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

[not_halfbaked]

"Crap, you did hit your head badly--" Spirits, maybe it was an Equalist with amnesia?

Korra took a breath, trying to calmly explain since the other guy probably needed calm. "Yeah, your, y'know, your mech tank--" Korra gestured, taking in the huge metal weapon. "--the mech tank you're piloting." Korra shrugged, her outstretched arms shifting as if she were measuring two options. "Granted, I've never seen a mech tank like this before with like real eyes and a mouth, but y'know, mech tanks probably come in different builds like Satomboiles do--"

Korra's eyes widened as she realized she was rambling, and she jerked into a stiff straight backed position, arms flat against her body. She coughed roughly into her fist.

"Anyway Sir, if you come out, I can help you...unless are you trapped? Can you not get out?"

The girl frowned. She had no water, she didn't see how fire could help, and the earth beneath her feet was actually sort of...odd. And forget about airbending.

Still, earthbending looked like the only thing for it right now.

"Look, I'm not much of a metalbender, but--" And slowly Korra bent up a small pillar of earth.

"--I can use earthbending to get you out. Reeeally carefully."

And then she let the pillar quickly drop and merge back with the relatively level plane. "Or if there's a specific thing I gotta to do to let you out of that mech tank, like flip a switch to let you out--just, y'know, instruct me."

[automobile_enthusiast]

The last thing Knock Out really wanted right now was to listen to human babble, but he was a bit of a captive audience-- and he was a bit curious. Only a bit, as his assorted aches and pains and the fact that he was somewhere other than where he should be both took mental precedent, but he could still manage a little curiosity.

He could definitely manage a little curiosity when he got to lay back in the junk pile to listen to her speak. When the underlying assumption of her prattle finally became clear to him, though, he shot right back up, staring down at her incredulously.

"I get it! You think there's a skin job like you--" he said, talking heedlessly over her right up until the pillar of earth rose out of the ground beside her. He fell silent, staring with wide optics.

"Did you do that?" he asked, leaning forward intently. "That thing with the dirt?"

[not_halfbaked]

Korra's body tensed as the pilot leaned his mech tank close to her. His weapon really was freakin' huge.

"Uh, yeah, I'm an Earthbender...." Korra trailed off, feeling a sense of deja vu when they were talking about Earthlings. And she remembered that the guy was probably suffering a concussion or something, he was dealing with some serious delusions, gaps in memory.

Korra coughed, and explained in an overly formal voice. "As in, I can control the earth and make it do what I want."

She was about to show off her firebending when she remembered that the pilot had never seemed to recognize her as the Avatar, which could be because of the knock on the head he must've received when falling down. Probably would be best if she didn't advertise herself as the Avatar yet, not unless she had to use another type of bending.

[automobile_enthusiast]

"By the Allspark," Knock Out said softly, astonished despite himself. "That's what you meant by 'earthbending', isn't it?" He leaned in even closer, his bright optics narrowing as he looked the human up and down.

Had he been mistaken? Was this particular organic not a human after all? As far as he knew, telekinesis-- even limited telekinesis-- wasn't exactly a trait common to the kind he knew. She certainly looked like a typical skin job, though, so if it was a case of convergent evolution, it was an astonishing one.

But she was speaking an Earth language...

"I didn't think humans were equipped with abilities like that," he said slowly. "Certainly I've never seen anyone do anything like your, ah, earthbending."

[not_halfbaked]

Korra fidgeted as the pilot looked her up and down.

She froze when he spoke.

"Uh...'humans?'"

The girl finally threw up her arms, exasperated. "How hard did you hit your head? You're acting like you're not human too!"

(And the thought bit at the back of her mind--she was forgetting who was human back home, hadn't she? She hadn't thought of Tarrlok as human when she kept coming at him and never stopped, just saw an enemy that had to go. Amon terrified her, she thought he was a monster--but surely he ate under that mask. And he'd been right about some benders, like Tarrlok. And Hiroshi was Asami's father, and surely those other Equalists and even that Mustache Guy had some sort of family or friends too.)

"And you've never seen Ear--well, okay, if your head's that seriously scrambled, you probably forgot about that too. Or maybe you came from some backwards village, I don't know!"

Korra wanted to pull at her hair. She just wanted to be home with Naga right now.

[automobile_enthusiast]

A slow, sharp smile spread across Knock Out's face. She hadn't realized yet, had she? She still thought he was just some shell wrapped around an organic core.

