to imagine the propaganda victory for the Decepticons..hmmm."


Hubcap's pile of rubble

Airplay took the card and nodded towards Switchblade

"Do you have any indication on how the Wreckers might be involved or a possible link to the security forces?"

The Busted Flush

The support leg for the hydrofoil creaked ominously as it was hit be repeated bursts of fire. A crack appeared and then another.

A figure with a loudhailer limped onto the stern and started to shout across at Blue Bachus.

"Stop that for a moment there's a lot of rich mechs on board this ship maybe we can make some kind of deal."

[zigzagger]

Autobase: Prowl’s Office

Prowl quickly began to make the preparations of Autobase’s defense grid. Four separate holo-screens appeared over his desk, two of which were broadcasting the live feed from outside, one with the mainframe of Autobase’s defense grid, while the other remained blank for incoming transmissions.

As Prowl worked, he kept a watchful eye on the footage being streamed from outside on the two monitors.

“Voice recognition protocol: Commander Prowl. Transmitting specs to all guiding systems. Target’s are marked. Defense rails 24, 25, 34, and 35 in position. AAD grid online. AAD Rails 10, 11, and 12 positioned and ready. All systems standby.”

Prowl was so completely immersed in his work and the crisis at hand that he hadn’t noticed that Fulfang had quietly entered his office.

“Hmm?” he looked away from the monitor. “Fullfang, is it? Did you not hear the alarm? Is there a problem?”

[Aero Blade]

The Chase

Wing Saber had been monitoring the situation for some time, now up above, but being able to find a moment where he could effectively participate had proven to be troublesome. Matters changed quickly though as Smokescreen, Ironhide, and Two Stroke entered one of the longer stretches of road.

Quickly diving down and transforming to robot mode, Wing Saber got ahead of Two Stroke and blocked off the exit with his large size, hoping to pin him in as Smokescreen and Ironhide came up from behind. He also readied his weapons for any retaliation, just in case.

[Chip1123]

Outside the Gate

"Thats fine with me. I did not have plans on becoming deceased any time in this century." Highbrow told Crosshairs.

"It's not my preferred way, but I'm not stupid either." Topspin said, "I'll stay out of his reach..."

"Well, let us go then. Our top priority needs to be taking out the stunticons. Hopefully they will not have transformed into Menasor already - We also need to close and lock the gate behind us - make sure that if we are not successful, it buys the others inside more time..." Highbrow trailed off.

"Alright Autobots, let's go kick some tail." Topspin said triumphantly.

Topspin and Highbrow went through the gates, waiting on Crosshairs before they locked it behind them.

[Maximus Prime3]

menasor called out, "autobots, destroyed them" and he fired at the autobots

thrust then said, "bomshell, sharpnel and kickback attack"

and then the three insecticons and thrust fired at the autobots

(okay no clones)

[Chip1123]

"Well, so much for not having transformed into Menasor already!" Highbrow yelled, dodging out of the way of Menasor's shot, the beam passing a meter to his right, and dividing him from Topspin.

Topspin, already expecting the shot due to his long years of being a member of the Wreckers, dove into an abandoned building, took careful aim through a window, and fired his particle beam rifle at Menasor. He then yelled to "Crosshairs, can you deal with Thrust?"

Highbrow shot his acidmaker rain rifles at the approaching Insecticons. gotta keep those bugs at a distance, for now anyways he thought.