[ 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 center

[kaijugrrroupie]

Okay, so this wasn't exactly how he'd expected his drift to have gone. He was expecting some feedback of the kaiju dimension, maybe some intense memories from the secondary brain at a stretch but this? This isn't right. Waaay not right. Not to mention he can't see any kaiju anywhere.

"Okay, Newt, think about this l-logically," he says, shaking and staring at the war-scarred landscape that's been lain in front of him, not noticing that his nose is dripping profusely with blood. This is too real to be a RABIT. And he's pretty sure he'd not be able to follow a secondary brain RABIT--mostly because it's not his own memory. He'd gotten snippets, of something much greater than just the kaiju destroying because they were wild creatures, several entities all as one--like a hivemind or something--but he'd not been in the drift long enough to uncover anything more than garbled feedback, luminous blue tendrils and teeth.

And now he's definitely not in Kansas anymore. He's standing in the middle of what appeared to be a truly massive rusty street, with broken buildings towering over him and making him feel incredibly small. Which is pretty much exactly how the kaiju make him feel.

Oh shit. Did he die? Did drifting with the kaiju kill him? Not that he believed in an afterlife, but he's pretty sure he did not build a teleporter out of PONS scraps. Or, maybe he did. That would be pretty sweet and totally better than dying, right?

"Hello?"

[scaredybot]

Mayday glances around when he hears somebody calling out. Another bot? Hopefully an Autobot? It very well could be.

But instead of metal and angles, what he spots is something small, dark, and moving. The first thing his mind spits out is 'bug' and he recoils in horror, letting out a piercing shriek.

After a moment, the small, dark object comes into focus and- "Oh, thank the Allspark you're just a human."

Leaning over and propping his hands on his thighs, the giant metal robot who's at least twice Newt's size wheezes in relief as if he actually needed to breathe.

[kaijugrrroupie]

So he'd maybe been expecting kaiju at this point, bring that the world he'd been dumped in seemed to be scaled to their size, so when what looks like a jaeger shrieks at him. It's enough to send Newton stumbling backward onto his butt and scrabbling away because what the hell?!

And then it talks to him. A jaeger, talking. And emoting. And shrieking. And breathing? If this isn't a death hallucination he doesn't know what it could be. So here he is, staring up at the massive metal form in front of him, trying to get his brain to engage and say something not stupid.

"I-- what?"

[scaredybot]

While certainly larger than Newt, Mayday would make a woefully undersized Jaeger! Not to mention he's scrawny enough you'd be hard pressed to fit a human anywhere inside him even if you hollowed him out (also, ew, humans inside people!).

The human is staring at him! Wow, he has... Not really interacted with humans except for that time he was a human and he honestly wasn't very good at interacting with humans then either.

Giving an awkward smile, he waggles his fingers, and says, "Um. Hi?"

[kaijugrrroupie]

Large humanoid robots will always be named jaegers in his head, sorry Mayday.

He's sitting on the floor still, reeling up at the talking metal form looking over him. That's it. He's totally dead. He takes a moment to draw in a deep breath and pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose to rub at his eyes.

"Goddamnit."

[scaredybot]

"Oh, uh-" The human is swearing. At him? "Sorry?"

Wait, why is he apologizing. He hasn't done anything wrong, other than exist. He shouldn't apologize for existing. The human should apologize for making this weird 'on a destroyed Cybertron' thing even weirder. Or something.

He doesn't demand an apology.

Instead he crouches down gingerly and says, "Um, I'm Mayday...?"

IM SORRY IM SHIT

[kaijugrrroupie]

Newt's so wrapped up in his own world crumbling around him that he doesn't notice the robot crouch in front of him. God, he can't believe Hermann was right. That's the worst thing to come of this. Goddammnit.

When the bot speaks again, Newt looks up from where he's sitting on the floor, blinking.

"Well, that's not a very heroic sounding name. You're a jaeger right? Jaegers have names like Brawler Yukon or Gipsy Danger. Mayday is kinda... eh."

