[open] There's serious metal fatigue in all the load-bearing members...

[quantumechanic]

Who: Nautica, various TFP Decepticons, anyone else
Where: Around the city
When: Anytime after people are more or less settled
What: The planet's only appropriately-scaled engineer fixes things, makes friends with Decepticons
Warnings: My tendency to technobabble but probably no blood nvm megatron threw her into a wall

Nautica was keeping busy. Cybertronians were tough species, sure, but even they needed to power up sometimes--oftentimes, in the case of certain mechs who couldn't seem to stop punching each other--and that energon from the crater, while blessedly plentiful, wasn't going to refine itself. The process was a little outside her area of expertise, but the theory was straightforward, and her phenomenal breadth of reading and memory (with the occasional call to Brainstorm or Shockwave to double check the finer points) were up to the challenge.

Between that and the various side trips to assist the less technically adept (or the more technically adept, in the case of Brainstorm's communications network project) she didn't have a lot of downtime--and Nautica was fine with that. She preferred not to think too much about the extremely depressing larger picture. Optimus and Megatron would want answers soon enough, but she didn't have any to give them, so she threw herself into doing what she could. She was easy to run into around the city, working on getting a small energon refining facility up and running, repairing vital infrastructure, or just making less vital infrastructure more livable. And certainly not worrying about never seeing her friends again.

Comments

[starscheme]

Perhaps, if she finds herself in the right area, she might come across an extremely jumpy mech. Starscream has generally been making himself scarce now that he has realized that he's completely lacking in allies that he's comfortable being around, so far. Generally, as soon as he hears anyone approaching he heads for cover, and this time would be no different. Red optics peek out from a shadowed corner where Starscream is trying to identify just who Nautica is (without much luck, obviously), eyeing her up cautiously, like a wary stray cat.

"Can I help you with something?" he finally growls, having assessed her as not being too much of a threat (hopefully his intuition would prove right on that), and also being too curious about the intruder to let her slip by without so much as a single question.

[quantumechanic]

Nautica had a lot of threatening friends, but she herself wasn't what anyone would call imposing.

Or perceptive. Intent as she was on her tasks, if Starscream hadn't spoken, she might not have noticed him lurking in the shadows. He had spoken, however, so she stopped, looked him up and down, and shrugged. "I don't know. Are you any good with power systems?"

Yes, she'd taken the question literally, though even Nautica wasn't clueless enough to miss the (entirely unwarranted, gosh!) hostility in his tone.

[starscheme]

Starscream vents out with an agitated huff, wings sagging and rising again along with it. Upon closer inspection, he notes, she seems to be an Autobot, but certainly not one that he recognizes. That probably means she isn't likely to recognize him either.

For his part he definitely isn't interested in antagonizing her, and hopefully that comes off. Since running into that other Megatron and realizing that everyone else here is just as clueless as he is, he's been a little bit less prone to hostile engagement. He just seems weary, and warily defensive. "Allow me to phrase that differently: What are you doing here?" he growls, clenching and unclenching both hands into fists.

[quantumechanic]

Nautica certainly had no idea who he was, though her reaction to finding out his name would be less...extreme than he was used to, since as far as she was concerned, former Commander Starscream was the democratically-elected leader of Cybertron, and her experience with Megatron had led her to conclude that former Decepticons really weren't that bad.

"Fixing things." Nautica held up her precious wrench and waggled it around to demonstrate her engineering bona fides. Would someone underqualified have a wrench this sweet? Heck no. "It's looking like we're stuck for a while, and I'd rather have the lights turned on."

Cybertronians as a species didn't need much to simply survive, but who wouldn't rather be comfortable?

[starscheme]

Starscream's frown deepens, optics narrowing suspiciously. He's not really mad at her so much as the string of bad luck that he's been having that just does not seem to want to let up.

"Well that's just fantastic, I have to go and find a new hideout because a maintenance bot stumbled upon my lair." One shiny, razor sharp talon lifts up to jab in Nautica's direction. "Who are you working for, anyway? Because if you are with Dreadwing or any of his ilk, we are going to have a serious problem."

[quantumechanic]

At Starscream's theatrical overreaction, Nautica got a skeptical look, one of her nonexistent eyebrows going up. "You call your house a lair?"

Because that was clearly the important part of what he said.

[starscheme]

Well that throws him. He's literally so taken aback that he has to take a step backwards.

