[ INTRO LOG #2 ]

[robotsatan]

You don't know how you got here. One minute you were walking, sleeping, maybe dead -- then you're here, your feet suddenly carrying you down an empty street. Where's here?

Any Cybertronian would recognize this as their home planet, Cybertron, but it's not a Cybertron they've ever known. It has all the familiar hallmarks, but none of the specifics -- the city isn't one anyone here could identify, and even at a glance it's obvious that no one's set foot on the planet's surface in hundreds of years. The city and its surrounding areas all bear the marks of devastating war, of dust and rust collected over centuries. With other people relatively scarce, there's plenty to explore. In fact, if you start walking, you'll find that your feet may just carry you in one particular direction.

Despite its obvious ruin and aeons-long abandonment, the city and surrounding areas do bear some signs of recent habitation. There's a small but growing population of other people, Cybertronian and otherwise, and there's evidence of their presence -- areas of the city that have been cleaned up for use, intact rooms in ruins of buildings where people have set up to live, a few terminals here and there that have been restored to power.

A) The crater.
On one edge of the city is a massive crater left by some wartime weapon that seems to have taken out a large chunk of the surrounding metropolitan area. At the center of the crater it's broken through the surface of the terrain to reveal what looks like it might be a promising energon deposit. There is some strange but native vegetation growing around the edges, too, that no Cybertronian would be able to identify -- small, metallic, brittle-looking sprouts that bear a curiously organic-looking fruit of some kind that doesn't look like it's intended for consumption by any natives of the planet. In one rocky nook of the crater, light catches on the surface of a pool of water, which seems strangely out of place on Cybertron. On closer inspection, it seems that somehow an underground water source has formed a spring in the crater.

B) The center of the city.
If you follow where your feet seem to want to carry you, you'll find yourself in the middle of the ruined city. It seems that the center of the city was once home to a massive forum, and some of the pillars and structures still stand. At the very center of the forum is a massive, elaborately constructed fountain, although it has now long since run dry of whatever used to fill it. One of the low, inner walls of the forum has a terminal embedded in its surface, although it looks curiously ancient, out of place with the rest of the city, and unlike the rest of the technology still left around, there doesn't seem to be any way to power it on or operate it. There are a few scattered pools of water and a few of the strange metallic plants in the city, too, but they're not quite as plentiful as in the crater.

The planet was obviously once home to a massive network of communication relays, but those have all been long since destroyed. However, a few enterprising transplants have worked together to set up a working local network, which can be accessed via any one of the public terminals, any built-in comms systems your character might have (audio only), or a handheld device produced by one of the people who set up the network.

Comments

B

[wimbles]

Windblade has never seen all that much of Cybertron.

She's seen it from space, of course, and she knows Metroplex, Iacon, like the back of her hand by now, but she's yet to have much cause to venture into the uninhabited wilderness very often – so when she finds herself here, in what she knows must be Cybertron from the feeling it has, old and alive on a scale far beyond Caminus, she assumes at first that she hasn't left the planet, never mind the universe. Not that she isn't worried, of course – she has no idea where she is or how she got there – but the scope of her concern is... smaller. More manageable.

There's something somehow different about the sky, though, and her attempts to comm allies and friends get her nowhere – and when she takes to the air to get her bearings, she doesn't get far beyond the city limits before she realises something is pulling her back.

It feels, to Windblade, who has spent her entire life speaking with titans, as if someone is trying to tell her something.

She turns around, following that beckoning impulse straight to the ruined forum.

She's drawn immediately to the terminal and its endlessly looping images – it's nothing she's used to, but it's definitely some attempt to communicate...

The trail she's left across the sky is pretty obvious, pretty easy to follow. Someone should interrupt her before she and Cybertron have a Moment.

[chickscream]

By someone, do you mean Slipstream? You probably meant Slipstream. Even if you didn't mean Slipstream, congratulations! Here is a Slipstream, rising out of the city in altmode and blatantly showing off as she does a giant loop-de-loop around the unfamiliar jet, before settling in off her wing.

She is not even remotely trying to hide the Decepticon crests on her wings, but almost no one has taken issue with them; she's almost forgotten they're there.

"I don't think I've seen you around before," she calls across the gap between herself and the sleek stranger. "Nice altmode. Can you hover with those things?"

[wimbles]

Yeah, Windblade definitely isn't going to remark on her insignia, although she is pretty surprised to see anybody else here at all – never mind to be approached so casually.

She keeps her distance; her impressive blue eyebrows would be furrowing a little if she had a face right now.

"Where are we?"

