robothell | [ INTRO LOG #2 ]

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[ INTRO LOG #2 ]

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The stars had stopped moving.
As Ultra Magnus appears on the strange new Cybertron, that is all that she manages to hold on to. Perceptor and Megatron are both gone. The communications room, the briefcases, the Lost Light - all gone. All that remains is that stark, unsettling memory of the universe grinding to a halt. She had tried to put a brave face on it, but being the last witness of the collapse of the grand order of reality was the most unsettled she had ever been since hearing of the introduction of the abridged Autobot Code.
She reconsiders. She has something else - the spark-deep sensation of time, or perhaps space, having passed her by while she wasn't looking. This isn't like the last time that the time-space continuum collapsed out from under her, when whole chunks of the Lost Light had vanished piecemeal, when most of her crew had been swept away by quantum brooms (she's pretty sure that's how that simile goes), when she herself had vanished, only to reappear what was apparently hours later, not having noticed a moment of it. This time, she knows something's happened. She just can't remember any of it.
She looks down, and abruptly realizes that she brought one more thing with her. Inexplicably, impossibly, of all the things she could have taken from the lost Lost Light - she still clutches the golden, grinning face of her Rodimus Star in one massive hand.
Ultra Magnus finally looks up. While she was lost in contemplation, her feet have been carrying her along a street that is both completely unrecognizable and strangely familiar. This is neither the Cybertron she knew of old, nor the Cybertron reborn that she left behind. But, nonetheless, it feels like Cybertron. Where is she, anyways?

((This is your friendly reminder that Ultra Magnus uses she/her/hers pronouns, and that everyone should just use them, by default, both IC and OOC, without commenting or considering that strange. TY!))

Edited 2015-03-17 00:40 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Ultra Magnus' quiet and pensive moment is not fated to last too much longer.

Pursuit has been scoping out the area, both on foot and from the air, ever since they arrived on this weird, unfamiliar-yet-familiar Cybertron. Most of what they've seen have been ruined buildings – buildings with undeniably Cybertronian architecture that they just can't recognize – but they've spotted signs of activity and life as well. It is just Ultra Magnus' luck that she is the first living being Pursuit encounters face-to-face.

"Hey, shoulders!" Pursuit calls, as they approach her. Who she is doesn't register immediately; Pursuit has been removed from the action of the war for long enough that they've more or less forgotten about every major wartime figure who isn't a Decepticon or Optimus Prime. Plus, the war is over now, so who cares? "Do you know where we are, exactly? It looks like Cybertron, but–– whoa, wait a minute."

"Are you...Ultra Magnus?" It kind of comes out as a squeak.

Ultra Magnus does not immediately register "shoulders" as having been intended to refer to her, but the squeaked-out name catches her attention. She turns around to face the voice. "That is correct. I am Ultra Magnus, duly appointed -" She catches herself on this one faster than usual, and resumes almost without a hitch "- second in command of the Autobot vessel known as The Lost Light." She puts a pensive hand to her chin and stares at Pursuit, her gaze unblinking and unnerving. Finally, she says "And you must be Pursuit. I have read a number of... fascinating reports about you." She does not elaborate.

There is no need to elaborate, because Pursuit already knows where this is going. They have faced the foe of misinformation and wrongful accusations too many times. All fear momentarily forgotten, they straighten up and put their hands on their hips. "Well, they're all wrong!" Pursuit huffs angrily.

They pause for a moment, and then they remember who they're talking to. "Mostly," they say, scrambling to avoid any more terrifying Ultra Magnus Looks™. "A little bit. Just the part about the spying is wrong. I'm sure your reports are otherwise...very accurate..."

Ultra Magnus stares at Pursuit for another long moment, and then nods. "Your concerns have been duly noted."
She turns her head slightly in order to examine the city around them. "Unfortunately, I do not recognize our current location. It feels like Cybertron, but it does not look like any Cybertron I have ever known. Have you seen any others?"

