Field Test

Black Forest, Germany

The thick forest and the foliage up above make this place as dark as...well, black. Except for the wide expanses of the Autobahn, there is little room to move for giant robots. Smaller humans, and human-sized robots, however, can move about more freely and hide in the underbrush. Contents:

Blue Hovercar &lt;Blurr&gt;

Grapple

Jetfire

Patchwork Shockwave

Swindle

Autobot City &lt;AC&gt;

Metroplex City Defences

Rammstein Air Base

Steel Foundry

Obvious exits: Northeast &lt;NE&gt; leads to Berlin, Germany. Northwest &lt;NW&gt; leads to Brussels, Belgium. South &lt;S&gt; leads to De-Militarized Zone. Southeast &lt;SE&gt; leads to Zurich, Switzerland.

Fly &lt;Up&gt;

Blue Hovercar &lt;Blurr&gt; zooms towards Metroplex from the nearby EDC base, a report of general activities tucked into his front seat. "Don't know why they want us to know about their day to day happenings but if they do then I gotta deliver the message because I'm a messenger and delivering messages is my job and it's really really important and gee I'm getting kind of bored hey maybe I can TEXT MESSAGE one of my Autobot friends but wait I'm driving and everyone knows that text messaging and driving is wrong even if you're a messanger but GEE this ride is so dull and so boring and it would be really easy oh no what should I do?!"

Blue Hovercar &lt;Blurr&gt; obviously needs a lecture in ROAD SAFETY to reaffirm proper behavior!

Seems for the resident Action Scientist there was always some work to be done. Building a spacebridge, salvaging the Dyson Ring, and just recently spelunking on Charr. Now there was the matter of Rodimus wanting to get Metroplex moved back towards the states as soon as possible. Thus was Jetfire making a few rounds of the exterior to check that all the exterior hardware was packed up or fastened down tightly for the trip. May or may not have other Operations people helping him, but that's up to them!

Grapple rumbles around not too far from Jetfire, checking on the exterior of Metroplex, as well. For the most part, the architect is there just to make certain nothing would fall apart due to some tiny, overlooked crack or something. Architects are good for that sort of thing, most of the time!

Patchwork is coming along with the rest, though she's half in her own little world, humming quietly to herself as she does so, swirving left and right in a way that almost makes it look as if the femme medic is dancing.

Payloader &lt;Scrapper&gt; is puttering towards Metroplex, even more slowly than usual, because something gleaming in the hue and reflectivity of nitinol is strapped on top of him. He's not very good at carrying things. Long Haul does it much better, and yet, Long Haul was scarce today. Hmm. Also, approaching Metroplex at all is often considered to be suicidal, at best! What's Scrapper up to? As he gets closer, it become clearer that the thing on his back is some kind of artillery piece, though strange and spacey, with odd crystal and black shards in the back, where a power source should go.

With his long, tireless stride, Shockwave easily keeps up with Scrapper just by walking. "I predict a high likelihood that you will next tell me that testing this prototype under controlled laboratory conditions would be unfeasible or unsatisfactory for some flimsy confluence of factors," Shockwave is saying to Scrapper, which is his way of criticising.

Swindle transforms into his Vintage Army Jeep &lt;Swindle&gt; mode.

If there's ever something that could even remotely bring about a bit of profit, chances are that Swindle isn't very far off. In actually, he had no idea if this would be profitable or if it would just get him blown to scrap. But profit is always a gamble. And, well, he was curious. That's why a second four wheeled vehicle is driving alongside Scrapper, an old vintage jeep. "Oh, I'm sure there's more than a good reason for it," Swindle says, keeping up with the payloader easily. "'Practical' experiments, and all, right Scrapper?"

