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

[automobile_enthusiast]

It's the haptic input that pulls Knock Out out of his uneasy recharge. He comes awake slowly, his processes booting up in an irregular cascade. At first there's only unfiltered sensation. The pressure sensors under his armor are detecting an uncomfortable pulling at the ventral plating of his waist, and hands roaming over other parts of his scratched-up body. His EM field registers another Cybertronian life signal, very close to him. His nociceptors report pain-pain-pain from more than a few spots on his body, but that's no surprise, and his audials pick up a lot of staticy noise. His dorsal tactile net is coming back with--

Wait.

Wait.

Perception's coming online now, and cognition behind it, assimilating all those disparate physical sensations into one very unwelcome picture: there's someone touching him. Poking, prying, it doesn't matter. He's not happy about it.

He jerks upright with a grunt, crying out an instant later as the movement wrenches the sharp points digging into his midsection. From his superior vantage, it takes him only an instant to recognize the bulky red and white mech sprawled out in front of him. "Scrap."

He tries to scrabble away but only ends up digging himself into the loose substrate he's sitting on. No good.

"Scrap! Get off of me!" Yelling will help, right?

[docbot]

Wellp, there's only one person that voice could belong to. Scrap it all, Ratchet is going to punch something when he figures out what's going on.

"If I could, don't you think I would b-?! Primus, you fragging idiot! No!"

He shouts, somewhat muffled by Knock Out's plating, then falters when Knock Out scrabbles back, because the movement destabilizes Ratchet's balance. The mech tips over involuntarily, hissing in pain at the wrench in his chevron, and grabbing on to whatever he can to try and steady himself again.

Unfortunately, said motion ends up tangling his fingers in something else.

"Fraggit."

[automobile_enthusiast]

Nope, yelling did not help, not that he'd particularly expected it to. His engine turns over in his chassis, the roar of it preceded by a bit of a stutter. Scrap.

At least he stops trying to squirm away? He freezes, looking around wildly, but there's nothing to see but junk. That's okay with him, it means he can focus on the Autobot. It's not even hard to figure out that the chevron points jammed up under his plating are the primary author of their misfortune.

He wraps his long talons around Ratchet's head and tries to shove it away. "Get off get off get off--!"

[docbot]

"Ow ow ow- stop that."

Ratchet grits his teeth initially when Knock Out starts yanking at his head, but after a few tries, all he's registering is pain.

He reaches up to bat Knock Out's talons away, growling, "Aren't you supposed to be a medic? All that's going to do is tear my chevron off!"

[automobile_enthusiast]

"If that's what it takes to detach you--" Knock Out didn't bother to finish the thought; his voice was a rough growl, far from the usual slick composure of his speech.

His efforts to dislodge the other mech weren't working, though. He couldn't properly brace himself against the loose and shifting surface of the junk, couldn't get the leverage he needed to pry the sharp planes of the chevron loose. "Slaggit all," he swore, his claws peeling up trails of paint as he raked them helplessly across Ratchet's helm. "How can you be this stuck?!"

[docbot]

Ratchet yelped as he felt Knock Out digging into his helm and banged a fist against the other mech's thigh in protest.

"I don't know! Why does your plating have to be so tight?"

He growled disgustedly and tried to toss his head to no avail. In fact, the only thing his movement did was shift the junk enough that one key supporting factor fell out ... causing a localized avalanche of trash, and sending the pair of them tumbling downhill.

If asked later, Ratchet will fully admit that he screamed like a juvenille.

[automobile_enthusiast]

If asked later, Knock Out will fully refuse to admit that he also screamed like a juvenile. That cacophony of noise that accompanied the two of them as the tide of junk tumbled them down the hill? That was all Autobot. Seriously.

It took his gyros a minute to recalibrate once they'd slid to a halt at the bottom of a trough between two heaps of rubbish. He was laying on his side, half-buried in junk, more trash scattered above and around the both of them.

He shoved at Ratchet's head again, then hissed through his intakes as it sent a twist of pain through his perceptive nets. Somehow, their little jaunt on the way down had only wedged them further together.

"I think your chevron's trying to breach my thoracic cavity, doctor," he hissed. "Not exactly an orthodox surgical technique, hn?"

[docbot]

Ratchet would note that Knock Out screamed even louder than he did. His vocalizer doesn't go nearly that high in pitch... but at the moment, he's stunned by the fall and the ensuing impact. The throbbing in his chevron that is slowly spreading into his cranium is not helping either.

"Urgh." He sighs and attempts to bring his hand to the side of his head to rub at the connection of chevron to helm. It won't soothe much, but maybe the extra stimulus will distract his sensory nets a bit. "If this were a common surgical technique, I would have quit medical training and become a pterorabbit breeder vorns and vorns ago."

[automobile_enthusiast]

Knock Out laughs, the sound almost a cackle and a surprise even to him. "In which case you and I wouldn't be stuck like this, which frankly would be all right by me."

He shrugs one arm free of the loose trash on top of him and plants his palm on top of Ratchet's head, giving the mightiest shove he can muster in an attempt to dislodge him.

No luck. Not even a wiggle. "Glitching pitspawn!"

[docbot]

It's because he's been living so long with Miko's influence that Ratchet's response is "I KNOW YOU ARE, BUT WHAT AM I?" instead of something vaguely witty. Obviously.

He braces himself on his hands and knees and tries bracing himself in an attempt to help Knock Out's efforts. It's not working too well... but it does create quite the situation for the familiar bot approaching to stumble on.