"I-- Well it's not my house-- my house-- I've just been hiding here--" she's really got him good and flustered. He can't remember the last time he had a conversation this informal and downright ridiculous, at least with someone of his own kind. He flexes his claws unhappily. "Well what would you call it!?"

[deceptionshark]

So what has Megatron been doing all this time? Well, who even knows, Megatron wasn't about to tell. For someone who was ripped away from his universe and plunked down in a Cybertron he himself hadn't ruined, Megatron was in a remarkably good mood. Who was he to let a somewhat hopeless situation get him down? Being a social being, sort of, he saw nothing wrong in approaching this random purple Autobot and starting a conversation.

"Well, aren't we busy?" He remarked pleasantly, "May I ask what you are working on, Autobot?"

[quantumechanic]

That was a familiar voice, and despite not being addressed by name, Nautica looked up from her work half expecting to see one of her co-Captains. What she didn't anticipate was him looking so...distorted.

Oh, wait, her HUD was set to magnify. She blinked and toggled it off, and he came into much improved focus.

...Well, the helm was familiar, at least, though the Decepticon insignia on his chest seemed out of place. And that was a lot of spikes. He was very spiky.

"Cap--ah. Megatron?" 'Puzzled but not hostile' was hardly the normal Autobot reaction to that name, but Nautica was hardly a normal Autobot.

[deceptionshark]

This was not your usual Autobot reaction, and for a moment Megatron is a little thrown. He recovers, naturally, and smiles as graciously as his mouth full of pointed teeth will allow. Was the Autobot playing games with him? Maybe. This conversation hasn't even started and already he's quite intrigued.

"Megatron, yes, but not the Megatron you know, undoubtedly." He nods thoughtfully to himself. "Tell me, what kind of world do you live in that an Autobot can address me so casually? Surely you know that I could kill you if I so desired."

[quantumechanic]

Unused to self-satisfied, scenery-chewing Megatron, Nautica recoiled a little, taken aback yet still not really fearful. Who just out and says that? Gosh.

"Where I'm from, he's my commanding officer." Things had gotten weird in her universe, though she wasn't in a position to realize how weird, given that she herself was the source of some of that weirdness. "...He's good at it."

Hadn't picked up anyone by the head and hurled them across the room even when they really deserved it!

[deceptionshark]

Megatron made it a point to simply say what was on his mind when talking to new people. Well, okay that wasn't true, it only applied to certain situations where speaking his mind might benefit him. That this situation probably wasn't the right situation was neither here nor there. Bottom line is; Megatron did what he felt like whenever he felt like it.

Anyway.

He gave a thoughtful "Hmm", as if carefully considering her words and implications. Physically, his body language said a lot more than two seconds of sound did. His fingers twitched, almost in anticipation, and his wide, sharp-toothed grin was still unnervingly stuck on his face. This little Autobot was hardly a threat, so he remained relaxed and deceptively casual.

"He wouldn't happen to be here, now would he?" His optics glowed brighter with amusement.

[quantumechanic]

"Uh." Even Nautica couldn't miss how unnerving this particular Megatron was being, and despite not yet rising to the level of fear, her unease grew more apparent as her optics dropped away from his, fixing on the Decepticon logo on his chest. Being literally tackled by a different Megatron had been less unsettling than this.

"He's...around somewhere." Nautica made a vague, abortive gesture towards the rest of the city, her hand falling quickly to her side again, and she started toying nervously with her wrench.

[phase6kindofbot]

There's a giant metal dog dozing on the ruins of what might have been an important building. It had been one of the few building that had escaped whatever calamity had fallen upon this city; now it, too, was little more than a pile of rubble.

Sixshot isn't entirely sure what had spurred the sudden desire to destroy it. It was hardly the first time he's had long stretches of mind numbingly dull periods between missions. He'd long since learned to cope with it.

But the building had been there and for some reason, it had annoyed him.

It occurs to him after the fact, that someone would probably have wanted to use it for something later on. Mostly, this thought occurs to him after he spots a small purple figure approaching the site of destruction.

Time to leave the scene as casually as a giant metal dog could.

[quantumechanic]

If anyone had ever told Nautica what a Phase Sixer was or how to identify the handful of them who existed, she might have hesitated. But nobody ever told her anything, so she marched right up to the giant metal dog. At least she'd learned her lesson on quadrupedal Cybertronians from Ravage trying to take her face off, so she didn't lead with yelling at him for being a bad dog.

"Hey. Did you make that mess?" She pointed at the rubble of the building with her wrench. It seemed like a reasonable guess.