Your concerns have been duly noted – what does that mean? Pursuit does not dare to ask.

"You're the first person I've talked to," they answer her, still nervous but now more confident that she isn't going to punch them through a wall, "but I've seen some signs that people are hanging around here. Streets that've been cleared of rubble, a building or two that look lived-in, that sort of thing."

Ultra Magnus nods. "Continue looking, then, and report back to me if you find any other Cybertronians. In particular, I would like to know the fate of Perceptor, a red proton microscope slash sniper," she says, dropping the word 'slash' into her sentence with clipped precision, "as well as the fate of Megatron, a gun slash tank slash genocidal warlord. Excuse me," she says, raising her hands in an admission of her error, "repentant genocidal warlord."
She snaps her attention back on Pursuit. "Do your best to keep a low profile, but prioritize speed. If my suspicions are correct - though I pray that they are not - we may already be running out of time."

((Sorry for throwing out so many orders - Ultra Magnus is kind of used to being in charge of 203 out of the 205 Cybertronians she encounters on a daily basis. Feel free to ignore any or all of this, and let me know if you want me to tone it down!))

Okay there's someone he knows, and Rodimus waves at Ultra Magnus from where he'd been wandering back to his and Drift's place after another incredibly boring and uneventful hour or two. Considering what he's managed to get himself into in the past few weeks, however, it's probably for the best. He only needed to end up under Ratchet's care the once - but there's something different about him since the last time Magnus probably laid her eyes on her captain.

Most noticeably the lack of a badge and the by-now dim line of welding around the shoulder of one of his arms. There's a fair amount of small dents and dings that come with a self-repair that's busy with other things, but he's not really bothered by it.

"Magnus. Hey, Ultra Magnus!" He calls, waving at her again in case she missed it the first time.

Ultra Magnus skids to a stop as soon as she sees Rodimus, and then transforms back into robot mode, shock evident on her face. "What are you doing here? How did you get back to --?" She breaks off abruptly. Her eyes slowly narrow, focused on the strangely blank patch on Rodimus' chest, and then she says, "You do not have an Autobrand." She says it as a statement, not as a question, as if she expected this - or something like this - to have happened.

Edited 2015-03-22 15:31 (UTC)

Honestly, he's forgotten about it mostly - except when people bring it up. A hand goes to the spot idly, Rodimus clearly not all that aware he's even making the gesture. "Oh. Yeah. I gave it to Drift." Because that's absolutely what she wants to hear right out of the gate from Rodimus.

"How'd I get back to where?"

Help. Help him, Magnus.

Edited 2015-03-23 04:11 (UTC)

Ultra Magnus just stares at him blankly, her brain module whirring furiously behind her unblinking eyes. "That's a violation of section 17 of the Autobot Code," she says at last, but it's a reflex, a way of stalling for time - her spark isn't in it.

"Is it?" It also hadn't occurred to him that it might be breaking some sort of rule, although now that he thinks about it, it's kind of obvious. He shrugs, rolling a shoulder. "Better than him wandering around with the con symbol wielded into his chest."

Defensively, because he hasn't noticed that Magnus isn't attacking his choice. Well, not yet she isn't.

"The Decepticon insignia? What was Drift doing in exile? Did he defect? Again? Or --" Ultra Magnus looks over Rodimus' head, her eyes going unfocused in shock. "Or... did he never defect at all..."
She shakes her head in frustration, her voicebox crackling with distressed static, and then she looks sharply back at Rodimus. "As much as it pains me to say so, none of this matters right now. Quickly - where is the briefcase?"

"Woah, woah," he says, throwing his hands up to stop Magnus before she continues. "He didn't defect, he hasn't even been exiled yet. Tarn carved it on his chest. I gave it to him to remind him of where he belongs. You know, with us." Which is his final word on the matter of Drift's exile as well as where his loyalty is.

But then Magnus mentions the briefcase, and that's a question Rodimus knows the answer to. Sort of. "Uh. Nautica had one, Brainstorm's got one, and Nightbeat had one but I haven't see him in weeks."