Blue Hovercar &lt;Blurr&gt; hasn't yet noticed the Autobots approaching Metroplex, so distraut is he over his personal moral delimma over TEXTING WHILE DRIVING! Fortunately, he manages to hold off the temptation long enough to spot Jetfire, and once he does, he transforms and darts over to the scientist. Jetfire's an officer, right? He can deliver the reports to Jetfire! "Hey Grapple Patchwork Jetfire good to see you three how are you all doing I'm doing great anyway I was just at the nearby EDC base because they're allies and we're allies and allies talk to each other and they want to talk to us so they gave me this list of reports to give you guys and I read it through real quick but it's just run of the mill dull stuff but they want us to know so I'm giving it to you!"

If Jetfire had a free hand, he may now find it filled with a datapad that Blurr has handed off to him.

Blue Hovercar &lt;Blurr&gt; transforms into his Blurr mode.

Jetfire is quite assured that, if there was even the most minute of a problem to cause issues, Grapple would find it, which is why Jetfire had him along in the first place. "The last thing we need is a leaky basement," he half-jokes... and there's a datapad in his hand. How did that get the... oh. "Hello Blurr. Hmm. Must be important if they're sending hardcopys." He might just be trying to humor the messanger a little though, as he opens his chest and tucks the documents into what would be his cockpit. "I'll get them... huh?"

Something, a vage glint of light, catchs his attention out of the corner of his optic, and he turns his head a bit to look off in the direction of the glints. "... What is that?!" He walks away a bit from the others, squinting and trying to zoom in his optical viewfinder to get a closer look. "... You have got to be slagging me." They wouldn't be -that- cocky. Or would they?

Hearing her name, Patchwork comes to a halt, transforming before she turns her head towards Blurr, grinning brightly as she lifts a hand, waving in his direction. "Hi! Having fun playing courier?" she wonders before her attention shifts towards Jetfire at his peering. "What? See something?"

Grapple blinks once. Twice. He really has absolutely no idea what Blurr had said, but it apparently involves a datapad being handed over. He also thought he heard his name said somewhere in there, but since Blurr isn't looking in his direction, he decides it wasn't important. Grapple is actually ready to look back at the walls before Jetfire spots something in the distance. "What is it?"

Payloader &lt;Scrapper&gt; explains hesitantly, "Well. Laboratory testing has a teeny little chance of imploding the whole solar system around it into a neutron star. Erm. So does field testing, actually. I'd just rather not mess up a planet of which I am rather fond." Earth can suck it! He transforms and sets up the 'artillery piece' on its tripod in firing distance of, uh... Metroplex, adjusting some of the knobs and switches. Scrapper's a bit of a coward, so the Autobots might find it weird how blithe he seems.

The totally unassuming lime green payloader unfolds to become Scrapper, the architect of destruction!

"I'd rather it didn't do that." The jeep that is Swindle starts to unfold once they've gotten into position, "It's pretty bad for business if the solar system is destroy." Swindle eyes the device once, before setting down on a knee to quickly check his own weapons, just in case. "Being this close to Metroplex is bad for personal business as well, so it'd be a good idea to hurry it up."

Vintage Army Jeep &lt;Swindle&gt; transforms into his Swindle mode.

Blurr looks in the direction that Jetfire is looking. "What's that? What's what? Why would I be slagging you that doesn't sound very nice and you're a nice guy so I wouldn't want to do an unnice thing to such a nice gu- Decepticons! They're attack wait they're not attacking and there's only three of them and they're setting up something hey wait what are they doing I'd better get a closer look don't worry I'll be right back!" He transforms and in a moment, he's speeding towards the Decepticons.

Blurr transforms into his Blue Hovercar &lt;Blurr&gt; mode.

Shockwave stands a short distance (not a safe distance, for reasons Scrapper just went into) away from the weird artillery piece and observes Scrapper closely. "If practical, this would provide an answer to a certain episode which Megatron described to me at great length but with dubious detail or veracity."

Patchwork simply stares at Blurr...and then stares at the space Blurr was a moment ago. Shaking her head, the medic turns in the direction she thinks she saw him streak off in, peering after whatever it is the rest of them are seeing. "Why would they come here? That's dumb...!"

The bright yellow crane shifts and changes form in to a big.. Yellow and blue Autobot! Yay, yellow!

