re_alignment_logs | OPENING LOG: Awakening

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OPENING LOG: Awakening

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.))

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Jetfire had temporarily landed from his search around the piles of junk, mostly on a whim as he'd thought he'd seen someone already on the way to getting buried under scrap... He wasn't wrong, he realized as he got closer, since the mech chose that moment to sit up.

Actually, wasn't that---

He didn't have time to finish the thought as the mech spoke and confirmed what he was seeing, even if some... details, and slightly in the lines more than any actual difference in looks.

"... Prime? Are you all right?" Close enough now his shadow would've fallen over the mech if the light had been strong enough, Jetfire offered a hand to the sitting Autobot leader. Different reality or no (and he was rather sure this wasn't the Prime he'd been looking for so long for), it was still Optimus. He'd offer what assistance he could.

Optimus Prime reset his optics in surprise, staring up at the large mech. From the look of the area, he hadn't expected to see anyone until he had started searching. If he had found anyone at all.

He could have been tossed into a dead universe, for all he knew. So he didn't expect to see a familiar looking face so quickly.

"...Jetfire?"

Bemused, he reached up and accepted the hand, junk falling everywhere as he managed to get to his feet.

"Ah, yes. Though perhaps not... er, the one you know," smiling slightly as he spoke, Jetfire nonetheless briefly clasped the arm he was holding the hand of when Optimus got upright. It was good to be standing before him again, no matter if it was the right one or no.

Which would probably be obvious when Jetfire was in view, possessing some differences in both height and design from the Jetfire Optimus knew. Not that this one knew that.

"I'd say it was good to finally see you again, but I doubt we have ever met before." Dipping his helm in a silent greeting, Jetfire took half a step back to allow Optimus some room. He was not a lot taller, but he was still taller than the Prime, and was aware what his being up close to someone shorter did to them.

Crowded.

Despite having to think about this again from spending more than half a stellar cycle over two thirds shorter than he ought to be, Jetfire was pleased.

Another surprise, even as Optimus automatically clasped Jetfire's arm in return. What was going on.

"...I could say the same. You've experienced alternate universes before?" Startled again, Optimus gave the surroundings another glance, as though it would suddenly make the area appear more familiar.

"Where are we? ...This isn't Axiom Nexus, is it?"

It almost wouldn't surprise him if he was actually still there, only dumped in the city's waste heap.

"If it is, I wouldn't know. If Axiom Nexus is on... ah, a Cybertron, we might be there. There's two moons that look very similar to the moons the Cybertron I'm from would have, but I only woke up here a little while ago... All I've seen are these piles of... ah, detrius." Jetfire shrugged and then smiled slightly, dryly.

"And I have. Starscream and I were pulled from our own to a place that was similar to... er, a human fortress? The "Lord" of the location claimed the whole multiverse had been destroyed and that he was working on putting things back again," he said with a shake of his helm, giving a wide gesture around them and then crossed his arms.

"Considering our present location, and the fact that individuals kept arriving at the Keep, I am... disinclined to believe that explanation." He tilted his helm, then, and thought back on what Optimus just had said. "You've not been in your own reality as well prior to coming here, then? Or did you already know about alternate realities from home?" It'd be interesting if the latter was the case, and how that had been found out.

Human fortress? Destroyed multiverse? Apparently 'this' Jetfire had been through a lot as well.

"...I would be disinclined to believe that as well. But yes, Axiom Nexus is a city - seemingly a unique one - on specific Cybertron. Just not..."

He gestures out, past the heaps to the wastelands beyond.

"Just not this one." The stars were all wrong, and another than the one light glowing from the south, he could detect no other artificial lighting glowing on the horizons. No cities anywhere nearby.

He vents a sigh, glancing the large mech over, silently noting the differences as he continued.

"But no, I have not been in my own reality for some time, stuck in the city. It is a 'multiversal hub', built to house those coming in from other other worlds through a tear-" he gives the rift floating high above a thoughtful glance- "and to occasionally, send them back home. I thought I was returning home when I stepped through. Apparently I was wrong."

