robothell | [OPEN] Arrival

Entry tags:

optimus prime | academybot

[OPEN] Arrival

Who: Optimus Prime & You
Where: The Clinic, The Crater
When: After Optimus (IDW)'s return to the city
What: Optimus Prime arrives on the planet
Warnings: ?

THE CLINIC

Wandering through the destroyed city, Optimus took a moment to consider how getting suddenly transported to another planet was pretty high on the list of strange things that had happened in his life, a list that had grown much quicker in the past few months than he would have thought possible. This was certainly not a specific scenario they'd trained for at the Autobot Academy, that's for sure.

With so many buildings in serious disrepair, finding one that not only seemed intact but to have working electricity was a surprise to say the least. With some apprehension he made his way over to the building, cautiously sticking his head in the doorway and hoping whoever, or whatever, might be inside was friendly.

"Hello? Anyone here?"

THE CRATER

Optimus had left the clinic some time ago to try and get a better feel for the city. It was pretty unnerving how much the ruins looked like Cybertron, and the silence was starting to get to him by the time he made it to a huge crater in the middle of everything. An unrefined energon deposit? Just sitting here unguarded in the middle of the city? That was certainly strange. Even if there weren't many bots here, leaving a resource like that unprotected went against everything he'd learned at the academy.

He quickly made his way down into the crater, sliding down some of the steeper slopes to get to the energon vein, running a hand over the rough crystal with a frown.

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Pipes hadn't expected anyone new to show up. He'd just thought it was the first surge and that was it, but evidently not. Not that it mattered to him - he's still delighted at the prospect of meeting anyone (who isn't Overlord) new.

He was looking around for more of the odd fruits to take back for the humans and saw a large red bot he assumed was the Matrix bearing Optimus. Like when he first arrived, he immediately runs over.

"Opti--" Wait. That shape is wrong. "Wait, what?"

Optimus turned around hearing someone start to say his name, looking down at the other bot. He didn't look familiar, but Optimus was very relieved to see the Autobot badge. The more Autobots around the better as far as he was concerned, especially having run into Decepticons on this planet already.

"Hello. I don't think we've met."

"Yeah-- ah, I'm Pipes."

He gestures to one of the pipes on his arms. Guess why he's called that!

"Have you been here long?"

"Pipes. Got it. I'm Optimus Prime but you already seem to know that." Judging from the fact Pipes didn't look like the kind of autobot Optimus was used to, he was starting to suspect this was one of those alternate universe things he'd been told about.

"and no, actually, I, only just arrived here. Seems like you've been here a while though?"

"Uh... sorry about that. I didn't meant to... hm."

He taps his chin, deciding to take the subject change.

"A month or so. There's quite a few others around, you might know some of them."

"It's fine. Something tells me I'm going to have to start getting used to that." Some day he's going to have to meet that double of his.

"Yeah I've ran into a few bots already, but only one was someone I was familiar with. A Decepticon."

"If it helps, you look different enough that people probably won't mix you two up." He puts a hand over his mouthplate. "The one I know doesn't really take his faceplate down at all. I'm not sure if he even can..."

Pipes then claps his hands together, "Oh, boy! Was it Starscream?"

"You're saying the Optimus Prime you know is here on this planet?" asked, looking a little unsure about the prospect of that. It does explain why that bot at clinic told him to go find Optimus.

"No, one of his clones from my universe. Not actually Starscream, though I've been told there are a few of him around."

Unfortunately, Pipes thinks meeting an alternate of himself would be utterly amazing and it doesn't register that Optimus might be hesitant.

"He should be around somewhere," But enough of that. "I met one of the Starscreams! Really tall and gangly. He was alright. For a Starscream." Pipes taps his faceplate again before stating brightly, "Alright in the way he didn't murder me."

Finally, in a stunning delayed reaction: "...Did you say clones?"

"The decepticon I met was surprisingly non-aggressive as well. Sure would be handy if they were all like that, but I'm guessing that's not the standard around here." Before talking with Slipstream here, he hadn't met a decepticon that didn't want him dead.