Grapple belatedly shifts in to a slightly more proper mode to stare at Blurr, only for the courier to.. Run off. Not that the architect understood a word that was just said, but even he could spot what's in the distance. He's an architect, after all! He has good vision! "It does seem somewhat.. Foolhardy." To put it mildly.

"Figure of spea -- oh nevermind." Jetfire cuts himself off as Blurr takes off before he can finish. "I guess with taking Cybertron they've gotten a bit big for their struts. Defensive positions, Autobots!" Relying on Blurr to find out just what they've got setting up over there, Jetfire takes a moment to switch over to combat mode, summoning the rest of his armor and armaments out of subspace as he moves in front of the architect and medic. "If you don't want to fight directly, use Metroplex's secure positions."

Scrapper fiddles with the sights on the Atomic Radius Adjustment Device or ARAD, and he twitches a bit as Shockwave mentions an episode wherein Scrapper either had not been built yet or was being chased by Omega Supreme through space or possibly both. Scrapper murmurs, "Cmon, baby, show papa just what you can do..." Did he put in some state-of-the-art tracking software? Quite possibly! But he'd like to put it to the test, and he immediately goes after the hardest target - no, not Jetfire, though any other day... Blurr! A beam lances out, one part almost clear, more just distorted light than anything else, one part darkness, the white and the black pulling and tugging at each other.

Swindle doesn't fire. Why? Maybe because he's not sure how his own weapons will interact with whatever Scrapper is using on the autobots. So instead, he levels his scatterblaster on the nearest autobot (which probably looks like he's trying to aim at a humming bird or something, considering that Blurr is the nearest). And waits.

Combat: Blurr is size 2, significantly smaller than you.

Shockwave likewise remains still and unconcerned, although both of these states are more or less constant for him. "Your choice of targets is peraps unreasonably ambitious."

Blurr is, indeed, zipping back and forth as he approaches the Decepticons rather than going for the direct approach, but apparently the tracking system on this new weapon is /really/ good - or Blurr just happens to be crossing from one side to the next at a bad moment. Either way, he's struck and he immediately vanishes!

Actually, if one looks closely or has good optics, they can see him. It would seem that Blurr's vehicle mode has suddenly shrunk to something not much larger than a cassette!

A flash, and the speedster is gone from sight. And not in his usual just being too fast to keep track of way. "BLURR?!!" What the hell did Scrapper build, a disintergrator? Slag it all to hell. "You're going to pay for that, Decepticons!" Coming to a stop Jetfire raises his arms, the blasters built into his forearm guards activating fully and extending their barrels. Plus he's got his actual rifle in one hand. So he's got little difficulting in opening fire on all three of the visible Decepticons with bright beams of particle energy!

".." And then Blurr's talking on the radio a few moments afterwards. "... Oh for the love of..."

Combat: Jetfire strikes Scrapper with his Particle Beam Barrage Area attack!

Combat: You took 10 damage.

Combat: Jetfire misses Swindle with his Particle Beam Barrage Area attack!

Combat: Jetfire misses Shockwave with his Particle Beam Barrage Area attack!

Uh-oh. That's the first thing Grapple thinks when Blurr simply.. Vanishes. Where did he GO? "Blurr?!" Despite himself, he does a visual sweep for any sign of the speedy bot before he pulls out his own rifle. Yet, before he can actually fire it.. Blurr is speaking on the radio. He's alive! ..But where IS he? "What sort of gun did they BUILD?"

"Blurr!" Patchwork stretches up onto her toes, optics widening. He's fast, but even he's not THAT fast. "Where'd he go? Jetfire...where is he?" she demands as she takes a step forward, her rifle coming out as she lifts it up...and holds as she hears Blurr over the radio.

Scrapper fist-punches the air and hoots, "Would you look at that? Or the lack of that. Hmm. Hope I didn't implode him into a neutron star. That'd be bad, given that we're all standing right here..." While Scrapper is speculating, he's shot, one of his leg-tyres bursting, and knocked away from the ARAD, which just sits there, all tempting like, just begging for someone else to take the controls.

