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

[solianpolarity]

The timing was fortunate for Solus, if not for her brothers. She had been in her workshop, testing her latest shipment of ores for purity and strength; nothing too extensive or consuming. The news was...surprising, shocking even for the old memories it pulled up, but certainly not unwelcome. Sending her eager Acolytes to prepare, she too spacebridged to the base of the Lambda.

Something crunched under her feet; thankfully nothing alive. Solus gazed down at the large group, scattered across the junk heap. Impressive in number. Time and trial would tell if they had potential in other ways.

//Come brothers. We should greet our guests, if only to assuage their fears.//

Slowly, she started across the vast mound, mindful of it's ever-shifting nature and her own great size to approach those she could sense with her own mark. Clearly she would have to search the pile of galactic scrap more often. There was more than just interesting sentients arriving here.

Another time, perhaps.

[wakizashi_straight]

Noisy Boy has stuck close to others he's met for as long as possible, though even he has to go it alone through the piles. Besides, if he find one of his owners or another bot, he wants to be the first to see them. Someone familiar, by reputation or by personal recognition.

Especially since so many of the bots here are over regulation height requirements and completely dwarf even him.

Especially this one.

He watches, cautious, from the top of one pile, practically having to crane his neck to look far enough up to see something other than legs.

[solianpolarity]

Solus approaches this one first, equally curious about the newcomer. He appears to be covered in glyphs, but not those of their own culture - excluding the sigil of her brother marking his frame, of course. Understanding will come in time for them both, she is sure.

Solus kneels down slowly, a small smile in place.

"Greetings. We mean you no harm." It's spoken in Cybertronian for now, but their language modules only need a little data to translate. If she can prompt a response from him, all the better.

[wakizashi_straight]

Different design than the other large bots he's met here: different designers, then. Though who would design bots so big - let alone where they would get that many parts to build them - he couldn't say even if he was capable.

The other bot speaks, not in English or the confused jumble that Japanese has been sounding like. Something decidedly, completely foreign. But the smile suggests it's nothing bad, at least. While he can't respond verbally, Noisy Boy can still respond, cocking his head with a low whine of gears - a question.

[solianpolarity]

"Hnm?"

He was obviously curious, if...quiet. Flicking her optics across his frame, she couldn't help but notice a number of...irregularities, even for the incredibly varied beings they had received in the past. He appeared superficially like one of their own kind, but lacked various details.

Like hands and fingers, for one. And a vocalizer, not that she had scanned him deeply enough yet to discover this for herself.

"A pity you can't yet understand me yet...and you bear the mark of my brother."

Technically, it was up to Vector to supply his Marked with their tools. But he wasn't here, and if the being did not speak up, she could not translate without their communicators.

Perhaps she could extrapolate from the glyphs across his frame and learn.

[wakizashi_straight]

What he's lacked has never really been a problem for him before; the humans rarely recognized them as sentient, so the need for communication was minimal. And his purpose had never required hands before.

He's been under more scrutiny than usual since arriving here. Noisy Boy finally decides that, if others are going to keep doing that to him, it's only fair that he returns the gesture. He may not have scanning equipment, true, but he has optics. This bot is certainly big enough to look over... in part. Not like him, obviously - no bot this tall could enter League matches, or Underground ones either for that matter. But similar designs between all of the larger ones suggested the same designer, if not manufacturer. They are siblings, in the same way that he and Zeus were brothers.

All of the lettering across his frame is Japanese; the kanji across his torso indicating his name. The LED screens on his arms flicker through other kanji, mostly more threatening terms: pain, oblivion, the end... but also nirvana.

[wheeljackofalltrades]

Wheeljack had just gotten done being the social butterfly, and inspected every interesting (if you could call it that) part of the junkpile he could. And then...

Wow, you're a big one. He can't help but stare in somewhat awe at the sheer size of the being before him. After all, credit where credit is due. Were they like him and got stranded here? Seemed pretty hard to kidnap anyone of this size...so it was a bit of a long shot.

