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

[angleofscience]

Oh, he wasn't... Staring, Jetfire realized he wasn't talking about the past, then, but the... well, near-present. He wasn't sure what to think about that either, even if Sunstorm had obviously not been perfectly... natural.

The description about how Liege could tell that he'd had... ah. Some very probably supernatural occurences was met with a blank stare. That was a bit... Well, no. His energy signature might actually have taken impression of Sunstorm's presence even if that was more or less a stellar cycle ago.

And even further back... Well, he had been standing in a small place with a containment field when the... ah. Energy. Precense had erupted.

"Previously? Another place where multiple realities met as well, though the one who was seemingly in control claimed the whole multiverse had been destroyed." Jetfire shrugged, shaking his helm slightly and clearly not beliveing that at all.

"Before I ended up there? An altercation in my own universe with a clone of Starscream who exhibited some... preternatural tendencies." He wouldn't have been able to fight Sunstorm as he had, had he not upgraded and reformatted himself during and before Operation: Containment.

[maxicpolarity]

He chuckled, amused by the first description. "Obviously he was lying to you...though it might as well be destroyed for all that we can access it." The Lambda always weighed on him. Losing the old Refugees had been a blessing and a curse, in one...he'd had more free-time to himself, but he had also lacked in assistants, and gained a significant spark-ache at their disappearances.

This time, he was not eager to repeat the incident.

"Did you suspect there was something different about this clone, then?" He wasn't sure who 'Starscream' was, but that fact didn't really matter much. What was important, after all, was learning how Jetfire had interacted with this Light of Primus's.

Oh, and, of course, there was the other thing he'd nearly forgotten about. Unhooking it from his side, he held out his hand in offering to Jetfire.

"Take this. You can upload the communications software from it so that you might access the Link Network. It also serves as a translator, which you might find as helpful as I do." Resting in his hand was an ancient-looking data-stick, covered in lines and scroll-work that seemed to match the aesthetic of the Firstforged. Conveinently, it had a universal plug at the end.

[angleofscience]

Taking the data-stick, Jetfire turned it over in his hands for a moment before plugging in, optics narrowing slightly at the program downloaded and then was installed.

"All of us figured as much; the situation in general and the fact that people kept arriving didn't match up. Even if he had access to a single moment to travel around and save some individuals as their realities were destroyed, we kept arriving for well over a year... A moment would run out, sooner or later." This had simply cemented his pretty firm theory that Lord Deior had been lying, one way or another...

Or, for another angle, believeing he was right, or doing the right thing. Either way, that didn't have any bearing on the present situation. Turning the data-stick around in his hands again, Jetfire frowned.

"He was putting out more power than the experimental solar fusion reactor that powered him ought to be able to give, and while he had a substance similar to electrum that protected him from burning out, he possessed some remarkable self-regeneration..." Jetfire looked up and Liege as he finally handed the data-stick back.

"Capable of recovering from what ought to be fatal or near-fatal injuries within moments, even if it took him longer to reboot. He was also capable of more speed than the standard Seeker is, and he... claimed he was following the will of the Oracle and the light." He shrugged, frown deepening briefly as he remembered the... anomalous data he'd experienced during recharge at the Keep a while ago.

His... possible death after Sunstorm's explosion, and---

"There was also the fact that he led Starscream to a cybertronian sigil on a planet that oughtn't have it, under which laid a cave with a pit of energy of unknown composition," Jetfire said, giving a basic rundown of the events... though ommitting a few things, for brevity if nothing else.

"Starscream kicked Sunstorm into it during the altercation, however it happened, something within Sunstorm reacted with said energy, causing a standard binary-agent reaction. I'm not presicely sure what happened, because I was taken to this keep before I managed to confront him, but I hope time does not flow as normal, or events turned dire soon after I disappeared."

He didn't like thinking about that.

[maxicpolarity]

"Clever," Liege said, simply. This was the first time he'd dealt with a Refugee who had been to a different universe before this one, but in some ways that made it easier. There was so much less he had to explain.