"An apparently successful trial run, Scrapper," notes Shockwave. "You are to be commended for not destroying the planet." At Jetfire's enraged approach Shockwave raises a foot and slams it down onto the roadway leading towards the Metroplex compound. The section of asphalt splits at the impact, flipping upwards like a closing book to catch the particle beam blast on the root-entwined underside. Grabbing the pavement section in his hand, Shockwave makes one full rotation at the waist and releases it, slinging the ton and a half of concrete and blacktop back towards Jetfire with a snap of his wrist. "I recommend Metroplex as your next target, Scrapper. The Autobots have become agitated."

Combat: Shockwave misses Jetfire with his Road Work Ahead Your Head attack! [Pulled -5]

Swindle whistles appreciatively, brows of his optics raised. "Now I /am/ impressed! Not only did you manage to SHOOT Blurr, but you completely shrunk him down to the size of a cog." Or, well, a very large cog. But still. He's already moving in to investigate the device further, when the scientist behind the device is shot down. Swindle ducks behind it, narrowly avoiding getting shot at himself. "Yes, yes, all good and well, but I think we should take care of the one shooting at us NOW!" Swindle pushes himself back up, and takes to the controls of the weapon, leveling it at Jetfire and firing. "Time for a hands on test run." Lucky that Swindle knows what he's doing with machines, right?

Blurr is the size of a very large cog. At first when he's shot, he's disoriented and assumes that the Decepticons have built a ray that grows plants, accounting for the very large grass around him, but he then figures out the real situation, which gets him thinking. While babbling to the other Autobots over the radio he continues to zoom towards the Decepticons, cutting through grass that now almost completely obscures him. It takes a bit longer than it would have otherwise, especially since he's keeping to subsonic speeds, but he's still Blurr and he's still on them before there's a chance to get another shot in. He darts right up to the Decepticons, moving as close to the superweapon as he can and then suddenly increases his speed to near his max, rattling the area with a sonic shockwave that's far louder than his size would seem to allow for!

Combat: Blurr sets his defense level to Fearless.

Combat: Blue Hovercar &lt;Blurr&gt; strikes Scrapper with his Sonic Boom attack!

Combat: You took 13 damage.

Combat: Jetfire is size 4, slightly smaller than you.

Okay, so its a shrink ray, not a disintergrator. That's only slightly less reassuring, considering. But Jetfire doesn't get long enough to think farther about it before Shockwave tries to kick his asphalt. By throwing some at him. Jetfire has to cut off his barrage of fire to blow up the chunk of rock before it hits him, sending debris flying all over the place. "Wait your turn!" He snaps at the big purple one. And turns to level his rifle at the shrink-artillery. "Time to put an end to thi--"

Only to have it fire as soon as he faces it. ".. Oh bother." *BLINDNING FLASH*

Jetfire ends up on his posterior on the grass with a grunt, and just sort of sits there, disoriented. Though he's not all unvisible as Blurr, just the Air Guardian has been reduced to a fun new minibot size!

Shrinking can be reversed, disintegration can't be...so as far as Patchwork is concerned, this is far, far better than things could have been! Keeping her rifle up, Patches hardly gets her shot off before the prize in box sized Jetfire is created in front of her. "Oh, for the..." This is not going well!

Well, shoot; now Jetfire has been shrunk as well. Grapple gapes for a moment at the suddenly very small Jetfire who is still apparently in the way of possibly Decepticon fire. Did a smaller size mean weakened armor? He really wasn't sure and didn't want to take the chance. So, he grabs for Jetfire to pull him back and possible use the thrown asphalt as a temporary shield.

Combat: Patchwork strikes Scrapper with her Rifle attack!

Combat: You took 6 damage.

Combat: Grapple misses Jetfire with his Grab attack!