"Out of all of us, you guys look like ya belong here the most."

Well, better get the obvious out of the way.

[solianpolarity]

Ah, good. Someone who speaks the language.

Solus smiles and nods down at the newcomer slowly. Stating the obvious, perhaps, but at this stage in the game the obvious still needed stating.

"That would be because this world is our own. Welcome to Cybertron, newcomer."

Or back to it, however it may be.

[wheeljackofalltrades]

...

Wheeljack stood there, frozen. This...this was Cybertron? He had the inkling that this place was familiar, but still, it was a little too surreal to even consider it being his homeworld. It was...new. Untapped by civilization...

"That can't be right."

[dontasktrix]

Slipstream didn't really get what was with the new tattoos. Neither was she thrilled with the idea of anyone adding a brand to her plating without her permission. Her base programming prompted her to ask the one who made the fly-over, but as she'd gotten something jammed in her right thruster in the scrap heap, she couldn't make a proper approach. So, she walked gingerly toward the nearest of the rather large newcomers, who seemed also to have the good sense to mind where she stepped.

Embarrassed, though trying not to show it, at not seeming to have the same sense to mind her step - not that landing in a dump was her fault - Slipstream called to the other in the only Cybertronian dialect she knew, "Salutations."

Enough with that formal scrap! "Any of you have any proper tools a bot could borrow?"

[solianpolarity]

Solus raised an optic ridge, glancing down at the tiny newcomer. Very to the point, this one. Not that she objected, but it was certainly unusual.

"'Tools'? Of what sort? And for what purpose?"

[dontasktrix]

So...Tools aren't really Slipstream's thing. She knows how to administer basic maintenance, and trusts self-repair systems take care of the rest.

"Good question! Seeing as how you arrived, rather than found yourself in a pile of scrap, you must have come from somewhere. You have anyone who knows how to repair bots, automatons, or aerospace fighter craft? 'Cause, let's just say, piles of small debris and concave thruster housings don't exactly play nice together!" Slipstream makes a lot of broad gestures as she speaks, probably something inherited from her template, if she were to think about it. Flourishes to the mounded debris, their persons, and to her right leg.

[solianpolarity]

Well. She was certainly talkative. She'd probably get along with her Patron Prime quite well.

"I come from here. This is Cybertron, though likely not the one you know."

She glances down at the small femme's leg, able to hear the rattling inside it from where she stands, and manages a wryly amused smirk.

"...While I am hardly the Mender of us, you happen to be speaking with the foremost Crafter on this planet."

[raceme]

Blurr was moving around the pile fast, living up to his name and trying to avoid being crushed by the newcomers. He has never seen such big mechs before, and while he have heard the stories of ancients Cybertronian this couldn't be happening for real. Right? They looked very real to him, though.

He was startled by Nexus shouting gibberish very loudly and missed a hole in the junk pile, accidentally tripping and crashing against one of Solux's feet.

[solianpolarity]

The impact was hardly painful, but the clang attracted her attention, and Solus was careful not to move the foot the small newcomer was crashed against.

"...Are you well?"

[raceme]

Blurr staggered to his feet, swaying a little. 0h Primus you are so big.

"Yes miss I am fine I apologize wholeheartedly for the inconvenience it was not my intention to cause any trouble I got surprised by the sudden yelling I am always way more careful than this."

[solianpolarity]

She peered down curiously, relieved that the small and quick being had not injured himself on her.

Both for his sake, and for her own. She would never hear the end of it from Liege and Megatronus if so.

"Good to hear." From what she could make out, anyway. "And I assume you are referring to Nexus. He does seem to have that effect on people. You have no cause to be concerned, however. None of my brothers mean you any harm."