That was certainly interesting to learn. A unique location? He wanted to know more, but that could, perhaps, wait a few moments...

"Not similar enough to the Cybertron where this Axiom Nexus was, then?" Jetfire frowned thoughtfully, resting a curled finger against his chin guard. Glancing around, he though he knew why. Lack of lights. There was no evidence of any - at least not in any way close to their current location - cities. The only anomaly was that bright light towards the south.

He looked up again as Optimus elaborated on where he'd been previously, curiosity written across his features.

"You were unable to leave from that place on your own accord as well? I suppose the reasoning could be different, but if it turns out we're unable to leave here... wherever it is, as well, I'm wondering if it's a function of the sort of junction created when a time-space anomaly touchs upon several realities and creates a multi-dimensional nexus, or merely an excuse given by those who might be capable of controlling it, or, indeed, being in charge of it..." Trailing off, Jetfire looked back at Optimus where he'd been staring up at the black tear with its white, glowing center line, and shrugged.

"No. The city was...completely, vastly populated. The entire planet was."

Optimus sighed. He felt like he needed to emphasize that fact, comfortable enough with the obvious similarities between this mech and the one he knew to talk freely. After all, for all he knew, this Cybertron could be his own, ruined and distant and with nothing but scattered scrap to show for it.

"It was a Cybertron without the war, our war, if you happen to know it." He gestures toward himself, and he assumes Jetfire does, if only because of the obviously placed Autobot sigil. Even if the idea of someone not knowing of their foolish war is beyond strange to him at this point.

"They had advanced quite far without it. They couldn't seem to stop the rift completely, but with some highly energy-consumptive means they were able to focus it, and send people home. ...After a time."

The reaction to Optimus asking if he knew the war - even if he only knew his variation of it, as well as what little he'd exhanged with Ironhide to get his variation - was a wry twist of his lips and a tilt of his helm in acknowledgement.

He did know it, better than he wanted to... but he couldn't have said no to Operation: Containment either, really. He had a duty not just to his fellow Autobots, but the rest of the galaxy as well... even if he'd thought it a better way to serve that duty to find Optimus and the Ark than concentrating on the Decepticon attacks on other planets.

"I do, yes... And I can imagine we could, if the differences for the war, and the different desires behind it could either be compromised around, or put aside." Frowning, Jetfire looked around the junk around them and then shook his helm.

"Whatever Cybertron this is, which it does seem to be, we need to find out at what point it's existing on the timeline, and act from there, whether or not we can find a way to get home more or less immediately." Jetfire glanced at Optimus at the comment about "after a time"; the edge to the Prime's voice suggested something... But presently, that probably had no bearing on this situation.

He hadn't really expected Jetfire to not know of the war, but he didn't want to make assumptions.

"Well. There are a number of options, but given this junkpile...it doesn't look immediately promising." He glanced around pointedly, shaking his head.

"To be honest, at first I somewhat feared I might be within an 'dead universe', but I somehow doubt it now. Have you spoken with anyone else here? Are we alone, or are their others?"

"Hopefully our immediate surroundings aren't indicative of the rest of the planet, Cybertron or not," Jetfire said with a shake of his helm, even if the twin - and clearly metal - moons were extremely familiar, and what he had seen from the air seemed... similar enough that it ought to be Cybertron.

"... Dead universe? They'd send you somewhere you didn't belong, and moreover, to a universe that had been destroyed?" Jetfire's optics widened slightly, and then narrowed before he continued. "Not alone, however. I came here with Starscream, and I've seen others as I flew around... and talked to a mech of a curious design."

He'd already seen those with dissimilar design to his own, but this was more about Dinobot's very different height, as well as the strangely animalistic - and biological at that - altmode.

Optimus nodded slowly, expression gone wry. The mention of Starscream's name only earned a small twitch.