This 'Sunstorm,' however, was another point entirely. From what Jetfire was explaining, he sounded like an excessive force for their world...and the light reminded him all-too-much of Prima.

"I would be interested in the data you collected from him," he said, curious about how similar it might have been, but also very curious about the mention of Electrum. That was pertinent to his current line of research.

So were sigils of Cybertronian origin that appeared on other planets. That seemed like just the sort of thing that he would do, while out on one of his explorations.

However, something in the story did not make sense.

"You're aware of events after your departure?"

[angleofscience]

"Ah, of course..." Jetfire murmured, optics dimming for a moment as he brought up all the relevant information he and Ratchet had managed to get from observation and the fragments of Sunstorm's armour that had been scraped off onto him during their fighting.

He hesitated a moment, and then simply compressed it and tested both his access to, and the function of, the network by sending the file over to Liege then and there.

"It's not a lot, since what I had to work with was observation and fragments of armour, but I hope it can be useful."

Liege's question had Jetfire quieting, and then he looked off, arms folded over his chestplates.

"Not as... such. Sunstorm was going critical the moment I was taken from; unless time stands still and without my interference, he would have exploded in low-Earth atmosphere." He shook his helm and looked back to Liege, having... ah, slid over the maybe-not knowledge from the dream he'd had at the Keep.

He still didn't know how to approach that, so for the moment, it was neatly tucked away.

"The binary-agent reaction was detoriating his phyical stability as well as his mental one, and he intended to cause as much harm in general as he could at that moment, so I can only assume that's what either has, or will, happen, without Sunstorm being forced into the upper parts of the stmosphere or beyond."

[maxicpolarity]

Liege nearly stopped paying attention to Jetfire's words, entirely, when he received the packet. There was not as much as he was hoping for inside, but it was more than enough to distract him with considerations and comparisons, making him itch to return back home and start dissecting it.

But no.

He was here, in the junkyard, and he still had Refugees to speak with.

He was, technically, speaking with one now.

"A reaction like that in an oxygen rich atmosphere?" He laughed, softly. "There might not be a world left when you return."

It wasn't funny, precisely, but it was ironic. "Now. I should be moving on to collect whatever other...beings...might be mine to collect. If I give you coordinates, do you believe you could make your way to my temple?" He's seen you fly, and now you've been refueled. "My acolytes there can show you to a room. After that, you are free to explore, provided that you come to assist me in my lab when I need."

[angleofscience]

Jetfire frowned at the comment, optics dimming slightly. That had been his theory as well, and it didn't please him at all to have that (maybe more than) possible outcome be the actual one. Hopefully time did not synch up, and there was still time to return and do what he might have to do...

(He'd rather sacrifice himself than a whole planet, after all.]

"Perhaps. Do you know if the time here flows the same as elsewhere, or if all realities are... ah, temporally disconnected from each other?" Even as he asked, Jetfire nodded and warmed up his flight systems, rising up from the pile he'd been standing on and hovering above it, ready to take off when Liege left.

"Certainly, and I... look forward to rendering what assistance I can," Jetfire said with a dip of his helm. He was looking forward to it, but he'd noted the choice of words and felt some faint impulse of wariness bubble up.

No reason to do anything further about it than note it and consider it in the context it came up; there was no proof for anything else.

[maxicpolarity]

"Since no one has been able to return, I can't give you information on the timestream one way or another. However, I suspect we'll find out, once we begin working on controlling the Lambda."

He can certainly tell the reason you are asking. In his experience, most mechs don't relish the idea of destroying an entire world--especially through their absence.

Still, he does appreciate your relative eagerness.

"I look forward to your capable assistance, as well," he smiles, managing what actually seems to be a comforting smile. He wants to keep you, so he sees no reason to scare you off just yet.

"Until then." And he'd nod to you, once, before moving off further into the junk.