OPENING LOG: Awakening

[re_alignedmods]

WHO: Everybody!
WHERE: The Junk Pile.
WHEN: Right here, right now.
WHAT: Game opening! Our Heroes find themselves in a strange place not of their own world, however familiar (or not) it may be.

---

Consciousness is slow, and a struggle to obtain. The moments before darkness are hazy enough; a great vertigo, a twisting, and then, falling. Falling for what seemed like forever. And when you are finally aware of your surroundings, it is most decidedly not where you came from.

Instead, you are now in what appears to be a wasteland. A wasteland...of junk. Debris as far as you can see, heaped in mini-mountains that offer only so good of a view of the world around you. Perhaps in the distance, you can make out some flatter land, perhaps you can just make out what looks like a crevice - but it's difficult at best. The light here is all wrong, the two greatest sources being a white line in the alien sky that doesn't so much give off light as simply have it - and something in the south that glows like a setting sun.

You may or may not notice it at first, but you, too, have something alien - something on your arm, more likely than not. A marking that glows softly, but offers no clue as to how it got there - no pain, no sensitivity. It's simply there, as you are here.

So.

Now what?

((OOC: This is it, you guys! Have a blast! Please remember to keep everything under the first thread for now; we'll be adding the Firstforged in in a little bit...

OKAY There is now a second thread to post in! Feel free to make new threads there to react to the arrival of the Firstforged, or respond directly to the Firstforged themselves.))

Comments

[patokichi]

Coming back to consciousness for him, is rarely every like this. Not this slow. It feels like he's booting sluggishly. Systems coming online one by one.

Sound. Taste. Sensation of something pressing into his side.

Slowly he becomes aware of his extremities and isn't that funny? Hadn't he been in patrol card mode, sleeping peacefully in the garage of the Tomonaga household? Hazy, he lets himself drift, befuddled by the fact until it becomes suddenly acutely apparent.

Yuuta had been sleeping with him, curled in his passenger seat, drooling slightly on his upholstery (he can't begrudge the child for something so innocent) and if he was there before where is he now?

Why can he not feel the bead of warmth the small body made?

And then a moment of panic because he still can't move his limbs. Something heavy is on them, and in his worry, it becomes quickly infuriating. He always took for granted the obedience of his own body. Trying to get things to respond when they are trapped like this. He manages to wiggle one arm free, and something collapses next to him.

Sight. He can see a sliver of dull light from whatever shifted and he works his other arm free subsequently.

Legs next, which is more difficult. After some great efforts he ends up with them tucked up against his torso and, exhausted as he's feeling, shoves upwards. He finds that he'd been buried under a few layers of scrap metal.

"YUUTA!"

Where is he?

This is not earth.

"YUUTA?!"

Maybe he's been kidnapped? Or worse-

The Brave Detective turns down and starts to dig down in the junk where he'd been buried. What if his best friend was crushed under there? A few exhausting minutes later prove unproductive, and he quickly realizes it'd be futile to search this place. It's vast. He looks down at his damaged hands, optics flickering at the odd glowing symbol on his forearm. He scrubs at it briefly, wondering if it could come off...

No. Never mind it. First directive is to find Yuuta. So he'll start walking. There has to be some kind of clue as to what happened. He tries to settle himself, treat it like just another case.

It doesn't ease his mind much. Something feels off. Distant. Severed.

He draws his gun, just in case.

[docbot]

It's the shouting that draws Ratchet's attention and brings him over to where Decker is. While the words may be in a human tongue, he'd recognize that tone of voice anywhere. It isn't angry or annoyed -- that's fear and panic right there, and that's the kind of thing that Ratchet absolutely can't ignore.

He transforms and speeds towards the source of the cries (because running over this shifting terrain is a pain in the aft). Still in ambulance form, he calls out in English.

"Hey there!"

And then he's close enough to recognize the gun in the blue bot's hand. Cautiously, he pulls himself back into his bipedal form, so that he can communicate more easily.

"Hey. I'm Ratchet. Is everything alright?"

[patokichi]

The Brave Detective is almost startled to hear an answer to the fuss hes making, and really he feels instantly sheepish. It's probably pretty stupid to give away his position like that- but he's finding it really hard to care.

Yuuta is gone, damn it. He's always been charged with protecting him, making sure he's safe and happy and he's utterly failing that right now.

His internal strife is interrupted however, when he turns to see the source of the voice.

Another robot- he's never seen this one before. It looks like it could be a BP model, but where Deckerd is made to look, act and sound like a human, that's not the feeling he gets from this one. Still... he's obviously not a threat. Friendly.

