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| - Shark is on foot patrol on the other reaches of his usual route to check for infiltrations into Autobot territory, which has him pass right into disputed areas. The young mech is certainly on high alert as he moves along. Starscream is lurking in the area! It's disputed territory, so he's just scouting for possible capture and extraction of energon. So far he's not run into anyone. Strife probably has less of a reason to be here than either of the others. With an increase in violent conflict, he's been working non-stop in the morgue lately. For the first time, he has nothing to do; and so he has gone wandering into disputed territory hoping to hear news of how the war is going so far - and possibly some fresh parts among the dead. The sound of mechs moving through the territory could be easily heard, about a dozen of them or so. There's no patrol scheduled, but here they were, rough shouts of guttural nonsense breaking the everglades here and there, along with random splashing. Whoever it was, was not good at stealth. +Roll: Shark rolls against his Awareness Stat and fails by 1! The total roll was 12. Shark doesn't notice Starscream since he's lurking, and Strife would be of no concern to the Autobot. But the splashing and guttural stuff, yeah that attracts his notice. A metal rock flies out of nowhere suddenly and makes Strifes' ears ring! Strife is so deep in thought that he barely notices what's going on around him. he doesn't see who it is, exactly, that dares to throw a rock at him - and a METAL rock, of all things - but he sure does feel it as it leaves delicate fibrosensors in his audials quivering violently. He puts his hands to the side of his head and winces; for a moment, all he can hear is a high pitched ringing note an octave above middle C. Starscream hears the noise but doesn't immediately see where it's coming from. He stays put, hiding himself and waiting to see what comes out. +Roll: Shark rolls against his Awareness Stat and succeeds by 7! The total roll was 4. Shark stops as he hears something metal hit metal in the area, now he's really looking around as well as using is scanners to see if anyone is close by to his location. A rusty shape moves between two trees through the mercury. There were folks here! and they were all rusted and a bit beat up, moving raggedly. A pack of them of about a dozen, closing in on the three mechs, though Starscream was not yet visible to them. Strife finally regains his hearing after a moment of total deafness. He doesn't notice the feral empties, but he does start looking over his shoulder, suddenly feeling that he isn't alone. Starscream hears the rustling noise of rusty scrap empties and groans. He doesn't want to waste any ammo on them, and yet he'd like to get in some target practice. Shark spots them coming as well, summon up his pistol for just in case. There's always option one, toss some energon goodies to distract them.. then get out of here. Worked with other Empties after all. With a shriek, the nearest one flings itself on Strife, intending to tackle him on the back. Moments later, two more lurch for Shark, while a metal rock is hurled at Starscreams' backside. Shark toes with the energon goodie toss to see if they will stop for them. Hunger is usually their main motivation. These guys are unusually rusty! +Roll: Strife rolls against his Dexterity Stat and succeeds by 7! The total roll was 8. One of the two leaping to Shark skids to a halt, leaping instead for the goodie. The other one then tackles the first with a guttural, insistent shout to share it seems as they roll down a slope into a pool of mercury Strife manages to avoid being tackled. He hears the onrushing empty a second before it would have been too late and sidesteps it, holding his hands up as if afraid to come into contact with it. "Primus," he swears. It's then that he begins to notice the other empties in the area. "This place is crawling with derelicts!" Shark moves away from them, but is aware there are others. The 'Primus' gets his attention. Hmm, Strife is out and about he sees. "Not all are derelicts." he calls over to the mech. Strife looks up when he's addressed, though he's a bit distracted right now by the empty lurching up from where it's fallen to have another go at him. "Matters of semantics are, perhaps, not the most pressing at the moment." Shark moves slowly toward Strife, tossing out what energon goodies he has away from them both to see if that will buy them some time for flight. "When you see them all jump for the goodies, run for it and don't look back." Starscream has his null-ray at the ready, to drive back any scavenging empties. So far they don't seem to be coming too close to him. The empty scrabbles to its feet and lunges for strife again. +Roll: Strife rolls against his Dexterity Stat and BOTCHES! +Roll: Shark rolls against his Awareness Stat and BOTCHES! Strife is distracted by Shark, and, this time, the empty levels him. He's sent to the ground with the empty atop