Scrapper is rattled by Blurr's sonic boom and is shot while he's down, and boy, it smarts! He gets up to his feet, a bit woozily. He looks over at Jetfire, who looks... about the size of Powerglide. He remarks, "Huh. Some inconsistent effects. I am forced to agree with Shockwave. I require a larger sample size - or just a larger sample." Scrapper tries to take his ARAD back from Swindle and points it at the broad side of the proverbial barn. However, the beam seems less coherent, now, and Scrapper frowns at some of the dials. Radiation warning? Concussion damage warning?

Shockwave can't see Blurr (maybe if he knew where to look, but Blurr is not only fast but now he's TINY as well) but he can definitely see Patchwork shooting up Scrapper. "Scrapper, you are under fire," Shockwave says unhelpfully as he lays down a covering fire in support of the green guy. "I would recommend accelerating your timetable."

Combat: Shockwave misses Patchwork with his Visible Laser (Laser) attack!

One blast, it seems, is enough to please Swindle, because he's willing to give Scrapper back the controls. He's spotted something else interesting, just barely for a second, when the shockwave blasts at Scrapper. He instead tries to make a grab for Blurr when the now small Autobot gets too close. "inconsistent, but sufficient for the smaller autobots! Just imagine, we could package them up, sell them to unsuspecting human children! We'd be able to make a mint!" A pause, "All for the Decepticon cause, of course." Always thinking with his bank account, that one.

Combat: Swindle strikes Blue Hovercar &lt;Blurr&gt; with his Grab attack!

Jetfire turns out to be rather heavy for his size, making it a bit hard to just jerk around. Though Grapple's yanking does help to shake him out of the disorientation. He turns his head a bit to look up at the now taller architect, optics blinking. "... Now I know what people feel like looking at me."

But the moment of dark humor quickly passes. "Slag! They're going to try and shrink the whole city at this rate!" The dazement slips away as he bolts back to his feet. There will be time (hopefully) to make a more thorough investigation to what's happening. He bolts away from Grapple and transforms.... into a now very small and cute spaceship that looks like it belongs on some carvival ride than in middle of a battlezone.

.o0(I am SO going to kill them for this)0o.

Small size and sour thoughts aside, he blasts forward, leaving scorch marks in the grass as he rockets towards the weapon to try and do something to stop it, though what he doesn't really know. Just... something!

But then Swindle goes to grab Blurr. There's a brief moment of torn interests, but the guardian nature wins out in the end. Veering off with the roar of minaturized afterburners Jetfire divebombs at Swindle to try and make him drop Blurr again. Forcably. Considering they're now roughly the same size.

Jetfire transforms into his Super Veritech Fighter &lt;Jetfire&gt; mode.

Combat: Super Veritech Fighter &lt;Jetfire&gt; sets his defense level to Aggressive.

Blue Hovercar &lt;Blurr&gt; is grabbed by the now much larger Swindle! "Wha- hey let me go you I don't belong to you and it's not like we asked you to come here and sold to children I don't want to be sold to children I mean children are nice and all but they don't take care of their toys very well I remember what Daniel did to some of his when he was young and I wouldn't want that to happen to me no way no how!" And then Blurr transforms, growing slightly in size as he does (his robot mode was always larger than his vehicle mode) and attempts to shoot Swindle in the hand.

Blue Hovercar &lt;Blurr&gt; transforms into his Blurr mode.

Combat: Blurr misses Swindle with his Electro-Laser attack!

Combat: Super Veritech Fighter &lt;Jetfire&gt; strikes Swindle with his Be really glad he's NOT full sized right now! (Ram) attack!

Grapple stares for a moment at the now very stout Jetfire ramming in to Swindle and a very tiny Blurr yelling about poor toy care. He sincerely hoped Jetfire had Swindle handled because, frankly, he had the feeling Shockwave might just be a larger threat. Besides, someone has to keep him busy while mini-Blurr perhaps makes a run for it. Assuming that's what he does. Really, the entire situation was just plain strange. So, still rather baffled with the whole shrinking thing, he fires at Shockwave.