NO YOU ARE GOOD YOU ARE SHINING

[scaredybot]

"Um." Wow, rude. He wasn't making any judgments on the humans name! Mostly because he didn't know what it was yet. He might judge it after.

And what the heck is a Jaeger? Some sort of robotic race of warrior people? Another faction of Cybertronians he's unaware of? Those name don't sound especially Cybertronian, but...

Well, whatever it is, he's pretty sure he's not one. "I'm... I'm an Autobot. See?" He points at the sigil on his chest as if that explains everything.

NOPE ACTUAL TRASH hopefully im back now..

[kaijugrrroupie]

Newt stares at the sigil, and then looks back up at the Jaeger--or, well. The Autobot. Was this some faction he didn't know about? Like, some super secret shit that LOCCENT was working on on like combining human DNA with robotics--which would be totally sweet even if it probably wouldn't be all that helpful considering the sizes of the category fours the breach was spitting out.

"Is that some secret project or something? Operation Autobot sounds like something the PPDC would come up with. I mean, it's stupid, you're not really that big and if you have organic parts meddled with your robotics, that's gotta be painful right?I can't see how you'd use a PONS unit to meld, since th-- wait, how did you get past the neural load being too much?"

[pullingamiko]

Since getting here, Miko has encountered exactly one other human, and that was Jack's mom. So this guy wandering around the city kind of sticks out, and as soon as she catches sight of him, following the sound of a voice not far from where she happens to be exploring, she takes off down the street toward him.

"Hey! HEY, dude! Over here!" There you go, Newt, you're not the only person here. There is also this teenage girl running toward you and shouting.

[kaijugrrroupie]

ok, so this place is full of giant robots. That much he's managed to gather from just doing a little exploring. It's still not making much sense as to why he was here exactly though. Other than that he's dead, and he's gone to some bizzaro jaegers-can-talk afterlife or some other drug induced hallucination. It's just his brain shutting down. Yup. That's gotta be it.

And then there's the girl running and screaming at him to factor in. And suddenly everything made even less sense.

He stares at the girl, baffled by everything happening to him, and it takes him a moment before his brain clicks into gear and throws up something to say.

"What the hell."

[pullingamiko]

"Yeah, I know right, it's kind of a lot to get used to." She throws out an arm to gesture to the city as a whole as she slows to a stop in front of him. Of course, she assumes that he's just still getting used to Cybertron, because why would he be so surprised to see another human? "You just get here too?"

[kaijugrrroupie]

Newt rubs a hand through his matted hair, still looking bewildered and confused.

"What? Uh, yeah, you could say that," he says, looking to where she was pointing to before staring back at her. "Where is here exactly?"

[pullingamiko]

"Cybertron! Wait, have you not met anyone who's told you that or anything yet?" She actually looks pretty delighted about the prospect. The less this guy has found out, the more she gets to tell him, which means being the one who knows what's going on.

[kaijugrrroupie]

"Cybertron? What the heck?" he says with a frown. He's not sure if this is supposed to be his brains attempt at remembering Mako, because wow, it was doing a bad job. It completely got her hair colour wrong.

"I just got here. Bumped into a jaeg--Autobot, but I have no idea what the hell is going on."

[pullingamiko]

Oh man he really doesn't know what's happening.

"Okay, so, see, the Autobots are actually called Cybertronians - Autobot is like a military thing kind of, it's what side they're on, but Cybertronians are what they actually are! This is the planet they're from, which humans normally aren't supposed to be on at all, but for some reason it looks like a bunch of people (like, a few humans and a bunch of Cybertronians and some other species I guess?) just kinda got dropped here for some reason."

She pauses. "So, really, nobody really knows what's going on besides what I just told you. But there's that! You ever been on another planet before now?"

