McCrane (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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re_alignment_logs2014-07-25 04:04 pm
mccrane) wrote in re_alignment_logs2014-07-25 04:04 pm
A final decision
Who: McCrane and YOU
What: The ex-police commander has been thinking about what new direction he wants to take after loosing members of the Brave Police again. It's been the usual quiet McCrane, out wandering and patrolling the edges of the Haven over the past month or so while Blurr takes over the Enforcers. Now, he needs someone to kick him back into being social again.
Where: Wandering! McCrane can be encountered anywhere, though less likely in one of the temples.
When: Now-ish.
Notes:
Since I've been away for a bit, my assumption with McCrane has been that he's been in an introspective funk, passing the police over to Blurr after realizing what Prowl had been up to and after loosing more members of the Brave Police. It can also be assumed he was around for the Zone event, though he would have been participating only as needed to help keep people safe. Feel free to put him there or away for any other events according to what would be easiest for your character!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
McCrane had not felt like being anywhere, and so he'd travelled everywhere.
It was an unusual feeling. Always, he'd had a place with the Brave Police and with the Enforcement squad. He'd known being commander was a difficult task that he was not entirely prepared for, and he'd worked hard to be as good as he remembered Deckard being. There had been more than one time in which he'd questioned his role, but he'd survived in it somehow.
Then, when Deckard had come back and when he'd realized how Prowl had been manipulating him, it had all started to unravel again. He had not felt comfortable being in charge of the entire force. He longer for command of a smaller group, working on smaller missions, combining skills to accomplish greater tasks. Deckard would make a better chief of police. So would Blurr. Together, they'd be even more incredible...though he suspected that, like him, Deckard would need some time to become acclimatized to Cybertrons ways.
When the other Brave police had started disappearing, he'd stood up one day and left Headquarters, heading out for the badlands. Half-way out he'd stopped.
He did not want to go looking, beause he knew what he'd find. He also did not want to return to headquarters, because of what he wouldn't find.
It was easier to make no decision at all, and stay on the edges of the Haven. He could set up posts that would make good sniper bushes in case of a monster attack, and he could make other preparations for if the badlands ever tried an incursion on the Haven again. He would be ready, and if Blurr or Deckard or Gunmax needed him they could still call.
That would be enough...
And for a while, it was enough.
Now, it didn't feel like enough anymore. He'd set up more bushes than he could possibly use, and he'd marked every piece of useful high ground. There was nothing left for him out here, but he didn't know how to go back.
What would he do now? What would he say?
He could wander forever, and that would be easy...but it wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be what a member of the Brave Police would do.
It was time to return...so why was that still so hard to do?
~~~~~~~~~~~~
What: The ex-police commander has been thinking about what new direction he wants to take after loosing members of the Brave Police again. It's been the usual quiet McCrane, out wandering and patrolling the edges of the Haven over the past month or so while Blurr takes over the Enforcers. Now, he needs someone to kick him back into being social again.
Where: Wandering! McCrane can be encountered anywhere, though less likely in one of the temples.
When: Now-ish.
Notes:
Since I've been away for a bit, my assumption with McCrane has been that he's been in an introspective funk, passing the police over to Blurr after realizing what Prowl had been up to and after loosing more members of the Brave Police. It can also be assumed he was around for the Zone event, though he would have been participating only as needed to help keep people safe. Feel free to put him there or away for any other events according to what would be easiest for your character!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
McCrane had not felt like being anywhere, and so he'd travelled everywhere.
It was an unusual feeling. Always, he'd had a place with the Brave Police and with the Enforcement squad. He'd known being commander was a difficult task that he was not entirely prepared for, and he'd worked hard to be as good as he remembered Deckard being. There had been more than one time in which he'd questioned his role, but he'd survived in it somehow.
Then, when Deckard had come back and when he'd realized how Prowl had been manipulating him, it had all started to unravel again. He had not felt comfortable being in charge of the entire force. He longer for command of a smaller group, working on smaller missions, combining skills to accomplish greater tasks. Deckard would make a better chief of police. So would Blurr. Together, they'd be even more incredible...though he suspected that, like him, Deckard would need some time to become acclimatized to Cybertrons ways.
When the other Brave police had started disappearing, he'd stood up one day and left Headquarters, heading out for the badlands. Half-way out he'd stopped.
He did not want to go looking, beause he knew what he'd find. He also did not want to return to headquarters, because of what he wouldn't find.
It was easier to make no decision at all, and stay on the edges of the Haven. He could set up posts that would make good sniper bushes in case of a monster attack, and he could make other preparations for if the badlands ever tried an incursion on the Haven again. He would be ready, and if Blurr or Deckard or Gunmax needed him they could still call.
That would be enough...
And for a while, it was enough.
Now, it didn't feel like enough anymore. He'd set up more bushes than he could possibly use, and he'd marked every piece of useful high ground. There was nothing left for him out here, but he didn't know how to go back.
What would he do now? What would he say?
He could wander forever, and that would be easy...but it wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be what a member of the Brave Police would do.
It was time to return...so why was that still so hard to do?
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anywhere you like, really
The Seeker wanted to help but didn't know how. Or if he could at all, even. Two years ago – had he really been here almost that long now? – he wouldn't have bothered, not for a non-Cybertronian and certainly not for a non-Decepticon (not for another 'Con either, but that was beside the point). He wasn't sure if he'd have even noticed. Now?