[chickscream]

"Cybertron, or so I'm told." Also, wow, way to be rude and ignore Slipstream's question. "Are you new too? By the Allspark, I'm turning into a regular welcoming committee." Seriously, at least half the people she's talked to are fresh out of whatever transdimentional flux brings them all here.

"Do you want me to show you the sights? Talk up how great and peaceful the planet is? It's definitely great for flying, there's almost no one else in the skies..."

[wimbles]

Windblade is getting more and more confused, and more and more concerned, by the minute. There's definitely more to this situation... than there appeared to be at a cursory examination.

"New...? I don't – what's going on here? I know I'm on Cybertron, but where is this?"

[arnhaid]

Okay... jet contrails aren't usually something good. Then again, with the war apparently over, who can say? It still makes him uneasy. It still makes him track it, until he ends up crashing through some underbrush near Windblade's position.

Graceful, Ironhide is not.

They don't look like anyone he knows. But, given everything lately, that doesn't say much. He doesn't move any closer to the stranger, not wanting to spook them, in case they were friendly. Or provoke them, if they weren't. He's not looking for a fight, after all. Just keeping an eye on things for Prime.

[wimbles]

Windblade is absorbed in trying to work out the display on the terminal, and she doesn't notice someone's followed her here until he makes a whole lot of noise doing it. She whips around, drawing her sword – but she relaxes immediately once she sees who it is.

"Ironhide." She's visibly relieved, although she still looks rather wary and on-edge.

[arnhaid]

... Oh scrap.

This is going to be awkward. Talking to Optimus was embarrassing enough, difficult enough. And he knew Optimus.

His expression goes from wary to embarrassed in all of a second.

"Uh." Oh yes, great start. "Hey?"

[wimbles]

She hesitates a moment – puts the sword away, takes a step towards him. Her brow furrows. She can tell something's wrong.

"Are you alright?"

tee hee

[aerospacecommander]

Starscream couldn't help but notice the other flier in the sky and he follows, but waits until she lands to approach. He doesn't know this one (that has been happening to him a lot), so he couldn't be sure if she was an Autobot, Decepticon or something else. He assumes Autobot, however, because even he'll admit that most members of his faction just look angry all the time.

It came with the territory.

He saunters on up without really a care, or at least that is the air he gives off.

"You're new. And in need of some help, I presume? Perhaps I can be of assistance."

Because Starscream is the most helpful person ever.

[wimbles]

She knows that voice.

Windblade turns around slowly, but she looks surprised when she actually sees the bot who's addressing her. It's pretty clear she was expecting someone different – or at least someone who looks different.

Her optics narrow a little, although out of perplexedness more than suspicion. "Are you... Starscream?"

[aerospacecommander]

The look on her face gives him a smile. He likes to catch people off guard, it gives him a certain advantage. He approaches her, but slowly and rather lazily.

"You are correct! Sometimes I don't realize just how famous I really am. But you ... I don't know you. I'm rather sure I'd remember a face like yours."

[wimbles]

Windblade looks kind of unimpressed, and kind of uncertain.

"Yeah," she says. "You must be from... the past...?" She doesn't sound totally sure about that – but she hasn't been clued in about the alternate universes thing yet. "... I'm Windblade. We... work together. In the future, if that's what's going on here."

[quantumechanic]

Granted, six months of separation was like five minutes, robot time, but Nautica was still overjoyed to see the outline of a familiar altmode against the sky. She checked the trajectory with her wrench, then ran to meet her friend. Her own altmode was of absolutely no use in the city, so it took longer than she would have liked before Nautica was charging up behind Windblade while the cityspeaker leaned over the terminal.

"Windblade! Windblade!"

Watch out girl you're getting hugged.

[wimbles]

"Nautica–?"

Windblade is not much of a hugger, but she's so glad to see someone who she recognises who also recognises her that she does at least sort of awkwardly put her arm around Nautica's shoulder and pat her back. She vents out a breath she didn't realise she was holding in, and leans back – or tries to, anyway – to get a better look at her friend.

"Nautica, I – what are you doing here?"

[quantumechanic]

The welds from her misadventure with the bad Megatron weren't bothering her anymore, but Nautica hadn't yet bothered to cajole Brainstorm into whipping up a batch of paint to fix her finish, so the scars were still visible against the purple and yellow of her impellers.

Nautica let Windblade pull back far enough that they could have a conversation that didn't happen into each other's shoulders. "Fixing things, mostly."

