User blog:Doomflower/Arcee IC Journal / Pressure's On

'No one actually sees this ICly -- they are Arcee's private thoughts, made available here for OOC perusal in the spirit of creative writing. I don't draw robots particularly well, so this is my 'art'. I hope you enjoy it.'

I'm not sure if we made things better or worse in the Marble Valley settlement last night. I'm sure Shiftlock will let me know soon enough.

I was in the Decagon when we got the distress call from the settlement that the Decepticons had returned to level the place. We responded in force with a pretty good posse for the time allotted, and maybe we didn't get there in Blurr time, but I would say we arrived there pretty quickly.

Unfortunately, some settlers did get killed. To say I feel 'bad' about this is an understatement; being the 'ranking' person in the posse, I feel directly responsible for their deaths. What the hell am I doing?? I'm no battle commander. I'm no Elita One or Ultra Magnus. I know what my strengths are, and commanding large groups isn't one of them. Hell, Grimlock is 'King', he does whatever he pleases in a battle and Swoop just does follows suit. Last night, that seemed to work pretty well since we were dealing with some heavy-hitters like Scorponok and Cyclonus.

I ended up personally tangling with Sixshot, who was picking on poor little Rewind. I got to use some of the new fighting moves I've been working on in the training room with Springer. Ah, yes. Springer, a whole other can of tankworms there. Not going to open it right now because I want to focus this entry on the situation with the Marble Valley settlers.

But yeah, I put a hurt on Sixshot. LOVE learning new fighting techniques. And my adorable little bud Rewind got in a few good shots, too.

Punch did a fantastic job of getting some of the settlers out of there, and Swoop...shit, I think he ate a bomb or something. I didn't see it until I heard the explosion, but he took the brunt of it. The Dinobots and their bravery never ceases to amaze me.

Even so...I went in there without a plan. I took a group into that situation with no plan for the settlers, no plans as to where they were going to be evacuated...no plans, period. What kind of a ranking officer does that? Not a very good one. And the Decepticons can and WILL exploit my weaknesses on the field. If Blurr were still around, he'd most certainly take me to task for that. But I'm no commander. I'm more commanDO than commanDER. Rod understands this.

Springer has been telling me I'm doing a great job, but...I think he's kind of biased, honestly. Even one innocent death is one too many.