[phase6kindofbot]

Sixshot does the thing that cats do when they've been caught pushing the house plant over; he completely ignores the destruction in favor of casting the accuser an offended look.

For an Autobot, she sure didn't look overtly concerned about the towering Phase Sixer she was standing in front of. Either she thought Megatron being one of the Autobots now gave her sanction to try and boss him around-- or she didn't know who he was.

He decides to give her the benefit of the doubt.

"... Yes," he answers, painfully dignified.

[quantumechanic]

That'd be Column B, pardner. She blinked up at Sixshot, taken aback.

"...Why?" She needed a second to process his calm acknowledgement of what seemed to her to be remarkably antisocial behavior. Nautica was still having trouble dealing with people who weren't operating under the same social contract she was.

[phase6kindofbot]

Anyone who knew what Sixshot did would never have asked him that question.

The fact that it was asked at all throws the mech off; you didn't stick around and ask why a huge, destructive, dog-former wanted to destroy a building, after all. Sensible people would have high tailed it out of there and left the destroyer be.

It was asked however.

Sitting down on his haunches, Sixshot peers down at the diminutive purple being who'd dared to question him.

"It was something to do."

[quantumechanic]

Sufficiently perfect ignorance looked a lot like courage, it turned out. Nautica continued to look waaaaay up at Sixshot, calm and quite unaware of how frightened she really ought to be.

"I can understand the boredom," she said, spreading her hands in a conciliatory gesture, "but maybe you could limit the destruction to buildings that are already beyond repair? We don't have a lot of intact structures to work with."

[loyaltyandhonor]

Things were not exactly going well for Dreadwing. After Megatron had turned on him, he'd managed to escape before Megatron saw fit to terminate his spark. He was stuck on an unfamiliar cybertron without any allies, or even a purpose now that he had turned his back on a cause he'd committed his life to. He knew there were others around the city, but had thus far been avoiding them. He had more pressing concerns than socializing, like scavenging materials to fabricate some more weaponry (he didn't have quite as many explosives with him as he'd like given the sudden change in circumstances).

After searching through plenty of buildings, Dreadwing had hit the jackpot, coming across what once must have been a supply center for communications devices. He'd immediately gotten to work stripping equipment for parts, and at this point had a sizeable pile of electronic parts, mainly signal receivers.

[quantumechanic]

Dreadwing wasn't alone in needing parts, and Nautica was putting the ones she turned up to far less antisocial use than weapon-building (though she couldn't vouch for what Brainstorm was doing with what she handed off to him.) With her engineering knowledge and omni-functional wrench, her own search resulted in fewer dead ends than Dreadwing's, and she too found her way to the comms supply depot, strolling into the building with a cheerful lack of tactical savvy, the majority of her attention on the scanner readings from her wrench.

"Ha, Brainstorm's going to flip--oh." That was a large mech she didn't recognize stacking up components. She considered the matter for a moment. He'd obviously been here a while and gotten a head start.

Excellent. They could combine their efforts.

"Hello." Friendly greetings had been working very well for her thus far, and she saw no reason to stop.

[loyaltyandhonor]

Even focused on his task, Dreadwing hadn't let his guard down. Hearing someone behind him he'd dropped what he was doing and grabbed his laser cannon, which he'd placed nearby for just this purpose. He turned swiftly, the barrel of the gun pointed directly at the intruder.

He looked down on Nautica, a disgusted sneer on his face as he spotted the autobrand on her chest.
"I suggest you take your business elsewhere, little Autobot."

[quantumechanic]

"Good grief." Why was everyone she met so hostile? Nautica folded her arms across her chest and stood her ground, more out of inexperience than bravery. When you hadn't fought a four million year war, it was much easier to assume everyone was willing to talk before pulling the trigger. "I apologize for bothering you, but I don't appreciate having a gun pointed at me over it."

[loyaltyandhonor]

Dreadwing's eyes narrowed, but he made no move to put down the cannon. If they'd been similarly transported to an unknown location, did this bot really not predict the possibility of running into an enemy? What brand of fool was he dealing with? At this point in the war even the youngest autobot scout knew better than to make such a grievous error.

"Perhaps you should have considered that before choosing to align yourself with Optimus Prime."

[quantumechanic]

Oh, Dreadwing, if you only knew. Her brand of foolishness was utterly unique.

"I like Optimus just fine, but it was actually Metroplex I was aligning with." Leave it to Nautica to focus on an irrelevant factual detail rather than the glaring faction mismatch. It mattered a lot to her.