"They would at that. Technically, I was an 'illegal', as Primes and Megatron's were forbidden in the city, no matter the fact that I didn't want to be there in the first place. It seems we have a nasty habit of stirring up trouble."

He snorted, shrugging.

"Starscream is here as well?" Hopefully he would behave, at least as much as he had in Axiom. If this version of the mech was even similar. "How much have you seen from the air? Any other signs of civilization?"

Jetfire cleared his vents in a sharp expulsion at the mention that Primes and Megatron had a "habit" of stirring up trouble. He couldn't quite hide his small smile as he shook his helm.

"Being who you are, it doesn't surprise me someone in charge would attempt to... ah, curb the influence and presence of the type of influential individuals both of you are," Jetfire said with a chuckle. He could understand it, even if they had obviously gone about it in the worst kind of way.

"Ah, yes, mine---Er." Looking away, optics bright, it took Jetfire a moment - technically not long at all, merely a handful of astroseconds - to collect himself. "The Starscream from my reality is, yes." Glancing up towards the sky, Jetfire shrugged.

"I've mostly been flying over all this detrius in an attempt to see who else are present, and while there seems to be something in the way of buildings beyond all of this, I would hazard a guess it's scattered at best." There really didn't seem a lot of it, but there was that truly curious thing with the bright light to the south that Jetfire couldn't figure out what it was supposed to be.

"Hn. Not surprising, no, but very inconvenient to be forced to go undercover in such a manner." He shook his head. "Anything to the south, near that light?"

Optimus gestured out toward the brighter section of sky, even as he slowly raised an optic ridge at Jetfire's brief verbal stumble, curious.

"And I trust this Starscream is...capable of getting along with Autobots?"

Capable of getting along? After a fashion, yes. Jetfire snorted, and then shook his helm, looking in the direction Optimus was gesturing before he replied.

"When it suits and benefits him, yes, along with a few other... more extraordinary situations." Jetfire wasn't about to completely "out" Starscream as it were, but he wouldn't omit all of it either.

"With the right incentive, he can be convinced to work alongside us." Whether that was his own benefit, Jetfire standing right next to him, or Jetfire appealing to... ah, what was left of his better nature... well.

"And there does seem to be something over there, as well as in each cardinal direction." Jetfire nodded towards the bright light and then made a sweeping gesture to indicate the rest of the quadrants around the piles of junk. "It was just somewhat more easy to see that there actually seemed to be something like actual constructed buildings in that direction." The light helped pretty well with that, after all.

Optimus actually chuckled. That sounded rather like the Starscream he had met before - and it was certainly better than the one from his own universe, at least.

"That is good to hear. Now, how would you like to go about this? I may be tied to the ground, but I can check a direction while you check another. Perhaps the Starscream you know can check another, and we can find others."

He cocked his helm questioningly. Optimus has gone through this before - he isn't about to start ordering around others from a different universe, Autobot or not.

Jetfire, however, nodded easily, perfectly at ease to take the suggestion as closer to an order, no matter if it was such a thing or not.

"I should attempt to meet up with Starscream either way soon, so after that, certainly." His flight systems cycled up, slow and lazy more because they had time rather than Jetfire not being able to boot them up quickly, and the roar of the engines picking up speed would disturb the conversation... not that they presumably couldn't switch to comm if needed, but still.

"Getting Starscream to agree might be somewhat tricky, he'll want to explore either way. Call on me if needed," Jetfire said with an easy smile, though the ping along the Autobot frequency... which, apparently, actually was the same across realities... was slightly hesitant as he lifted up in the air.

It was mostly due to the fact that he'd been uncertain whether they'd be sharing said frequency or not, but the other part was lingering faint amazement.

"Of course. You do the same."

Optimus stepped back to allow Jetfire room to go aloft, giving him an easy wave. The functional comm system was a pleasant surprise, but he noted down Jetfire's frequency and continued on his way.

It wouldn't be easy to travel, given the lack of roads and piles of unstable junk, but he would manage.

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OPENING LOG: Awakening

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