OPEN |

[orerrible]

Who: Shockwave and YOU, unfortunately
Where: Around
When: Oh man who cares.
What: Cracks knuckles despite only having one working hand - it's time for Science.
Warnings: Shockwave. Will update as needed.

( a ) city

The laboratory was stopgap; very much a work in progress with antiquated equipment identified after the sheets of dust and debris were pulled back revealing something, well, altogether underwhelming. Shockwave had worked in greater want for his nigh impossible standards met in the past, but he felt the simplicity that ruled his life now more challenge than before. All because he was presented with the rather disturbing mystery to be opened up and examined: What, in his absence, could have so thoroughly salted the earth. Reverse engineering the apocalypse certainly seemed like a task he could accomplish given time.

Shockwave needed to work - too many questions to be answered, and after Emma carved that much-needed stricture into his brow he was...spurred to begin anew with greater purpose. The bare bones of what he surmised to be a university research lab would have to suffice. For now.

Prodding the nerve endings of the network, now more noticed by the outside world than a ripple in a greater reservoir, he examined the footprints left behind by the minds behind it, amused with how rudimentary it was. Impressed that even existed at all. A Beowulf cluster suddenly superseded all other priorities; something closed and close to the chest away from prying eyes. In the matter of hours all useable hardware had been cannibalized with the stripped parts left out the front doors out into a narrow alleyway between the lab and desolate campus like bones spat out at the mouth of a monsters' cave. The afterthought of his mess a warning written loud and clear: Stay Away.

( b ) wildcard

( pick your own adventure; finding holo avatar Shockwave in somewhere too small for his regular old purplesaurus rex self or any other feasible random encounter )

Comments

1/2

[orerrible]

Without another word, Shockwave flipped up a metal switch then pressed down on a lit button on the one area of the large desk not coated with a thin sheet of dust.

Beneath their feet something came to life with the oscillating whirr of vents pouring open as an aperture under the dark glass that made up for a large part of the floor peels apart like a slowly opening eye. A beam of blue light shoots up and connects from floor to ceiling then fans out into a cubed space that nearly covers the entirety of the room save for where Shockwave is standing but domed over Optimus. The entire lab illuminated in a pale blue that shifts and flows like light on a waters' surface.

Within the space of the holographic cube at the base of it lines of code begin to build into rudimentary, pixelated shapes that begin to take on more increasingly complex dimensions and structures. In an instant - Cybertron, whole and perfect is a living model no taller than ankle height. In place of the Grand Imperium fragile looking silver spires shoot up around a complex aqueduct that runs through the city like veins weaving and flowing around the domed aerial academy and Trion Square. Iacon reimagined as a techno-organic polity that glimmers like beautiful mirage it is.

[orerrible]

"The light box." Shockwave explained, flickering behind the holographic curtain like a shadow. "Hardlight technology I designed to be overlap with large surface seamlessly to map out restoration projects. A useless builders guideline - if nothing more than an illusion."

Shockwave inched forward his outline becoming more defined the closer he moved against the frail surface tension of being so close to the edges of the light box. The tips of his fingers broke through the blue wall; the light parting as if he stuck his hands through a waterfall. The pale purple of his fingers shifted to white, then his forearm turned the same color the further he moved in. The ends of his elbow fanned out to a more jet-like conformation bright green in color.

Two eyes the same glowing spark blue that surrounded them were level with Optimus. Two hands at his sides, smoother without the cracks and dents of age. One mouth curled into a smile that waxed and waned in its melancholy as the light box seamlessly turned a monster into a ghost. One face fade away like two pictures with double exposure bled back into one.

Shockwave - who Shockwave used to be walked over Iacon; the city quivered and broke apart into static in his wake. Two hands rose from where they hung limp at his sides slowly, slowly. Two hands splayed their fingers open over Optimus's forearms the physical contact emitting a dull glow that pulsed and ebbed as hands ran down to rest against the others palms.

"I've waited so long to do that..."

Optics dimmed closed with a heavy exhale. Shockwave had removed nervecircuits in his hands and wrists years ago to expedite his work and remove something so uncontrolled as pain and touch. A brief burst of affection followed by four million years of an endless nothing, and Shockwave couldn't physically feel this. But he knew Optimus could.

[optout]

Optimus couldn't believe his eyes as it happened. Despite being told exactly what it was, it was like watching the impossible happen. The purple turning to white, the green highlights strikingly painted against it. It was Shockwave as he was, as everyone had wanted to remember him, standing before him as nothing but an illusion, but everything that Shockwave was behind the wall of Shadowplay.

His blue eyes soften at meeting the other's, knowing full well that this wasn't the past being corrected. It was sad, but a kind of sadness that Optimus would let into his spark. Ratchet would say that pain is necessary to feel happiness. Maybe this was what he meant by that.

Looking at a ghost, something so real that he could touch it. But the ghost touches him, instead, eyes slowly tracing down to where they connected, seeing the light. That ache in his spark slowly returning.

