END GAME Part Three: THE CORE

[solianpolarity]

Solus stands poised with the fully-assembled, towering form of Nexus Prime at the opening to one of the subterranean tunnels. A small herd of acolytes is accompanying them, carrying crates of supplies - metal, energon, and raw materials. While the combiner-Prime would normally just barely fit in the smallest of Solus' tunnel workings, this tunnel dwarfs even him.

It is a vast, primary shaft; wide and formal and clearly important enough to have earned additional detailing in the very walls. It carries an air of reverence that is obvious even over the comm, that of a temple, rather than a simple maintenance shaft.

This is something special.

"Those of you with my Mark, and those of my brother - to us! We must delve down into the core of the world, and ready our final preparations. If we cannot complete this...this is our last resort. There will be no other chance for the survival for this world or it's intended purpose."

Solus frowns at the camera, steadying herself against despair.

"It barely needs to be said, that if we do not survive this, your return home will not be likely."

Nexus steps forward, gesturing down in the vague direction of the center of the world.

"And on that happy note... Unicron's minions have sought to taint the core. You need to aid us in clearing the attackers, as well as repairing the damage they have dealt, if you got the talent. We gotta work quickly - my brothers can only delay the attack for so long. Only then can we survive this fight." Nexus gives the viewers an encouraging nod.

The coordinates of the massive tunnel follow before the view cuts out: the two Primes will be waiting.

Comments

[nexicpolarity]

[Nexus can really only shrug at that.]

Well. Hopefully they know what they're doin' upstairs. We just gotta do our part, and things should work out fine.

[And he says it like he actually believes it. Someone has to.]

The plan? We go down, clear out the little 'infestation' problem we got, and do a super-quick repair job on anything they messed up while we're at it.

Hopefully that should do the trick.

[solianpolarity]

[Another nod, before she gestures him further down the tunnel.]

Good to hear.

Come. We will be traveling down to the Core momentarily. That is where we are all truly needed.

[solianpolarity]

[Solus nods, shrugging the betrayal aside for now.]

While perhaps not your specialty, your weapon will work well enough against the invaders, so long as you are careful to avoid the core itself. And Nexus will supply the tools needed for cleansing the remaining contamination.

If you have any other skills to provide, due let us know.

[solianpolarity]

[Solus nods, gesturing Elita down the tunnel.]

Good. Come now - we will travel down to the core from here briefly.

[leap_before_look]

Okay then- here I go..!

[Down on the elevator, huh. Shifting the grip on his blaster rifle, Garrod pilots the Gundam forward.]

[leap_before_look]

[With such a long time to stand and do nothing, Garrod can't help but be anxious. He's curious as to what the Firstforged do in the meantime, the medallions they're given carefully handled, the destination seeming so sudden, all at once.]

What...are they?

[Even after charging out after the Firstforgeds' lead, he can't help but come to a slight pause. Well, it's easy enough to tell that those things are doing some major damage.

The Gundam X-Divider levels his weapon and starts to fire.]

[solianpolarity]

[The girly scream gets a start from the hulking Nexus Prime- but Solus is too enraged to even glance back.

She tears her way through the swarm, stomping, crushing, and squashing the creatures as she goes. The furious swings of her hammer are ruthless - activated swings reducing the creatures down to their component parts, which scatter violently as she charges onward.

But there are still so many. Even she can't do it alone.]

[neverputincharge]

It's funny how a year ago, I probably woulda insisted I'd be better up with the guys taking it to Unicron. [Where his muscle could've been used like he was used to. Beating down the enemy.]

[He tilts his head at the news. Frowning some in thought.]

Is...is that connected to that light?

[neverputincharge]

[Look, we all have our weird quirks. That's just his.

We'll talk about this later, okay?

He gkances over to the green seeker. Nice to see somebody else likes the same colorscheme. Despite the situation, he chuckles a little in amusement.]

Totally different.

[And boom goes another group of scraplets.]

[neverputincharge]

[He gives the much larger Prime an apologetic look. He certainly didn't mean to startle anybody. Way to focus Bulk.

But he's working his way through the cavern, taking out scraplets as he goes. But Solus' actions with her hammer don't go unnoticed. He glances over his shoulder at his own hammer. Maybe she's got a good idea.]

Time to see if the practice pays off I guess. [He puts the canon away and draws out his own hammer, activating it.

Following Solus' example, he starts smashing them to scrap. Even ifit might take him a couole motre hits than the Prime.]

[angleofscience]

If necessary, I can always resort to my thrusters. [He says it with some dry amusement, but he is serious about it. They work pretty well as weapons in a pinch, and the amount of heat and force generated from blasting them ought to work very well.] They're close-range, if nothing else.