[kaijugrrroupie]

He stares at her a little, lifting his glasses to rub at the top of his nose--which makes him realise he's got dried blood all over his face. Gross. He rubs his face on a shoulder as he takes his glasses off to clean.

"Uh, okay. Sorta getting it. The only aliens I ever came into contact with are kaiju," he starts, saying it as if she knows what he's talking about and rubbing a hand under his nose and putting his glasses back on. Okay, so maybe, not dead? It would be really cool if he wasn't dead!

"I just thought I was like, uh, in some drift induced hallucination or this shit was my brain shutting down or something. 'Cause last I checked, Jaegers don't talk! But whatever, alien planet, can dig it. Sorta. Getting there."

At her next question, he looks around. "Not really. I mean, I saw the kaiju homeworld in my drift... but then I woke up here."

[targetlocked]

It doesn't take much rumbling through the streets of this strange ruined city for Lock-On to hear a sound other than the occasional collapse of architecture. In fact, it sounds like a voice. How exciting!

On the lookout for other people, she moves down the street toward the source of the voice. It's not long before she rolls up to the little organic whom she assumes was the one calling out. Strange that an organic would be here on looks-like-Cybertron, but she's not bemoaning the new company.

"Hello there," she says pleasantly – as if she ever says anything unpleasantly – and, through instinct, points her cannon down at Newt.

[kaijugrrroupie]

Newt is so done with this limbo world. So done. As if talking jaegers and teenagers wasn't bad enough but apparently there's also now a tank trying to shoot him. Or well, he figures they are trying, since theyre very pointedly aiming a cannon at his head.

Newt swivels on his feet and holds both hands up, trying not to look too terrified. Which is hard considering he's already beaten and bloodied.

"Woah! Hey! You got the wrong guy, okay?"

[targetlocked]

What a funny little creature.

"Are you alright?" Lock-On asks, amusement creeping into her voice. "I was just saying hello."

Maybe they greet each other differently on whatever planet this creature is from, or maybe they're not doing so well. She doubts the fluid dripping from their nose is supposed to be there, but who knows.

[kaijugrrroupie]

His hands are still up in surrender as the turret is still pointed at him, and he blinks incredulously at the tank in front of him.

"Uh! Most people don't threaten somebody straight away before saying hello," he starts, gesturing with one of his hands. "Which, uh, is kinda what you're doing right now?"

[targetlocked]

"I do not understand," says Lock-On slowly. "To my knowledge, I have not been threatening you." She thought she was situated perfectly within the parameters of acceptable social interaction, but it looks like she was wrong. It really has been too long.

She tilts her cannon down to the side, as if in shame. "Does my current form intimidate you? Would you be more comfortable speaking with me if I were in my alternate mode?"

[kaijugrrroupie]

"Dude! You're pointing a gun at me!" He says, gesturing more wildly this time at the barrel he's staring down. This place keeps throwing him curveballs. But then she--he thinks it's a she, can he really apply gender to a machine?--mentions an alternate mode and he pauses.

"Uh, yeah, if that's uh, less intimidating."

[targetlocked]

"Oh! I am very sorry." Lock-On moves her cannon further, so that it is now not at all pointed at him, or in his general direction, or near the ground where he is standing. She certainly seems embarrassed. "I was attempting to make eye contact as best I could in this form, but it seems that was not a good idea. I will transform now."

She rolls back a little bit, and then she transforms into her robot mode. She is still, y'know, pretty dang large, but she's got a face for a face now, instead of a cannon for a face. She probably should have done this a lot sooner. Whoops.

"Am I less intimidating in this form?"

[kaijugrrroupie]

He visibly relaxes when she transforms--which in itself is kind of weird, since a tank just transformed into a giant robot on an alien planet that he's been abandoned on but everything is relative right now--and he cranes his head a little as she folds out. Talking to faces instead of canons is definitely better.

"Yeah, a little. Everything on this planet is out to make me feel like a bug, seriously," he huffs, eying her. "Thanks for uh, y'know. Not shooting me."