[ 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

THE CITY

[smarterthandad]

After arriving in an entirely unexpected fashion, Valeria settled down to wait for someone to come get her. She did not need this right now, not with the mess going on back home, but massive inconvenience when she had pressing plans was her life. When a whole 10 minutes of annoyed sulking contemplation of her circumstances had passed with no hint of rescue...well, clearly it was time to rescue herself. Easier said than done, at least in a ruined city that seemed to have been made for people roughly five times her (admittedly unimpressive) height, but Val was completely incapable of admitting defeat, or even the need for help, unless particularly recalcitrant snack packaging was involved.

That was why there was a tiny human child, in a black and glowing green skintight suit that made her look like a Tron extra, climbing fearlessly among the ruins of the old communications network, all the while muttering to herself.

"Definitely going to need to build a zero-point power station..."

[auramatic]

That sure is a tiny human clambering all over the ruin of the city. He probably wouldn't have spotted her if it weren't for the fact that she's starting to approach shoulder height on him. The glowy jumpsuit helps, though. Drift's no expert on humans, but he's pretty sure a fall from this height would kill a human, let alone one so little. So he's just gonna do you a favor and pluck you right off of that dangerously crumbling tower of debris there, little lady.

"Whoa, hey! What are you doing all the way up here?" Carefully -- totally carefully! -- holding the human in one hand, Drift peers at her more closely. Wow, she's really small. "Actually, what are you doing on Cybertron? I didn't think humans could survive on the surface."

[smarterthandad]

"Ahh!" Snatched by a giant robot! That was supposed to be a mutant problem, jeez. "What are you doing?! You don't just go around grabbing people!" Rude! Val showed no hint of fear, only outrage. Tiny, adorable outrage. She folded her arms and glared up at Drift.

[auramatic]

No one ever told him tiny humans could be so feisty. At least she's not struggling to get out of his grip -- he's pretty sure she'd go splat if she fell from this height.

"You could've hurt yourself," Drift says, frowning in thought as he stares at her. "I didn't think Cybertron had a hospitable atmosphere for humans. How'd you get here, anyway?"

Because she would know, right? Right.

[smarterthandad]

Mollified by what Drift didn't realize was a question that was right up her alley, Val pursed her lips before providing an answer she didn't find entirely satisfactory. Hypothesizing on limited data was always risky. "Given I experienced no successive duration of changing loci, I'm thinking someone's been messing with probability manipulation and skewed the waveform a few dozen standard deviations, but that's just a guess."

Tiny humans were also apparently forged with some serious science chops. Who knew?

[auramatic]

All right, color Drift impressed. And...confused. Last he'd heard humans weren't all that advanced, but as far as he's concerned she's speaking Perceptor. Drift files all that away carefully to ask Perceptor or Brainstorm about later, but he decides it's probably not all that relevant right now, anyway.

"It's too bad we're not on the Lost Light, or else I'd take you right to the lab," Drift muses, tilting his head slightly as he considers Val. Well -- Cybertron or Earth, if there are humans around in need of help, he might as well. "I'm Drift, by the way. As far as I can tell none of us have any idea how we go there, so I guess you're in the same boat as the rest of us."

[smarterthandad]

"Valeria Richards." She looked down at Drift's palm, where her feet were reasonably firmly planted. A handshake seemed out of the question. "If you have the tech--and judging by that console, it looks like you do--I can build a teleporter or hyperdrive and get everybody home. Or at least an FTL comms system to call your ship, and then they can come take everybody home."

From context, the Lost Light was obviously a spaceship, and from the swords, Drift was obviously not the brains of whatever outfit he was from, so Val would have to do the thinking. She was okay with that.

[auramatic]

Don't worry, Val, Rodimus isn't the brains of their operation either and he's the captain. Drift peers at Val curiously, obviously impressed, but he gives her an apologetic frown and shakes his head.

"That all sounds like a good idea, but I think we've got bigger problems than figuring out how to get off this planet. For starters, no one I've talked to even knows how they got here -- I don't know if my ship is even in this sector. And what's more..." Drift glances around, sighing air through his vents. "This isn't the Cybertron I know. It's Cybertron, it has to be -- but it's a different Cybertron. I think...we all might be here for a reason."

[smarterthandad]

Val's no-nonsense demeanor was replaced with a very unimpressed look, complete with skeptical eyebrow raise, at what sounded distinctly like some hippie crap.

"...Uh-huh." No organic had ever so strongly resembled Ratchet. "Well, I can also build a Bridge--that's a transuniversal portal--so, not really a problem. It'll just take longer."