"Ah, but you see, that's the thing," he said, his voice lilting and singsongy. She may have been getting frustrated, but he was suddeny having a bit of fun. He straightened up a little tossing his head proudly and spreading his long-fingered hands across his chest. "I'm not human. Rather far from it, in fact~."

[not_halfbaked]

Korra frowned, eyes narrowed. "Then what are you--"

The girl's eyes widened as the thought struck her. Super weird place, strange mech tank now claiming it had no human pilot and yet still talking on its own, claiming it wasn't human....

"--you, are you a spirit?"

Korra went over the stories she'd heard of spirits. Even in the Spirit World, she'd heard spirits could take on shapes familiar to the mortal plane, something as tame as monkeys or overly huge and nightmarish centipedes. This one could be a spirit somewhat in the shape of a mech tank, and with Fire Nation style armor. And the place was strange--could it be the Spirit World? She was supposed to be the bridge between the mortal and spirit worlds, had she finally made a connection?

Excitement rose up in her chest at the thought. If this tank had no human pilot, it had to be a spirit, what else could it be? And this place was foreign and didn't match descriptions of places she'd learned about in geography texts, it had to be the Spirt World, right?

But if she was in the Spirit World...her body really could be locked up somewhere in a cage by Tarrlok. Korra inwardly shuddered at the thought.

[automobile_enthusiast]

"A spirit?" he repeated, head tilting curiously. He laughed. "Mm, I know I'm a vision, but--" Oh, but he wasn't anymore, was he? Not with his plating in this atrocious condition; not with his beautiful face half ground off.

But he'd stopped in the middle of what he was saying, hadn't he? He tried to cover the awkward pause with a chuckle. "Let's just say that I'm, oh, out of this world. ...Well, not this world, of course. Your world~."

[not_halfbaked]

Korra remembered some stories of spirits being, well, strange, with strange ways of speaking--strange to human mortals, anyway. The girl decided to chalk it up to the spirit not wanting to identify himself as such for some reason, maybe he didn't like how she was addressing him or something. For "out of your world~" and "visions"--it still sounded like he was a spirit, and he had to be, what else could he be?

Korra remembered she should be respectful with spirits. Should she announce she was the Avatar? Y'know, bridge between mortal and spirit worlds...but she decided against it. The red metal spirit had never acknowledged her as such; Korra was a poor student for protocol, and had less idea what it would be for spirits, but the girl thought it might be best to assume that she should let the spirit recognize her title first, before she said it. Of course, maybe he didn't know--through no fault of his own, but more of because she sure as hell didn't look like the Avatar, now did she?

All this went through Korra's head very fast, as well as the observation that the spirit had paused, looking self-conscious for a moment. And Korra supposed he had reason to be; Korra didn't think it was so bad, he was still functional, and it even looked like a healthy coating of dirt, but she could get that it probably wasn't how spirits presented themselves (except probably forest spirits and such). While looking more closely at the grit on the spirit's red armor, Korra narrowed her eyes. She'd noticed something.

Eyes still narrowed, she glanced to the strange tattoo on her arm; then back to the spirit, where a similarly strange tattoo peeked out of the dirt, though Korra thought it was a different color, certainly not black ink.

The girl remembered the spirit had claimed to have never seen earthbending like that before; perhaps he was a young new spirit (likely, if he was based on the mech tanks, those were rather new), but either way, it was probably safe to assume he had no control over the earth, and couldn't get the dirt off that way. Oh, for him it would be just brushing himself off, and if Korra had to help, she had to bend to do that, he was too large otherwise--but for him, it would be just brushing himself off...except when it came to difficult-to-reach spots, and Korra was certain there would be those, the spirit was still roughly shaped like her, with two arms and legs and a waist and a chest, just, y'know, bigger. And made of metal.

And this was a spirit, Korra should be respectful to it.

Now she just had to find the best way to approach it.

"Hey, looks like you got this weird mark too," Korra started, gesturing to the one on her cut up arm, and then pointing to the mark that peeked out from the dirt on the spirit's body. She carefully moved her arms to bend, started to do it experimentally as she spoke, "Here, let me get some of the grit off, so we can get a better look--"

The dirt began to smoothly and gently arc away from the armor, some having to vibrate slightly to shake itself out of dents they were stuck in (and at that, Korra tried not to wince, just focused on trying to make the process as painless as possible).

