[ 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

[towardspeace]

Kind of stating the obvious there, mate, but Megatron nods anyway. He wonders, not for the first time, what form that change would have come in – some other Megatron, just as determined but with a stronger spark, better able to hold onto his morality despite the grim necessities of revolution? Or Orion's changes from within, with all the compromise and pandering to the elite that Megatron still can't help but believe that would have to entail... but even that slow, dishonest change would have been better than what his own war did to their planet.

"I think I thought that if I didn't do something about it, no one else would," he muses. "Perhaps that was my mistake."

[luckyfaceplate]

Hey, it's what Optimus is best at. It's something that's been running through his own mind as well. If his plan had worked. If reform would have been for the better. Anything probably than what happened.

Four million years of war looks bad no matter what is put next to it.

"You had determination and a desire for change. Admirable traits considering the society."

But.

"I often wonder if I was the reason it dragged on for so long. Your ambition changed from a new world order to...destroying everything I held dear."

A pause. "I suppose it's blame we both share."

[towardspeace]

"Perhaps," says Megatron. He vents a long, heavy sigh, his eyes on the unfamiliar, desolate horizon. "Do you ever wonder how different things might have been if we'd taken the same side?"

[luckyfaceplate]

"I certainly do." He says it without hesitation, and without looking away from the exact horizon Megatron's gaze has settled on.

"There are a million paths one can take, and we can only choose one. In the end, no matter which one we end up taking, we wonder about the others."

He stops there, to consider.

"But I wonder if it is ever that easy."

[towardspeace]

"Hah – I'm sure it's not." Despite the laugh, he's not really smiling. "No doubt it would only have been a matter of time before some conflict of ideology divided us regardless."

[luckyfaceplate]

The laught, while Optimus knew it wasn't anything joyous, got a slight, thoughtful hum in return. Some things--no matter how much you try and think otherwise--just don't change.

...But what if they could.

"Would you like to try, here?"

He stops walking, now entirely focused on Megatron, the blue glow trying to pinpoint the red, lock on to it. "There's nothing left of this world, no government to oppress and no chaos." Those ears flick slightly, as his gaze shifts to the landscape for only a moment.

"A different chance at redemption perhaps, and one I can witness myself."

Which..he secretly admitted he wanted.

[towardspeace]

Megatron turns back to look at him, slowly, a strange look on his face. It's a moment or two before he replies.

"With you?" Something like a smile does cross his face now, if just for a moment. "... Yes. Yes, I would. But I can't imagine your Autobots would like it."

[luckyfaceplate]

The "Yes" seems to calm his plating more than any other words probably could have. It's almost amazing, how much something like that could change him. Megatron had a tone now--one with none of the deception he'd come to know over four million years.

They're both tired, and they both need to start again.

"They won't. But change is never an EASY thing to accept. Even if it's for the better."

[towardspeace]

"We can only hope it will be," says Megatron; and he holds out his hand to his old rival, as if to say, I won't fuck it up if you won't.

[luckyfaceplate]

And, without hesitation, he takes that hand, eyes never looking away from his once-nemesis. I won't fuck up if you won't, either.


"Then we've got some work to do."