Combat: Grapple strikes Shockwave with his Laser attack!

Patchwork ducks her head as the shots are returned, and manages to avoid getting hit. No new paint job for her! The chatter on the radio has the medic lifting her head, however, and frowning in Swindle's direction. Shoving her rifle away, she pulls out her much smaller pistol, holding it in her hand just in case as she dashes forward, shoulder down, clearly making to drive into the Con and knock him off balance.

Combat: Patchwork strikes Swindle with her Ram attack!

"That's sort of the idea," Swindle points out, grinning. Not in a friendly sort of way either. It's the sort of grin that suggests that he's more than prepared to ruin somebody's day. When the small 'bot tries to take a pot shot at his hand, Swindle tosses him from one hand to the other, juggling him with his scatter blaster. "Careful now, you don't want me to have to scratch the merchendis-HURK"

Swindle finds out first hand that even at half size, something the size of Jetfire's 'cute' jet mode STILL hurts when flying at him at such a high velocity. And just at the same time, he's rammed into by Patchwork as well. Their combined might throws him more than a good five yards through the air. At the same time, the impact makes him lose his grip on Blurr, dropping the little 'bot somewhere along the line.

Unfortunately, Swindle does not hit the ground gracefully. He smacks into it hard, losing some armor pieces in the process. He's still operating though. Grunting, he pushes himself up to a crouch. "Okay, that's it, no more mister nice 'con." Raising the arm with the scatter blaster attached to it, he opens fire, filling the air where Jetfire, Patchwork and Blurr should be. Or were.

Combat: Swindle strikes Super Veritech Fighter &lt;Jetfire&gt; with his Scatter Blaster Area attack!

Combat: Swindle strikes Blurr with his Scatter Blaster Area attack!

Combat: Swindle strikes Patchwork with his Scatter Blaster Area attack!

Shockwave's head swivels on its mounting as it tracks the blazing arc Jetfire describes on his way towards Swindle. His left arm swings into action, elevating and panning after the quick little target. A hissing beam of collated microwaves lances forth as soon as Jetfire has cleared Swindle's line of fire, the nearly invisible beam causing trees and furze bushes to burst into flames with dull *crump*ing sounds as it swings towards Jetfire.

Combat: Shockwave sets his defense level to Aggressive.

Combat: Shockwave misses Super Veritech Fighter &lt;Jetfire&gt; with his Irradiate attack! [Pulled -3]

The beam of the ARAD sways and wobbles like a drunk, sputtering now, as Metroplex slowly shrinks, giving Autobots ample time to evacuate, especially if they use his built-in space bridge. Scrapper glares at the readings on the dials, and he laces his fingers together nervously, hedging, "Uh, Shockwave... I'm not sure that this is... that this is..." Scrapper flicks the coolant and heating lines, trying to snap the warped metal back into shape via its temperature-related memory properties, but it doesn't seem to be working so well.

Blurr is juggled and then dropped, which results in him being completely disoriented and therefore more vulnerable to Swindle's scatterblaster. He holds his head and groans, then leaps to his feet. "No more mister nice 'Con well you certainly can't be less mister nice 'Con because you were never nice at all and since you like toys maybe you'd like a game of- ohno the gun he's gonna shoot Metroplex!" Blurr turns around and immediately runs at his best foot speed (better than the top speed of most sports car Autobots as vehicles) and starts to fire at the shrink ray. He starts to circle it as he continues to fire, popping off shots as quickly as he can.

Meanwhile a laser hits Shockwave, but he seems to disregard it in favor of trying to shoot down Jetfire as it does no visible harm to him.

And now Metroplex was apparently shrinking. The entire city. Which is a little strange, as Grapple stares; he would think only the building or structure initially hit would shrink, not the entire city. How in the world..? "Oh, that isn't good." The architect shakes his head and fires at the general direction of the shrink ray to try and prevent anything ELSE from getting shrink.