[auramatic]

It's uncanny, how this tiny human girl emanates the exact sort of energy Drift always gets from Ratchet. Honestly, it gives him the chills, and for a split second he looks kind of spooked. He gets over it pretty quickly, though, frowning thoughtfully.

"I'll take your word for it. But you're not curious? About why you were brought here?"

[smarterthandad]

"Assuming it was a conscious agency, I suppose tracking them down to make sure they can never do it again would be a worthwhile idea."

That was an impressively ominous delivery coming from a three foot tall human.

[auramatic]

Uh, yeah, actually, it was. This is one uncanny little human. Drift doesn't think he's ever found one so...intimidating before.

But Drift's used to that sort of thing, honestly. Ratchet basically uses him for verbal target practice, so Drift is able to shrug it off, still looking sort of thoughtful.

"I...wasn't really thinking about a conscious agency, no. More like...fate."

[smarterthandad]

"Fate," Val repeated, voice flat and arms crossed as she gave Drift a chance to correct his obvious mistake.

[auramatic]

Okay, Drift is getting serious Ratchet vibes from this little girl now. It's starting to give him the creeps. Turn your aura down, kid.

"I, uh -- yeah. Fate."

[smarterthandad]

Stop being a flake, giant space robot.

Val let that sit for a moment in the eerie quiet of the deserted city before abruptly changing the subject to something less likely to give her heartburn. She didn't know what heartburn felt like, but it was supposed to be unpleasant and she'd like to avoid it. "Where do the swords go when you're a car?"

[auramatic]

"Oh, uh -- " Well, that sure was a subject change. Drift doesn't think a human has ever made him feel this awkward. He's not sure he likes it. He vents out a sigh.

"...Inside. They go inside my vehicle mode."

Congratulations, Val, you're starting to break him in.

[smarterthandad]

Welcome to the Valeria Richards Experience, Drift. Note the lack of exit signs, because there is no escape.

"Hmm." Her eyes turned glassy as she visualized how his anatomy would have to shift to effect his transformation. Yes, that could leave enough empty space, though it might be tight. "Yeah, okay, I can see it."

[auramatic]

Drift just crouches down and slowly lowers Val to the ground with a look of vague consternation on his face.

He has never felt this weirdly uncomfortable with a human in his life.

[smarterthandad]

It was a good thing she'd met other Cybertronians already, or Drift might have given her the wrong idea about the species, jeez.

"You could at least have put me back in the terminal. I was working on that." Still, Val trotted over to the low fountain wall where she'd left her datapad before embarking on her ill-advised gymnastic adventures in ruined giant robot tech. She could at least make some notes.

[auramatic]

"Oh! Yeah, sorry."

Drift seems all too happy to crouch down and offer his hand -- he feels a bit bad about plucking her from the ruins all of a sudden. This is the least he can do to make it up to her.

"I don't know how far you'll get with this thing, though. I had a look at the terminal -- it seems like it's been inoperational for centuries."

[smarterthandad]

"I'm not trying to fix it." Gosh, Drift, what would be the point of fixing one public terminal? Val put her datapad back where she'd left it and clambered into his hand. "I'm teaching myself your technology. By the power junction, please. The cylindrical thing with the corroded leads at the top.

" ...Actually, you know what, could you pop the casing open? It's designed for that, see the tabs? I don't have the leverage."

[briefcase]

The city seemed like the safest place to be without getting tackled or handcuffed or tased or some other horrible painful event again. Brainstorm's had enough of that in a day to last a few months, or better yet, a lifetime. He just wanted a quiet place to set up a workshop. He's... more than a bit sour that he has to begin years worth of work from scratch again.

Still, it didn't keep him from noticing a tiny alien climbing on an old communications tower.

"Hey, get your fleshy hands off that. I bet you don't even know what that is!"

[smarterthandad]

At the sound of someone challenging her competence, Val's head popped up over the tech bits in which she was clambering about, an expression of (adorable) fury on her face. Come over here and say that you, enormous walking scrapheap.

"It's a communications network junction, duh."

[briefcase]

Brainstorm squints one optic at the tiny flesh creature. That was probably a lucky guess, since it was fairly obvious if your civilization was advanced enough. He places his hands on each hip, a briefcase dangling from one of his wrists. The other one was safely stowed in his cockpit.

"Yeah, fine. And what are you doing with it?"

[smarterthandad]

Val gave him an unimpressed once-over, noting the Autobrand, then ducked back behind the console. Her voice came muffled but still intelligible from the inside of the housing. "Teaching myself your species' design philosophy."

The 'go away' should have been taken as read.