[ 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

[primebyproxy]

"It's Megatron," Ultra Magnus spits, the name rolling from his lips like a curse. "No explanation needed." He straightens up, pushing his own fatigue to the far reaches of his processors, and takes up a position on Sentinel's left side.

He doesn't deserve the right.

"I'll be here if he shows his face again." He pauses and the surety in his voice wavers briefly. "That is… if you'll have me, sir." Maybe he's rushing into this. Maybe he's too eager to have a shadow in which he can stand. But defending Sentinel Prime from another assault by Megatron is the only thing that makes sense when he's just awoken outside his cell with the Seeker drones nowhere in sight. He needs that stability right now, that anchor. That reason to keep moving.

[staygoldponybot]

The shitty part of him immediately starts working on how to speak to Magnus to keep him in favour and how to cover up any accusations while, oddly enough (for him) the other is just... what's the point? He's had all this hindsight of what happened after he died, how his actions were seen by those after him. Sentinel doesn't really feel deep emotions, but he comes close to feeling genuine anger at the position he's been put in. While he won't deny it's his own fault (that would mean giving credit to someone else) nor does he really want to feel regret, he can't help but be frustrated at himself. He should've tried harder. Megatron should be dead.

He watches Magnus for a long moment, internal conflict completely hidden under his characteristic... lack of outside expression or emotion. At the very least, if he avoids telling this Autobot too much, he can't cry deception when it all comes out. Frag my life, he thinks. Frag this planet.

"I'd never turn away a capable and willing soldier," he rumbles, eventually. "Nor would it be responsible to let you wander around in this state when you could be better."

Unbeknownst to him, stellar word choice.

"You will be going to the medibay. This will not be contested nor questioned."

Well, if he's gonna find out, he might as well find out while Sentinel was trying to help him. That'll soften the blow. Maybe.

[primebyproxy]

Orders are familiar. Orders are something comfortable and understandable, even if he's unaccustomed to that face issuing them so brusquely. He could even simply fall in line as he should, but for one baffling detail that makes him frown, bemused.

"…We have a medibay?" Have there really been enough Autobots still free that they've managed such a feat, given the circumstances?

[staygoldponybot]

"Yes."

Not a great one, but whatever.

"And medics." he adds, after a short pause.

[primebyproxy]

"Oh. I – I see." Magnus blinks slowly as he processes this; he should be happy, he thinks, but as the surge of elation at finding Sentinel Prime begins to wane, exhaustion wells up again in the space left behind. He nods and struggles to shrug it off. He can't keep Sentinel Prime safe if he's barely able to put one foot in front of the other.

Short or long, this won't be an easy walk.

"Let's go, then, sir," he says, and squares his stooped shoulders, standing at his full height for the first time in months. Spinal plates audibly pop back into place with his shift in posture.

[staygoldponybot]

Sentinel sneers slightly for no reason other than he's a total asshole then turns away. It's not a long walk. He sure hopes if this guy drops dead he at least has a functional t-cog. Or even unconscious! Sentinel is like 90% sure he could get the t-cog out without waking him up.

"There may be Decepticons in the medibay. Do not attack them"

It pains him to say it but... let's be real, this isn't the time or place.

[primebyproxy]

That particular command stops Ultra Magnus cold – though in his condition, it still takes him a second or two before he can actually stop his mass. He stares at Sentinel in bewilderment; student of his Prime he may be, but the war he's had to fight has coloured his opinions rather heavily against just this sort of thing.

"But – sir?" he stammers out, not ready to outright question the Prime but unsure all the same.

[staygoldponybot]

Listen, Sentinel loves unfair murder as much as the next guy, but there was that time he almost DIED.

He dims his optics and shakes his head.

"I know." GOD does he know. He puts a hand on Magnus' shoulder. "We don't have enough here to justify acts of violence."

Also, Optimus would probably kick his shit in again.