"--and I can do the rest, if you'd like," she said, still bending slowly, not just out of a desire to do it right and painlessly, but also to make sure this was all right with the spirit.

All the dirt she bent off she carefully gathered into one pile, thinking this would also be a bendable source she should carry around, just in case, especially after the fiasco with the total lack of water. Even Lin's great mother, Toph, carried the earth with her in a bracelet given to her by Sokka--and special earth too, that of the heavens, or so the stories went.

[automobile_enthusiast]

Preoccupied as he was with his ravished exterior, Knock Out didn't immediately realize what it was she was talking about. He actually hadn't noticed his mark yet. He'd been too distracted on awakening by his compromising position with Ratchet, and then with escaping from the Autobot and his allies.

Frankly, he might not have noticed regardless. The glyph was half-covered in a smear of dirt, after all, and Knock Out was trying not to look too closely at his gouged-up plating anyway. Not until he could start to fix it, that's what he'd sworn to himself as he'd been bridged back to the Nemesis.

Well he wasn't on the Nemesis now, and finding himself on some alien planet with no idea how he'd arrived had actually been enough to bump his appearance down a couple of notches on his mental list of priorities.

He had to look at the mark now, though, and his eyes were wide in unmasked astonishment as she cleaned the grime off his arm without even touching it. "By the Allspark," he murmured. "That really is quite the trick you've got there, isn't it?" He looked down at her, his narrow-eyed expression thoughtful for a moment.

"And what's this, then?" he muttered, turning his attention to his arm. When she said 'weird mark', he'd assumed she meant some random configuration of scratches and scuffs that had some coincidental significance to her, but no. There was something on his plating.

There was something on his plating.

"Oh no, I don't think so," he said, his attention now wholly focused on the mar on his silver-gray arm. He scratched at it with a clawtip, but the paint didn't flake off as expected.

In fact, it didn't feel like paint at all. Attention focused wholly on his arm now, he swiped at the mark again, and again and again, his engine starting to rumble loud and hot in his chest as he ineffectually tried to claw the blemish off his arm...

[not_halfbaked]

Korra blushed at the metal spirit's compliment. "Thanks!"

But her eyes turned worried when he started furiously scratching at the mark on his arm, an unnerving rumbling engine growing louder.

The girl shifted so that she could continue bending the dirt off him with one arm, while she raised up her marked arm. "Easy, I got the same mark too!" Then Korra remembered, and amended, "Well, not exactly the same, mine's black--"

But he kept clawing rapidly at his armor.

"Hey, c'mon, stop, you're just gonna leave more scratches--!"

[automobile_enthusiast]

"It's not coming off. It's not coming off!" He was barely cognizant of her right now, hyperfocused on the mysterious mark on his armor. It was bad enough to have to be seen like this at all, that he was scraped and scuffed and dented, that his beautiful and meticulously maintained paint job was devastated, but to have been marked against his will?

To have woken up with a stubborn glyph on his arm, a mystery that didn't even match what was left of his paint job?!

Unacceptable.

Rocking forward on to his knees, still ignoring Korra, he scrabbled through the junk until he came up with a loose handful of grit and metal shavings. He scrubbed them against his arm, heedless of the metal-on-metal shriek of the plating on his arm abrading away even further under the assault.

[not_halfbaked]

Korra's focus was completely gone; the grit she had been bending off Knock Out's armor dropped as she instinctively covered her ears, the metal-on-metal shriek was so freakin' bad.

Then the girl took a breath, narrowed her eyes, and raised her hands back up in a bending gesture. She had to get the guy's attention, before he seriously hurt himself, that metallic shriek did not sound good--

Korra carefully bent the earth below the large spirit so that it sank suddenly a few feet down.

That should get his attention. And she didn't have to knock him around to do it. (Tenzin would probably be proud.) He should be left relatively undamaged--Korra wasn't sure if he could take any more damage.

[automobile_enthusiast]

Her tactic worked. Having the ground drop out suddenly underneath him-- even if it didn't go far-- was enough to snap him out of obsessive focus on his arm. He forced his fingers open and let his handful of metal shards drop, watching them with unfocused optics as they fell.

He shook his head like a mech waking from a reverie, which wasn't far from the truth, and finally returned his gaze to Korra. "You did that, didn't you?" he asked, but the question was rhetorical.

Frowning, he prodded at his arm. He'd scraped down the plating to the base metal beneath, and energon was seeping sluggishly from the deepest of the gouges, but the mark was untouched. "Scrap." And she'd seen him lose control...