He holsters his gun and briefly raises his hands in a disarming gesture.

He didn't understand most of what Ratchet said. He knows it's English (proper English, not that nonsense Gunmax occasionally tags onto his sentences).

He hopes, if the bot understands English he'll understand Japanese, too...

"I'm looking for a boy. Nine years old? Dark hair. Answers to 'Tomonaga Yuuta'. Have you seen any children around?" He pauses, suddenly unsure, "Human children?"

Couldn't hurt to specify. He's curious about this new robot. Is he a BP model? Who made him?

However, his curiosity will have to wait. There's more important matters at hand.

[docbot]

Ratchet relaxes, even smiles a little when the mech holsters his gun, but then he starts speaking and, well. That is not English or Cybertronian. Still, never say that Ratchet's not one to be prepared. They'd charged themselves with protecting all of the human race, after all, not just the Americans, so he'd learned the most common other languages. That said, it's not as if he'd had a chance to practice much (or at all). Out of Deckard's sentence he was able to parse out that the bot was looking for a nine-year-old boy of some sort, but ... what was a "Tomonaga Yuuta"?

"Ah... sorry, but I do not have a lot of Japanese." He winces internally at the halting, clumsy nature of his speech, but soldiers on. "I've seen only one boy. He is not what you are looking for.

He pauses a bit longer, then decides to offer, "Could I help you look?"

[[ ooc: Take an English sentence, Google Translate it to Japanese, then put it back to English. Voila, you get Ratchet's horrifying translation capabilities. ]]

[patokichi]

Deckerd brightens visibly when he hears the familiar canter of his native language, broken as it is. He's so relieved he could laugh. He won't- afraid the bot might take it as an insult. Instead he smiles fondly, appreciating his attempt. He speaks decently for someone who obviously isn't a native speaker.

He tries to slow himself down when he talks, he has a habit of speaking quickly, but when he slows he's fairly easy to understand since he uses the polite form of everything.

"That's okay. I can understand, that's all that matters," There's a brief pause, "My name is Deckerd. I'm a detective with the Brave Police. I certainly won't say no to any help. But... could you tell me where we are by any chance? Are you a BP model?"

He presents his badge, as if that would offer some kind of credibility to someone who's probably never even heard of the Brave Police.

[docbot]

Mentally, Ratchet sends a thank you up to Primus that they have a ... well. A somewhat common language. Although he's certainly got some luck running into a second man-made bot.

You'd have thought that I'd know about some of these, being on Earth for so long. Are they all new?

But that's not important right now. What is, is communication and trying to find this... Deckerd's (?) boy.

"BP? Ah... hm. No. I'm not like you. I am a ... //Cybertronian//. Autonomous robot comes from the planet //Cybertron//... it is there where we might be. If the star is right."

He points up when he says that last mangled phrase, indicating that the constellations are very much not those seen on Earth. Heck, they aren't really those of the Cybertron that Ratchet remembers, but there are enough of the main ones evident, that he feels comfortable indicating that they might be somewhere close.

[patokichi]

"Saibaturonian?" For as much as Ratchet struggles to speak Japanese, Deckerd struggles with everything else. he chews on the word awkwardly, cocking his head.

"You mean you're not built by humans?" Unfortunately for Ratchet Deckerd hasn't been canon updated to have seen an alien the concept of someone from beyond the stars is pretty fresh to him. However he accepts it fairly quickly. There's certainly no denial there. He just seems mostly confused.

"Ah... hm." He has a lot more to ask, but right now they're wasting time.

"I suppose we should get to looking."

[engrishdetective]

Over the loud hum of his motorcycle's engine, he hears it. A shout. A suspiciously familiar one, to boot. Gunmax slows himself down and he listens carefully.

Oh yes. He knows that shout for Yuuta anywhere. All too familiar.

"Deckerd," he hisses to himself in surprise and most certainly relief. No doubt in the frantic search for their boss, Deckerd didn't think to use his badge. Frankly, who can blame him? Things are... very odd right now.

The biker speeds up, heading towards the sound. It's good to have McCrane around, but it's completely different to know that the Brave Detective is present -- for a lot of reasons that Gunmax isn't interested in focusing on.

Finally, he sees him.

"DECKERD!" Gunmax shouts for him.

[patokichi]

He never thought it would be such a relief to hear Gunmax's voice calling for him, but it's an immense comfort. He turns, tucking his gun away and runs toward the source of the shout.

When Gunmax comes into view his relief is reaffirmed and he's stumble-running down the hill of junk, sliding halfway down as it partially collapses under him. There's a part of him that just wants to hug him but when they finally meet there's only an awkward raising of hands and then he thinks better of it because seriously.