Patchwork tenses her jaw as she manages to make a connection with Swindle, tumbling to the ground a short distance away from the the Con. Not nearly as fast as Blurr, s he's hit again by the scatterblaster before she can get up, yelping. Rolling over, Patch gets carefully to her feet, grimacing as she does so. "Just...go away!"

Combat: Patchwork takes extra time to steady herself. [Pass]

It worked! Unfortunately, hitting something when he's now the same size of it actually knocks him backwards with the impact. And then he gets peepered by the scatterblast shot and actually gets flung backwards from it. Note to self: getting shot now may not necessarily do more damage, but the smaller form is easier to get knocked around regardless of the actual structural damage. On a small bright side, the additional knockback actually lobs him over the ray of Shockwave's attempt at zapping him like a microwave oven.

Wheeling through the air a bit the mini-spacecraft finally hits the ground and careens a bit more before stopping. "... I already miss being able to just step on people like him.." Jetfire mutters to no-one in particular as he extracts himself from the ground and transforms. Great, Metroplex is being tinified, and Shockwave is turning the forest into a bonfire.... And then he remembers what he was studying about that ore, now that he's gotten his wits back together. Maybe if they heat the barrel up to distort it bad enough it will warp shut and stop firing. Not like they have much else to go on at the moment. Jetfire activates his larger cannons, and takes aim.. But instead of shooting at the Decepticons takes the same course of action as Blurr and fires at the barrel, hoping the intense particle energy will help accellerate the warping to the point it will cause the cannon to clog and shut down.

Super Veritech Fighter &lt;Jetfire&gt; transforms into his Jetfire mode.

Combat: Blurr sets his defense level to Protected.

Just what are the autobots doing? Swindle's eyes narrow as he pushes himself up straight to his feet. Hesitating, he takes a step back, eyeing the device. And what the autobots are doing to its barrel. "You know, Scrapper, there's a time where you really need to cut your losses and run off with the clearance. I think that time is just about now." Swindle takes a step back from the device. Then another. Then in a flurry of movement, drops back down into his jeep mode and does a quick U-turn to start back the other way.

Combat: Grapple is size 1, significantly smaller than you.

Well, it appeared the blast aimed at Metroplex wasn't full-proof! A few stray zaps go here and there, hitting, for the most part, poor animals or random fauna. However, there WERE a number of robots around, and one gets an unfortunate smack of the shrink ray's blast. There goes Grapple, shrinking, shriiinkiiiing..! Oh the world..!

Shockwave, observing the effects of Jetfire's ministrations on Scrapper's weird device, calculates that just as discretion is the better part of valor, maintaining a minimum safe distance is the better part of wisdom. "Scrapper, your mechanism is malfunctioning," he warns the engineer, probably redundantly, before igniting his plasma boosters and rocketing off into the sky. If this planet is going to blow up Shockwave doesn't want to be on it at the time.

Combat: Shockwave sets his defense level to Protected.

Combat: Shockwave begins retreating, leaving himself vulnerable to parting shots from Blurr

Grapple has disconnected.

Combat: Swindle begins retreating, leaving himself vulnerable to parting shots from Blurr, Patchwork, Jetfire, and Shockwave

Scrapper takes a few steps back from his device as the Autobots shoot at it. It's not just the shooting that is bad. Apparently, the device was sensitive enough to radiation that just Shockwave standing near it threw off some of the calibration, and Blurr breaking the sound barrier all over the place isn't helping the sensitive ARAD much, either. It pulses in size, big and small, and it flickers between cherry red with heat and slick, freezing cold. Metroplex keeps on shrinking steadily now, just about the height of an average combiner component, and a tendrils of light wraped around darkness lashes around and hit Grapple, and -

It's too much.

With a sound like air being sucked inside a turbine, the ARAD collapses upon itself, sucking in light around it, and Scrapper is drawn inexorably nearer to his creation. He wails piteously, shrinking as he tries to claw into the German dirt with his hands to keep from being consumed. Then, the moment that he's devoured, there's a...