He forced a smile and a laugh. "I'm sorry about that," he said, trying to keep his voice light. "I, ah, lost track of myself a little bit there. Nothing to worry about, though~."

[not_halfbaked]

(OOC: I think waterbending is essentially the ability to bend H2O--I don't think that's written right, but I don't know how make the '2' smaller or put it lower--so do you think there's any H20 Korra could bend in energon, could she help stop his 'bleeding' that way? I actually don't think there's any H20 in energon despite the fact that it can shift between liquid and solid states, but I was wondering what you thought about energon's composition.)

Korra was relieved, but she couldn't muster a small grin, not even at his strained smile and laugh, not even for his light-voiced apology.

Her eyes strayed to what seemed like blood seeping from the gouges he had left behind, but they were a different color.

Then she glanced back to all the dirt. He didn't seem to be bleeding heavily, and Korra wasn't sure if he'd allow her anywhere near that to try fixing it, or if she even could, though it looked as fluid as water or blood....

But she could still clean all the dirt off him. If a foreign mark on his arm set him off, who knows how much all that dirt was really botheringn him. Korra began to again carefully and slowly bend the earth off him. "I can at least get all the grit out for you," Korra offered again. Part of her thought she would do it anyway, even if he never said 'yes.' She rather wanted to avoid seeing him tear at himself again.

And then she tried to remember. Had she given the spirit her name? "I'm Korra, by the way. What should I call you, Sir?"

[automobile_enthusiast]

[[Yeah, I don't think there's any water in liquid energon either. I mean, it's possible that what we call 'liquid energon' is actually a suspension of powdered energon in something like water, but I don't think so. It seems easier to assume that energon can just be shifted between solid and liquid states; the refinement process is probably something very similar to melting ice to make water. So yeah, though energon's a liquid, I don't think it's something that's bendable by Korra.

She is, of course, welcome to try bending it and not be able to.]]


Knock Out wasn't too worried about the scratches. He could already feel his arm heating up as his self-repair nanites congregated there, working to seal off the wounds from the inside. They wouldn't be able to do anything about filling in the scratches-- not without a lot of energon and raw alloy and some time to rest unmolested-- but at the very least he knew he wouldn't be bleeding for long.

Now that he wasn't quite so preoccupied by the unwelcome mark on his plating, he could actually appreciate the way he was using her neat little ability to clean the dirt off him. He sat quietly, watching with evident interest. "Mm, I rather like the sound of that," he said with an encouraging (if somewhat crooked) smile. "There's nothing worse than dirt stuck in one's plating.

"Hm, Korra, is it?" He placed one hand to his chest, long fingers splaying. "You can call me Knock Out, Korra~."

[not_halfbaked]

Korra smiled at Knock Out's more calm response, and continued to bend the dirt off him.

She blinked at his name, and snickered, her chest loosening and tightening somehow at the same time at the reminder of the probending arena. The girl had been so freakin' jazzed when ever the announcer called "knock out!" whenever she handily tossed an opponent or opponents out of the ring.

"That's an awesome name."

Korra calculated her progress earthbending the dirt off Knock Out. Going well, she could hopefully finish in a few minutes. The guy really did have a lot of dirt on him.

"Sooo...can I ask what happened? Did you get in a fight, or something?"

[automobile_enthusiast]

"Why thank you. I do think so myself," Knock Out said with a laugh. And it was usually fitting, too, although he kept that comment to himself. He was far from his best right now.

But it seemed she'd realized that herself, and his easy smile faltered as she asked. For a moment, he seemed to hunch in on himself, but as soon as he realized he was doing it, he made himself sit up again.

"A fight? Mm, you could say that," he said, his voice low and even. "But really, 'battle' would be far more accurate. I was attacked."

[not_halfbaked]

"Same here," Korra said, bending the earth off him with one hand while she gestured to her slashed cheek. Then that hand stopped pointing, and shook itself, indicating its arms cuts. Then she pointed back to her bending arm, also cut, before returning to bending with both arms.

"I tried to end it, but that, ah, didn't work out so well," Korra muttered, glancing away for a moment before refocusing on the dirt arcing arcing away from Knock Out's armor.

[automobile_enthusiast]

"Mm, so I can see," Knock Out said, acknowledging her injuries with a nod.

"I got lucky." He looked away, eyes distant. "My magnanimous enemies chose to let me retreat instead of pursuing me and ending it."