Instead after another extremely awkward second he's patting Gunmax on the arm.

"Boy am I glad to see you. Is anyone else here? Have you seen Yuuta?"

[engrishdetective]

Almost lost in a bit of the excitement of seeing his partner, Gunmax nearly forgets to park his motorcycle. He hops off and he has a similar feeling; in his relief, he'd like to just hug the damn patrol car, but that's not happening. That'd be a little awkward.

So the arm pat is fine.

"I haven't seen Boss. I'm sure he's fine." Because if Gunmax doesn't believe that, he'll worry out of his mind. "I found McCrane, but he's the only other one I've come across. Otherwise, I've seen a lot of robots here. It's... been odd."

Gunmax frowns behind his visor. He isn't sure what else to say about Yuuta, but he knows they won't stop looking for him. If he isn't with Deckerd, that could be trouble. It'd just... be bad to say that out loud.

[patokichi]

Deckerd finds that a little hard to believe, though he really hopes so. His arms are already pretty torn up from digging through scrap metal in a panic. He'd rather not make a repeat of that.

"I hope you're right," He heaves a sigh at the news of McCrane being there as well. Maybe the whole team is? He can only hope They're stronger when they're together.

"I know what you mean. I met another bot. He was like a BP model but there some something strange about him. He spoke English, so he was difficult to understand. Do you think you can translate in those cases for us? I wish Mister Toudou had given me more than the absolute basics..."

[engrishdetective]

"Like a BP model. ... Yeah, I've seen a bunch of those. The one I spoke to knew English and Japanese. He said he was something called a Cybertronian." Gunmax shrugs, his optics glancing down Deckerd's damaged arms. Superficial, easy to fix.

But it speaks volumes about Deckerd's fears for Yuuta.

"I can translate it just fine," Gunmax scoffs a bit egotistically. "Spoke to a few people in English. Worked out okay."

Yet ironically, he feels more comfortable in Japanese where conversations are concerned.

"C'mon, we can hop on Gunbike and see if he can find Boss, all right? Maybe the others."

[patokichi]

"Hmm. Do you think if we find an engineer that I can borrow your English language pack to install? That will make things a whole lot easier."

Then again...

There's a brief image that passes through his head of greeting someone like Gunmax...

Rove you, baby!

Deckerd winces. Whatever. He'd deal with it.

"Sounds like a plan to me. Did you happen to find out from anyone you spoke to where we are? It seems like most everyone is in the same conundrum."

[mccrane]

Since parting from Gunmax, there'd been more than enough surprises hidden in the mountains of junk. He'd met humans that claimed to not be from earth but spoke English. He'd met robots from 'Cybertron' who looked similar to human women and spoke Japanese. He'd even met an alien mech who spoke a language so completely dissimilar to anything that McCrane had learned, that they'd needed to talk through his living sword.

It had been fascinating, and he had gathered plenty of intelligence, but he still did not know why he was there or how to get back. He hadn't learned much of any use, at all.

That frustrated him.

He'd continued on. If he remained at the bases of the junk piles, he found his tires were heavy duty enough to drive on, and, in some ways, being a crane helped him to think. Merely driving helped him to think.

There was a mystery here to solve, but with only him and Gunmax to solve it and with a limited supply of fuel, he was worried. They were on a time limit, and that time was running out.

As he drove, he tried his communicator once again, just like he and Gunmax had agreed upon. The longer he was here, the more he'd began to hope the rest of the team had not fallen into their same fate...

...but if they had, he would be listening for them.

//This is McCrane. If any units are nearby, please respond.//

[patokichi]

After a long search on Gunbike with his partner, finding no trace of Yuuta, the two had decided to split up their search. Deckerd went on foot and Gunmax had gone by air to cover more ground. It's been an exhausting ordeal- and he'd almost forgotten the other detective had mentioned McCrane being present.

It shouldn't come as a surprise when he hears it over the radio in his badge, but Deckerd jerks a little before snapping it up and open.

//McCrane? Deckerd here! Sorry I didn't contact you before. What is your position?//

Still polite and proper as ever. Still, there's more than a little panic in his voice and he's been searching tirelessly for his human companion.

[mccrane]

He'd gotten used to not receiving answers by now.

He'd gotten so used to it, that there was a moment when he suddenly swerved, narrowly missing a stack of office chairs, skidded on all four wheels, and promptly came to a stop in a cloud of dust.

//Deckerd?!//

Deckerd was here?