...POP, and he comes flying back out, little bigger than a doll, smoking wreckage where the ARAD used to sit. A three dimensional wave front emanates from the wreckage, fickle in what it touches and what it leaves alone.

Blurr is on the ground and covering his head before the wave hits him, not that it makes much difference - with his size so recently altered by the device, the second wave does nothing, and he remains at his diminutive size.

Patchwork drops when she hears the words over the radio, hands lifting to cover her head because, as we all know, that's always useful! Yup, the usually small Autobot is the bigger target at the moment...not that that lasts long. So close to making it through without being shrunk...but at least no one threatened to take her and sell her to a human child!

Shockwave, divorced from a convenient frame of reference since he is high in the atmosphere, can't tell if he's gotten any larger or smaller. He'll have to find out when he lands and can compare himself to something other than air!

Jetfire barely gets a chance to shout something over the radio to the others before diving for the ground himself as the weapon blows up. Fortunately, he doesn't have to dive as far as usual. After a few moments he looks up again, just to see Scrapper getting flung away now very very tiny. "... Serves him right." Glances over his shoulder at Metroplex. ".... Well, at least they didn't shrink it -too- small..."

Combat: Scrapper is size 1, the same as you.

Combat: Metroplex City Defences is size 5, significantly larger than you.

Swindle isn't about to stick around. By the time that the device starts acting weirder than it already was, he's already disappearing down the road. He knew better than to stick around. So he's going at top speed away from both the autobots and the malfunctioning machine. Whether or not he's ended up shrinking is up for him to find out later when he thinks he's far enough away from the autobots to not be turned into scrap.

&lt;Decepticon&gt; Scrapper says, "...well. No neutron star implosion, and this'll make doing fine work a lot easier, but Devastator's going to look pretty funny..."

Scrapper has never seen grass this closer up, and really? He never wanted to. Growing plants are just not his thing. He turns into a somewhat bigger... but still pretty tiny flying payloader, and he wings off, wondering just how the slag he's going to explain /this one/. Probably the same way he explained the time he turned Optimus Prime into an alligator, come to think of it.

Scrapper cleverly disguises himself as a bright green payloader. No one will ever suspect!

Combat: Payloader &lt;Scrapper&gt; sets his defense level to Protected.

Combat: Payloader &lt;Scrapper&gt; begins retreating, leaving himself vulnerable to parting shots from Blurr and Shockwave

&lt;Decepticon&gt; Shockwave says, "In order to prevent Devastator from maneuvering only in circles, I suggest adding an extension to his heel and sole."

&lt;Decepticon&gt; Scrapper says, "We built him a giant crutch, once. I think we still have it!"

Blurr transforms into his Blue Hovercar &lt;Blurr&gt; mode.

================================= Decepticon ================================= Message: 2/135                    Posted        Author Small Problem                     Sun Apr 11    Scrapper -- Scrapper appears to be sitting on his desk. That's unusual. He doesn't usually do that. Also, short as he is, he's also usually not small enough to use one of the light pens in his pen holder as a two-handed sword. (He is perhaps the size of a human child.) Awkwardly dragging a light pen across some plans that read 'casino!' in the margins, using both arms to hold the pen, he reports, "Well, my ARAD, er, my shrink ray works! Or it worked. Until the Autobots shot it and blew it up. As you can see, I'm suffering some minor side-effects, but I am confident that I can find a cure, and the really good news is that Jetfire is no shape to be used as a transport anymore, and Metroplex is now about the same height as Blades. I mean, seriously. Someone just go knock Metroplex over. Hmm. Metroplex-tipping. New sport? Scrapper, out."

Spinny.

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================================= Decepticon ================================= Message: 2/136                    Posted        Author Volunteer                         Sun Apr 11    Bonecrusher -- A loud voice, Bonecrusher's loud voice to be exact. The camera doesn't show anything clearly because someone is shaking it around excitedly for the whole duration of the very brief video posting.

"Chief! Chief, I volunteer to lead the mission to tip over Tiny Metroplex! I hate Metroplex!" The video stops amid more shaking.

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