Magnus rolls her optics. "Yes, I am aware that Brainstorm has a briefcase, and that Nautica and Nightbeat had one. But they gave it to you. Do you not still have it?"

Edited 2015-03-29 05:24 (UTC)

"I never had it?" He's so confused, please help him, Magnus. "We had three of them here for a while. Brainstorm probably has Nightbeat's. Dunno what he's doing with them, but I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. For now."

Sorry, Rodimus - Mags is too busy flailing around for her own metaphorical oxygen mask to help you into yours.

"You gave him the benefit of the WHAT?" roars Ultra Magnus, but it's the kind of roar that cracks at the edges into a disbelieving squeak. "After everything he's done, everything he is, you let him take the briefcases and -- go? What were you doing? What were you thinking?" Magnus pauses, mid-rant. She raises a hand, palm out. "Wait. No. On second thought, don't answer that. I don't think I want to know."

Edited 2015-04-01 05:17 (UTC)

"Hey," he snaps back, plating flaring for a moment in defense. He's a bit touchy on people questioning his leadership decisions, even when they're Ultra Magnus. Whose input he values, even if he knows she'd think otherwise. "I tackled him when he first arrived - he didn't even know we knew what was in the case or that we knew he was a con. And honestly, we could use him." Because they're stuck on a Cybertron that isn't their own with no way to get home. If someone could figure out how, that person is Brainstorm working with everyone else they've got.

And this is Rodimus, who gives people second chances and regular chances that often end up biting him in the aft. It's just how he is.

"The moment he tries anything more Decepticon than normal, everyone's got a free pass to punch him in the face."

And this is Ultra Magnus, who believes that one chance is two too many.

Magnus stares at Rodimus in disbelief. "More Decepticon than -- than what? Than this?" She makes a broad, sweeping gesture that encompasses the whole of the unfamiliarly devastated landscape around them.

"That's what I thought, too," he says, one hand going to his hip as he stares her down. "But he says he didn't, and right now he's our best bet for getting back to the Lost Light."

Rodimus vents out a gust of air from his system, looking for a moment as deflated and worn down as he feels. "Trust me, Magnus. Or at least, you know-- try." Because his track record with doing good things with Magnus' trust is pretty abysmal, and Rodimus has at least enough presence of mind to recognize that. "We need him if we're going to find out what's going on."

"Oh, he says so, does he?" Magnus says, crossing her arms. A part of her realizes that her biting tone isn't entirely fair, but she's too angry to care. "And, pray tell, what does he say that has you convinced that, when the whole universe collapsed out from under us, the Decepticon with the time machine wasn't to blame?"

"Well, nothing, but--" It's irrational, but Rodimus feels like this is an attack on his ability to make sound decisions. Which, okay, haven't been the best and Megatron didn't really help that at all but - he's trying, okay, and he doesn't want to keep justifying himself to Magnus over and over again if she's not listening to him. "Look around, Magnus. What other choice do we have?"

Magnus vents an exasperated sigh. "We? We have no choices. You had a choice - and you already made it, when you abandoned your quarry thousands of years away!"

"Abandoned? I didn't abandon a 'quarry' anything, I just ended up here after being on the Lost Light!" It was completely out of his control. Really, it was! He frowns, looking more like a petulant child than he has since his six month long bout of sulking.

Unfortunately for Rodimus, reminding Magnus of those six months of sulking makes it far too easy to assume the worst of him. "I don't particularly care about whatever convoluted excuse you've invented to ease your conscience," she says, jabbing a finger at Rodimus' chest. "You knew what he was trying to do, you were in charge of capturing him, and you decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and allow him to rebuild our world -" this statement is punctuated with a sweeping gesture instead of another finger jab "- to his twisted specifications!"

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I MEANT TO TAG YOU A LOT SOONER, SORRY

NO WORRIES

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SLAMS INTO THIS

Re: SLAMS INTO THIS

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