[invisiblepinkboat]

She'd seen the seven flashes of light, and maybe there would finally be some answers now. It was more chance than design (or maybe a design Elita wasn't aware of) that had her closest to one of the giant cybertronians in particular. And since she was here, on top of a pile of junk that brought her... slightly further up in comparsion to the other, Elita decided it was just as well to ask this one.

She could probably get the answers she wanted by staying hidden, but there was no obvious proof of any of them being hostile, and with such an unfamiliar situation? She'd rather have her answers - if there were any - sooner rather than later.

"Excuse me. Were we meant to be brought here, and if so, why? If not, is there any way to get back where we come from?" Elita waited until the positively gargantuan possibly-cybertronian was close enough to hear her without her having to shout before she spoke, helm tilted back.

She'd heard of combiners, but this size... this was just rather ridiculous.

[solianpolarity]

At least someone was asking the proper questions, even if they were not ones she could answer. Solus Prime settled her own impressive frame closer to the ground to examine the speaker.

"I am afraid those are questions that even we who live here cannot yet answer fully." She motioned up to toward the air with an arm, gesturing toward the glowing tear in the sky.

"The Lambda brings in whom it wills, with no discernible rhyme or reason to the madness. At yet, at the same time..." Another gesture, pointing down at the pink femme and the glyph glowing faintly on her frame.

"You arrive bearing our marks."

This one was one of her own.

[invisiblepinkboat]

Her gaze following the point upwards, there was no reason to mistrust that explanation, but that would be a rather... long fall. But it had answered some things... and implied others.

"All of us wake up with them, then? What's the function? I talked with a few others who woke up here as well, and theirs were different." The difference seemed like it'd be... important. She'd only spoken to less than a handful others, cybertronian or not, but that was too few to know if the variety of the symbols matched up with the seven tall cybertronians that had arrived.

"I couldn't see much from here, but there's two moons in the sky, and the ground where there is no junk is clearly made of metal. Is this Cybertron?" Elita frowned, wondering what she'd prefer; if this was Cybertron... what had happened? Something seemed off, nevermind this large mound of junk.

[solianpolarity]

Solus' expression closed off briefly, optics going dark.

"Not all." It was a tone of grim finality, and she would speak no more on it if pressed. Instead, she continued on, as if the lapse had not occurred.

"The function, however, appears to be simply to mark those of whom we may have an affinity with, so we might aid one another in your time here. 'We' being my brothers and myself."

The tall Prime's expression briefly cracked, and she glanced up fondly past the Lambda to the telling moons above.

"And yes, you are on Cybertron. Or, what will properly be Cybertron, once we are finished."

[docbot]

In another time and another place, maybe Ratchet would have recognized Solus for what she was. At the moment, though, he's a bit too busy with the here and now to be thinking back on the legends that people had spoken of when he'd been young. When the figures arrive, he mutters, "Well. These must be the natives.", and promptly sets off to watch (and maybe greet) the nearest one.

That he happens to bear her mark is purely a coincidence.

[solianpolarity]

Pure coincidence. But Solus greets the bearers of her mark with marginally warmer smiles than she might greet any other, watching this one from across the piles of junk patiently.

He can approach or not in his own time. There is not yet a concern to cause a rush, though she cannot deny the existence of her own building curiosity.

[docbot]

After standing in the distance, watching two or three other individuals approach her, Ratchet decides that it's safe enough for him to come closer. This being doesn't seem to be violent, and he really does want to know what's going on so... the risk is worth it now.

So he walks across the shifting junk, doing his best not to stumble or fall as he tries to project an attitude of confidence. It's a bit difficult -- at his size, he's not used to be dwarfed by other beings -- but he manages not to fall on his face, so he'll count that as a success.

"Greetings." He waves, and if it's a bit faltering, well, we'll chalk that up to the shifting of the ground under his feet. "Would you happen to know where we are?"

[solianpolarity]

"And greetings to you." She nods down at the small mech, pleased that he has chosen to approach at last.

Straight to the point. Definitely one of hers.

"I would. You are on Cybertron, if not the one you may know."