"I knew."

There's more to that. Optimus, for as well as he spoke, still had trouble finding words sometimes.

"I knew you could be who you were. This light show...it's certainly spectacular. But your efforts to make it....that's what proves that I'm right. That you've been here this whole time."

And there's the happiness in the pain.

[orerrible]

As it had been said and reiterated ad nauseam by anyone attempting to grasp at real depth: the mind was a funny thing. No one truly lacked that inherit predisposition of wanting to be fooled, even if it was a mere trick of the light. It manifests in slow and subtle ways that the most grounded individual falls victim to it: Day after day on a bench hopelessly waiting for a preferred past to reestablish itself. In place of an emotional crutch applying to word 'logic' to extreme behavior as an insulator.

Knowing that this was all the optics tricking the brain module into believing physical touch was possible. All an illusion until you've convinced yourself otherwise when the reality becomes too painful.

"I never left."

Shockwave had told Emma when she was in his mind: The hard truth at the heart of it all was that Shadowplay, the empurata, all of it - it never had really broken him. It just cut out anything worth breaking. A sad reminder that this had always been him in there. The smitten young senator flirting with agitators or the frigid scientist reducing lives to a cold calculus. When one resurfaces the other never really goes away.

"Just once." Shockwave says thickly as he leans forward; a hairsbreadth knowing that any closer and the hard light projection would be unable to create a convincing enough lie. The crown of his forehead rests gingerly against Optimus's and once more, just above a whisper. "Just this once."

[orerrible]

"Defection implies loyalty to begin with."

Shockwave has always been something of a wild card; not necessarily unpredictable but having long since enjoyed operating out of certain assumptions set in place for Megatron's so-called inner circle. Unlike Starscream he never changed his tune to stay in the good graces of his peers, and unlike Soundwave had no personal stake in the so-called cause. Shockwave operated exclusively as a free agent so it was never any wonder when he finally got around to making it official.

[orerrible]

"Have you spoken to Opt- to Orion?"

Shockwave asked evenly, not exactly equipped to handle a heavyweight on the verge of falling into the clutches of emotional turmoil. Optimus would be a more...stabilizing element. Four million years of total apathy made one ill-equipped for this sort of thing.

[orerrible]

Plans regarding the energon issue were tabled for after Shockwave untangled this multiverse disaster that kept cropping up on him. He heard from Tarn, dubious a source that was, that there was multiple Megatrons - plural, present. At the same time without any signs of lasting damage to time and space itself. Further evidence this could all just be Shockwave's personal hell. Only right now this wasn't about it.

"I see the lasting damage is only superficial." Shockwave already Nautica's forearm in his hand before she could get a word in edgewise - he was big and prone to loom even when that was just his height being what it was, but his grip was loose and his inspection brief.

"It was a random encounter?"

Nautica he didn't peg as the type to seek out conflict.

[quantumechanic]

She took an involuntary half-step back as Shockwave somehow found a way to loom even more. Her track record with big mechs grabbing her wasn't the best.

"Hey--!" He wasn't hostile, she realized after a second, just brusque, and she settled. Kinda rude, but even history texts made it clear that Shockwave wasn't blessed with social graces. "First Aid did a good job. I just haven't bothered with paint because there are a lot of things more important than my finish, especially since I don't use my altmode here."

Her mouth pressed into an unhappy line, for more than one reason. She missed the water, and she missed not having to worry about crazy people hurling her into walls for no reason. "I hit my head so I don't remember the details, but I definitely didn't pick a fight. I don't do that."

[officerjuicebox]

"... yeah."

But it hadn't really helped. If anything, it just sort of emphasized everything that was different now. Everything he'd missed. The fact he'd dropped off the map -- abandoned his partner. For some reason he can't even imagine right now.

"Yeah we, talked. Sort of."

[optout]

Optimus's eyes flick a shade dimmer at listening to Shockwave's voice, more alive now than it had ever been in the last four million years. It was like music, although it was a sadder tune, full of pain and sorrow. And for a moment, Optimus just drowns himself in it. The light projection takes a backseat to just hearing his friend, someone he'd waited so long to see again, seeing them again here...

A trick of the optics wasn't so bad...it was more than what reality had ever given him.

Something in his system hitches as he feels Shockwave move closer, his forehead slowly looming towards his. Those eyes flick down, looking at how his friend had once been, drinking it in. Because if this was an illusion, he wanted to be fooled for as long as possible.

"This once." he repeats, voice as soft as it's ever been.

[phase6kindofbot]

Sixshot throws his head back and laughs a hollow, empty laugh, teeth flashing in the dusky light.

It stops as suddenly as it started, massive jaws snapping back together with a heavy click. For a moment, the Sixer remains silent, staring off into the desolate cityscape, unmoving. Then he turns his head away and rises, lazily shaking off the dusty.

"Just thought I'd announce my presence. I'll be around if you need me."