Hmm, well. My specialties lie in geology and related disciplines, but I'm pretty well-versed in energy research as well.

[deadlydoctor]

[Knock Out nodded and raised up his arm where the resonance blaster was attached.]

This beauty is a sonic weapon, it can stop enemies and destroy them from afar before they can react. We could kkck their afts before they realize what hit them.

[invisiblepinkboat]

[With a nod, Elita briefly passes Solus - going down the tunnel for a bit and then back out, standing with the Firstforged at the entrance. At least there'd been nothing in the tunnel itself, even if she hadn't exactly expected it to be. Not this close to the surface, or rather, more correctly, close to two Firstforged.]

[invisiblepinkboat]

[Whatever they are, beyond critters of Unicron - and she doesn't have a clue, as their looks doesn't remind her of anything - they don't seem to have any huge ability to be able to tell when she's passing by, her cloaking engaged.

So she uses that to dart to the thickest bunches of them a few times, using the medallion to get at the corruption furthers from everyone else before drawing back to the other end of the huge hollow.]

I hope we aren't too late...

[The damage, caused by innumerable tiny things, is harder to tell how bad it is rather than if it'd been a few (or one) large things doing it.]

[angleofscience]

I wish I could tell you, beyond that they're obviously either affected by, or pure manifestations of the energy from the Badlands... and, er, Unicron, I suppose. [Jetfire frowns, having his own rifle out and firing at another spot of them. That almost hurt to admit.]

But they're unfamiliar to me.

[leap_before_look]

-well, whatever they are, they're bad news!

[That much is clear- they couldn't let the things overrun the place. He swings his mech around to fire at another swarm.]

[angleofscience]

Clearly. [There's a smile, but both it and Jetfire's tone is grim while he raises one leg and ignites the thruster to burn the closest - and closing in - group of... whatever.]

As long as they aren't inside your guard, my guess is that you'll be fine. They don't seem to possess anything in the way of long-distance attacks.

[leap_before_look]

Works for me! I don't think I'd want to find out what these guys are capable of up close anyway-

[Although there do seem to be a few that appear too closely for comfort. Shouting in surprise over his comm, the boy yanks his Gundam back from the wall, reaching back to yank one of his beam swords from its concealed sheathe, green energy blade activating as he swipes it at the things that try to flank them.]

Augh!

[the_other_green_seeker]

{Jadewing isn't quite a s hopeful, but he is used to following orders, hopeful or not. So he just nods. Not like he had a better plan after all.]

Sounds good to me. Long as it's not evil morphobots; those things are a glitch to get rid of, unless you've got some really loud music handy.

[Snarking in the face of danger. And a demigod. Because that's how Seekers roll fly.]

[the_other_green_seeker]

Oh, I know that.

[Pheew-pew-pew! Yay scraplet blasting!]

These things look more like mutant sharkticon protoforms than the kind of scraplets I'm uset to though. [Zap-zap!] Where I'm from, they're smaller. And brightly colored.

[neverputincharge]

I wish, but ours are just ugly fraggers. [You know, if he wasn't worried about possibly damaging the core further, or any of their group, he'd be tempted to use a grenade on the things. Would get rid of alot them faster.]

Don't let them get too close, if they're anything like mine, they eat living metal. [AKA: Them.]

[angleofscience]

[Jetfire winces as he spots the ones that almost got close - they're too small and too many and the energy they give off is spread out throughout the whole chamber, making it impossible to pinpoint a particular group, like this one.]

Can that... er, suit? lift up in the air? We haven't seen these creatures being capable of flight yet, so that would, so far, be a workable solution if they surround us.

[leap_before_look]

[Garrod swings at another before shifting his blaster rifle to shoot at a batch ahead of them.]

Yeah, I can fly with this thing, no prob.

[the_other_green_seeker]

Yep, ours do too. Though they're also fortunately pretty rare.

[Zap-zap-zap! Don't you love casual danger dialog?]

At least it's not morphobots though- giant metal-eating plants. [Targets the few scraplet-things that escape Bulk's heavier artillery, making sure none of them can sneak up from behind them.]

They have an advantage over scraplets in that they're stationary, but they multiply like crazy and nothing kills them. At least nothing we found. Though they seem to really hate loud music for some reason.

[angleofscience]

There's that, then. [Jetfire nods, and then smiles again, faint and grim, while trying to fire at the clusters of critters and yet not aim directly at the ground. The walls are harder, but he does make a try at not firing at the ground and the delicate work there... for now. If it turns out to be needed to scour that as well in getting rid of the creatures, he certainly will.]

And you can always use the thrusters themselves as weapons - not a lot of things like to be burned with the heat and force we can produce through something meant to lift us in the air.

[It only works at a extreme or relative short distance, but in a pinch it's extremely useful