Stiletto (BW)
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| The name or term "Stiletto" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Stiletto (disambiguation). |
- Stiletto is a Maximal from the Beast Era portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.
Few casual observers would ever think Stiletto was among the youngest Maximals. She is capable of moving at incredible speeds, but unlike the primitive, hyperactive Blurr, she can also operate slowly and silently. Her demeanor is also nothing like the old Autobot's. Stiletto seldom speaks and shows emotions so imperceptibly that only her close friends can even tell they're there.
And with the knives? She's scary. She's really scary. Hence her sometimes-nickname, Knives.
Contents |
Fiction
The Razor's Edge
Crossblades and Stiletto were mopping up Predacons incursions on Roliak in the J'kozian sector when they were drafted for a mission with Wing Saber. The trio were to infiltrate the world of Nibari, eliminating a Predacon presence that seemed to be commanded by an old nemesis of Wing Saber's, Steelgrave. These Predacons were renegades, operating outside the jurisdiction of the Pax Cybertronia and the Tripredacus Council, looking to rekindle the war with an army of semi-autonomous shock troops.
Stiletto, disguised as Predacon guard Cutter, sneaked the trio into the Predacon-occupied Ro'kar. There, posing as barmaids, Crossblades and her comrades corrupted the energon being served, taking Steelgrave and most of his men off-line before they tried to enter the base. Their sabotage efforts were interrupted, however, by a local resistance movement breaking into the base to free their enslaved people. Crossblades and the Maximals got involved to save innocent lives.
The battle took a sudden, deadly turn with the arrival of Steelgrave's secret superior officer...the Mighty Megatron himself. Shocked by the appearance of the legendary Decepticon, Stiletto and her friends took off into the wilderness. After composing themselves, they arranged to challenge Megatron to combat under Cybertronian law. After a few rounds of combat, though, Crossblades began to realize this couldn't be the real Megatron—he was suffering too much damage. By concentrating their power on one spot, the Maximals were able to crack open Megatron's armor and reveal their true nemesis—Flamewar, who had been posing as Megatron using an exo suit. The Razor's Edge
Beast Wars: Uprising
Stiletto was a Maximal Command Security Force copper and had done a stint in the Maximal Flying Corps, where she was stunned by the dying beauty of Crystal City. She was patrolling Peptex with Betabear when the Grand Uprising kicked off.
She thought the Builders, while not perfect, had kept Cybertron stable and while Lio Convoy had some good points, his "Grand Uprising" was a horrible slaughter and killing fellow cops. Unfortunately for her, she too had to kill fellow cops when, following a desperate Resistance-caused riot, her partner tried to murder a civilian in the midst of a nucleon fit and only a knife to the head could stop him. The MCSF covered this up, to the extent of sending her to the Mandala to have mnemosurgery. Unfortunately, the guilt remained and she thought she had killed that civilian in an accident. That began to impair her actions.
After growing trauma and a stint having to carpet bomb rebel-held areas with the Corps, she asked for a transfer to the Overcharge depot watching Melpomene Bridge. Her old comrades gave no crap that she was going and she'd grown to distrust them. At the depot, she took a long time to warm up to her burned out, much-complaining new partner Overshoot. Worst still, the guilt and surgery kept causing her to suffer 'flashbacks' in the middle of anything that might trigger it. Her knives had long since been chucked away.
When the Resistance stormed the Bridge, Stiletto and Overshoot successfully took it out (and her flying skills ensured his plan worked without killing him) but were stuck fighting an enraged Bighorn. Mid-battle, her memories came back; with them came clarity and her old combat skills. She brutally took down Bighorn to save Overshoot. The two walked off to the nearest city, with her gradually trying to put her trauma behind her. Burning Bridges
Over the next three years, the pair went AWOL from the MCSF, and made their way east across Cybertron, taking the occasional job as freelancers and security forces. During that time, Stiletto received word of the death of her colleague Wolfang. While in Proximax, the two discovered an abandoned MCSF base, which contained a Beast Pod. Stiletto used it to take on the form of a DeathEagle. After Overshoot reformatted himself in an Armordrillo, he cryptically informed her they were "needed".
