[ 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

[quantumechanic]

"That means 'I'm stumped,' right? It's okay, you can admit it."

Nautica had snuck up behind him (for values of "snuck" that involved "her footsteps were pretty light and Nightbeat was too fixated on weird machine-plants to notice anyway") and was leaning over his shoulder, face still covered with dirt from Megatron grinding it into the ground, wrench and briefcase both held in hands clasped behind her back.

1/2

[caseopened]

"Who says I'm going to accept that?" The response was almost automatic, as if Nautica being here with him wasn't strange at all to him. In fact, that made things less weird. After all, they were last seen together, so of COURSE they'd come together, right?

Two fingers pinch a leaf and bring it up close to his optics, other hand resting on his chin. He doesn't even look back at Nautica right away, what a good friend.

"These plants aren't like anything I've seen on Cybertron, but bear a significant resemblance to Earth. Coincidence, you think? The odds are astronomical. There has to be a connection."

Okay, now he'll look up.

2/2

[caseopened]

...

"Uh...Nautica? You've got something on your..."

His hand reaches up, gesturing to...all of his face. Yeah. That should get the message across.

[quantumechanic]

"Hmm?" Nautica reached up with her wrench hand and ran a finger down her cheek, leaving a clean streak, and squinted at her now-dirty fingertip. "Oh, that. Megatron tackled me. Alien plants are not the weirdest thing going on right now."

[caseopened]

...Well, she's right on that one. If Nightbeat had eyebrows, they'd be raised right now, as he tucks the briefcase under one arm and rising up to standing-height.

"You make fun of his paintjob? The Captain's not usually so...well okay maybe he's pretty much KNOWN for that, but he's supposedly reformed.

Do we need to call Optimus on this later?"

[quantumechanic]

"Only if he's answering to Orion Pax right now. Megatron is--and I promise you I'm not suffering from hallucinations from targeted EM exposure--from before the War and thought I worked for whatsisname. Sentinel. So I don't really blame him. If I worked for the Senate I'd tackle me, too." Nautica shrugged. Megatron had been fairly reasonable, under the circumstances. No point in carrying a grudge over a misunderstanding. "We straightened it out and he seems pretty nice, but I am just baffled."

[caseopened]

And, for once, Nightbeat coughs out a laugh, trying his best to hold it in. "He thought YOU worked for Sentinel?" Sorry, Nightbeat's going to focus on that a moment, because not only would Sentinel practically MELT at her cheery disposition, but--

"You're not really that guy's posse."

So take that with some comfort. Oh wait, time travel and what not.

"So...this is the Megatron before he became the big bad. I don't know about you, but I'm sensing a mystery."

[quantumechanic]

"A mystery? I'm sensing about half a dozen." Nautica gestured to encompass the crater and by extension the entire world, ever-present wrench in one hand and suspiciously familiar briefcase dangling from the other. "Right now we don't have proof that any one particular bizarre, inexplicable event is connected to any other."

[caseopened]

"Even better," he scans the area again, the blue glow of his visor brightening. That is, until he sets sight on the briefcase.

And quickly checks his hands.


And sees that he too is holding one.

"Uh. Add one more to that dozen."

[quantumechanic]

"Oh." Two briefcases. That was somewhat alarming, even if she was pretty sure she had this particular mystery solved before Nightbeat even pointed it out. "I think we're looking at temporal mismatch, like with Megatron, only involving a lot less than four million years."

[caseopened]

"So basically, you were taken the moment you held the briefcase, and I was taken at a moment I held it. We can't both arrive without a briefcase so...they made two."

...

"Well, that was nice of them, wasn't it?"

[quantumechanic]

"Theoretically, this is not necessarily a paradox, depending on future events, but. Uh." She wouldn't be so concerned if it had been anything other than Brainstorm's briefcase. "To be honest, I'm a little surprised two of them can exist simultaneously without something horrible happening."

[caseopened]

"Maybe the universe can factor in that, since it's not a singular living creature. Maybe it can accept two inanimate objects better than animate, you know?"

A hypothesis is a good start, at least.

"The world won't cave in under an extra drink in existence, whereas two Megatrons...."

Nightbeat you have no idea.

[quantumechanic]

"Oh. I just meant that it's Brainstorm's briefcase and two of them might do something awful to the fabric of reality." She looked around them at the crater and the ruined city in the distance. "...I'm reasonably sure this isn't Brainstorm's fault."

[caseopened]

"Well yeah, but I guess it depends on the degree of the item. You know, the same engex glass from two universes? Probably not going to break the universe as much as...well, two Brainstorms."

He shudders at the thought.


"Two Brainstorms. Never let me say that again."

[quantumechanic]

"Oh gosh, they'd hate each other. Can you imagine the arguments?" Nautica found the idea of Brainstorm fighting with himself hilarious.

"...Or. They might get along." Considering the possibility caused her to grow sober almost instantly. "Right, let's not worry about that until we have to."

[caseopened]

"I can, I am, and all I can see is them ending in who can make the better black hole."

Hilarious, although slightly worrying, if he said so himself.

"Getting along is even worse."

[quantumechanic]

"If what two Brainstorms would do remains a mystery forever, I'm okay with that."

Haha moving right along.

"What was that you were saying about the plants looking like they're from Earth?" Look at that smooth subject change. Unlike the other Camiens, Nautica's knowledgeable enough about linguistics to manage the th sound.

[caseopened]

And what a good subject change it is. Nightbeat's attention turns back to the plants, kneeling down beside them to inspect them once more. "Well, they're existing, to start. Cybertron's not really known for it's foliage." But a finger points to the broad leaves.

"On Earth, plants take in sunlight through these to make food, and the overall structure is similar too. The fact that it's bearing fruit too..."

A smile.

"Either a string of coincidences, or a mystery."

[quantumechanic]

"Mechanical organisms combining with organic ones? That seems like it wouldn't happen on its own." Flipping open her wrench, Nautica crouched next to the plants, scanning the strange new Cybertronian flora. "Did you ever see anything like this on Earth? Not just plants, I mean. Mechano-organic hybrids like this."

[caseopened]

"True, the combination seems unlikely, but..."

Well, flashbacks to a certain Decepticon *coughbludgeon* come into his mind.

"It's been tried before. On more complex beings. Likely the work of someone, although I can't see any possible benefit it'd have to us."

...

"We should take a sample."