him, pushing with his legs and pounding its face with his fists. But Strife is no scrapper, and this empty is stronger than he imagined. He's temporarily pinned. Shark didn't even see that one on his scanner, possibly too rusty to even 'ping' back to him. He turns though to help to get the empty off of Strife! +Roll: Shark rolls against his Strength Stat and succeeds by 4! The total roll was 14. Thanks to Shark, the empty attacking Strife is pulled away long enough to let Strife get up. Strife clambers inelegantly to his feet and produces his meager laser pistol. A straight-armed, point-blank shot to the empty's cranium leaves it sparking and bleeding energon as it falls. "Most disgusting work," he intones, turning to Strife. "Good to see you again. Are you harmed? Are there any more of those things in the area?" Shark shakes his head, turning slightly to see if he can sight any of the others that he knows full well are about. "I'm unharmed, but they always go about in groups so I am sure they are out there." he replies to Strife. Starscream isn't sure he wants to get in this mess. He watches as Shark and Strife fight their way through aggressive empties. He's not going to commit to attacking in order to save some Autobot. "Then I suggest a hasty retreat," Strife says, wiping energon back spatter from the barrel of his gun. His face is also flecked with glowing purple fluid, but he doesn't move to wipe that away too quickly. "If there are so many more of them than there are of us, it's the only viable option...unless you had another idea." Shark hmms softly, "They don't attack normally, so might be best to get out of here any way we can. I'm not above a little fender bending to knock them out of my way." Starscream shakes his head and decides to depart. There's no point sticking around. He doesn't really have any backup. There's better things he could be doing. Strife nods. He still hasn't noticed Starscream, as the Seeker is a ways away from Shark and himself. Strife keeps an embarrassing secret: he's running special optical enhancement software to compensate for an irreparable optical malfunction that causes him to be unable to see anything a certain distance away. He has always assumed that this was a misbuild and wondered whether or not there were any who shared his mold that suffered from the same glitch. "Then let's away," he says, transforming and making his way out of the area. Shark transforms and gets onto hover plane quickly. The mech isn't going to mess around either. He powers toward a couple of empties and just plows into them, whether they cling on or not is unimportant to him right now.. just leaving and report thing incident matters. Arcee arrives on the scene. Someone told her one of the empties might know where Weldbond is. +Roll: Shark rolls against his Awareness Stat and succeeds by 6! The total roll was 5. Shark nearly passes by Arcee, but brakes hard and calls out. "You don't want to be here, the empties here are attacking folks." A crowd shambles out in front of Strife. He decelerates quickly, not wanting to come away with any dents. As a hearse, he isn't equipped for ramming. A few of the empties jump atop him and start banging on his hood. he grumbles. "This is no good." Arcee halts as Shark nearly passes. "I wonder why they're doing that," she says. She pulls out her pistol and aims it. "BACK OFF!" she orders the approaching feral empties. +Roll: Arcee rolls against her Dexterity Stat and SUCCEEDS PERFECTLY! Shark turns around to see Strife got pounced, his rifle appearing on top of his roof and taking shots at the Empties to just wound. Strife proceeds forward as the empties are forced to back away. At the appearance of Arcee, he stops again. The roving gangs are appearing more frequently and with larger and larger numbers. Strife transforms; it might not be the best tactical decision, but he needs to regroup. "Good cycle," he tells Arcee, "and we thank you for your aid. This area is becoming quite unsafe. I am not well armed...I wonder if you could help Shark provide an escort." He bows. "I normally detest making such pleas, but I hope you will oblige." "It's no trouble at all," Arcee says, "I like helping people." She keeps her pistol at the ready, popping off some shots to keep the empties at bay. +Roll: Arcee rolls against her Dexterity Stat and succeeds by 6! The total roll was 8. Shark swivels the rifle around since it has full 360 degree swivel while on his roof. Shots are buzzing out, injuring any empties that look like the other ones. "And where am I escorting someone?" he inquires. Strife turns to Shark with another bow. "Oh, I apologize," he says, wearing his creepy smile, "I was under the impression that you were attempting to help me leave this area. I was presumptuous, clearly." "Just tell me which direction you'd like to go," Arcee says, "And I'll clear a path for an escape route." Shark points out, "You two get going while I got you covered." he states, having no intent of escorting.
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