[wimbles]

She notices that, it's hard not to – her surprised smile disappears, and she holds Nautica at arm's length so she can look her up and down. "Fixing yourself?" she asks, her optics going a little wide as she takes in the damage. "What happened?" Chromia showing up with dents or fresh welds in her plating is never really worth remarking on, and Windblade herself gets into her fair share of scrapes, but seeing Nautica this dinged up is kind of jarring...

[luckyfaceplate]

The jet trail certainly catches Optimus's attention. He'd seen many flyers in the sky--maybe a little too many for comfort, but this is one of the first he can feel slightly good about. There's something distinct about it, and tugs at the back of his mind in familiarity. His curiosity piqued, he follows it before it fades into the sky, for once wishing he had wings of his own to tail it.

Seeing the trail eventually taper off, he stumbles into the area around Windblade's approximate position, eyes tracking the area until he sets sights on her.

And never before has he been more glad to see such a new--yet familiar face.

"Windblade."

[wimbles]

"Optimus Prime."

She looks a little surprised, but not as surprised as she would have been, say, three or four threads up. She also looks kind of relieved, although it's not the same kind of sparkfelt everything-will-be-okay-now relief that someone with more first-hand experience of his status as an icon and a figurehead and a leader might have felt. But she trusts him, and his presence does make her feel like whatever's going on here might not be quite as difficult to deal with as it could have been.

"It's good to see you," she says earnestly. "Or as good as it can be knowing you've been relocated against your will..."

[luckyfaceplate]

The relief is mutual. If there was anyone that had shown themselves to be quite capable in such a short period of time, it was Windblade. Certainly a sight for sore eyes considering most flyers were Starscream (don't even get him started).

"Likewise." While his tone is as even as ever, there's till the glint of good-nature about it. One he saves for his 'old friends' (there's a lot but let's not talk about that).

"I take it you've already gathered information, then."

Come Windblade, walk with him.

[wimbles]

"Some, yes," she says, frowning, as she follows. "But I've got the impression that it's not enough."

[auramatic]

Drift only catches a brief glimpse of the jet before there's nothing but a vapor trail to follow, but even at a glance he knows it's no one he recognizes. Someone new, he's guessing -- and given how things have been shaping up lately, it wouldn't hurt to greet them. He follows the trail to the center of the city, tires tearing up old stone paths -- his alt mode isn't nearly as fast as hers, sleek as it is, so by the time he gets there the other mech is already in front of the terminal, her back to him. Drift knows his approach isn't exactly subtle, though, so he's not worried about surprising her when he transforms without coming to a halt, running off the last few steps of momentum as his feet hit the ground. It's too bad you weren't watching, Windblade, that was a pretty sweet entrance.

He's about to draw a little more attention to his presence with a cool greeting, but he's then immediately distracted by the sight of the terminal over her shoulder. He's been here about as long as anyone, and he's never seen the terminal here light up like that -- as far as he knew, no one could get it working. Drift's optics narrow slightly in bewildered curiosity as he approaches from behind without introducing himself, more interested in the strange images than Windblade for the time being. All of them are unfamiliar, but they strike him as somehow meaningful.

"How long has it been doing this?"

[wimbles]

Yeah, it's hard not to notice him showing up – Windblade's already turned to watch him approach by the time he comes up to watch the terminal over her shoulder. She's frowning – she doesn't recognise him, but he does have an Autobot badge, which... in theory ought to mean he's not too much of a stab-first-ask-questions-later sort of bot, but you can never really be sure.

She shakes her head at the question. "I don't know," she says. "I haven't been here long. But I think it's trying to tell us something. It... called me here, did you feel it?" She's matter-of-fact about it, like this is a normal, everyday sort of thing to discuss – although it's pretty obvious that she's keenly interested, regardless.

[auramatic]

Drift's optics are fixed on the terminal, but he jerks them away to look at Windblade with a faint look of surprise. It's then that he chooses to study her a little more closely -- there's something different-looking about her, despite the badge. He's definitely never seen her before, though. Drift would remember someone with such striking eyebrows.

His face quickly dissolves into something more serious, appropriately solemn for the matter at hand. "I do," he says quietly, way less matter-of-factly. In fact he sounds like he's pretty deep into the mystical bullshit end of things. "I'm glad I'm not the only one."

[wimbles]

She's glad to hear it, considering how Slipstream reacted; she doesn't smile, but her nod is a little more – invigorated, perhaps. She glances back at the monitor, still flickering between images.

"It's definitely not just a slideshow," she says seriously. "This is... I'm a Cityspeaker, I interpret for metrotitans, and... it's not the same, but it feels like I could get it if I just had a better idea of what I was dealing with."