[not_halfbaked]

After that, Korra felt compelled to share more of her own experience, though she wanted to drop the topic now. But she had started it, and he'd shared. She needed to respond.

"Wish mine just let me go. Last thing I remember is him stuffing me into a car and driving away, swearing I'd never see Republic City again...."

Korra shuddered, and clenched her mouth tight, silent as she finished earthbending the grit off Knock Out. The girl double checked and triple checked, and some stray pebbles and dust responded and arced away, until nothing was summoned by her touch. Korra folded her arms, taking a moment to look over her handy work. She had to admit, Knock Out looked much nicer now.

"That should be everything!" She said, pasting on a too big smile. She was genuinely pleased, but she rather wanted to amplify that good feeling so that it would stay a while with her, and not fly off and leave her alone with suckier thoughts and feelings....

Korra examined the pile of dirt she'd bent off Knock Out. The guy really had been a mess. But good for her, too--she focused and swept out her arms, circling them as she consolidated the dirt first into a round solid orb. Then she spread out her arms, bending the new stone orb into a long vine-like shape. She then had it wrap around one of her arms. Korra tweaked it some more to make sure its weight was spread out and that it settled comfortably enough on her arm so that it didn't interfere with any future fighting.

Korra grinned, her smile genuinely larger this time. There--a portable source of earth in the form of a wrist band bracelet...thing, just like Toph in the stories!

[automobile_enthusiast]

An Autobot-- or even a more sympathetic Decepticon than Knock Out-- might have been inclined to press her for more information. That sounded like an interesting story, if nothing else...

But Knock Out could tell she wasn't comfortable with the sharing of it, and he hated to be pressed for information when he wasn't inclined to divulge it. So though he filed the information away to possibly follow up on later, he let the topic died in the silence for now.

He rose to his feet when she was finished with him, the movement almost graceful. He was still battered to the pit and back, but he had to admit it was a lot easier to move when there wasn't debris grinding in his joints and wounds, and under his plating.

He smiled down at her, surprising himself with his sincere the expression was. "That feels better," he said, practically purring the words. Experimentally, he twisted, smiling even wider as the only pain he felt from the motions was from his wounds. "Ahh, that's much better, in fact. Thank you."

[not_halfbaked]

Korra stopped flexing her arm and admiring her new earth band when Knock Out rose rather gracefully up. He seemed to be moving better without all the grit.

The girl beamed at his gratitude. "Your welcome."

Then she blinked, and tilted her head. "Say, do you happen to know where we are? I thought it was the Spirit World, but I'm not exactly sure now--"

She stopped, glancing at where he scratched himself. "Is that gonna be okay like that? It's not gonna get infected or something, is it?"

[automobile_enthusiast]

Knock Out frowned, although this time the expression was an artful little moue that was closer to a pout than a proper frown. "No, I'm afraid not. I was hoping you'd have some idea..."

If he'd just taken a moment to look at the sky, he might have been able to discern that it was Cybertron itself under their feet. Knock Out had never been much of a navigator, though, and even less an astronomer, and it had been a very long time since he'd seen the stars of his homeworld. Even if he'd thought to look up he might not have realized, particularly with the glowing streak through the sky distorting things.

Regardless, he followed her gaze down to his arm. The scratches had already clotted over, as he'd expected they would. He used one finger to scrape the thin trails of energon off his plating, popping the digit in his mouth and sucking it clean distractedly. Every drop of energon needed to be conserved, of course.

"Mm, I think they'll be okay~," he said finally. "The worst that could happen is dirt or foreign contaminants getting into my circulatory system, and you took care of that for me already."

[not_halfbaked]

Korra blew out a frustrated sigh. "Nope, I'm clueless...."

She tilted her head back up, looking up at the sky. "That light sorta looks like the southern lights back home in the arctic, but it's still way different." Korra frowned. "And the stars make no sense."

The girl looked back to Knock Out, and felt a little weird wiggly feeling in her stomach at the sight of him sucking his violet blood from his claw tips.

But she smiled when he explained that all was good. "Okay, cool."

Korra crossed her arms, beginning to fidget, to think.

"Sooo...are you going in any particular direction? I've just kinda been wandering aimlessly and--"

Korra took another breath, and pushed forward, "--and it'd be nicer to wander around with someone. Especially someone as tall as you, you can probably see farther than me--"

And Korra cut herself off, eyes wide and cheeks blushing as she realized that she had started to ramble.