[ INTRO LOG ]

[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 no one in sight -- right at first, anyway -- 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.

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, with the bits and pieces left behind and a few determined minds, it wouldn't be too hard to build a working, if rudimentary, one...

Comments

[starscheme]

Starscream continues to look baffled, until he remembers his initial observation of this stranger... how similar yet unlike he looks to a very certain someone... And then realization dawns on him, and it's horrifying.

"No, you can't be-" he glances down at the Autobot badge on Megatron's chest. "That is absurd," he says flatly. What he's referring to specifically isn't really clear. He's just baffled, and kind if dismayed.

[towardspeace]

"Mm," he says. "So I keep hearing. I'm inclined to agree, but... here we are." He doesn't lower the pistol. "And who are you? Anyone I should know?"

[starscheme]

Oh. Oh wow this is awkward. "Me? Oh. Ah... I'm..." wow he would be a lot more inclined to tell the truth if Megatron wasn't pointing a weapon at him. If he really IS a Megatron, there's honestly no way of telling if he has his own Starscream, or what kind of relationship they might have. Starscream fiddles his claws and looks away. "I'm..." he makes a weird coughing noise. He could be literally anyone, so why can't he seem to think of an identity to fake?

"I mean, that's difficult to say, not knowing how similar or dissimilar our two... universes might be. Let me ask you, if you ever were a Decepticon, at any point- What kind of officers did you keep...?" This poor robot is melting into a puddle of unconfident mush before Megatron's eyes.

[towardspeace]

Megatron makes the expression in this icon. This one exactly. "Just tell me your name, you fool."

[starscheme]

Starscream flinches, then winces, circuits all jolting at once. "S-starscream...?"

[towardspeace]

He blinks, clearly surprised. Now that he knows, though, he can see it, enough so that he can comfortably rule out the possibility that he's lying – and so surprise is followed by narrowed eyes and his grip on the pistol tightening.

"Starscream," he repeats, the name clearly a familiar one judging by the way he says it. His frown becomes a hard line. A pause. Then he asks, "And your Decepticons – are you their second in command?"

[starscheme]

That tightened grip does not go un-noticed. Starscream flinches again and frantically nods. Why is this place exclusively filled with people who seem to want to kill him?

[towardspeace]

Ha ha ha he doesn't want to kill you he just doesn't trust you as far as he can throw u :')

"You don't seem particularly proud of that," he observes.

[starscheme]

"I am!" he says defensively, looking a smidge more confident than before but no less frightened. "Or I was," he mutters more quietly. He makes a throat clearing noise and straightens up just a bit, suddenly looking unusually weary. "It has been a... trying time, for the Decepticons, where I come from." Understatement of the year.

[towardspeace]

"A trying time." He frowns, his expression calculating. "... Tell me more about your Decepticons," he says. He wants to determine whether this Starscream comes from the same timeline as any of the others he's spoken to... and if he does, he wants to know more about it.

[starscheme]

Starscream frowns, eyeing up this unfamiliar Megatron suspiciously. Better to keep talking than to be belligerent, though. "We... lost the war," he says bitterly, glancing away. "I won't bore you with the details, but in summary you-" he shakes his head and rolls his eyes for a second in lieu of commenting about how ridiculous this split timeline thing is, "my Megatron, I mean, perished in battle, only to return once more by less than ideal means. His body was possessed, used as a tangible puppet by a malevolent outside force, and then once freed... He abdicated his position as leader, and our forces were disbanded. Permanently." Starscream doesn't look or sound to be particularly angry or upset in any unequal capacity; if anything he just seems weary, like he's thought about this series of events way too many times before this moment and he's just regurgitating info like it's a part of his daily routine.

[towardspeace]

Hm. Not an exact match, but... Oddly familiar. Starscream's demeanour, though...

"... And has there been no attempt to regroup?" His optics narrow slightly. "No attempt on your part to seize control?"

[starscheme]

That would probably seem really threatening if this Megatron was wearing a Decepticon badge, but since he isn't...

"On my part? No. Had I considered it as an option? Yes. If anyone else has tried I have not heard about it, though I doubt very much that anyone has. Our forces were quite scattered, by the end." He pauses, and then adds: "Also I would consider it extremely rude for anyone else to try, seeing as that is not their mantle to inherit."

[towardspeace]

He snorts. "I'd imagine if you'd done nothing to assert your inheritance they'd have every right." But he supposes it doesn't matter, not really. "Your Megatron, what does he look like?" He gestures to his own face. "No nose? Not much kibble? Unnecessarily... pointy?"

[starscheme]

Starscream's wings flip up, and he appears momentarily alarmed, and then incredulous, eyes suddenly intense. "So you have seen him? Where!?"

[towardspeace]

Megatron frowns. "I have... in a sense. I don't know that he'd recognise you, though; you might have nothing to worry about," he says, more than a little sarcastically.

[starscheme]

The seeker also frowns. "What, exactly, makes you say that...?" He asks, growling slightly. He doesn't seem thrilled by the suggestion that Megatron might not recognize him at all. He's already experienced that once, in a way, and that was more than enough.

[towardspeace]

"I don't know how long ago you met him, where you come from, but he seems fairly... young. He told me he was a gladiator." He hasn't lowered the pistol.

[starscheme]

And Starscream is still hyper aware of the weapon in his face. He glances at it uneasily, and his frown deepens. "My Megatron is millennia beyond his life as a pit fighter. You must have run into a look-alike," he says stubbornly, and then nods his head towards the gun, putting on a pleading expression. "Surely there is no need to maintain such a mistrustful stance...? Now that we have become better acquainted."

[towardspeace]

"A look-alike? No. Most likely simply the same one, at a great temporal discrepancy." He still doesn't lower the pistol. "And honestly, 'Starscream', I have no more reason to trust you now than I did when you started speaking."

[starscheme]

That only encourages him to crank up the 'innocent bystander' theatrics; his eyes grow wider, wings droop further. He leans back away from the gun another inch or so, an uneasy look on his face, and lets out a pathetically humorless laugh. "I take it that where I have a Megatron, you must have... a Starscream... as well," he says slowly, then glances back up from the weapon, hoping that might lead Megatron into some kind of explanation that he might use to find a way to talk him out of shooting him up. It only makes sense that the situation would be similar: Peanut butter and jelly, salt and pepper, tyrannical warlord and weaselly second in command...

[towardspeace]

"Indeed. He is an overambitious, arrogant fool incapable of putting anything before his own gain. He abandoned the Decepticon cause when they lost in favour of playing politician." Of course what Megatron did is totally different,

[starscheme]

"So, what. Your intent is to shoot me for the actions of an individual who merely shares my name...?" he whines miserably. A name and, y'know. Some key personality traits. He's not about to point that out though.

[towardspeace]

"If you have anything beyond the name in common with him then I certainly have no reason to trust you enough to put the gun away," Megatron replies. "I don't intend to kill you. But I don't intend to let my guard down, either."

[starscheme]

"So I'm supposed to trust you instead, that you aren't going to shoot me as I back away?" Starscream argues dessperately. "If you are anything like the Megatron i know, you can likely fold me into a cube with one hand. Besides, you're the one with the gun, and who is inexplicably sporting Autobot colors."