McCrane was someone the weary veteran trusted, someone he respected, both of which attributes were hard-earned from the old Seeker. Ultra Magnus had been the one who accepted him as a member of the police force, but it was McCrane who had cemented it, giving Thundercracker a place and group to belong to when he desperately needed one. He even considered the mech his friend, just didn't know if McCrane thought the same of him. McCrane had certainly looked out for him enough times. The least he could do was try to offer the same.
Thundercracker spotted his friend among the rocks below. Most times, he left the Earth-bot alone, respecting his seeming desire for solitude. This time, something told him solitude was not what was needed, and he found himself descending before he'd completed the thought.
Transforming, he landed lightly on his feet just enough distance from McCrane to not startle or threaten him. "McCrane." He nodded his head in greeting, then tilted it slightly as he folded his arms. "You seem lost." Not lost as in "don't know location" – the other kind was what he meant.
He was no longer a Decepticon, but unfortunately his social skills hadn't improved any because of it yet either.
Re: Anywhere you like, really
McCrane had heard the approach of the jet for some time, looking to the skies to try spotting the well-camoflaged Thndercracker. He'd been here long enough to know the different sounds...the low thrum of Kagerou's glide, the mid-pitch of Drill Boy's canter, and the piercing shriek of Cybertronian engines, built for slicing through the air.
It did not surprise him when Thundercracker dropped down, and it did not surprise him when the other showed concern...but even if the conversation was a bit rough, he could not help but appreciate the company. Thundercracker was not a member of the Brave Police, but he had become a valued member of the enforcers. Perhaps that perspective could help him now.
"Maybe I am. I was not given a schematic that mapped emotions when I was built. I still have trouble navigating through them."
He glanced back, looking towards the center of the Haven. "I feel like I am still doing something wrong by being out here...but when I think about going back?"
It hurt, too.
no subject
Thundercracker tried unsuccessfully to suppress a soft huff –something that wanted to be a bit of a chuckle, really –at the first comment and shook his head. "Don't know if anyone has a schematic for emotions. Everyone has to learn to navigate. Some do it better than others, and some never quite seem to learn." He wondered sometimes if he himself were closer to the latter end of things than the former, though even he was better than some he could think of. All of them Decepticons, come to think of it –imagine that. "For what it's worth, you do better than many I've known."
The old Seeker studied his friend. If what he'd heard of the Earth-bots was true, none of them were older than two solar cycles, even combining both their times here and back on Earth. To put it in terms McCrane might best relate to, it was saying he was only days or even hours –mere minutes? –old compared to someone like Thundercracker. And to think of all that McCrane had been through at least since arriving here…
Thundercracker didn't know how it was with the Autobots, but with Decepticons . . . the old ones like him had known a life before war, before the widespread strife that had become their daily norm since. They'd lived through the transitions and had time to adjust. The newer ones, like Jadewing, were simply thrown into things and force to, as he'd heard humans put it, "sink or swim." And Thundercracker had seen at least as many sink as swim. The Seeker knew that McCrane and the other Earth-bots had a much different experience –both back home and even here, where at least there was no active, ongoing war –but he wondered if the principles weren't the same, in essence. Whatever life had been like back home for McCrane for however long he'd lived it, he'd had no mentors nor even really peers significantly older them him from which to learn and on which to lean. From what Deckard had told Thundercracker of their situation back home, McCrane and his few fellows had only had each other to muddle through both daily life and Life In General. Then to be pulled from that and thrust into a place like this, with its hardships, its shortages, and its dangers? At such an unimaginably young age?
He didn't know what to say to the last. But he should say something at least.
"Tell me, McCrane . . . what exactly was the purpose you were built for?" Maybe remembering the basics would help…?
no subject
"Thank you, Thundercracker," McCrane said, quietly. "I mean that."
He had not considered himself successful at navigating emotions by any means...but he did understand what his friend meant. There had been others who had not been able to control their emotions...and while McCrane always defaulted to trying to stifle emotions instead of working with them, he'd still managed to get his work done.
Because of that, TC's next question seemed like a logical extrapolation. "What...was I built for?"
Well.
That actually required thought. "The Brave police were built to protect Nanamagiri city from the rising threat of extreme elements. My own specialization is as a tactical officer, and also as the leader of the Build Team." It was important that they be able to handle natural disasters as well as villains, after all.
He...he had not been able to do that as well, lately. Without the entirety of Build Team....
"I have not been performing those duties," he stated dismally. "Without my team, I have never felt completely whole." Leading the police force had fulfilled some part of that in him...but even that had not turned out the way he'd expected it to.
"What am I supposed to do, when what I've been built for is not what I'm capable of?"
Hi-ho headcanon... ^,^;;; (re: trines, trinebond)
Thundercracker nodded. "The feeling of incompleteness - I can relate. I'm here without my trine. That's still hard sometimes." A hand strayed to his canopy, indirectly to his spark where the sense of two others who should be there...wasn't. Since exchanging a bond with Starscream and Skywarp eons ago, Thundercracker had never really been without his trine until coming here. It'd been one of the things that had kept him from settling for months, feeling restless and isolated as he had.
The Build Team. Deckard, and to a lesser extent Gunmax, had told him about them. "Fighter against threats to the city, tactician, and team lead of a four-mech subgroup within a larger team . . . that still only consisted of eight mechs total all told. Don't know if you've really thought of it, but it's a pretty big leap from that to what you've been doing here. You've been holding a position that's nothing like you had or had even been meant for back home, unless I'm mistaken. And in a place far more hostile by nature, before you add the outside threats. And you held the position for, what, year and a half or something?" He shrugged. "I'd call that a pit of a feat, personally."