[ 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]

Big guy. Magnus pauses, bemused. He's never heard anyone address him like that – it sounds warm. Friendly. It's not something he's used to. He turns that briefly unguarded look on the stranger before unease shutters his expression and furrows his brow. He has no idea who this person is – or why he acts like they're familiar with one another. He isn't even wearing a brand.

"H… hello?" Magnus ventures awkwardly, stiffly. He doesn't want to be rude but he isn't sure how to proceed, either. He can't even be sure what faction the other bot is with. Magnus tucks in on himself just a little, unconsciously preparing for the backlash. Or a fight.

[rodders]

He'll get neither, just an even more friendly grin and a pat on the arm. Personal space? Oh please, that's not something Rodimus knows. "Wondered where you'd gone off to after Drift. You missed all the action!"

Eventually Rodimus will clue into the fact that something is off about Magnus, but that moment isn't right now.

[primebyproxy]

"After… after what?" Magnus asks, blinking. He shouldn't let the stranger just casually touch him like this, he thinks. It's a security risk. Grimlock wouldn't hear of it.

Grimlock is gone, though. Grimlock is gone and simple contact like this is… calming. It's not a fist smashing into his face or a hand dragging him down by the neck. It doesn't hurt. Magnus' gaze flickers to where Rodimus' hand rests on his arm, however briefly, as if expecting to see some visible evidence of the unexpected ease slowly warming his circuits.

It certainly doesn't seem like this one means any harm.

[rodders]

"Uh." That's... odd. Magnus would remember, wouldn't he? Maybe he just smacked his helm on something, but his tone is slightly skeptical when he offers to fill in the blanks. "After Drift got mauled by Tarn and left for a message for Megatron? Who took it badly, obviously, and went to punch Tarn's stupid mass right off his face."

Hyperbole, but when has that ever stopped Rodimus? He frowns, however, concern flickering over his face.

"You do remember that, right?"

[primebyproxy]

With every word, it sounds more and more like gibberish. Magnus' expression shifts from confusion to a vague sense of alarm as he realises he doesn't understand what's being said. He recognises some words, but strung together, it's nonsense. Maybe this stranger is just insane.

"I… I don't know what Drift or Tarn is," he admits quietly, slowly. "I don't remember anything you're describing. I'm–" He doesn't quite flinch, but the words sting in his mouth anyway. "Sorry."

[rodders]

"Who," he corrects - hand once again going to grab at Magnus' arm out of concern. "Are you okay? Seriously, Magnus, there's no way you'd forget who Drift is. Unless this is one of those weird time things and you haven't met any of us yet."

Wait, does that mean-- he frowns again, brow furrowing. He doesn't want to lose Magnus, one of the few people he relies on more than he really ever realizes he does until he doesn't have it any more. But the more he looks, the more he sees that don't fit with his Ultra Magnus.

"Do you have a mustache? Not..." he gestures at Magnus vainly. "But the you underneath?"

[primebyproxy]

It isn't the question itself that makes the fuel freeze in Magnus' lines, but the fact that it can be asked at all. No-one but Magnus himself, Optimus, and the engineers who helped construct the armour even know that it's armour at all. No-one should be able to say with such casual surety that he even has a self that isn't the towering blue and red and white form he has worn for ages.

"I – I don't know what you're talking about," he rasps nervously, optics dim with his growing panic as he recoils from that comforting hand as if burned.

[rodders]

Oh. Oh. Suddenly everything makes sense to Rodimus - this is simply a different Magnus than the one he considers his Ultra Magnus. Well that's not too bad, he can work with that. Even if he is kind of disappointed on the whole. Still! Any Magnus is a good Magnus, and maybe this is the one that Skids said cracked jokes.

"It's okay, I know," he says again with a knowing grin that breaks through the slightly crestfallen expression he'd been wearing previously. "You don't have to worry about me telling anyone, though. Well, not anyone not on the Lost Light." A wave of his hand to dismiss the thought. Okay. If this Magnus doesn't know him then it's time to do introductions.

"You, or well, a you that's not you yet, serve on my ship as my XO. Drift is our Third in Command and a former Decepticon. I'm," and here he presses a hand to his chest, covering up the blank space where his badge used to be, "Rodimus."

[primebyproxy]

It's a lot of input to pack away for someone as weary and confused as Ultra Magnus. Ships and his rank thereupon, the associated command structure, even some sort of time displacement… he shunts all of it to the side for now; there's a greater concern here to him. Especially if this Rodimus isn't lying and does truly know Magnus' secret.

"No," Magnus starts and tries to seize Rodimus by both shoulders with trembling, scarred hands, leaning down to stare him straight in the optics, yellow to blue. "No, you mustn't tell anyone!" There isn't enough left in him to lie that he is only as he seems; Rodimus is so certain and Magnus has never been a dab hand with dissembling. His voice turns thin and desperate as he adds, "Absolutely no-one can know!" It might filter to the wrong people. The sort of people who would use it against Optimus.

[rodders]

Eyes flicking from where Magnus has grabbed his shoulders and back up to his eyes, Rodimus is-- okay, confused wouldn't be too far off the mark. Minimus didn't take this as poorly, but then again everything had thought Magnus had died and Minimus had taken advantage of that, which is a whole bunch of emotions Rodimus doesn't care to sort through in any significant amount beyond 'Magnus is back, so that's something'.

But back to this: "The Lost Light already knows, I don't have to tell them anything," he says, which probably doesn't help this Magnus' sudden and surprising panic over the idea of someone finding out. "And they don't care." That should help, right? That's totally going to help, and he gives Magnus' arm a friendly pat again. "Seriously, Magnus, it's okay."

Is it wise to continue treating this Magnus like his Magnus? Probably not, but Rodimus was never the wisest of robots. Heart over head and all that.

[primebyproxy]

"But–" But how can they not care he wants to ask. How could they know? Magnus very nearly shakes Rodimus as though that will make everything make sense again. "But how?" is all he manages, with a dozen other questions packed into those two words. "And who is the Lost Light? I don't – I don't understand."

[rodders]

"You died. Or not you, but someone in the armor. And he wasn't actually dead, but that's how we found out." He's such a helper. He can talk about his ship, however. "The Lost Light is my ship. Crew of two hundred Autobots out looking for the Knights of Cybertron!"

Yeah, okay, that part never actually gets old.

[primebyproxy]

Magnus has never heard of any Knights of Cybertron. It sounds like a grand fairy tale of some sort, really.

What's more important to him right now is the rest of Rodimus' answer: that somewhere, there was someone else who wore his armour, or armour like his. That somewhere, there was another bot who carried his name, and died thus. Someone this bot thought – thinks? – of as a friend.

What does he even say to that?

"…O-oh," he mumbles as he lets go of Rodimus and sinks to his knees, exhaustion taking over once again. He's too tired for this, and he hangs his head as he tries to think. He might be too tired for that, too.

[rodders]

Another friendly pat as Magnus collapses, before it clicks that maybe something isn't quite right about this entire situation.

"Hey, I know it's a lot to deal with. Trust me - bit of a headache when I found out. Still! One Magnus is as good as another." And yet another pat. "I'll take you to meet my crew. Well, except Megatron."

And here he makes a face of disgust, because he's STILL not over that.