The need was a fight between Builder and Resistance forces on the Hoist Metrospan, over the prisoner Snapper, her partner telling Stiletto they needed to stop the fighting. Stiletto took the task of stopping one particularly large Resistance bot from killing a Builder Micromaster. Despite her best efforts, the Resistance 'bot wouldn't go down, and refused to listen to Overshoot's entreaties to stop, bringing down the Metrospan while he and his opponents were on it, sending them plummeting into the depths of Cybertron. On awakening, the motley crew began bickering again, until Overshoot told them they'd been called for something. At his suggestion, the group made their way further down into the depths, until they came upon the chamber of the Oracle. It informed Overshoot of the threat it had summoned them to thwart, a group called the Antares Eight, who were planning to attract the attention of humanity. Returning to the surface via an ancient transport system, Stiletto managed to strike up a friendship with Buckethead. As they reached fresh air, Stiletto was the one who caught a distress call from a trans-hyperwave caster tower, which they figured was their mystery threat.
By the time they reached the tower, Stiletto had recovered from her Rampage-inflicted injuries, and was able to scout out the tower with her new beast mode abilities, finding the attackers were indeed the Antares. Unfortunately, Stiletto was spotted by two of the cyborgs. She was able to disable one before her allies caught up to her. In the fight, she managed to disable Bugsie, but then found herself being held at gunpoint by Creepy, effectively ending the fight. While their situation was dire, Stiletto felt confident that so long as Overshoot kept his confidence they could overcome whatever the cyborgs had planned. Then Vamp, identifying Overshoot as their leader, shot him dead. Rampage hurled himself, Buckethead, and Snapper over the building's edge, leaving Stiletto at the mercy of her captors, who decided to take her back to their base and find out what she knew.
On arrival at their base, Stiletto determined they were clearly not Cybertronians, but Vamp refused to indulge her by monologuing, instead demanding how Stiletto knew about them. Stiletto bluffed that she was an undercover MCSF officer, then played on the obvious divisions between her captors, provoking Bugsie into shooting her, playing up her injury as fatal, then trying to free herself from her bonds. However, her actions didn't go unnoticed, and she was forced to fight off Bugsie, killing him with a stylus to the face. Stunned by the unusual nature of Bugsie's wounds, she failed to notice Scorp returning. Now weaponless, Stiletto was saved by the timely arrival of Snapper. Then Vamp returned, the cyborg taking the Predacon hostage, before taking the wounded Scorp and fleeing their base. Having overheard the Eight talking about summoning reinforcements, the two figured they had no choice but to make another attempt at stopping their opponents, though not before examining the base for anything they could find about their enemies. All Snapper found was a strange batch of data he couldn't make sense of. At that moment, Stiletto had a flashback to her days at Melpomene with Overshoot, with the details not matching. Spurred by this, Stiletto realised Vamp's last act had been to set the base to self-destruct. She and Snapper fled the base, only barely making it out before it exploded.
By the time they reached the tower again, Rampage and Buckethead had brought reinforcements. In the fight, Stiletto fought in the skies against Pincher, until Snapper had her lure him toward the tower, where the Predacon blasted him out of the sky. Once that was done, the group drove off the Eight's backup, the combiner Monsterous, leaving only one unaccounted for—Creepy. The assortment of Cybertronians stormed the building, but as they went Stiletto received another vision of Overshoot, which keyed her in that there was a trap waiting, allowing her to avoid it and disable the cyborg, thwarting his plan. Creepy surrendered, counting on the fact his unique biology would make him an invaluable asset, something Stiletto agreed with. So she killed him before he had a chance to do so. It was twenty cycles before two humans appeared, and Stiletto pointed them to the object that had caught their attention, telling them to take it and go.
In the aftermath, the gathering of mechanoids met up in the nearby Sights & Sounds casino to discuss matters, such as what to do with Snapper, and whether the alliance, now dubbed "Ex-Bots" by Rampage, would stay together. Stiletto, spurred by another vision from Overshoot, declared they would, to protect those neutral in the Uprising. But the announcement of the group's official formation was suddenly interrupted by Jackpot broadcasting the news that the Maximal Command Security Force had broken from the Builders, and annexed the Tagon Heights, renaming it the Maximal Nation. Cultural Appropriation
The recording of Stiletto's first speech as chair of the Cybertronian Parliament would last for 10,000 years, analyzed by generations of historians. The Inexorable March
Notes
- Though no toy of Stiletto has been produced, her Beast Wars: Uprising pre-beast body is modeled on Thrilling 30 Deluxe Class Windblade, with a new head. Meanwhile, her beast body is modeled on Classics Dreadwing.
- At the end of the Uprising narrative, B'Boom and Stiletto work together without him ever seeming to know she killed Bighorn or her knowing B'Boom demanded retaliation. David Bishop later said that in his mind, if the topic came up they'd have pragmatically moved past it—"didn't you kill my friend?" would be a recurring subject on post-war Cybertron.[1]
- An unofficial close-up view of Stiletto's Beast Upgrade robot mode can be seen here on Christopher Colgin's Twitter.