He had to double-check, making sure he'd heard that right, waiting for the dirt to settle around him as he warred with relief and worry both. If Deckerd was here, that was one more to assist them in solving this case. But if Deckerd was here...that was one less back in Nanamagiri.

//I am...// He trailed off, looking for a reasonable landmark to plot his position. //Very close to a pile of Television sets. Is the boss with you?//

[patokichi]

//It's me.// Deckerd assures him, his relief seeps into his voice over the radio.

Television sets? Hmm. He'd passed a pile of them about twenty minutes ago. He'll just backtrack.

//Stay where you are, I'm coming.//

There's another pointed silence when McCrane asks about Yuuta. A moment where it pangs against him. He feels guilty for it. How could he lose him so easily?

//... No. I was hoping he was with you.//

He sounds distinctly disheartened, but he trudges on through the mountains of junk. Scaling a pile of microwaves, he can see McCrane in the distance.

[mccrane]

//Acknowledged.// He didn't have any intention of leaving, if Deckerd was coming here. It was already so much better to just hear his voice, to have one more part of this confusing mess that was familiar instead of worrying.

He knew the answer to his question, however, by the silence alone. Yuuta was not here, and Deckard was.

That was going to be hard on the police car.

Transforming back into robot mode to make himself an easier site, he kept an eye out for Deckerd's approach. //I have come across a small number of humans while investigating. None were from Japan.// He'd not met anyone else from Earth, at all. //My guess would be that the boss is likely safe at home.// It was meant to be comforting, as much as it was meant as a report. //We'll be there, soon, as well, once we have solved this mystery.//

[patokichi]

"I hope you are correct," Deckerd answers in person when he gets close enough. Trudging through piles of scrap, he's again, very tempted to greet his fellow Brave with a hug, but he thinks better of it. This is not the time, and quiet honestly he still has a bit of dignity, despite his state.

He's obviously visibly shaken, not to mention his forearms are all scraped and torn from digging through the scrap.

"It's... good to see you."

That will do.

[rotafortunae]

Luxord's been wandering, simply taking in the sights, observing. For the most part, he hasn't spoken to many; it's not in a Nobody's nature to confront people outright. As a creature not meant to exist, the best option was to stay hidden in the shadows.

But this robot fellow seemed to share a few design similarities with the first one he'd encountered, and also seemed a bit agitated about... something. With the way his luck was currently running though, the other robot wouldn't speak a word of English either.

"Are you looking for someone?" he shouted across the junk heap. "... and do you speak English?"

[patokichi]

Oh crud. Someone else who only speaks English.

It's strange to see a human here, though. Relieving, in fact. Maybe he's seen Yuuta. He just... has to communicate.

"A-ah no. No English."

Well this is awkward. He stammers out what he knows of the language, holding his hands up apologetically.

Jeez this is a really bad situation to be. in. Why hadn't Toudou programmed him with it?

"I am. Sorry."

This is by far the most awkward.

More so than the time he was handcuffed to Gunmax.

[rotafortunae]

Figures. For the first time in his rather short unlife, Luxord regrets completely ignoring Zexion's attempts to teach everyone how to actually speak other languages, and relying on their universal translation magic. What a time for that to fail...

"It's okay," he says, trying to tone down his usual verbosity. He figures this'll be massively unproductive, but it seems impolite to just leave outright.

He points to himself. "Luxord." And then gestures at the robot "And you...?"

[patokichi]

Carefully he kneels down to get closer, straining to understand. Though it clicks- obviously fairly basic. He smiles and nods.

Right. The most basic form of communication.

He tries out Luxord's name, though it sounds somehow more natural different. Then turning a finger towards his face.

"Deckerd." Though it sounds more like 'Dekkado'. There's another awkward pause. How to communicate what he's looking for?

"Ano... ah. Uhmhm-"

If only he kept pictures of Yuuta this would be so much easier.

And it would be a shock to the rest of the Brave Police that he doesn't.

[rotafortunae]

"Dekkado," he repeated. He'd heard stranger names. And... hm. How the blazes to try to communicate further? The only tool he had were his cards, and unlike a normal Tarot deck, they had no figures on them, only abstract symbols and numbers. Useless.

"You're looking for someone?" he said, trying to mime the action of looking around. He wished he had a pen and paper on him; even if he was no artist, at least stick figured could get something across...

[patokichi]

Well. Charades it is.

Deckerd understands for the most part, and he nods enthusiastically, making a little circle with his fingers (maru!).

The difficult part is conveying that he's looking for a little boy. He'll start with the fact that he's looking for a human, so he points to Luxord... and then measures a small height out with his hands.

Like you, but smaller.

"Tomonaga Yuuta."