[ 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

[phase6kindofbot]

The red symbol was hard to miss. Sixshot stares, silence stretching out between them, confusion written in the tilt of his canine head.

In the end, it didn't matter. He was a weapon for Megatron to direct as the tyrant wished. If Starscream knew the code to his off-switch, then his handler would know that and more. Whatever choice the Phase Sixer would have been made would be moot.

Apathy consumes whatever other feelings Sixshot might have had on the subject anyways.

"Well. What happened?"

[towardspeace]

"... A long story," says Megatron, no less cautious. "What is the last thing you remember, before you found yourself here?"

[phase6kindofbot]

"The Reapers came."

There's a strange waver in Sixshot's voice. Flickering static in the tone, static in his mind, Deathbringer's words ringing in his audials like the silence after an explosion, resonating.

The Reapers weren't here however. His chance at salvation had passed.

He sinks ever deeper into apathy.

"Starscream challenged me to a duel," he continues flatly. "I defected. He used some kind of shut down code on me. I woke up here."

[towardspeace]

"I see," says Megatron, his optics narrowing slightly as he continues to carefully probe. "And I take it you don't know how you came to be here."

[phase6kindofbot]

"Not really." It doesn't seem to bother Sixshot much though.

Doesn't look like he's getting much of an explanation for the red badge, but he quickly finds he doesn't really care about that either. It wasn't his job to care what Megatron did with his time. That was more Starscream's thing. Maybe the DJD's thing too.

[towardspeace]

Sixshot definitely seems the least worried about this out of everyone Megatron's spoken to here so far.

"That doesn't concern you?" he asks. He supposes it does beat being shut down by Starscream...

[phase6kindofbot]

"Why would it concern me?" Sixshot asks without any trace of sarcasm.

Being shut down was a fate he might have preferred at this point. Unfortunately, he's awake and instinctively compelled to be otherwise.

[towardspeace]

"Being suddenly and inexplicably relocated to a world that seems to be Cybertron but is not?" he asks. "I would have thought that'd concern anyone."

[phase6kindofbot]

"My only concern has only ever been what your orders are for me, my lord. I destroy what you wish and when you wish it. The where and why does not matter."

Plus, sudden relocation to strange worlds was about 40% of his job description. 50% was leveling the damned place and the other 10% was upkeep, maintenance and occasional invasive upgrades with dubious consent on his part.

Decepticon health plans were kind of sucky.

[towardspeace]

There's a pause as Megatron considers that. He doesn't look all that glad to hear it.

"... I'm afraid my goals have turned away from destruction, Sixshot."

[phase6kindofbot]

Glad to hear it or not, it was what everything that Sixshot had been remade into.

The answer does make Sixshot pause.

"Are we in Phase Seven, then?"

[towardspeace]

"... Not exactly." Megatron vents a sigh. "We lost the war."

[phase6kindofbot]

There's just enough emotions left in Sixshot for him to feel his spark sink. It's a brief and sudden pain.

"... Why are you wearing that badge, Lord Megatron?"

Now he NEEDS to know.

[towardspeace]

"I defected," he says simply. His now-typical tiredness is there, as ever, but his expression and tone of voice are closed off. There's a pause, and then he says, "I'm sorry."

[phase6kindofbot]

Why?

The word doesn't come out right, just a jumble of static nonsense, all the confusion and pain of a mech whose entire existence had just been made so entirely obsolete.

Sixshot stops himself before he could try again, shutting his optics off, closing off, dragging the maelstrom of emotions back under the surface. Apathy was cold and empty, but anything was better than this.

He cycles air slowly through his vents.

Out of the millions of horrors faced and committed, the millions of years of isolation and loneliness- out of all of that, why should this... hurt?

It shouldn't. It changed nothing. Sixshot was still a weapon, to be used as Megatron wished, to be shut down when he wasn't needed. Whatever Megatron did, it'd never been his place to question in the first place.

Sixshot takes a long few minutes to regather his composure before lifting his canine head again and quietly asking, "What are your orders?"

[towardspeace]

Megatron has to look away, at that reaction. Anger would have been easier. This kind of distress, so obvious and then abruptly stifled...

He covers his face, briefly, with his hand.

"I have no orders, Sixshot," he replies, bracing himself. "You are free to do as you please."

[phase6kindofbot]

Sixshot didn't get angry the way most Decepticons would get angry. He hasn't truly lost his temper in a very long time and never in front of Megatron. The hound was too well trained.

"I am weapon that can kill everyone on this planet," Sixshot points out, tone flat. "I don't think you want me doing as I please."

[towardspeace]

Megatron looks at him, considering, quiet.

"Is that what you want to do?"

[phase6kindofbot]

"..."

Sixshot looks away, pushing himself up onto all four feet.

"Call me when you need me then," he says over a shoulder as he turns to leave.