"Yeah, Starscream found a way to use an All-spark fragment to make clones of himself. The one that's here is a tall purple bot calling herself Slipstream. Though with multiple Starscream here anyway it seems kind of a moot point."

"We can hope, right? As well as... not instigate."

It's probably a good thing Pipes doesn't have a visible face; his jaw would be on the floor, otherwise.

"That... sounds like a party..." Not really. He rubs the back of his head awkwardly. "Good point, though. Maybe a Starscream who isn't an obnoxious jerk will show up. That would be something to see."

Pipes managed to get a smile out of him with that one.
"No kidding. Though I could do without another world shattering event for a few stellar cycles."

"So, Pipes, anything you think I should know about this place?" he asked with a nod back towards the city.

He brightens up a bit himself, it's nice to make other people smile.

"Nothing apart from the obvious stay away from the Decepticons. I mean, war's over and all but you can't be too cautious right? Especially with the, uh. Big ones around."

As far as Optimus was aware, all Decepticons fit that description.

"As opposed to what? Exactly how big are we talking? Lugnut? Megatron?" Please tell him there is no Megatron-controlled Omega Supreme on this planet.

"As opposed to... not having the huge ones around?"

Then again, just about everyone is huge to Pipes.

"Hm. One of the ones I saw... I don't know his name but I think he was one of the phase sixers. He was like... twice your size. Maybe a little more."

"That's not exactly....what I meant..."

It wasn't really worth correcting though since Pipes wound up giving him the answer. 'Twice his size' was larger than the majority of the Decepticons he'd encountered, save Lugnut maybe.

"What's a 'phase sixer'?"

He's trying to be optimistic. It's not hard for him, though. 'Two Decepticons instead of three' is enough for Pipes. Also, no Overlord. That helps.

"Ohhh boy," maybe mentioning them wasn't a great idea. "They're just.... planetdestroyingclassDecepticons..."

"Wait- planet destroying Decepticons?" he repeated, slowly, for clarification, to be sure he had actually heard that mumbling correctly.

"Conquering, more like."

Well, this got awkward. Maybe Pipes should take a vow of silence after this.

"I mean, I met one and he seemed fairly... not planet conquer-y..."

"But isn't conquering Cybertron the Decepticons' main goal? I guess I'm just not really following what makes these guys so different."

He still sounded a little confused, but shook his head with some resignation before continuing.

"I'm sure I'll find out if I run into one. I'll take your advice on avoiding them though.

Is there an Autobot base around here? I should probably start figuring out where everything is around here."

Probably for the best, Pipes is a little upset he keeps saying stupid things and making things worse.

He takes the change of subject happily; "Yes!!!" A little too happily. "I mean. Sort of. A lot of people hang around the medibay or Maccadam's."

It's alright Pipes, no one has given him any really good news so far.

"There's a Maccadam's here that isn't rubble? You're kidding." The question was mostly rhetorical, though Optimus was admittedly pleasantly surprised. At least there was one good thing around here.

"I did see the medibay on my way here. That's where I ran into the decepticon and Sentinel."

"Yeah, naturally the first thing everyone did was set up a place to get tanked."

He hasn't even been yet, it's awful.

"The big guy? You might want to add him to your avoid list if you haven't already. He wasn't exactly known for... people skills..."

"I'll have to check it out sometime." Optimus wasn't really the type to spend any time at bars unless dragged there by his friends, but it would probably be a good place to start getting acquainted with the other Autobots.

"I can see why." Even his conversation with the decepticon had gone better than meeting gold Sentinel.

"But, uh, you probably had a reason for coming out here, right? I don't want to keep you." They'd been talking for a while, and he didn't really want to get in the way if Pipes had been up to anything important.

He shrugs, "No, not really. I've just been wandering around and trying to figure out something to do. Scavenging only works for so long, right?"

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[OPEN] Arrival

but not this (also crater for this one)

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